Reminds me of one of the “replace everyone except one human with Muppets” discussion on Twitter. My suggestion was Empire Strikes Back, with the human being Frank Oz (himself, not as a puppeteer) playing Yoda.
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The talk of Muppets does little for me, but the idea of Tim Curry playing Baron Blake is an absolute delight. I think a Kickstarter is called for…
So I’ve been trying to cut back on my negativity lately, but I couldn’t contain myself after this episode. Let me be entirely clear that I have nothing against the user who calls themself Achilles’s Tortoise; everybody on the Internet has to come up with a username that will be relatively distinct, so I’m not going to fault you for a reference to that old thought-experiment. But that old thought-experiment ITSELF is f####ing STUPID, and people should stop calling attention to it. It’s ridiculous, utterly meaningless sophistry, as completely invalid as trying to tear a dollar bill in half and then claim that you have two dollars now. Not all of the old Greek philosophers deserved to have stood the test of time; probably the only reason we even know that Xeno’s Paradox existed is that it was so legendarily stupid that nobody could resist the urge to mock it, and thereby feed it with continuing attention (myself included).
Incidentally, all these comments about Benchmark being dumb puzzle me; you remember he’s a chess master, right?
Well he has a blind spot for his employment, obviously. I wouldn’t call him dumb in general, just with respect to that particular subject. Heavily invested in something that he depends on to help define his very identity, to say nothing of his economic lifestyle and the future he hopes to build for himself, he turns a blind eye to things he probably should be taking more seriously. Even very smart people are capable of such willful ignorance, around things which they’re emotionally dependent upon.
I personally think that Benchmark is one of those characters that, in RPG terms, has high Intelligence but low Wisdom.
(Also, I second the “Achilles and the Tortoise” thought experiment as being stupid.)
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… yeah. Where are you getting that people think he’s dumb?
This is a great way to put it. And off-the-charts charisma.
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Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s at least got some technical know-how, but he’s also high on the himbo scale if I am not mistaken.
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The podcast episode defined him as “himbo”, and this thread has defined “himbo” as requiring dumbness by definition. I can’t really argue with word of god, but I can disagree with the community consensus on how word of god is interpreted, or definitions of terms which the creators used without defining their meaning.
Ah, through the “definition” of himbo. I don’t think the “dumbness” within being a himbo is really related to intelligence, it’s more of a social perception. Some smart people can act very dumb.
They can act in a way that is disdained by society, ignoring or flouting its preconceptions. I’m not sure that qualifies as “dumb” though.
Regardless, Benchmark trusted the company who hired him to not be evil; most of us expect a similar degree of faith in their employer to be justified. It used to be the standard after all; you devoted twenty years of your life to working your way up in the company, and in exchange you were guaranteed a parachute of some appropriate color, maybe a nice gold wristwatch when you retired. Only later did screwing over your longest-suffering subordinates somehow become an acceptable business practice. Granted, in the old world, kickstarting a card game created by three people who then later started a lore podcast, all that probably couldn’t have happened in the former world economy. Not sure it’s a fair trade…
So, how about that Zeno’s Paradox eh?
I wish, but he’s largely retired after his stroke. Quite unfortunate.
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