Important If True 11: The Purity of a Child's Boredom

[Jake]

Important If True 11:

The Purity of a Child's Boredom
Learning something new can feel like someone flipped on a lightswitch in your mind. If that person in your mind could flip the switch off and on whenever they wanted, controlling which things you remember and which you forget, we hope you’d hold onto these thoughts: Why is the Genie from Aladdin afraid of commitment? Did a fourth grader create the world of Banjo-Kazooie, and what grade did he get for it? And, did I just get here, or is that guy with the lightswitch controlling my brain again? We’ll get to the bottom of it, assuming we can remember to.

Send us email at questions@importantiftrue.com. If you enjoyed this and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon.

Dicsussed: The return of NyQuil dreams, appearing on the local news, Disney’s Aladdin, co-dependent relationships, artificial memory augmentation in rats, Alien: Covenant, The Dempster Family (of products, and people), Banjo-Kazooie, stealing Banjo-Kazooie lore to cheat on Creative Writing homework

Endorsements from three old people:

Nick: Equator Coffee

Chris: Travel packing cubes

Jake: The British version of the Great British Bake-Off

 

• Listen on the Episode Page
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• Listen in iTunes

[Gamebeast23456]

I found a rare video of Chris's creative writing class: 

 

 

Chris, as another creative writing class bullshiter- I can say with some confidence that the reason we got away with this stuff is because that's what they expected. I remember through grades like 2-7 I spent most of my free time just plagiarizing wholesale whatever I was into. It was a way to work on my writing skills and patch over the fact that kids pretty much have no capacity to create stories because, well, they're kids. 

 

I remember tons of extremely specific moments where praise would be heaped upon my ability to obviously rip stuff off. I remember one time turning in a story that was like, weird semi-Starcraft fan fiction and it was gobbled up as if I was just making up weird space operas on my own. I still think this sort of writing was preferable because it meant that the kids are engaging, in some way, with the media around them and are able to recontextualize or just understand it in a way that isn't necessarily intuitive. 

[SecretAsianMan]

There is a (very weak) explanation for why the genie won't save Aladdin's life without a wish.  After realizing he's been tricked out of a wish, the genie tells him "Well, don't I feel just sheepish?  All right, you baaaaad boy, but no more freebies."

 

 

Also at the end of Return of Jafar, Jafar's lamp is destroyed by Iago (the red parrot voiced by Gilbert Gottfried).  The animated series follows the events of Return of Jafar in which Iago is a (relatively) good guy.

[RubixsQube]

I think that Alien sequel is called

 

LIAEN: OVEN CANT

[Ninja Dodo]

Still listening to the rest of the cast but the comment about making Beauty & the Beast less about Stockholm Syndrome in the live-action version reminded me of this video:

 

 

[SL128]

Where's the local news clip? I tried to find it, but failed.

[RubixsQube]

  On 4/28/2017 at 4:39 PM, SL128 said:

Where's the local news clip? I tried to find it, but failed.

 

You can watch it here.

[Jake]

  On 4/28/2017 at 4:39 PM, SL128 said:

Where's the local news clip? I tried to find it, but failed.

its linked in the show notes!

[SecretAsianMan]

  On 4/28/2017 at 9:22 PM, Jake said:

its linked in the show notes!

 

Skip to about 1:10 for old man Remo

[TangoCharlie]

Re: plagiarism

 

For a creative writing assignment (or something like that) in elementary school, I basically copy-pasted the text from a Readme that came with (ATTENTION JAKE) the Macintosh extension "The Talking Moose." It wasn't just regular old readme stuff, I remember it being an exhaustive, amusing backstory for the Talking Moose.

 

Obviously my teacher detected the plagiarism and confronted me with it at a parent-teacher interview. She and my dad prodded me to fess up to the plagiarism, but I stayed on-message and claimed it was my own work. Dad knew it wasn't, but it's possible my teacher earnestly wondered if it was – I apparently had established myself as being a decent-enough writer that there would be a shadow of a doubt. Either way, for some reason dad didn't straight-up narc me out. He gave me a real earful on the walk home though.

 

I also used to trace pictures of horses out of books and give them to girls to get their attention, and will you be surprised to learn that it was effective?

 

I am now rich beyond belief after selling a series of immaculately forged Jackson Pollock paintings. Do not tell anyone.

[TangoCharlie]

Also, re: Great British Bake-Off

 

1) apparently the hosts, Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, kept the show from participating in the worst tendencies of reality TV. If one of the contestants started to cry or fall apart, our hosts would swoop in and start swearing and making rude gestures toward the camera to effectively ruin the footage. Not sure how accurate this is or how often it happened (might be apocryphal), but it suits their character and is nice to believe.

 

2) If you love Sue as much as I do, you owe it to yourself to investigate "The 99p Challenge" -

 

You will recognize some of the guests as now being Famous People.

[Jake]

Oh man The Talking Moose holy shit. Stone cold classic Macintosh Extension. 

[MarkHoog]

Is it me or does Nick Breckon with a cold sound like a fully Americanized Spaff?

[Patrick R]

If I could wake up tomorrow as a three year old with all my knowledge I think the first thing I'd do is plagiarize the rich and vibrant world of Banjo Kazooie and sit back and watch the bucks roll in.

 

This was a very good episode and I think if I was trying to show someone what this show was about I would point them to this.

[randosity42]

  On 4/28/2017 at 9:22 PM, Jake said:

its linked in the show notes!

*sigh*...teens don't use flash player anymore.

[Jake]

  On 4/29/2017 at 2:19 PM, randosity42 said:

*sigh*...teens don't use flash player anymore.

I know. I think that is the only place to see it. I don't have flash so I took other people's word for it. 

[Scylo]

On the creative writing thing - In sixth grade, we were divided into pairs to write a story together. My friend and I, we both played a lot of N64 so we decided to use the game we had recently played a lot as an inspiration. That game was Conkers Bad Fur Day. 

 

The teacher did not enjoy our story.

[Patrick R]

I don't think Chris Remo is featured in the linked newsclip, for what it's worth.

[Kyir]

The topic of weird fictional rules and the implications of memory alteration reminded me of an email I started writing around the third IIT cast that ended up much to long to send in. It's about the presence of a vast wizarding conspiracy in the Harry Potter series, but this seems like as good a time to post it as any:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Hi Thumbs,

 

For your consideration, I would like to posit the existence of a powerful wizard-run Illuminati in the Harry Potter setting that manipulates all of magical society from the shadows. I believe JK Rowling hints at this fact throughout the series, and that observing this drastically changes the way in which the books should be read. I present the following as evidence:

 

1. The first book establishes that there are means of extending a wizard’s lifespan for significant periods of time. Wizarding ability appears to increase with age (at least to some degree,) and as such it is reasonable to assume that wizards would achieve incredible power by the end of unnaturally long lifespans.

2. The use of memory-altering magic is persistent throughout the series, as is evidence of the  transitive nature of factual evidence in the wizarding world (moving photographs, self-altering text, etc.) Wizards do not seem to realize the problems this could cause, and many of them show no compunctions about altering the memory of muggles despite serious health risks. In this state of affairs, it would be possible for a group of powerful individuals to conceal their presence from the wizarding world without halting their manipulation of it.

3. The current organization of wizarding society seems unlikely to have persisted naturally. The separation from the muggle world may have made sense at its inception, given the dangers of witch hunts and the general superiority of magic at the time, but the modern world has much to offer wizards (clinical trial design to increase potion safety, actual dental care, health treatments that do not risk removing all of a person’s bones, etc.) For such ideas to not gradually seep into wizarding society despite the interplay of individuals between the two worlds suggests some active force preventing their implementation.

4. Efforts at educating individuals in government structure, sociology, or anything not directly pertaining to individual acts of magic are either underfunded or simply deemed unimportant. Qualifications for government and administrative positions appear to be largely based on personal connections or magic ability as opposed to any solid qualifications. Few options for higher education are available, to the point where dangerous texts are being kept at a school for children. A society with such poorly-defined qualifications for important jobs would be much easier to manipulate by a group of central individuals who control the power levers.

5. Furthermore, the basic laws of magic as understood by average wizards appear to make no sense, and go largely unquestioned despite this. The restriction on transmuting objects into food, for instance, suggests that “food” is a single classifiable type field. It fails to encompass the fact that some materials can only be classified as food for certain organisms, as well as failing to address the fact that some inedible materials can become edible with proper treatment. For a “law” of magic to be so devoid of meaning suggests intentional obfuscation regarding the true functioning of magic is taking place, likely to obscure the magic used by members of the Wizard Illuminati.

6. On the topic of power levers, the economy of the wizarding world likely would not be able to naturally function in its current state. Aside from the difficulty of establishing value when the creation of physical wealth can be achieved via magic, there appears to be a very weak correlation between employment and income. The Weasleys appear to subsist almost entirely on the income of one mid-level bureaucrat, and almost no instances of true poverty are presented despite the apparent capitalist nature of wizarding society. Similarly, few instances of egregious personal wealth are presented. The easiest way to explain the persistence of such a state of affairs is very micro-level manipulation of the economy through the central bank of Gringotts by one or more members of the Wizard Illuminati.

 

There are more specific pieces of evidence that could be presented, but I think this captures the broad points well enough to move on to the implications of such an organization’s presence in the Harry Potter series: that many of the key events of the book were orchestrated in an attempt to place an easily manipulatable pawn in the position of Minister of Magic, namely Harry himself.

 

The jubilation provoked by Harry’s mere arrival in the Leaky Cauldron during the first book points to widespread propaganda efforts during his early life to bolster his reputation and create the legend surrounding him. The reaction he receives seems otherwise improbable for a child who has been out of sight for multiple years even after seemingly mysterious events. The further close attention he receives from both the Minister of Magic and Dumbledore himself indicate that both are aware, if not members of, the plot to elevate Harry to a position of power, since both men would surely otherwise have more important things to do otherwise. This raises the question of whether or not Voldemort was also engaged in this plot to some degree, or if he was simply an unwitting pawn of powers greater than his own who saw fit to allow his actions until a hero could be put in place to defeat him.

 

I could go on, but I think I’ve made an incredibly airtight and well-supported case for the existence of a Wizard Illuminati.

 

- Kyir

 

 

[Jake]

  On 4/29/2017 at 5:40 PM, Patrick R said:

I don't think Chris Remo is featured in the linked newsclip, for what it's worth.

Uh

 

 

Really though you're right. I have no idea where the clip featuring Chris is.

 

I think hes he's been edited out of the video. OR I TRAVELED HERE FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION WHERE CHRIS WAS INTERVIEWED!!! 

[Patrick R]

Hey hey hey

[Smurfton]

Memories are actually really easy to give to people accidentally, especially children. This is the actual reason that you aren't allowed to ask leading questions in court; supplying information that the witness hasn't given, but seems plausible, has a pretty good chance of changing the witness' mind to include that detail. It's likely that there are a lot of people who've wound up in prison because of people remembering things that didn't happen.

 

"People viewed slides of a red Datsun passing a stop sign and then smacking a pedestrian. The experimenters asked the subjects a number of questions, some of which are a little misleading, like, “Did another car pass the red Datsun while it was stopped at the yield sign?” The subject thinks for a moment and then says to herself, No, I definitely didn’t see any other cars next to that yield sign. And voilà, the sign has changed in their minds."

 

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/11/remembering-childhood-trauma-and-abuse-that-never-happened.html

[SecretAsianMan]

  On 4/29/2017 at 7:01 PM, Jake said:

Really though you're right. I have no idea where the clip featuring Chris is.

 

I think hes he's been edited out of the video. OR I TRAVELED HERE FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION WHERE CHRIS WAS INTERVIEWED!!! 

 

The video featuring Chris isn't the one at the top, it's further down the page. 

 

Here's the direct link (as I said before, skip to 1:10 for old man Remo)

[newgameplus]

A bit late, but for the record, PBS did actually air marathons of the GBBO: Masterclass. PBS' 3 seasons are also available on Netflix, it's just technically a separate show. Also for anyone wondering, PBS' seasons 1, 2, and 3 respectively correspond very oddly to BBC's series 5, 4, and 6.

[Urthman]

I am irrationally irritated to discover that Chris's "packing cubes" are not actually cubes.