"Gone for the holidays" seems less and less likely; more likely he's gone for good, along with Boredalt and Zaryi (whom I believe still lurks, albeit very occasionally).
Personally I think this is unfortunate. It makes me feel guilty. Yet really it's not as simple as my being a douchebag. I think the real issue in each case was that they felt they had lost credibility. Nothing was more important to Eturnal than being seen as a superior and self-made man, but he was eventually revealed as a hypocrite, government dependent and debtor.
Boredalt always wanted to be seen as a chummy grandfather figure, but the final straw for him was when his remarks about secession were associated with racist Confederate sympathizer movements, and when it was pointed out that he was not the age of the grandparents of those in their 20s - the Greatest Generation - but the age of our parents, the generally despised Baby Boomers. And his attempts to vicariously live through the machismo of the younger generation fell flat with the revelation that they are so awash in sexuality as to have become completely jaded with it.
Zaryi was possessed of a need to be cool, popular and "in". After losing interest in WoW, becoming distanced from me and staking her e-rep on GW2 (only to find it to find that well, dug so deep, bone-dry), she became entranced by Jezebel and feminist ideology. If feminism is a misandry bubble, she was the poor sap who bought Facebook stock the day after the IPO...or showed up to a late 90s dinner party in a disco suit. Her efforts to affect Jezebel-type behaviors turned many people who were otherwise at least friendly further against her. I understand she still Facebooks with a lot of FUBUers. Whatever.
But I think there may have been more to Eturnal's story. He's known to work for the defense establishment as a contractor; he mentioned he was working with Android programming. I happened to mention that I had rooted my Droid phone to remove a program that is generally believed to be part of the spyware package that allows government authorities to control phones - something they did during OWS, shutting down phones or remotely activating their microphones to listen in on spoken conversations. He responded by linking an FAQ claiming the program (which is a black box with the broadest range of permissions available to a Droid program, including GPS, power status, and mic/camera control) was for "testing purposes". When I loudly declared this a lie, Eturnal, uncharacteristically, did not argue with or ridicule me.
I recently read
a very interesting article about riot control. The funny thing is, it's written in Eturnal's distinctive pen voice, particularly the overly casual language and syntax and use of sublative idioms. It wasn't actually written by Eturnal, of course (and is over 15 years old).
Eturnal was poorly educated, and uneducated people, who have a narrow frame of reference, easily adopt the linguistic mannerisms of the sparse materials they are compelled to read, usually for professional reasons.
This is why, for example, military people (almost invariably without liberal education) write in a particular way, usually heavy on begged questions, and, of course, that very stupid and obnoxious affectation of "(s)", something they do to give otherwise unimaginative and unintelligent writing the appearance of meticulousness and authority. This is contrary to the rule of English that nouns referring to both singulars and plurals default to the plural (counterpart of the rule that mixed groups of males and females default to the masculine), and sometimes even contrary-to-fact. Likewise, all feminists, who in spite of their walls of toilet paper degrees, are basically uneducated people and read nothing but each others' blogs and essays, all write in the same weird way (e.g., excessive use of inimical concessives).
This is also why the singularly stupid Tiandrad began to subconsciously adopt many of my own written mannerisms: he probably had read more of my ramblings than everything else he had ever read in his entire life combined .
Quote:
CORRECT
MEMO: Hot dogs
John,
Someone said he wanted hot dogs, so I asked around the office. I would like one hot dog, Bob would like two, and Liz would like three.
-Peter
RE: MEMO: Hot dogs
Peter,
I remembered each of you ordered different quantities of hot dogs. I didn't remember who asked for three hot dogs, but I remembered he left his purse on the table.
-John
Quote:
INCORRECT
MEMO: Hot dogs
John,
Someone said he or she wanted hot dog(s), so I asked around the office. I would like one hot dog, Bob would like two, and Liz would like three.
-Peter
RE: MEMO: Hot dogs
Peter,
I remembered each of you ordered different quantities of hot dog(s). I didn't remember who asked for three hot dogs, but I remembered he or she left his or her purse on the table.
-John
The purpose of good syntax is to make writing precise, flexible, efficient and interesting-to-read. Writing that is overloaded or heavy on grammar and "helper words" comes off as forced and uninteresting, and obscures meaning. Educated people, who are well-read from the works of diverse authors, eventually develop their own distinctive writing style. Bruce Lee once said that to master martial arts is to transcend any one fighting style; the same is true of mastering writing.
Anyway, it's my belief that Eturnal was employed, probably by the CIA, as a domestic paramilitary anti-political agent, a member of the teams that are responsible for putting down serious opposition to our two-party system.
Most people tend to approach this kind of speculation as paranoid, but we must remember that such people and jobs
factually exist, and Eturnal fit the profile: extreme far-right politics, xenophobic, grossly overpaid, from an extended family exclusively employed by the CIA and other black services. These kinds of people are invariably extremely far-right, as proven by their recurrent involvement in scandalous far-right activities (e.g., Iran-Contragate, Watergate, the murder of JFK and subsequent cover-up).
Because of the secret nature of their jobs, they are also invariably intensely anti-intellectual, very well paid and fascistic in loyalty. People who are left- or center-leaning, intellectually curious or ascetic are never considered for these jobs: because they are less-than-fully controllable, they are inherently a liability. (This is not particular to the American secret services, but true across all nations).
It's very possible Eturnal began to feel that questions about his employment, background and expertise (and his perhaps unwise, perhaps even illegal mention of his work with Droid programming) put him in a compromising position.
Whatever the case may be, it is unfortunate that some people feel driven away. I think about this a great deal, and it worries me; I often feel that we don't have as much to talk about, in large part because of the decline of WoW and our growing further apart as individuals. My own inimical personality also plays a major role, and this bothers me too.
