JOHANNESBURG. After millennia of being entitled to their opinions, idiots, bigots, racists and other mouth-breathers may be stripped of that right, thanks to timely new research revealed this morning. According to a team of academics working in the field of Opinion Entitlement Theory, exchanges of “cyber poo-throwing by meat-heads” on News24 and the Sunday Times’s websites had prompted an important rethink on moron rights.
According to lead researcher, Gaudeamus Molefe, the dramatic turnaround was triggered by a night spent reading comments on major South African news websites while next door to a room full of monkeys.
“We share a building with a team that got Lotto funding to teach various simian species to do the Moonwalk as a homage to Michael Jackson’s late chimp, Bubbles,” explained Molefe.
“At one point there was an almighty shrieking and banging from next door, and that’s when it occurred to me that if monkeys could type, they’d be writing comments on News24 and Timeslive. But they can’t, so instead they scream a lot and throw their poo at each other, which is a lot more honest – and slightly more intelligent – than what goes on online.”
But, he said, the real breakthrough had come after he and his team noticed how often posters wrote that fellow idiots were entitled to their opinions.
“We started asking: what exactly is the average fuckwit entitled to, other than maybe a state-sponsored sterilisation or a fat klap?”
He explained that classical Opinion Entitlement Theory, invented by the Greeks in 473 BC, assumed a basic intellectual competence on the part of the opinion holder, but added that ancient assumptions could no longer be relied on.
“Times change,” said Molefe. “When Socrates said, ‘I know that I know nothing,’ people had to take his word for it because he was pretty freaking bright.
“But when WitWolf666 from ValhallaTransvaal says anything at all, people know that he knows nothing because it’s pretty goddamn obvious.”
It was a question that led to a five-year investigation by Molefe and his team, who compiled additional data from Facebook, dinner parties, conversations overheard in queues, and other venues of informal public discourse.
He conceded that the results were “a significant argument against freedom of expression”.
“I don’t want to give any ammunition to the Nazis planning the Secrecy Bill,” he said, “but let’s just say that some people should leave thinking and speaking up to trained professionals.”
According to Molefe, restricting the right to hold opinions would be difficult, but he suggested that an instant and permanent ban on the phrase ‘just my two cents’ would be a good place to start.
“Honestly, if you really think your opinion is worth two cents, why are you offering it to me? Why not keep it to yourself and save up for something a bit better?”
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