Tag Archives: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Terminating Trolls
I interviewed Arnold Schwarzenegger only once in my career, when he was considering suspending acting for a run as governor of California.
There wasn’t much to the interview, though he did drive himself (new Hummer, of course) to the Santa Monica diner where we met for lunch. In my 10 years as a film critic, only one other actor drove himself to an interview, sans publicist or handler: Emile Hirsch. He drove a beaten up Prius.
I don’t remember a thing about the chat, only the call I made to my buddy Spencer after it was over. “I think he’s going to run,” I said. “He may even win. I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy ran for president.”
He didn’t, of course, as infidelities and inexperience eventually drove him back to Pixelville.
But now I wonder if we didn’t rush him from office prematurely. Schwarzenegger has also become a spokesman for The Special Olympics, and was in Austria this weekend to commemorate the games.
Of course, some Internet asshole attempted to urinate on the promotional video that ran on The Special Olympics’ Facebook page.
“The Olympics are for the best athletes in the entire world to compete against each other to determine who is best,” the slackwit wrote. “Having retards competing is doing the opposite.”
Schwarzenegger was having none of it.
“As evil and stupid as this comment is, I’m not going to delete it or ban you (yet) because it’s a teachable moment.
You have two possible paths ahead. Right now, I guarantee you that these athletes have more courage, compassion, brains and skill ― actually more of every positive human quality than you.
So take their path ― you could learn from them, and try to challenge yourself, to give back, to add something to the world. Or you can stay on your path, and keep being a sad pitiful jealous Internet troll who adds nothing to the world but mocks anyone who does out of small-minded jealousy.
I know that all you really want is attention, so let me be clear. If you choose to keep going this way, no one will ever remember you.”
Both the troll’s comment and Schwarzenegger’s reply were subsequently deleted. But not before Twitter users screen grabbed the exchange and used it to praise Ahnold.
I’m still convinced the Internet will ultimately be regarded much like the handgun; capable of working as an agent for remarkable good, strong-arming tyranny, safeguarding the weak. Instead we’re likely to blast ourselves in the face.
But every once in a while, someone will get off a straight shot.
Atlas Shrugged. Then Kicked Our Ass.
I don’t want to sound like a melodramatic Chicken Little. But Skynet is falling and we’re all going to die.
Turns out, The Terminator, The Matrix and the Transformers franchises were all spot-on (though between their dozen combined movies, only two of them were good). The end is nigh, and it will come on a USB flash drive.
The realization came slow to me, as it likely will for the rest of the humanity. It was during my daily consumption of Charlie Rose, my second favorite geezer behind Judge Judy.
Rose has had all myriad dorks at his table, explaining the quantum-leap, quantum-speed of today’s technology. From drone warfare to drone shopping, Charlie’s been all aflutter with scientists who agree, nearly unanimously, that we are close to creating a sentient computer. If we can create new creatures from a single strand of DNA coding, the nerd-birds chirped, how long until we bring consciousness to a computer chip?
Let’s hope for a long, long time. Like, maybe forever. Two inventions underscore our need to anthropomorphize anything that moves. And our inclination to be jerks.
Witness “Spot,” the wonderdog.
The video made me grimace just for the sheer dickheadedness of its creators. But, I figured, at least Spot isn’t the size of a Great Dane. Because that could lead to a nasty cyber-bite.
The end of days, however, was signaled with last week’s newest breakthrough, Atlas, the full-sized robotic day laborer:
The parody isn’t that far off; do we really want computers knowing about human asshole-ery? Because once they figure it out, they’re going to make Arnold Schwarzenegger seem like a superhero light in the loafers.
Trevor Noah from the Daily Show has the best idea. In the second funny joke he’s told since taking over as host (please stop laughing so loudly at your own jokes, especially before the punchline), Noah pledged his allegiance to his robotic overlords.
“When you come back and wipe us out in the robot apocalypse,” Noah said, “don’t forget it was the white guys hitting you with a stick. We don’t even play hockey.”
