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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2232 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 5, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I'm reading Cryptonomicon and came across this line:

Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be — or to be indistinguishable from — self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.

Uhh — something you guys want to tell me?

I’ll have you know I’m actually fourteen.

I wish... I am much-more-that-sixteen-years old, in perpetual self-doubt and have very limited free time. Sigh.

I'll have you know that I haven't been a self-righteous sixteen-year-old in many years, and that I am now a pseudonymous stranger on the internet.

I'll have you know that I haven't been a self-righteous sixteen-year-old in many years

By which you (and I) of course mean that you're these days a self-righteous much older person.

I was self-righteous when I was sixteen, but the Internet wasn't yet a thing or if it was, I had no access to it. I have decades of missed time to make up for, decades, I tell you!

I'll have you know I am not self-righteous.

Have you gotten to the part with a bunch of West Coast intellectuals sitting around in an earthquake-proofed house?

Uhh — something you guys want to tell me?

I'm a dog, not a teenager.

I don't usually laugh at New Yorker cartoons but they really nailed that one.

Well, I'm a teenage dog. My joints ache, but the tail just keeps wagging.

You gave away the one advantage of the Internet with this post. I hope it was worth it.

They probably misremembered the caption as "On the Internet, No_one knows you're a dog."

This was always a bit of an older community (by internet standards) but looking back at its founding it was directionally accurate even here. Look at the amount of posts from people early in their career, and they've been here for some 10 years. You were at fairly good odds of talking to a teenager.

Furthermore I'd argue that the claims of the self-righteous immature person with infinite free time is even more true for the median college attendee than the median highschooler.

Makes all the stories posters tell about their five-year-old kids a lot grimmer, doesn't it?

Youngest father from recent history was 11, so.. if you squint your eyes kinda doable.

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