This as an unguarded moment revealing the true nature of environmental extremists (who have a track record for violence), and I cannot shake the creepy irony of the use of the phrases “no pressure” and “your choice” just prior to what seems an updated version of the Inquisition going after the “heretics.”

That one of the leaders of this bunch was given a chance to walk it back a bit but maintained that amputations rather than outright death would be sufficient is indicative of these people’s real mindset, which goes beyond human population control into outright slaughter of any doubters.

I personally think global warming is likely a natural cycle, but the commercial has gone viral and is ergo a success.

If the Three Stooges were global warming advocates would they be amoral too?

I don’t disagree with anything you say above.

None of that is relevant to my point which is that calling the thing “the most revolting political video I’ve ever seen” is so far over the top as to fall well beyond belief — more over the top than the video itself.

You personally know me well enough to know that I do have a sense of humor, and know enough from my online rants over the years that violence, even in political messaging, doesn’t bother me so much. I can’t count the number of times I’ve quoted or alluded to some violent Southpark scene to score some point or another.

There is a difference between Southpark, which is trying to get ratings and sell advertising on a comedy channel, and a political organization trying to persuade people to some action or another.

That the 10:10 folks have 1) immediately retracted 2) lost sponsors and 3) have taken a lot of political heat indicates that there is a real political consequence for their video.

I’d be the last to ever suggest that they shouldn’t be allowed to produce or air such a video. However, in the free market world of presenting ideas, they have to take the responsibility for their failures as much as they have a right to the benefits of their successes.

Call it Marketing 101.

Thanks for clarifying your argument.

Your argument doesn’t make much sense to me.

First of all, it fails on factual accuracy.

Showing people who didn’t go along with the program getting blown up was not only not the only attempt to persuade, it wasn’t even one of the attempts to persuade.

The attempts to persuade went something like this:

“The idea is everyone starts cutting their carbon emissions by 10%, thus keeping the planet safe for everyone eventually,” and indications of easy things to do in order to accomplish that.

The blowing up stuff was 100% comedic emphasis.

Obviously some people didn’t find it funny, which is completely understandable (what people find funny varies considerably).

Obviously some people either partially or wholly disagree with the agenda, too, which is also completely understandable (I’m one of them — when it mentions “governments” committing to the 10% cut, I get the funny feeling that that “commitment” will be expressed in the form of more regulations, not fewer emissions).

What’s not understandable — to me, at any rate — is the mirror image of ninny PC outrage that I’m seeing from a bunch of people, yourself and Gordon included. Frankly, I’m embarrassed for you.

My first sentence “the people who think this is funny are depraved” is not correct. When I wrote that I was trying to make the point that I made in the post above:

What I’m arguing is that someone who would make that movie, a movie whose only attempt to persuade was to show people who didn’t go along with the program voluntarily getting blown up by authority figures, and then argue that people shouldn’t be upset by the movie because it was funny are pretty fucked in the head.

To Thomas and Anton did have a point: I typed an argument that implied that only immoral people would be amused by the movie. However that was not the argument I was trying to make. The bit I quoted above is what I should have said at the outset.

And that’s kind of an off base accusation:

It’s not that we said “They made a gory political movie that wasn’t funny; get a rope! ”

What I’m arguing is that someone who would make that movie, a movie whose only attempt to persuade was to show people who didn’t go along with the program voluntarily getting blown up by authority figures, and then argue that people shouldn’t be upset by the movie because it was funny are pretty fucked in the head.

The movie itself is tripe. The entire message is a threat. It’s clumsy, off-putting, and so persuasive that the group that made it has lost most of their corporate sponsors in the last 48 hours. Frankly, it’s one of the more pathetic bits of propaganda I’ve seen in recent years, and I live in an area where Comcast is running their “Don’t fall for FIOS” campaign.

Even if the movie was funny, I would be calling the makers out on its depravity. On the other hand, if they had made a non-funny movie that attempted to persuade people without depictions of violent gory death at the hands of authority figures, I doubt I’d be calling them depraved.

Unless, of course, this unfunny attempt at persuasion was directed by Michael Bay; that would be a crime worthy of death – and not death by snu-snu either but rather the unpleasant kind.

I, for one, will not accuse you of being a sociopath.

Hell, I won’t even accuse you of being a humorless prig.

I will, however, accuse you, Gordon and quite a few others of reading waaaaaaaaay to much into the fact that you didn’t find the video funny.

It’s funny to read an opponent accusing me of getting overly outraged at a depiction of violence, and then completely kill their credibility by immediately accusing me of being sociapathic.

I guess clicking on the definition in Wikipedia was too hard.

The problem I have with it is a combination of mean spiritedness and the fact that it does not lampoon the abusive teacher, but the “misguided” children. In Curtis’ other work he lampoons pompous or abusive authority figures, or laughs to compensate for the frustration of a futile struggle against oppression. Here, he blows up children for not agreeing with what he must consider a universal and moral world view. When one disagrees with that world view, it fall flat.

Per Stephen Gordon (unfortunately in full PC overreaction mode like, it seems, everyone else), the author of the video is Richard Curtis of Black Adder fame….

The movie depicts a fantasy of people being murdered. And yes, the 10 10 people who made it are pretty depraved. Not because they find violence amusing, but rather because this was made as an attempt to persuade the people who haven’t taken the pledge to reduce their carbon emissions to join the movement.

So we have some people that believe that
a) the way to persuade people who aren’t part of their group to join it by depicting non joiners being murdered,
b) claim that killing non-believers are OK, since hundreds of thousands of people are dying every year due to global climate change
c) then when facing criticism claim that they merely support amputation of non-joiners.

That’s pretty depraved. These people literally lack the capacity for understanding why people are upset. It is that lack of capacity that makes them dangerous. Should they be in a position where they control the police, these people will cheerfully go about breaking eggs to make their omelets. It’s been this way throughout history.

Now, certainly this movie is about as gory as the highlights of the Watchmen. The gore itself is nothing really groundbreaking.

It’s the pure violence of the message, a message that contains no attempt to persuade but is composed 100% of threats, that disgusts me. And feeling that way is not an indication of lacking a sense of humor as you initially asserted.