# I've seen the future, and this is it: **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 26, 2009, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486 "2009-02-26T05:57:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/221 "2009-02-27T21:22:11Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Huh? What? > > Oh, don’t mind me…I’m just playin’ out rope. Is that an admission of trolling? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/222 "2009-02-27T21:24:42Z")
Shhh. Don’t interrupt him, he’s halfway to the noose… ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/223 "2009-02-27T21:26:49Z")
BWAHAHAHAHA! Nope, I’m just giving the delightfully idiotic **MsWhatever** enough rope to hang herself. Eventually people will tire of her silly ‘Plagiarizer, plagiarizer, neener, neener, neener’ routine and start to tell her how stupid she’s making herself look. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/224 "2009-02-27T21:30:47Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > To render this tiresome point simplistic: if there is no actual “author”, then a thing like this cannot be “plagiarized” in the sense that there is no one to steal it _from_. There’s always an actual author (or authors). These things don’t come into being through spontaneous generation, someone has to sit down and write them. “I don’t know who the original author was” is not the same thing as “There was no author so I can do what I like with it.” In this particular case, the original author was not even some anonymous glurgemeister who wanted his or her work to be distributed freely, but rather a staff writer for nationally-known humor publication _The Onion_. The article is under copyright to _The Onion_. This is hardly a unique situation, a lot of glurge is stolen from newspapers and other published material. On a message board I wouldn’t expect someone to put much effort into tracking down an unknown author, but this doesn’t mean there’s no need to acknowledge that there _was_ an unknown author. It would have been sufficient for the OP to say “I found this in my inbox today. It may be a parody, but I’ve seen the future, and this is it.” (Although even in that case quoting the WHOLE article would have been against the rules.) > [@](#): > > \*Mere pretense, allowing you to assume that one is the author, doesn’t rise to the level of “plagiarism”. \*Yes, it does. Pretending that you have written something that was actually written by someone else is exactly what plagiarism is. And posting a message under one’s own user account is more than merely “allowing [others] to assume that one is the author”. Now, if **Starving Artist** had just said, “Whoops, I wasn’t really thinking about the need to cite something like this. I didn’t mean to look like I was claiming credit for that parody. Sorry, all” then I wouldn’t have felt any need to post in this thread. People make mistakes, and a message board post isn’t a term paper. Instead he’s repeatedly claimed that what he did wasn’t plagiarism when it was, and he’s repeatedly tried to put the blame on other posters by saying that it should have been obvious to them that he didn’t write the parody himself even though the OP gave no indication of this. “You should have known that the unsourced material I posted wasn’t really my own work!” is hardly a defense against accusations of plagiarism (or copyright violation, for that matter). I have to say that while I haven’t generally _agreed_ with **Starving Artist** ’s posts in the past, my impression of him was that he was a decent and friendly poster. Maybe I just hadn’t read enough of his posts. It’s disappointing to see what a nasty little weasel he really is. ---
**Author:** ![Brad\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8dc957/32.png) [@Brad\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brad_the_Impaler)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/225 "2009-02-27T21:31:35Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > BWAHAHAHAHA! > > Nope, I’m just giving the delightfully idiotic **MsWhatever** enough rope to hang herself. Eventually people will tire of her silly ‘Plagiarizer, plagiarizer, neener, neener, neener’ routine and start to tell her how stupid she’s making herself look. Wow. You are so dense you think we are laughing WITH you, huh? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/226 "2009-02-27T21:33:13Z")
There was no plagiarism back in the Fifties, right? ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/227 "2009-02-27T21:35:03Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > BWAHAHAHAHA! > > Nope, I’m just giving the delightfully idiotic **MsWhatever** enough rope to hang herself. Eventually people will tire of her silly ‘Plagiarizer, plagiarizer, neener, neener, neener’ routine and start to tell her how stupid she’s making herself look. A troll is someone who posts something on a message board (or other Internet forum) specifically to get a reaction from someone else. Much like you have just posted that you are doing with your posts now. I am explaining this to give you the benefit of the doubt, as someone who does not understand what plagiarism is probably does not understand what trolling is, either. It appears to me that now, in addition to being a plagiarist, you are trolling. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/228 "2009-02-27T21:47:34Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > A troll is someone who posts something on a message board (or other Internet forum) specifically to get a reaction from someone else. Much like you have just posted that you are doing with your posts now. I am explaining this to give you the benefit of the doubt, as someone who does not understand what plagiarism is probably does not understand what trolling is, either. It appears to me that now, in addition to being a plagiarist, you are trolling. By ignoring you and not responding to your silly taunts I’m trolling? > [@Brad the Inhaler](#): > > Wow. You are so dense you think we are laughing WITH you, huh? There are plenty of honest posters on this board who will eventually call her on her silly shit regardless of what they think of me. In other words, I wasn’t talking about people of your ilk. [quote=Lamia] Now, if Starving Artist had just said, “Whoops, I wasn’t really thinking about the need to cite something like this. I didn’t mean to look like I was claiming credit for that parody. Sorry, all”…[/quoteI’ve said this before. I give what I get. If people had approached me and said, “You know, **Starv** , that originally appeared in the Onion ten years ago, you might want to give attribution”, I’d have been more than happy to do that and to explain how I came to find it. I had nothing invested in people thinking I wrote it and my posting hisory here is one of always giving attribution when I have it, and more to just let people know its provenance than to make clear I didn’t write it. I just don’t think in those terms, so it should come as no surprise that I didn’t think that way when posting the OP. Make of that, and me, what you will. ---
**Author:** ![Brad\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8dc957/32.png) [@Brad\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brad_the_Impaler)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/229 "2009-02-27T21:52:56Z")
And just what is my ilk? Not a thief? Not a liar? Honest? Spit it out. Or, go find a good insult and C&P it here, which ever works for you. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/230 "2009-02-27T21:54:23Z")
More classy 1950s-style invective, I see. **Plagiarizing Artist** , you are a plagiarist and a troll. Claiming that you “just don’t think that way” and therefore can’t be held responsible for posting someone else’s words _verbatim, as your own_, is ridicule-worthy. Posting that you are saying things merely to get a rise out of someone else is trolling. I’m sure you’re right, and any minute now legions of your supporters will rise out of the woodwork to, as you so cleverly and wittily put it in your 1950s-era jargon, “call me on my silly shit.” But I’m not holding my breath. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/231 "2009-02-27T21:54:47Z")
> [@Brad\_the\_Impaler](#): > > And just what is my ilk? I don’t like that word “ilk”. It sounds sinister and unAmerican. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/232 "2009-02-27T21:58:31Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > (Bolding mine.) > > It used to be possible to have that kind of lifestyle on one income. When was that? Oh yeah, back in the Fifties. Hmm. Musta been those uber-capitalist liberals that screwed everything up. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/233 "2009-02-27T22:02:35Z")
Got ilk? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/234 "2009-02-27T22:09:17Z")
Hey, shaddup, you damned crickets! You’re drowning out the posters rushing to\*\* Starker’s \*\*defense, here! OK,next! Next? Well, while we wait, we’ll just get through a few of the posters lining up to tell **SA** what an utter tool he is. What? OK, sure, why not, alphabetical order… (ahem) Aardvaark, Aaron A… ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/235 "2009-02-27T22:20:12Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Hey, shaddup, you damned crickets! You’re drowning out the posters rushing to\*\* Starker’s \*\*defense, here! OK,next! Next? Moar cricketz ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/236 "2009-02-27T22:46:06Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > I have to say that while I haven’t generally _agreed_ with **Starving Artist** ’s posts in the past, my impression of him was that he was a decent and friendly poster. Maybe I just hadn’t read enough of his posts. It’s disappointing to see what a nasty little weasel he really is. That’s putting it mildly. Nearly _every_ thread that Starving is involved with, has him making some kind of wild claim about how things were in the past, getting called on it, and either throwing out the most _absurd_ cites to back up his arguments, or **not** posting cites and simply saying, “Take my word for it, I was there. I saw these things.” Invariably, someone with a good deal of cred on these boards, will promptly respond with hugely detailed citations from _excellent_ sources, refuting **every** claim of Starving, save that he was actually alive during the time period in question. Starving will try and handwave it all away with some kind of stupid remark, “I don’t care what the US government says, I was there! I never saw anything like that! Jim Crow laws might have been on the books, but they were never enforced! And people were _polite!_” or some such rot. Given that Starving is clearly a proud member of the Fightin’ Ignorant[sup]TM[/sup], I cannot see the justification for his continued presence on the boards. Granted, many people _do_ derive some entertainment from his absurdist ravenings, but unlike _some_ of the dipshits I’ve seen posting on these boards, I have **never** seen Starving post **anything** of merit in the other forums. Perhaps he does, but I doubt it. Still, as a comic, Starving is a pretty weak one, who relies on material which is a decade or more past its “sell by” date. What with all the concerns about unnecessary strains being placed on the SDMB servers, I’d say that banning Starving would be an **excellent** way to reduce that load. Not only would we no longer have posters stumbling all over one another to post complete beatdowns of Starving (which he’ll learn absolutely **nothing** from, as demonstrated by his near constant repetition of the same tired bullshit in _every_ thread), but we won’t have people hammering the search function here, looking for particular threads where Starving said something which either contradicts his current comments, or was also incredibly stupid, so they can hold that up for mockery as well. Additionally, it would give Starving more time to commit self-abuse in front of his picture of Eisenhower (as a former Democrat, and President in the 1980s, Reagan was _clearly_ too corrupted by liberal thought processes to be worthy of Starving’s “special” brand of worship) and self-flagellantion (done to punish himself for being so weak as to abuse himself, and soiling Ike with manjuices). That’s a win-win, if I ever saw it. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/237 "2009-02-27T22:53:29Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I’ve said this before. I give what I get. If people had approached me and said, “You know, **Starv** , that originally appeared in the Onion ten years ago, you might want to give attribution”, I’d have been more than happy to do that and to explain how I came to find it. It’s still plagiarism even if people are mean to you. And even with the new rules in effect, I don’t see that you had any reason to expect that people would correct you NICELY in a thread that you chose to put in the Pit. Although looking back at the beginning of the thread, the initial comments were quite mild. **ShibbOleth** identified the original source in [post #5](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10877054&postcount=5) and said “Don’t know if it’s considered plagiarism to post something, unattributed, that was initially plagiarized. Might just be poetic justice, or the latest GOP shill.” You [responded](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10877067&postcount=6) by saying you got the article in an e-mail. In the next post **askeptic** [adds](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10877104&postcount=7) “the best that can be said about you SA is you’re a plagiarist. Funny how you didn’t mention the copy and paste in the OP.” Pretty tame stuff. I think you could have ended things there if you’d admitted then that you’d made a mistake and apologized for any confusion. No garment-rending necessary, something like “Sorry, I didn’t intend to claim credit for that parody. I just wanted to share it and didn’t think about attributing it. My mistake” probably would have been sufficient. (It would have been enough for _me_, at least.) Instead you [responded](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10877119&postcount=8) by blaming others for your own sloppy posting, claiming that the phrase “I’ve seen the future” in the thread title should have been indication enough “that it was something I came upon rather than something I wrote myself”. I think it was THIS more than the OP that really started to tick other people off. Anyone can make a mistake, but the right thing to do is admit it, not go on in post after post denying that you did anything wrong, trying to paint yourself as the victim, and arguing that the whole thing was other people’s fault anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/238 "2009-02-27T23:09:54Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > It’s still plagiarism even if people are mean to you. And even with the new rules in effect, I don’t see that you had any reason to expect that people would correct you NICELY in a thread that you chose to put in the Pit. I didn’t have any expectation that people would correct me or anything else nicely when I put it in the Pit. That’s _why_ I put it in the Pit. I knew some would think it was funny, some would see an element of truth, and some would want to act like assholes. And I’m no longer in the habit of trying to be polite and reasonable to people who decline to show me the same. I did that in my early years here and it accomplished nothing…pretty much like my reasonable explanations and apology here accomplished nothing. I’m an outspoken conservative and critic of liberalism and that is what this whole brouhaha is about. Nothing I could have said, no matter how polite or tactfully phrased, would have altered the nature of this thread at all. If I had done the type of mea culpa you’re suggesting, it would still have resulted in the same accusations of trying to sneak one in, of posting in the hopes that no one would find out where it came from, etc., etc., that have gone on since. Look at **Tuckerfan’s** glurge above. It’s large and it’s full of lies and misrepresentatioins and it has very little to do with the subject of this thread. And the phrase “I’ve seen the future” should have been enough. I’ve posted plenty of evidence in this thread to back it up. I have to leave now for a birthday party. I’ll look forward to reading your response when I return. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/239 "2009-02-28T00:35:29Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And the phrase “I’ve seen the future” should have been enough. No, it shouldn’t have, and I have a really hard time believing that you honestly think that. If you do then you don’t understand what plagiarism is at all. The only thing that would have “been enough” was a clear and unambiguous statement that you got the content of your post from somewhere else. Anything less than that is plagiarism. > [@](#): > > \*I’ve posted plenty of evidence in this thread to back it up. \*No, you haven’t. You haven’t posted _any_ evidence, just a quote about Bruce Springsteen and repeated claims that this somehow proves your point. It doesn’t. A rock critic who says “I’ve seen the future of rock and roll, and it is Bruce Springsteen” is making a prediction and using this as an introduction to his own original comments about Springsteen. If he wrote “I’ve seen the future…” and followed it up with someone else’s article about The Boss then that would be plagiarism. In no way does the phrase “I’ve seen the future” even HINT that you are about to begin quoting someone else’s writing. (Not that hinting would be sufficient to avoid plagiarism. You can’t merely _imply_ that you’re not the original author.) “I’ve seen the future” is simply a claim that you know what the future will be like. “I’ve seen the future” doesn’t mean “I wrote the rest of this myself” and it doesn’t mean “I didn’t write the rest of this myself”. It has nothing to do with authorship at all. Not even a little. I’d be willing to bet that you are the first person in the history of the English language who’s ever attempted to suggest that it did. You might as well say “It should have been enough that I wrote the post in February”. As we like to remind ourselves from time to time, this board is supposed to be about fighting ignorance. If you have suffered from some genuine misunderstanding as to what constitutes plagiarism then I think I have now done all that I can to clear that up. It’s been a busman’s holiday for me since I have to do the “avoiding plagiarism” presentation all the time at work, but fighting ignorance is fighting ignorance. Still, I can see when I’m beat. If after all this you still want to insist that “the phrase ‘I’ve seen the future’ should have been enough” then that’s it for me. I’ll be forced to conclude that you’re either hopelessly ignorant or an utterly shameless liar, and either way I have better things to do with my time.\* \*I haven’t even played Kingdom of Loathing today! ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486/240 "2009-02-28T01:03:13Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > I cannot see the justification for his continued presence on the boards. Two things: First, we can’t fight ignorance unless somebody brings it to us; and second, I decided a long time ago that you don’t fight ignorance out of the ignorant, you remove it from the audience to the fight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-seen-the-future-and-this-is-it/487486.md?page=13)