’Twas a bad time to stumble on economics articles.

I just have to mention the words “Less Wrong” & you’ll probably already smack your forehead. From what I’ve seen, “Less Wrong” are like most people, in that they try to not be idiots; but unlike most people, they make the idiotic decision to constantly brag ’bout how much better @ not being idiots they are than other people without any evidence while simultaneously pretending that they don’t do so.

To be fair, these “rationalists” should be praised for brilliantly figuring out something that benefits us all: they can assuage their shriveled egos while we can get hours o’ hilarity making fun o’ how shriveled their egos are.

If I were an actor in an improv show, and my prompt was “annoying person who’s never read any economics, criticizing economists”, I think I could nail it. I’d say something like:

Economists think that they can figure out everything by sitting in their armchairs and coming up with ‘models’ based on ideas like ‘the only motivation is greed’ or ‘everyone behaves perfectly rationally’. But they didn’t predict the housing bubble, they didn’t predict the subprime mortgage crisis, and they didn’t predict Lehman Brothers. All they ever do is talk about how capitalism is perfect and government regulation never works, then act shocked when the real world doesn’t conform to their theories.

Fun tip to economists: making childish strawmen arguments is a great way to confirm others’ judgments that, yes, economists are much mo’ mentally mediocre than they like to pretend they are.

This criticism’s very clichedness should make it suspect.

No, I think the fact that you pulled it out o’ your dick hole makes it mo’ suspect.

It would be very strange if there were a standard set of criticisms of economists, which practically everyone knew about and agreed with, and the only people who hadn’t gotten the message yet were economists themselves.

“¿What’s ‘hive mind’ mean? ¿What’s bias? ¡I don’t understand these elusive terms!”

If any moron on a street corner could correctly point out the errors being made by bigshot PhDs, why would the PhDs never consider changing?

So this superrationalist relies on appeal to authority — the idea that PhDs must be smart, ’cause that’s what PhDs are. Meanwhile, average people must be dumb, ’cause o’ “appeal to obscurity”. This hyperrationalist post sure is a great way to win Logical Fallacy Bingo.

A few of these are completely made up…

No, don’t underrate yourself, man: I’m quite sure you made all o’ them up.

[M]y impression is that economists not only know about these criticisms, but invented them.

Too bad your “impression” has the validity o’ what I heard ’bout in my fever dreams ( but are much less entertaining, sadly ).

For the next quote, I made sure to highlight all the fun regurgitated buzzwords that show that, no, this person didn’t put any thought into what they were saying.

During the last few paradigm shifts in economics, the new guard levied these complaints against the old guard, mostly won, and their arguments percolated down into the culture as The Correct Arguments To Use Against Economics.

Also, apparently German-style nouns are the rational way to do scare quotes.

As a psychiatrist, I constantly get told that my field is about “blaming everything on your mother” or thinks “everything is serotonin deficiency“.

Truly the most hurtful slur anyone has e’er punted @ someone.

Maybe people would be less ignorant ’bout the things you know so much ’bout if you actually provided scientific evidence that they’re wrong, rather than just telling them they’re wrong & tut-tutting them. Or e’en providing real evidence o’ these defamations rather than just saying some nebulous mass o’ people told you these things, “just take me @ my promise”.

If I were an actor in an improv show, and my prompt was “annoying person who’s never read anything about rationality, criticizing rationalists”, it would go something like…

No, stop. Nobody’s going to buy your shitty Ayn Rand plays. Stick to constantly asking people, “¿How does that make you feel?” till their hour is up. ( ¡Ha! ¡You missed a cliché! )

I didn’t bother reading his “play”, since he himself already warned me that ’twas stupid, & I’m not sure why he thought I’d want to read something stupid. Which makes me wonder why he wrote this post in itself… or why I’m reading it if I don’t like reading stupid things… Hmm…

Like the economics example, these combine basic mistakes with legitimate criticisms levied by rationalists themselves against previous rationalist paradigms or flaws in the movement.

’Cept, unlike economists, who have true PhDs & actual academic standards, there’s no rule regarding who can & can’t describe themselves as “rationalists” — well, ’cept a minimum level o’ narcissism. I can put underwear on my head & run round traffic calling myself a “rationalist” all I want, & you can’t prove me wrong, or e’en “mo’ wrong”.

Like the electroconvulsive therapy example, they’re necessarily the opposite…

O fucking God, this diction. ¿“Necessarily the opposite”?

There have been past paradigms for which some of these criticisms are pretty fair. I think especially of the late-19th/early-20th century Progressive movement.

“I think” is my favorite mathematical proof.

But notice how many of those names are blue. Each of those links goes to book reviews, by me, of books studying those people and how they went wrong.

“¿See? You’re wrong. The fact that I wrote some shitty blog review on these classics proves that I’m right. Obviously it’s physically impossible to write a stupid or wrong review”.

So consider the possibility that the rationalist community has a plan somewhat more interesting than just “remain blissfully unaware of past failures and continue to repeat them again and again”.

How ’bout I consider the possibility that the “rationalist community” is just a made-up name for your adult-child clubhouse & that though they “plan” something different from sitting round regurgitating thoughts that’ve already been made, they do something e’en less interesting than that.

Hey, if you can prove something with “I think”, so can I.

Modern rationalists don’t think they’ve achieved perfect rationality.

“¡Look @ how humble I am for thinking I’m not an intellectual god in fleshy form! ¡Please lay ’pon my feet all your adulation for my magnificent humility!”

[T]hey keep trying to get people to call them “aspiring rationalists” only to be frustrated by the phrase being too long[.]

You should replace “by the phrase being too long” with “by everyone ’stead calling us ‘narcissistic shitbrains’”.

( my compromise proposal to shorten it to “aspies” was inexplicably rejected ).

“For some reason, e’en my fellow narcissistic twats didn’t buy my attempt to appropriate a true social condition with my need for pity @ the weakest o’ criticisms”.

I can back him up on 1 thing, though: from my experience with psychiatrists ( who told me I shouldn’t publish these — ¡But they can’t stop me now! ), I oft see them throw round slurs for medical conditions for the people they’re s’posed to be helping. I know my psychiatrist was all, “Man, those fucking retards. ¿Am I right? Let me disclose all the stories ’bout this 1 loser named Becky Brown who was too pussy to leave their house”. So we can see that this psychiatrist is showing the utmost professionalism here.

They try to focus on doubting themselves instead of criticizing others.

¡Which he’s done so well here! ¡Look @ how oft he criticized his poor self, & didn’t e’en say a single bad word gainst any o’ the people who criticized him! ¡How noble!

They don’t pooh-pooh academia and domain expertise – in the last survey, about 20% of people above age 30 had PhDs.

“We don’t pee-pee academia; we just cite irrelevant statistics”.

They don’t reject criticism and self-correction…

Well, ’cept for all those “annoying” people who have “never read any economics” or have “never read anything about rationality”…

Tip: focus less on appropriating Aspergers & mo’ on trying to get pity for your obvious bout o’ Alzheimers.

They don’t want to blithely destroy all existing institutions[.]

¿What the hell does that have to do with anything?

O, great. So they’re not fun. I see.

[T]his is the only community I know where interjecting with “Chesterton’s fence!” is a universally understood counterargument which shifts the burden of proof back on the proponent.

“This is the only community out o’ the few I actually know that pretends that using obscure slang terms is the road to rationality”.

Sadly, wrong there, too.

They have said approximately one zillion times that they don’t like Spock and think he’s a bad role model.

OK, I tolerated all your other inanities — but being mean ’nough to hate Spock goes too far. He died in 1 o’ the movies… ¿I think? ¿Didn’t his actor die, too?

Fuck it: just pretend I made some shitty joke ’bout some dumb show I obviously ne’er watched.

They include painters, poets, dancers, photographers, and novelists.

Apparently his idea o’ propaganda is listing irrelevant “facts” he made up in a second. “They don’t eat @ Burger King; they eat @ Panda express. They include people who own mice, cats, armadillos, & iguanas”.

They…well… “they never have romantic relationships” seems like maybe the opposite of the criticism that somebody familiar with the community might apply.

His totally rational argument is “Man, we totally get lots o’ tail, unlike you losers”.

[…]encourage each other to give various percents of their income to charity, and founded or lead various charitable organizations.

“We are the only people to e’er do so, ’course”.

Look.

( Swings head all round, turns back to the screen & shrugs. )

I’m the last person who’s going to deny that the road we’re on is littered with the skulls of the people who tried to do this before us.

“This’ll be ensured when I finalize my robotic space pod, which’ll keep me ’live while the rest o’ you suckers drown in the seas o’ death”.

We’ve looked at the creepy skull pyramids and thought “huh, better try to do the opposite of what those guys did”.

“I’ll just assure you that we won’t be fuck-ups & you’ll just unconditionally believe me, ¿right?”

If you have this sort of concern, and you want to accuse us of it, please do a quick Google search to make sure that everybody hasn’t been condemning it and promising not to do it since the beginning.

Google is, after all, the most rigorous source o’ scientific knowledge.

We’re almost certainly still making horrendous mistakes that people thirty years from now will rightly criticize us for. But they’re new mistakes.

No: inane, arrogant douchebaggery’s as ol’ as fire.

And I hope that maybe having a community dedicated to carefully checking its own thought processes and trying to minimize error in every way possible will make us have slightly fewer horrendous mistakes than people who don’t do that.

Considering the utter lack o’ self-awareness present in this post, that’s guaranteed to fail.

If this is what passes as “rationalist” in the western world, I’m not surprised that it’s filling its leadership roles with the most pompous buffoons in the world. Welcome to Hairpiece America: where e’en the left is stupid, & the right has to become e’en stupider to keep ’head.

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I think the average citizen would make a better web designer than a lot o’ so-called professional web designers simply ’cause they don’t try the excessive nonsense that web designers do & nobody else would e’en think to do ’cause it’s so insane. It’s the equivalent o’ someone bragging ’bout how amazing they look & then suddenly shitting all o’er their pants; they expect users to marvel @ their prowess, but ’stead we turn up our noses & cringe. Ugh. It’s the power glove o’ web design: ’stead o playing a perfectly good but “drab” controller, you fuck round with a glove like a jackass.

Take login forms. A novice who just learned HTML from 1 o’ the millions o’ O’Reilly books out there would create a basic form that would load to a basic “¡You’ve logged in, Jim!” page. Boring & less than 1% accurate in regards to the user’s name, but operable.

Now, let me tell you ’bout the login page o’ some website that shall go unnamed, like Voldemort. ’Stead o’ using a basic page, it uses a custom window made with a div & CSS magic.¹ & since this is a div, it has no scroll bar; if you use the actual window’s scroll bar, the div will simply stay in place while the website you can faintly see ’hind it scrolls ’cause the div uses a fixed position. Now, ¿what happens when a vital element — say, the confirmation button — is off-screen? The answer is that you’re fucked; you can’t use the form. I e’en tried pressing Enter or highlighting with my mouse downward. Nothing worked. I’ll tell you what I did do: give up with disgust @ the scent o’ the designer’s feces-filled drawers.

I could try to give mo’ examples, but thankfully my mind’s blocked them out like traumatizing moments. I do remember 1 website long ago that was s’posed to help teach me web design & had the brilliant idea to have the navigation bar’s text rotated 90° so that you had to crane your neck just to see it. I still don’t e’en know how they did that, much less what made them think ’twas a good idea.

Here’s a common example from others who have seen this problem themselves, albeit 1 that’s rarer & a bit hyperbolic: magic JavaScript links. ¿Who needs boring ol’ anchor tags with their lame-ass semantics & SEO advantages when we can waste memory & bandwidth to load some JavaShit that does the same thing?

To be fair, many designers in general do this. It’s why my laptop mouse randomly clicks things when I move it ’cause the genius designers wanted to show off their awesome ability to click when you lightly tap the mouse pad ’stead o’ using the click button just below it — you know, what you do every time to put your finger on the pad so you can move it @ all. They were wrong: they didn’t prove themselves to be awesome; they simply shit their pants in front o’ everyone. It’s the same reason many DS games, including the otherwise awesome Wario: Master of Disguise & the always not-awesome Diddy Kong Racing DS², were made mo’ frustrating by the MIC, whose mood swings determine whether your heavy blowing for minutes straight into it does anything or not. ’Gain, the designers thought they were being brilliant making something that easily could’ve been controlled by a simple button use some new control; ’stead they made the Power Glove 2.0. & they shit their pants in front o’ us all & made us all look ’way in shame.

¿Is that what you want, designers? ¿To watch so many people look @ you in disgust while feces slides down your pant legs all o’er your shoes? Then don’t do all this fancy shit. Just make the shit work intuitively & call it a day. As Vincent Flanders said, “Nobody e’er complained that a site worked too well”.

& for god’s sake, ’nough with the arbitrary rules for filling out forms. I must’ve wasted half an hour waiting for a page to load so it could tell me there was an error ’cause some jackass web designer arbitrarily decided that commas weren’t valid characters for a superfluous catch phrase they forced me to create or that it must be within some narrow range o’ characters. Said designer probably thought they were clever figuring out all o’ the code to create these limits & this wacky new security measure. They weren’t. They only wasted my time having to clean up all o’ the excrement they sprayed all o’er my walls.

I also loved the government site that had a quite low ( my 1st name barely fit, & it’s not that long ) character limit for names. Presumably this is purely to satisfy the nostalgia in fans o’ ol’ NES RPGs, since I can’t imagine their servers being so weak that they can’t handle strings with mo’ than a dozen characters — ¡you might as well ask them to host your MP4s, man! ¿What happens if you’re real name is too long? You’re fucked, that’s what. Better shell out the money to legally change your name just so you can pay your debts. You don’t want creditors calling you & having to respond with, “Sorry I couldn’t pay today; my name doesn’t fit in your website. I tried to pretend my name was ’Sebast,’ as I always named Cecil back in 1992, but then I was put in prison for not mo’ than 5 years”.

( Note: went back & added music notes to each level analysis. )

It’s hard to divide Legend of the Four Switches into “worlds”, since, as I mentioned in the intro, they sometimes blend into each other. Mo’ importantly, the main path I’ll be going through will leave & return to worlds. However, I’ll try to divide the levels into bunches & describe them as I introduce them.

World A: Valley o’ Bowser’s

In a strike o’ irony, the 1st world is Bowser’s land. You start with 2 levels unlocked: “King Koopa Kastle” & “Sea of Sangre”.

King Koopa Kastle ( 1st visit )

Music: “Bowser’s Castle ( Second Time )”, Super Mario RPG

( Yes, this is some frankenstein o’ classic & modern ¡Let’s Play!™s wherein I embed uncommentated videos accompanied by text below. Technological advancements are slow in my village. )

However, the 1st level is blocked off from completion till you hit all 4 switches, leaving you with just a taunting info box & a pipe that shoots you out o’ the level.

Having the exit be due to a pipe shooting you offscreen was a way to fix an earlier glitch: having the castle itself make you exit the level by touching the screens makes the functionality carry into all the following sublevels. It turns out that a sublevel later in the level actually requires you to touch the edge o’ the screen, making the level impossible. However, I didn’t want to force the player to kill themselves to leave the level. Luckily, I thought o’ this solution. I’m actually glad, since I find the shooting out o’ the pipe — specially with its solemn ghost house music — quite amusing.

Sea of Sangre

Music: “Decisive Battle”, Final Fantasy VI

Despite how ridiculously edgy the use o’ blood for water is ( though, to be fair, it’s ne’er explicitly stated, save for the use o’ a Latin term in the title; it could just be metaphorical ), I do like the aesthetic o’ having the 1st level be dark, with the dramatic “Decisive Battle” music from Final Fantasy VI. Not so fond o’ the sound glitches that happen when you do things, though. Didn’t remember that.

The level itself, though, is… ehhh. Interestingly ’nough, it’s linear, though there is a nice pointless use o’ a P-switch right @ the end, just so you can reach the exit.

Most o’ the level is rudimentary, & much o’ it feels empty. There’s also a random pattern o’ blocks just thrown ’bout @ the end o’ the water section.

Ghosts ’n Goblins

Music: “Fortress”, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island ( ¿Same? )

In addition to nonlinear levels, I was big on just weird levels that make you think, ¿What’s the point o’ this? This level starts you in the middle o’ a long empty hall with the only door on the far left side. It’s dumb.

The next room is a li’l better: it’s a li’l puzzle wherein you have to grab a Koopa shell @ the end & bring it back to the middle to throw it @ a vertical column o’ blocks helpfully pointed out by an arrow o’ coins to make a vine grow upward, allowing you to climb up & grab the P-switch.

Granted, as a few o’ the SMW Central people pointed out, despite the holes in the floor, one could still spin jump off Boos to reach to the top early. But I don’t mind that so much, since that’s probably harder to do than the main way to complete the level. Unlike some SMW hackers, I was less obsessed with ensuring people played my levels the “right” way & was quite fine with alternate ways to beat levels, which was why I allow the player to take cape feathers into any level they want, which most SMW hack designers recommend gainst, since it allows one to fly o’er entire levels. To me, if ’twas fine for one to do so in the original SMW, ’twas fine to do it in my hack.

As an aside, I’m now going to keep a counter for levels with P-switches. So far we’re @ 2 out o’ 2. ( “King Koopa Kastle” doesn’t count, since we haven’t gone through it all yet. Also, spoiler alert: it has P-switches, too. )

Then take the P-Switch to the pipe @ the end o’ the level, which leads back to the empty hallway. Hitting the P-Switch creates a door @ the far right side o’ the room, which leads to the goal.

I’m not sure how to feel ’bout this last part. It’s not exactly spelled out; but I’m not sure if it’s particularly hard to figure out, either. It’s not as if the game punishes you deeply if you hit the P-Switch too early; you’ll just have to redo the level, essentially, without needing to kill yourself.

Still, this trial-&-error puzzle could easily get tedious. If I were to remake this level, I’d cut out that whole empty hallway, make you start in the grayscale room, & just put the goal where the P-Switch is. Cuts out the fat. Sure, it makes spin-jumping on boos skip the entire level; but it’s the 2nd level, for god’s sake. Diddy’s Kong Quest had warp barrels that let you skip whole levels in every level in the 1st 2 worlds. Plus, I like the dynamic o’ having the 1st level be a relatively long but simple level & the 2nd level be a short puzzle.

World B: Mushroom Island

After you beat “Ghosts ’n Goblins”, you unlock a pipe on the o’erworld. Go into that pipe, & you’ll be taken to the 1st level spot o’ “Mushroom Island”.

I want to emphasize that last part: there’s no pipe back to “Valley o’ Bowser”. It’s a 1-way trip. Don’t worry: unlike certain hacks ( [cough] Super Demo World [cough] ), it’s impossible to screw yourself out o’ 100% in this game. There’s an alternate entrance back into “Valley o’ Bowser” later.

I’m still proud o’ this design choice. I feel it makes the o’erworld feel mo’ mysterious.

Island of Ergot

Music: “Flower Garden”, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island

While the true 1st level was a twist on 1st levels, being a dark & red level with ominous music, the 1st level o’ “Mushroom Island” is what a typical game would have as a 1st level: a green grassland. Granted, the sky’s still a nighly dark blue.

Though it’s not particularly brilliant, I like this level. It’s a simple romp with a few choice enemies, broken by 2 simple “puzzles”, if you could call them that. I like the use o’ the P-Switch as to build the coin bridge & the level ends @ a dead-end with power-ups & expects you to enter 1 o’ the many piranha-plant pipes just before the dead-end to find the goal. As I mentioned, these early levels were made when I still had some creativity & wasn’t just copying the same ideas.

O yeah, & an STD joke. ¿What? ¿Was this programmed in C++? ( Ho, ho, ho… O… ).

P-Switch level count: 3 / 3.

Fungi Forest

Music: “Forest Area”, Kirby’s Adventure

Here’s probably the best P-Switch puzzle I created. It’s a twist on the usual puzzle: collect the coins in front o’ the wall o’ brown blocks so that when you inevitably find the P-Switch, you can reach the brown blocks, which will then be coins. ’Cept, ’hind the brown blocks is just a pipe that leads back to the start o’ the level. Careful-eyed players will notice that the tip o’ the wall o’ coins is under a pipe that otherwise looks like it’s just a part o’ the o’erall pipe construction. You’re s’posed to hit the P-Switch so you can stand on the coins & enter that pipe.

You can’t bring the P-Switch with you from the top o’ the pipe construction, either, as you can only enter it from upward-only cloud blocks & can only leave by hitting the switch to make the brown blocks turn into coins, making it a bit o’ a race o’ sorts.

There’s not much to say ’bout the cave interlude. It’s just a boring raft ride forcing you to hop anytime a Blaarg pops out or a bat flies down @ you. I tried to make it a li’l mo’ interesting from the original version by giving the ceiling weird patterns. But it’s still not notable. Probably be better if this section were cut.

The last “puzzle” is OK. You need to grab a throw block & throw it @ the wall o’ turn blocks so you can go through it to reach the goal. To reach the turn blocks, you’ll have to defeat the Amazing Flying Hammer Bro & use his platform to reach it, which means you’ll probably have to go back afterward to get the throw block so you’ll have time to use it.

My only problem is the superfluous use o’ the P-Switch to get through the brown-block-wall ’tween the throw blocks & the turn blocks. I guess the “puzzle” was ’sposed to be that you’re ’sposed to pay attention & notice that there’s land under the throw blocks, which otherwise seem to be o’er a bottomless pit. But that’s a lame puzzle, & would’ve worked better somewhere else. I’d cut it.

Also, Yoshi & turn blocks are great:

If I have any problem with this level, o’erall, other than the 2nd P-Switch & the cave section, it’d be that it doesn’t fit the theme well. It’s s’posed to be a forest level, but most o’ it is pipe structures.

• P-Switch level count: 4 / 4
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 1
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 1

Basidio Bridge

Music: “The Tidal Coast / Sea Turtle Rock / Beneath the Waves”, Wario Land 3

I really liked the puzzle @ the beginning, where you have to kick a shell down in the small passageway @ the bottom to hit a block @ the end & create a vine. I also like the use o’ the P-Switch to create a race to the beginning to enter the pipe just @ the start, surrounded by brown blocks. I think it’s probably the inspiration from Wario Land 3 & 4, but I like levels where the goal is @ the beginning, which must be unlocked by getting something @ the end, & then take a different path back to the start. In fact, now that I think ’bout it, this puzzle is a lot like Wario Land 4: the P-Switch is like the also-blue frog switch, forcing you to race to the beginning before the switch runs out.

Speaking o’ Wario Land 3, this level’s music is from that game — though, strangely, not from the level that takes place on a bridge. It’s the only song I converted myself, & it shows.

• P-Switch level count: 5 / 5
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 1
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 1

Pepsi Lake

Music: “Underwater Tunnels”, Wario Land II

This level completely changed since the 2011 version o’ this hack. You can see an early version here. Also, in an e’en earlier version, the water was the boring ordinary blue ’stead o’ cola-brown-&-black.

The main change is that the level is vertical now, ’stead o’ horizontal, & it’s simplified. It’s just a short swim-through, dodging piranha plants & munchers. @ the time I remade this, I felt the original was too ordinary, & noted that vertical water levels were rare. I also like the alcove that the midway point is in. Just a li’l divergence.

E’en better: ¡there’s no P-Switch! This was after I realized how o’er-used they were & cut it out. The original, as the video shows, makes you go into some generic ice subroom found in some random pipe ’mong millions to get a P-Switch so you can pass through ’nother brown-block wall. None o’ this hasn’t been done before, & much better. I don’t miss it @ all.

You know, I just noticed ’pon reviewing the footage that the 2nd message box references “upcoming Torpedo Teds” that aren’t in the newer version o’ this level.

• P-Switch level count: 5 / 6
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 1
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 1

That’s it for now. We’ll continue on the mainland next update.

Since I’m writing ’bout some dumb game I’m making now, I might as well write ’bout an e’en dumber game I worked on way back in high school — & by “dumber game”, I mean a Super Mario World rom hack.

Also, I just realized that it’s been 10 years since I 1st started working on LOTFS, back in 2007. O, the time wasted.

Legend of the Four Switches was a hack so bad, it wasn’t e’en accepted @ Super Mario World Central after a’least 2 submissions.

It wasn’t the absolute worst. In fact, there are quite a few decisions I still stand by, such as the main gimmick: ’stead o’ being a straight path from world to world, ’twas simply a quest to find & hit all the 4 colored switches. Once you do that, you can go to Bowser’s Castle @ any time & complete it.

The 4 switches could be hit in any order, too. ( An improvement o’er an e’en earlier version: my original plan was to make the red switch always 1st & the green switch always last, with the player only getting the choice o’ order ’tween the yellow & blue switches. Thankfully, I realized how lame such a limit would’ve been & broke it ) . This lead the o’erworld to have the kind o’ looser division I praised the original Super Mario World for having.

Having the Star Road map down in the bottom right is a bit misleading, since that was rejected from the final hack.

That said, I could’ve done a better job o’ it: an idea I later had, though long after I stopped working on this hack, was having multiple paths that converged on a single switch.

I also tried to make this hack mo’ like an actual game in terms o’ difficulty, which makes it much easier than the average hack. I remember I aimed for Diddy’s Kong Quest level difficulty, which is my favorite linear ( i.e. non-Wario-Land ) platformer & insisted on being able to beat it without save states. Nowadays this is mo’ common, which sapped some o’ the use o’ this hack; but remember, I started making this hack in 2007, when e’en the most prominent hacks like The Second Reality Project 2 were full o’ kaizo-like elements.

Legend of the Four Switches is full o’ problems that it’s hard to sum them up — though this page gives a nice litany o’ sloppy problems. Though some o’ those problems — such as the unbeatable attic area — have been solved since then, many others — like the fade-out glitch or the glitch that makes your characters freeze after beating a switch palace — I couldn’t figure out how to fix.

But Axemjinx summarizes the true core problem with this hack, which would make it lame e’en if these glitches were fixed:

I played around 15 levels, and speaking for myself, it just seems like a slightly above-average joke hack that over-relies on item ferrying and needlessly labyrinthine levels. That’s not nonlinearity- it’s just tedium. There’s no emphasis on obstacles at all, there are plenty of empty areas with nothing going on, and it seems like the wisecracks are more important than the level design.

The “over-relies on item ferrying” is far too modest. ’Pon looking back @ these levels years ago I was shocked to find almost every level involved finding a blue & gray P-switch to continue, usually getting 1 to get ’nother to finally continue. Levels oft had pointless filler areas simply for the sake o’ avoiding linearity. I was obsessed with avoiding linear levels, with the assumption that linear levels were somehow less “creative”. But using blue & gray switches o’er & o’er apparently was.

I still stand by some o’ my nonlinear levels — mainly the earlier ones, when I still had some creativity. But if I were to redo this hack — which I’m 100% not doing — I’d ease up & do some mo’ linear levels, as well as some shorter levels. I also fell into the trap o’ thinking that long levels were also mo’ sophisticated, not unlike those people who think that large epics are mo’ sophisticated literature than short writing, which is ironically usually the opposite.

I’ll try to go o’er all 60 levels & talk ’bout what I still stand by, what I think was disastrous, & other fun background notes.

Addendum

There are 2 major versions o’ this hack: a 2011 & 2012 version. The one I’ve seen in most YouTube videos is the inferior 2011 version, whereas I’ll be showing off the latest 2012 version & will point out major differences when they happen.

I figure I might as well talk ’bout this, too, e’en though I only truly played the 1st 1 when I was young.

The Donkey Kong Country remakes get particular flak, not all undeserved; however, they’re much better than the Super Mario Advance remakes. In particular, I remember how excited young me was when I realized Donkey Kong Country Advance had a photo album like Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, after being disappointed by their absence in Super Mario Advance.

The Donkey Kong Country remakes also have mo’ creative minigames than the same Mario Bros. remake included in every Super Mario Advance game — as well as Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, bizarrely ’nough.

Also, as I mentioned in the Super Mario Advance article, I felt like the Donkey Kong Country Advance games had better controls & physics. For the most part, they seem to be the same, whereas Super Mario Advance’s felt wiggly. I remember how bewildered I was that I kept dying in “Valley of Bowser 4” in Super Mario Advance 2 till I tried it in the SNES Super Mario World & beat it easily. I’m not sure if ’twas the controls or the bigger camera, but something ’bout the SNES version was much easier. Meanwhile, I can easily beat Donkey Kong Country Advance on Hero Mode — a hard mode that makes one play as only Diddy with just 1 hit & no checkpoints, unlocked after 101% the main game.

Indeed, the Donkey Kong Country Advance games have so many fun additions that their downsides always irk me — a common problem with remakes. How I wish someone could combine the best elements o’ these games into 1 perfect version. I e’en remember I once tried to hack the original Donkey Kong Country to make it act as “Hero Mode”, only to find out how precarious editing levels in that game is. I used to have a video o’ 1 o’ the outcomes o’ the seemingly innocent deletion o’ a midway barrel in “Stop & Go Station” that I hope I still have.

As expected, the aesthetics were the prime victim o’ these remakes. The music is softer & tinnier, which is particularly problematic for Donkey Kong Country’s darker, mo’ atmospheric music. I’ve heard some people online say the Game Boy renditions were better; & I can’t say I entirely disagree.

The 3rd Donkey Kong Country game e’en had a new soundtrack made by the main composer for the 1st 2 games, David Wise, which has a mixed competition with the original. Some are better, most are less good. I actually prefer the GBA “Jungle Jitters”, “Water World”, & bonus music. & the 2 boss themes are better than the boss themes in the SNES version . The GBA version o’ “Stilt Village”, “Mill Fever”, “Nuts & Bolts”, “Pokey Pipes”, & “Rockface Rumble” are good in their own right, albeit not better. But the GBA versions o’ “Treetop Tumble” & “Frosty Frolic”… Ugh. ’Specially “Treetop Tumble”: the SNES version is my favorite forest theme o’ all time. It’s just jarring to play a level like “Ripsaw Rage” with that silly GBA version. Seriously: compare them — there’s no contest.

In general, the GBA versions are poppier & mo’ upbeat. Like with the graphics, this works when the levels are bright, colorful places like the underwater stages or the “stilt” stages, but falls apart in the darker levels, like the forest levels.

That said, one could praise the GBA versions for a’least being something new. Think o’ the alternative: if they’d just reused the SNES versions in the GBA’s inferior sound capabilities, we’d still be bitching ’bout how shitty it sounds, much like with the 1st 2 remakes. It’s like criticizing an NES game for not having music as good as the SNES DKC games; it’s technologically impossible. There was literally nothing they could do. The fact that I can say the 3rd remake has some songs that are better than the SNES’s puts it @ the top, since I couldn’t say that for a second for any song from the other 2 remakes.

Unsurprising, the graphics are e’en mo’ butchered, e’en mo’ washed out, & simplified. We have the same supernova curse from which the Super Mario Advance games suffered, which, ’gain, is e’en mo’ worse for these games with their darker tone. They also seem to have simplified graphics, probably to better fit them on the smaller screen, since Donkey Kong Country’s graphics were rather big e’en for a TV screen.

We also have added sound effects, though they’re not as bad as Super Mario Advance’s. ( To be fair, the original Donkey Kong Country games had some voices, too, so it’s much less jarring. ) To be honest, I’m kind o’ amused by Donkey Kong’s “wuuuuugh..”. when he falls in a hole, though it ruins the amusing solemnity that the original game had by simply making a balloon pop. I don’t know what they were thinking when they decided to make Rambi hopping make a high-pitched “¡BOING!” sound, though.

Also, for some reason, somebody decided that the game became better if it stopped you to have Cranky gab on for minutes after every boss & that the game needed long cutscenes to ’splain the game’s plot, since it’s like Ulysses in its complexity. I prefer the simplicity o’ the original games wherein you could just go into DK’s banana hoard & see for yourself that it’s been stolen or get a quick note in a room on K. Rool’s ship that he took DK. But it wouldn’t be a modern game without wasting people’s time.

In general, the tone & atmosphere o’ these games is utterly butchered. As I mentioned in an earlier article ’bout the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, the 1st game had a comic seriousness to it. The Game Boy Advance version with its washed out, brightened colors; tinny music, & high pitched noises ruins that completely.

On the other hand, the remakes have a tone & feel all their own, & are sometimes better, gameplay-wise. ’Specially the 3rd game, which looks much less washed-out ( strangely, the Zingers look darker than the SNES version ) . While some levels are still too bright, such as “Murky Mill”, which is s’posedly so dark that shitty elephant Ellie can’t see the rats not under the lamps. But the levels that are s’posed to look bright, like “Tidal Trouble”, still look gorgeous.

They also have extra collectible requirements for perfect completion. The 1st GBA game now requires you to get all the KONG letters in every level, which none o’ the SNES versions did, & some have extra collectibles, such as Donkey Kong Country 2’s Espresso feathers. While I feel the KONG letter change was probably for the better, since it actually made them relevant in a series in which getting tons o’ lives was e’en easy in the original & in which getting only a life for collecting 4 items oft out o’ the way was usually not worth the trouble ( ’specially when there are oft lives just floating round as single items ); however, the Espresso feathers felt unnecessary: Donkey Kong Country 2 already had a single item per level, the hero coin. & as mentioned, the 1st GBA Donkey Kong Country game has a scrapbook, as does DKC2. Sadly, DKC3 doesn’t.

What it does have is much better: in addition to the new music I mentioned, it has a new world, “Pacifica”, with some rather creative & nice-looking levels. Included are a stormy “stilt” level that most o’ the way gives you the choice o’ a dry upper path & a watery lower path, an underwater forest level where you swim ’tween tree holes, a barrel-cannon canyon level reminiscent o’ “Bramble Blast” from Diddy’s Kong Quest, & a windy underwater level.

Ironically, if these levels have any flaw, it’s 1 that’s opposite o’ the flaw that the other Dixie’s Double Trouble level usually fell into: while the original levels fell into the trap o’ tying themselves too tightly to level gimmicks, leading levels to sometimes feel repetitive, these levels feel like they have too many elements thrown in, making them seem to lack focus. Still, ’cept for the last 1, “Surf’s Up”, they’re probably some o’ the best Dixie’s Double Trouble levels.

While I feel like the 1st 2 remakes play ’bout the same as the originals, DKC3 Advance feels mo’ mixed. I actually found the normal controls & Squawks felt tighter than in the SNES version; but Ellie controls like absolute shit, & tracker barrels in “Tracker Barrel Trek” shoot you all o’er the place. Both feel way too wiggly. Ellie also has ridiculous hit detection. In the 1st bonus o’ “Tracker Barrel Trek” I was laughing ’bout how I could shoot straight up through the bottom o’ a beetle & not lose, but falling off a cliff onto 1 did cause me to somehow get hurt. & don’t get me started on “Squirt’s Showdown”. I have no idea how you’re s’posed to survive the final pattern other than to exploit the bugginess o’ its water’s effect on Ellie & hope for the best. ( In the original, if you got sprayed by water, you were likely dead, as it’d just push you straight out; in this version, you can somehow glitch through it & survive being sprayed by it for quite a while sometimes. )

That was the shittiest DKC boss e’er programmed.

There are other li’l additions I could mention, but none o’ them truly impact these games much. The 1st remake makes Queen B., Really Gnawty, & Dumb Drum mo’ interesting — ’specially Queen B., who was actually quite fun. The 2nd remake adds a boss, Kerozene, who’s all right, but kind o’ slow. Also, the 2nd remake has this dumb thing where it makes you pay ’bout 10 banana coins to refight a boss, just to try beating an ol’ record & earning a few measly lives.

As for the extra minigames I mentioned, they have mixed quality. The 1st game had OK, albeit unoriginal games: there’s 1 where you have to catch ’nough o’ a certain type o’ fish before time runs out & there’s a rudimentary rhythm game with Candy. They can get a bit repetitive, — ’specially the Candy 1 — & you have to beat all o’ them to 101% the game, but they’re tolerable ’nough.

However, the minigames for the 2nd & 3rd remake blew:

Diddy’s Kong Quest had some Espresso race with characters so big they almost took up the whole screen & crowded it out, causing you to bump into every other character & be slowed to a crawl while they speed onward. The hit detection was also terrible: you have no idea how many times it looked like I stepped o’er speed arrows only for them not to register. Also, spending minutes slowly taking up time to show each contestant’s stats @ the start was not needed.

Its 2nd minigame was one where you fly round in a gyrocopter avoiding obstacles & walls & completing some banal tasks, which varied by level. The graphics also look like somebody puked all o’er them, complemented with Mighty No. 9 style pizza explosions.

Meanwhile, DKC3 has some Game-&-Watch-like dojo game with Cranky wherein you have to block bouncing Spinies by holding in various directions as they near Cranky & some cheap knock-off o’ the bonus stage from Sonic 2, but with uglier, blurry pseudo-3D graphics that the Game Boy Advance was just great @. Thankfully, they only expect you to beat these games once to get the pointless Banana Bird, & then you ne’er have to touch them ’gain.

What’s worse ’bout the minigames in the 3rd remake is that they replace the much better 1 in the original: Cranky’s ball-throwing game. It may not’ve given you anything but extra lives & bananas, but it a’least trained you for Bleak. Plus, him sputtering taunts while crakily throwing colored balls in a carnaval fit him better than being black belt @ a god damn dojo. ¿What the hell were they thinking when they came up with that?

While the 1st game’s minigames felt simple & approachable, the 2nd 2 games’ felt clunky & awkward. The reason I couldn’t say much ’bout them, honestly, was ’cause I couldn’t be bothered to play them that much.

I may actually prefer the 1st remake to its original SNES version, despite the inferior aesthetics; but the 2 other remakes are definitely worse. The 3rd remake is a bit mo’ competitive thanks to “Pacifica”, but is hurt by its general bugginess & generally worse aesthetics.

’Nother thing made worse: the 1st remake’s game o’er screen is less hilariously grim without the empty dark void o’ death.

Then ’gain, that background makes me think DK Jungle has been invaded by toxic clouds, so perhaps it’s e’en mo’ grim.

The fact that this article was on Wired makes me wonder if they programmed a highly sophisticated robot write it. ¿Can we have a flip-side to the Turing Test? — the test to see if a work is so dumb you can’t e’en tell if ’twas written by a human or a robot.

It starts out fair-’nough, albeit with questionable assertions:

Literature is language-based and national; contemporary society is globalizing and polyglot.

Somebody’s ne’er heard o’ translation.

Society has always been polyglot — hence why translation has existed for centuries. E’en in Shakespeare’s time English would be mixed with French, Latin, & e’en Greece ’cause o’ how big an impact those cultures had on English culture.

Vernacular means of everyday communication — cellphones, social networks, streaming video — are moving into areas where printed text cannot follow.

Solution: don’t print the text.

¿How is this a problem for literature? ¿Why does literature need to be printed? ¿’Cause printing feels good?

Literature is quite great @ moving into cell phones, social networks, & e’en streaming videos. In fact, social networks are primary build up o’ literature, & half o’ most streaming videos involves textual chat. E’en as video builds up popularity online, text is still supreme. In fact, society’s probably mo’ literate now than it’s e’er been thanks to text’s supremacy o’er the web. Maybe in the past we could worry ’bout some dystopian future wherein everyone’s a mindless slave in front o’ the flashing colors o’ their screen, blissfully free from reading a single word; but nowadays, while the dystopian future o’ people being mindless slaves in front o’ technology may still be a prospect, you can bet it’d involve reading reams o’ text.

Intellectual property systems failing.

This implies an economic barrier to literature’s success; but the literature industry seems to be quite adept @ making tons o’ money on literature, e’en if it’s mostly shallow companies that make the money. & technology such as eBooks & Kindles have, if anything, improved the profitability o’ literature.

No, in a world where the leading country in art production still keeps works copyrighted 90 years after its creator’s death, & wherein international laws like TPP threaten to push stronger laws on the rest o’ the world, copyright is still ’live & well, despite the existence o’ a few mo’ online pirates.

If anything, literature is hindered mo’ by the increasing attention given to profitability o’er quality, leading to lowering standards o’ literature.

Means of book promotion, distribution and retail destabilized.

Which is always terrible in markets.

So now rather than authors relying on busy big businesses to market their work, they have social media, where they can do it themselves mo’ effectively. I think by “destabilized”, you mean “made easier & mo’ effective”.

Ink-on-paper manufacturing is an outmoded, toxic industry with steeply rising costs.

Which is why it’s a good idea it’s becoming less prevalent.

¿How is this a challenge? ¿Would it kill these writers to just once not contradict their own core theses?

Core demographic for printed media is aging faster than the general population.

( Laughs ). No, that’s physically impossible. Nobody can “age” faster than anyone else. Aging is simple existing in time. ’Less print readers have time traveling devices to make them go forward in time mo’ quickly, I don’t think so — & I find the prospect that the least technologically sophisticated people would have technology centuries beyond what’s possible now to absurd to chew.

I think you meant the less weaselly words ( though still fragmentary ), “Core demographic for printed media is dying off mo’ ” That’s mo’ depressing to consider, but mo’ accurate.

Maybe 1 o’ these “challenges” should’ve been the devolving quality o’ diction as online writing succumbs mo’ & mo’ to sterile & vague businessese.

Failure of print and newspapers is disenfranching young apprentice writers.

No, that’s just Republicans.

So… ¿The failure o’ print is affecting those who use it the least the most? I’d think it’d be the oldest people who are still unable to use popular technology competently that’d be most blocked from success in the industry. Young people familiar with new technology should feel in bed with… well, new technology.

¿Or is he trying to claim that literature cannot continue without print & newspapers & that young “apprentice” writers are becoming less literate? I’ve already ’splained why that’s obviously false.

Media conglomerates have poor business model; economically rationalized “culture industry” is actively hostile to vital aspects of humane culture.

& now we degenerate further into meaningless buzzwords.

¿What the fuck is “economically rationalized ‘culture industry’”?

I certainly don’t think conglomerates being actively hostile to vital aspects o’ humane culture is anything contemporary. We’ve been calling that kind o’ thing “capitalism” for the past 2 centuries, & it’s probably 1 o’ the only things certain in this world, other than maybe death & tax loopholes.

Long tail balkanizes audiences, disrupts means of canon-building and fragments literary reputation.

& now we’re delving into outright fantasy. I don’t know what creature “Long tail” is, but I do hope the Good Wizard Whitebread stops him with his Shape Spells before that foul beast can “balkanize” the audience with its 4th-wall-breaking powers.

¿Whose literary reputation is hurt? This writer couldn’t go the whole way o’ pretending there’s only 1 reputation that exists by giving that phrase an article, so we’re just going to have to figure it out ourselves.

Maybe this is an attempt to recreate the strengths o’ modernist literature through blog posts. You have to dig into deep analyses to understand what this loon’s trying to say, just like with James Joyce.

Digital public-domain transforms traditional literary heritage into a huge, cost-free, portable, searchable database, radically transforming the reader’s relationship to belle-lettres.

¿By making it mo’ accessible? Yes, nothing is a greater challenge to literature than the fact that mo’ people can indulge in it.

¿Remember when we used to fear that we’d lose literary classics — those ol’ dystopians like Fahrenheit 451? That’s ol’ news: now we worry ’bout too many people being able to get access to Shakespeare, apparently.

Contemporary literature not confronting issues of general urgency; dominant best-sellers are in former niche genres such as fantasies, romances and teen books.

I’m almost tempted to rewrite these quotes in all-caps to emphasize how much they sound like some hokey ol’ computer. “BEEP BOOP. COMTEMPORARY LITERATURE NOT CONFRONTING ISSUES OF GENERAL URGENCY. ERROR CODE 728”.

Yes, ’cause no fantasy, romance, or teen book could e’er confront modern problems. I could see the assumption for the 1st for someone immensely ignorant & shallow ( A Song of Ice and Fire could tell you a lot mo’ ’bout the complexities & corruptions o’ political forces that is just as applicable to modern society as medieval than some lit fic that dicks round with word structure & takes place entirely within a literary professors head ); ¿but romance & teen books are irrelevant to contemporary problems?

Considering the author ne’er bothers to specify what he considers to be “issues of general urgency”, we’re left with yet ’nother blanket assertion that has li’l backing, & is probably mo’ wrong than right.

Here’s ’nother better problem for modern literature: “Dumbs down complex issues into simplistic listicles”. If only there was a way to write anything with any semblance o’ depth online. But that’s impossible, ’course. I mean, you can put the entirety o’ Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs online; but you can’t write anything that intelligent online. Those are the rules.

Barriers to publication entry have crashed, enabling huge torrent of subliterary and/or nonliterary textual expression.

Just like this 1.

Algorithms and social media replacing work of editors and publishing houses; network socially-generated texts replacing individually-authored texts.

’Cause collaboration has ne’er created anything valuable, artistically. Nor can anyone hope to do anything individualistic online. Contrast this with, say, Shakespeare, who ne’er worked with anyone else & ne’er had anything to do with the cultural currents o’ his time. He was just some isolated crab in a cave, writing everything from his pure invention, with no inspiration from anyone else @ all. That’s how true writers write. Or how ’bout T.S. Eliot, who filled his poetry with references to ancient literature that everyone in his literary club knew — what we might call “literary memes” today.

As for algorithms & social media replacing the work o’ editors & publishers, that’s false — not the least o’ which ’cause algorithms & social media don’t have any self-consciousness to make decisions independent o’ their fleshy masters. A mo’ accurate statement would be that all 4 o’ these things are guided by profit, which has been the guide to the literature industry since… well, ’twas an industry. As it turns out, industries are always guided by profit, ’cause if it’s not selling for the purpose o’ making money, it’s not called an industry. ’Gain, this is called “capitalism” & has existed for centuries.

If he were making the point that profitability & quality are diverging, that’d be a coherent argument; but he ne’er comes close to proving it. If this writer were half as knowledgable o’ the history o’ literature as he pretends to be, he’d know that the literature industry has been glutted with profitable but low-quality crap fore’er. ¿Know how I always liked to call shitty online writing Boon & Mills 2.0? Yeah, there’s a reason: it’s to emphasize that this is a modern version o’ an ol’ form o’ pumping out cheap, mindless literature. The corollary is that there was a traditional means that existed since the early 1900s. This writer might be pleased to know that back in the 1930s Hemingway, too, bitched ’bout the proliferation o’ cheap romance literature — ’cept he didn’t blame new technology so much as those bitchy womenfolk. As it turns out, the idea that investing a lot o’ money in truly intelligent writing is less profitable than investing less money in convincing lots o’ people that crap is gold was conceived by companies centuries ago.

“Convergence culture” obliterating former distinctions between media; books becoming one minor aspect of huge tweet/ blog/ comics/ games / soundtrack/ television / cinema / ancillary-merchandise pro-fan franchises.

1. I won’t e’en pretend to understand what “ancillary-merchandise pro-fan franchises” means. Well, I do know: it means nothing. It’s just something the writer thought sounded cool. I would imagine that any franchise would be “pro-fan”; Shakespeare certainly didn’t write his works with the intent that people would hate them. I’m also not sure if it’s s’posed to be the literature that’s ancillary or the merchandise. In context, it seems as if it should be the literature, since I can’t imagine someone complaining ’bout the problem o’ literature being that they don’t care ’nough ’bout selling Mr. Darcy action figures; however, its connection to “merchandise” with a hyphen seems to state that it’s the merchandise that’s ancillary. The meaning o’ what he actually wrote directly contradicts what makes sense in context — which is no rarity, e’en in this short post.

2. How dare you mix your filthy lesser media in my literature. Classic literature sure ne’er mixed with other mediums. Ne’er mind that Shakespeare’s plays were “ancillary” to literature & were made primarily to be performed in essentially an older version o’ television; that didn’t apparently hurt its stature as the highest point o’ English literature. Meanwhile, that hack James Joyce would love to mix in songs, advertisements, & e’en camera techniques from early cinema into that dumb piece o’ pop-culture pollution known as Ulysses.

3. People who can’t e’en bother to use “/”s consistently shouldn’t be judging others on their literacy.

Unstable computer and cellphone interfaces becoming world’s primary means of cultural access. Compositor systems remake media in their own hybrid creole image.

Let’s ignore the fact that his denigrating comparison o’ different window sizes changing literature to creoles is racist & hilariously worded in the most pretentious way possible & ’stead focus the fact that he seems to think literature falls apart if put in a different-sized rectangle. This is in contrast to books, which have always had the same standard size for all published books fore’er.

I’m actually not e’en sure I interpreted his incredibly vague diction correctly. I’m not sure what part o’ computer & cellphone interfaces are “unstable”, since an “interface” is just any way you use them, which is a large problem domain.

Also, love the redundancy: he could’ve just said that “computers are becoming world’s primary means of cultural access”, since cellphones are, by definition, computers & interfaces are, by definition, the way you access computers. Nothing’s mo’ literate than using mo’ words just for the sake o’ mo’ words. That’s what Strunk & White always said, a’least.

As for “Compositor systems”, they are just the programming techniques operating systems use to keep screens from flickering & give windows spiffy affects when they’re minimized, as well as the way image blending works in Photoshop. Not sure how any o’ that “remake[s] media in their own hybrid creole image”; the latter doesn’t e’en seem to have anything to do with literature @ all. ¿Is he trying to imply that programmers try to hide subliminal messages in the screen’s double buffer?

Scholars steeped within the disciplines becoming cross-linked jack-of-all-trades virtual intelligentsia.

With the context o’ this writer / robot’s stuffy language, I can’t imagine him saying “the disciplines” or “jack-of-all-trades” without quotation marks. “These scholars — always be steepin’ in those disciplines, ¿you know what I’m saying?”

This 1’s actually coherent, but not relevant to literature. Also, he doesn’t provide any evidence that it’s true or e’en a bad thing. He basically just asserts something ’gain with the stupidest o’ diction & leaves us, as if his profound li’l fortune cookie o’ wisdom were ’nough.

Academic education system suffering severe bubble-inflation.

Wired listicle plagiarizing The Economist headline.

I had to rewrite that sentence to make it closer to the terribleness o’ the original, since my natural proclivity gainst English atrocities made me neglect the participle. I in my silliness wrote “plagiarizes” in simple present tense, which is far too concise to be good.

¿How the fuck can an education system have inflation? I guess this writer is trying to say that there’s too many colleges & not ’nough demand, said in an inane mixed metaphor with currency & economic bubbles ( ¿Why both? ’Cause the writer had to fill what was still a much shorter word requirement than e’en this post I’m writing & couldn’t fill that word demand with substance ). With how expensive colleges have gotten, I doubt that.

Polarizing civil cold war is harmful to intellectual honesty.

( Pause for laughter ).

All right: this is the line that inspired me to do this whole post. This deserves to be enshrined. Forget those wimps who read Eye of Argon without laughing; I’d like to see them read this sentence with a straight face.

1. ¿A polarizing war? ¡You don’t say! That’s right up there with “wet water” or “crappy shit”.

2. ¿Is the “civil cold war” some fantasy hybrid he’s writing ’bout in some novel he’s writing? ¿Do those evil commie Soviets develop a time machine & conspire to use it to go back & force the north to lose the civil war in hopes o’ debilitating the US’s global power, allowing the Soviet Union to be dominant? ’Cause you’d probably do much mo’ for contemporary literature by writing that amazing plot than writing this dumb listicle.

3. Sentence fragment is harmful to Hulk brain.

4. After making all these jokes, I’ve realized that I still have no idea what this crackpot is talking ’bout. Stop trolling: everyone knows it’s the Worldwide Mad Deadly Communist Gangster Computer God™ that controls everything, not some dumb civil cold war. Leave the insane ramblings to the experts, please.

The Gothic fate of poor slain Poetry is the specter at this dwindling feast.

Looks like you failed to copy that headline from World News Weekly & still had that line from that emo poetry you were composing in your clipboard. Oops.

I’ll give this article 1 thing: usually I feel a bit soul-sick reading these listicles, just rolling my eyes & thinking, Not this vapid shit ’gain. This article was a’least refreshingly creative in its insanity, making me slap my forehead & think, ¿What the fuck? ¿Where’d you e’en come up with that garbled mess o’ words? I’m still not sure that these lines didn’t all just come from the Chomskybot.