The Verge IS Bias

Posted by Sapereaude on April 11, 2012 02:36 am 30

Wait, don't ban me bro. I have a point, it happens to be satirical in nature but it's pointy all the same.

The way I see it there are two possible explanations for the misuse of the term "bias" on The Verge. The first, some might say likely, answer is that Verge commenters are 12 year olds who never learned proper grammar and don't know the difference between a noun and an adjective. To explore the second we must go deeper which is appropriate since we are in the "Meta" board.

According to Platonic philosophy and basics of the Theory of Forms all things have a Form which is the very embodiment of the essence that makes that object itself. The usual example for this is a chair. Imagine for a second a chair. Now I didn't give you any other parameters but you envisioned a specific chair, it was made of a material, had a certain number of legs and may or may not have had wheels. Now simplify that chair, imagine you had to describe a chair to some one who had never heard of such a thing. What are the characteristics of "chairiness" that are essential to call an object a chair? Can a chair have four legs? Three? Two? One? None? That idea of "chairiness" is the basis of the Form of a chair. The Form IS the absolute template of the idea of chair.

Now that's pretty easy to imagine for something as simple as a chair but we are supposed to be talking about bias here, surely the concept doesn't scale to the abstract level? Why yes rhetorical self, actually it does. You see the Theory of Forms is actually part of Plato's Theory of the Good. The Good is, as it sounds, the "Form" of goodness. Keep in mind we're in Ancient Greece so "goodness" here is referring to the truth, justice, correctness area, not the "Umm Umm Good" savory soup goodness of today. So in searching for the Form of the Good we are looking for the very idea of positiveness.

So, in calling Verge editors or The Verge itself "bias" as opposed to biased these commenters are suggesting that they are the very Form Of Bias, the physical embodiment of the very concept of bias. It is a much grander insult as it strikes at the very heart of the accused soul.

Anyway that's just one man's opinion, assuming the average Verge commenter is both versed in basic philosophy and desires to strike a blow at the very heart of The Verge.

(For more information about the Good read the Wikipedia article)

tl;dr: Look I made a gif: