Future, right ahead!

For decades we have been putting every thing off for the future. We all do this on a daily basis by saying, "Oh, I'll do that later!" (Like showering, for instance), but then of course you fail to do it later because you either have the memory of a gold fish, or you're just retarded. I can tell you from experience, the longer you wait to do things, the less likely they are to get done.

As gothics and atheists would like us to believe, the future has a grim outlook for society - War, fuel worth more than the automobile that it's in, violence and sex oozing from every source of media known to man, and obesity becoming more widespread than the water on our planet - are all things we have to look forward to within the next two decades if we don't act fast. In order to react to the problems of the future - just as if you were going to react to the problems of now - you have to understand the root cause of our problems, and the driving forces that enable them to become root causes.

Root Cause #1: The Media:
Our biggest and most obvious problem is the media. They're the ones who feed us all this propaganda about how the world is coming to an end within the next year and if we don't act now we're all going to hell afterwards. The media is a great catalyst when it comes to starting wars as well as starting bad habits such as meth.

All of the major news networks feed off of each other. If one says there was a train derailment in which two cars went off the tracks, the next news agency will say every car went off the tracks and one of them is believed to contain a missing nuclear bomb from the 1980s. The next news agency will top that by saying a train car went off the tracks, caught fire with a nuclear bomb onboard believed to be counting down towards destination and is currently rolling towards a preschool near you.

The media knows the general population will believe what they have to say because they broadcast their content on TV. They know that since the general popular heard and saw it on TV, they accept it as the truth since, well, it was on TV. The media would like us to believe that when we wake up tomorrow the oceans will be vast cauldrons of boiling mercury and a comet will be crashing into Earth within the next 10 minutes. They are right in the sense that we have problems here on Earth, but so does every other planet with life on it. Take Mars for example, Martians have yet to get out of the stone age. Talk about a set back.

Root Cause #2: The Internet:
Another key contributor as to why the not so distant distant future doesn't look so good is due to the internet. The internet is an amazing tool that has helped link the entire world together by allowing people around the world to communicate with each other as if they were in the same room. Not only has this given the media another entry point into your house in which they can attempt to ooze their subliminal messages through your computer, but it also has enabled the process of corruption to spread throughout the entire world in just under a decade.

Looks like SOMEONE forgot to press F7 to spell check

Congratulations, internet! You're partly responsible in the downfall of man kind!

Sources of corruption on the internet largely include the media (There's a recurring theme here), internet gaming (Specifically MMORPGs and Megaman), e-commerce, blogs, FaceBook and MySpace, and of course all flavors of pornography (No pun intended, scat lovers). If we took all sites pertaining to this material off of the internet, there would be nothing left, with the exception of Google and a few "I love my dog" pages.

The Internet is also responsible for fostering such tools as spell check, programs that can solve fairly complex mathematical equations in seconds, and search engines that have made traditional libraries a thing of the past. When used correctly, these tools are powerful assets to the business world and they help to make every day life easier for millions. Thanks to these tools, we now have a generation of children growing up that rely on spell check as a means for ensuring words are spelled correctly, they rely on their graphing calculators to find the zeros of an equation, they utilize search engines in an effort to plagiarize work. But who am I kidding, they don't know how to utilize spell check correctly, so it's not even an issue. In some instances, spell check fails to find words misused, such as "dew", "due", and "do".

The Internet has successfully dumbed down society, and we're going to be totally screwed as a result.

Root Cause #3: The "No Child Left Behind act"
Put into action in 2001 by the Bush Administration, the No Child Left Behind act serves as a way to ensure that no student gets left behind in the dust because they can't read, write, or add and subtract numbers like generations in the past had to do. It's indeed a noble idea to think that the United States' government is willing to invest as much time and money into a young child as needed until he or she is deemed proficient, but the system has some flaws. (Note, "some" might be an understatement)

This has caused nothing but problems in many school districts around the country, as well as many headaches throughout the internet as more and more uneducated people take to the net and spread their stupid across as many forums and websites as they can possibly find. It's not uncommon for children to move from the 8th grade to the 9th grade without knowing how to add and subtract fractions, as well as the inability to pronounce words such as "uneducated" without the teacher's help. We see this on an almost everyday basis in The Geek Forums when new members sign up for an account and insist on not using their shift or period keys.

For this deliberate dumbing down of America, we're even more screwed than we were before. In 20 years' time the kids of today will be running the global economy, yet they won't know how to read, write, or add and subtract whole numbers correctly. Though, I don't think we could get any worse than we are right now with some of the current leaders we have elected to office. The only requirements to graduate high school in the not so distant distant future will be to spell out "lol" and be able to send a text message saying "omg rly" in under five seconds without having to use the "clr" key because you made a mistake.

Root Cause #4: Rising Gas Prices:
Rising fuel prices are all the rage these days. With a gallon of gas going for nearly $3.60 on average it's no wonder why more and more people are looking into motorcycles, horses and teleporters like the once popular game Doom portrays. It's interesting to note that Doom also somehow portrays teenagers shooting up schools.

This is what our future might look like if we're not careful

During this time of economic uncertainty, the media would like us to think that gas will be going up to $10.00 per gallon just in time for this evening's commute. With much speculation, an increased demand, and a supposed lessened supply it's no wonder why gas prices are increasing on a daily (If you're lucky) basis. The price of fuel influences just about the price of any other consumer good we purchase since it's used in the production of such goods. Cars, cell phones, computers, food, and crystal meth all require machines during the production process. These machines are powered by oil, which is largely controlled by OPEC, which we all know is controlled by the Bush Administration, which is controlled by Bush Senior, who is controlled by his wife, who is controlled by Satan himself.

The media and certified experts (Who are actually Magical Wizards) have made it clear that if we don't fix these problems now, we're doomed - in fact, we already are doomed, but we could prevent ourselves from being even more doomed if we fix these problems now before it’s too late.

Comments?

This is your average forum-goer.

Most importantly in addition to choosing their own user name, they also pick and choose their own internet e-penis - even females. Believe it or not, in the online world everyone has an e-penis, including females. There is not one person who will say and do the same things in real life as they do in an online setting. Most of the time, people's e-penises (or should it be e-peni?) are a lot larger online than they are in real life. This has caused the growth of many different types of internet personalities ranging from The Judge to The Woman, all of which have their ups and downs.

The New Guy
Everyone goes through this stage when establishing their e-penis. The New Guy is almost exactly like an infant. They don't know how to act since they have never been exposed to such surroundings before. Some New Guys take it better than others. Some will lurk around before making posts in order to test the waters before jumping in. New Guys that follow this course of action usually have the best chance of making it past the abortion period (Which is the time before a New Guy is banned). Other New Guys on the other hand will not take the time to test the waters and instead make a fool out of themselves by posting and asking a question that was already discussed and answered two days ago. These types of New Guys don't make it past the abortion period unless they own up to their mistakes and agree to think before hitting the submit button. The New Guy has an average e-penis size of 4.5 inches given some are more conservative than others.

Trolls typically can be found hiding in your lawn, as well as within forums around the internet.

The Forum Troll
A forum would not be a forum without The Forum Troll. The Forum Troll can be compared to an outgoing teen-aged Goth who has radical views on abortion and every other item up for debate under the sun. The Forum Troll feels compelled to share his or her views with everyone else, even if what they are posting about isn't discussed within the topic in which they are posting. You can easily spot a troll by their activity in threads that discuss religion. If they are quick to say that religion is a scam and followers don't have a brain, they are probably The Forum troll, and probably replied while living in their parents' basement.

The Woman
The Woman (singular) refers to a member who is able to mentally archive and recall any and all posts made by you, as well as the 1,459 other members on the forum - All without the need to use the board's search function. The Woman will use these archived posts against you and others in the event that an argument should break out between you and the woman and they've run out of responses to throw back at you. He or she will open their reply with something like, "Back on March 17, 1998 at 11:45:49PM EST you replied on this same topic and said..." The women will also feel the need to make irate and insane topics / replies for several days in a row for almost no apparent reason and then seemingly return to normal as if nothing had happened.

The Emo Emu
If you're a member of a forum, then you have to know this one: The Emo Emu. The Evil Emu insists that they have the worst life style on the planet. If you post about a bad day, their day was twice as bad. If you post about a problem you're having at work, they post a reply saying that they have that same problem, as well as 5 others to deal with all at the same time. The Emo Emu is also sensitive to issues regarding their boyfriend / girlfriend who just broke up with them. Their hearts have been broken, and no one else knows what it's like since they lost their other half of two weeks.

Keep an eye out for The Emo Emu as they can quickly derail a thread about hot dogs and turn it into a thread about hamburgers, which are complete opposites!

Stephen Hawking Wanna-Be
Each and every day I think to myself how amazing the internet is, and how lucky we are to have such a tool at our finger tips. The internet allows anyone access to a massive amount of data, which means even the dumbest user can appear to be one of the smartest users with enough effort and determination (Assuming they are smart enough to put forward such effort). The Stephen Hawking Wanna-Be will search for any and all data pertaining to a topic in order to claim that they are an expert on the topic being discussed, when in reality they know nothing about it. You can sometimes catch a Stephen Hawking Wanna-Be in the act by simply taking the first several words of their reply and search for them on Google. Sometimes you may get lucky and find the same information somewhere else online verbatim in which case you should take a screen shot of the evidence and post it for all to see and reply with "We've got a live one".

When caught in the act, Stephen Hawking Wanna-Bes quickly scatter since they know they have been caught red-handed. They simply move on to the next community until someone there figures out they don't really know what they claim to know.

The Judge
The Judge - not to be confused with The Geek Forum's member named TheJudge - is quick to judge new members (as well as existing members), hence the name. The Judge has very strict criteria for those who he can consider worthy enough to be his e-friends. If you don't meet his criteria, then you're not good enough for him and you've managed to make his shit list until you can prove his assumption incorrect - which sometimes may never happen. The Judge is also like The Woman in the sense that he has the ability to remember posts that were made several years ago as a means of retort in an argument as well as justification as to why they hate you.

They might also hate you since they are stuck living in their parents' basement.

Grandpa Willard
Grandpa Willard can commonly be found on tech forums asking for help since they can't open the .scr file attached to an email they got from Britney Spears. Someone who fits into this category doesn't have to be old enough to be a grandfather; (Though they are getting younger and younger) they just have to lack technical skills like an old grandfather in his 80s would. Grandpa Willards all seem to lack technical skills, literacy skills, and patience once everyone starts telling him the answer to his problem can be found on either Google.com or Zombo.com.

Grandpa Willard tends to only stick around for a few days after they realize that no one is going to help with his problem since he's The New Guy. Grandpa Willard will stick around to yell a few obscenities at some of the members and then storm out of the room like a little child would do who didn't get their way.

There he is, ready to take over your thread the first chance he gets.

The Forum Clown
Just like how every class has a clown, every forum has a clown.

Just like The Troll, The Forum Clown is there to de-rail your thread about how much you rule at Guitar Hero. Have a topic about how sad you are after your mother's death? The Forum Clown will be there to throw in an untimely joke about how she probably deserved it anyway. The Forum Clown doesn't start very many new topics on their own since they have nothing of value to give back to the community.

If The Forum Clown decides to create a new thread asking for advice from the rest of the members, feel free to either ignore the topic all together, or post equally useless replies in his thread as he did to you.

Moderators
Moderators are just below Administrators, and tend to have less control over the forum. A moderator's job is to do just that - moderate things. When a discussion gets too heated and two members start to argue over the internet like two retarded kids over an empty pack of gum, the moderators are usually there to put an end to things - after everyone has had their fair share of laughs, of course.

In some cases when a moderator is first brought on board, they may feel the need to test out all of their new powers that have been granted to them. Other forum regulars refer to this as a "power trip" since there is no need to ban every new member who signs up, and every other member who doesn't agree with them.

Administrators
Administrators are operators of the forum, and are usually the people that pay the bills to keep the place running. They generally have direct access to the forum's database and subsequent files. Administrators are usually fair in the way they manage their boards, but sometimes a forum might have a rogue Neo-Nazi who only accepts registrations from white males who are over six feet tall with blonde hair and blue eyes. Most require a photograph of the new member with the current day's newspaper before registration is accepted.