I'm working on a year-end megapoll that'll generate some very useful demographics about the IAM community — I want to pass the media some good information about us for a change… I do admit that using IAM as a sample set is a little misleading though. Because of IAM's membership/screening process, as well as the main site's philosophies, I think that the user base here is probably smarter and better off in general than other sites. Nothing wrong with that though! Show your best face, right?
BTW, when I do finally post that, I'll also post the full source code to the polling module so anyone who's concerned can see that I'm collecting it in a way that strips identifying information (since it will ask some very personal questions).
While working on that I was going through old polls and old emails (including funmails). The image on the right, a traditional Ganesh tattoo (a very peaceful Hindu tattoo made with Hindi script), was the cover on September 18th, 2001. I received about 90 posts from people telling me that they felt it was inappropriate for me to post such an image “given the horrible attacks that had just occurred”. (Since we all know that 9/11 was committed by the Hindus, right?)
At about that same time I was talking to some biker “affiliates” of mine and they told me they were going to take a break from doing “civilian patrols” of the Claringon nuclear plant (they'd gotten in some trouble for getting spooked and shooting someone's dog) to go bomb the Sikh temple… I tried to explain to them the difference between Sikhs and Muslim radicals, but they didn't understand it. Luckily I think they got drunk enough that they didn't bother.
I was also going through my old polls, and earlier this year I did a poll that said something like “given Canada's support of terrorist nations and large ethic populations, should the US launch a military invasion?”. A full third of respondents took the poll seriously and would support an invasion of some sort… I don't know, but to me that's pretty shocking… Does that mean that the general population can be convinced to do anything?
On a totally separate note, I just realized that I need to add something else to my iam.to-do list — I have been putting off finishing iam.crush for something like a year now. Definitely needs to be done!
| It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free. - Niccolo Machiavelli
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Whoever lays a hand on me to govern is a usurper and a tyrant, and I declare him my enemy. - P.J. Proudhon
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