The opebo challenge

[tik 🪀✨]

This is a mind exercise in which one poster offers a topic and the next poster finds a way to explain it by relating/blaming it on capitalism, the owning class, etc. They then create a new subject for the next poster.

The person who replies also rates the previous poster's response out of 10, 10 being pure opebo goodness. I'll tally scores and the first to reach over 100 wins. Then I'll close the thread.

Be creative in seeing just how far you can go to tie them together. Bonus points for advising rebellion and use of guillotines.

To get things started: Why isn't prostitution legal?

----- SCOREBOARD ------
Ernest: 16 (8+1, 7)
BRTD: 9 (1+1, 7)
Tik: 14 (4+1, 3, 6)
HockeyDude: 7 (7)
Averroës: 6 (6)
a Person: 6.5 (6.5)
wormyguy: 5 (5)
IndyTexas: 5 (5)
Zanas: 4 (4)
JBrase: 4 (4)
DC Al Fine: 3 (3)
Sanchez: 2 (2)
cheesepizza: 2 (2)
-------------------------

PLEASE RATE THE PREVIOUS POSTER'S ANSWER. Just the last one. Also remember that you don't need to speak like opebo himself (although it's fun and you might get a better score), you just need to tie the topic to the rich elite, capitalism, etc.

[CatoMinor]

Well this is one case where the rulers of the Bad Place slipped up. Places like Nevada have learned already that a happy distracted poor is much less likely to care about ending the Ancien Regime.


Coke vs Pepsi

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Eh 4. opebo himself explained why it doesn't work very well, plus it's too brief. But "The Bad Place" is a needed touch.

Obviously both are gross and no one but American dumbs would drink them. Both are full of crap like HFCS that just makes dumbs who drink it into fats and tastes gross. This is all because dumbs will eat whatever the owning class gives them and don't know any better since the owners are so good at keeping good stuff away and will continue to do so until they get the guillotine.

Why don't scene shows ever happen in suburbs?

[tpfkaw]

BRTD: 1/10
Jbrase: 2/10

The red drink is of course vastly superior to the blue drink, which is consumed by only the most uncivilized people.  Here in Thailand one can still get the red drink with real sugar instead of that swill they serve in the Bad Place.  One of my ladyboys is enjoying a refreshing red drink right now.  You can't get the blue drink here.

Belly button lint.

[opebo]

Just to jump in - the system in the USA is most definitely not the Ancien Régime, and also please don't forget that the thread originator asked that you rate the previous poster's effort before contributing your own.

Good thread idea and skip me.

[tik 🪀✨]

Just a reminder to rate the previous posters response out of 10, because it makes it more fun and if you don't I'll be rather irritated and I'll send you personal messages full of angst.

Oh, opebo beat me to it. Good on you. Skip us both, of course. BRTD and wormyguy both responded to JBrase's question. Whoever is next can respond to either.

[DC Al Fine]

6/10

Byproduct of the parasitic ruling class needing to keep the workers fat. They feed us cheap fatty foods to keep us happy. Excess fat leads to excess fat in the stool and hence anal seepage.

Why do we have such a large excess of BA's & PhD's? Wouldn't the ruling class want such people working in more productive fields?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

3/10. Covered a few of his topics but not too in depth.

The owners and ruling class get people to go for these rather than more productive and less educationally demanding occupations so they can fuel the educational industrial complex that benefits the owners so much, and get all the youngs hooked on student loan debt allowing more transfer of wealth from the poors to the owners. This also forces them to toil more for 40 hours a week if not more, and prevents a reasonable work law such as a 20 hour work week.

Why is it so hard to find parking in the Stevens Square neighborhood?

[Indy Texas]

7/10 - might have wanted to include something about bourgeois notions of education but I get the impression Opebo is more of a Marxist-Leninist than a Maoist

There is no parking in Stevens Square because forcing people to drive around incessantly to look for a parking space makes them spend more money on gasoline sold to them by the oil companies, which forces us to fund the military-industrial complex to find more sources of oil, which creates even more revenue for the capitalist pigs.

[Zanas]

You didn't provide us with a new topic IndyTX.

[The Simpsons Cinematic Universe]

You didn't provide us with a new topic IndyTX.

Neither did you.

[tik 🪀✨]

I sent a PM earlier. I was itching to do my own, too. If he doesn't sometime tomorrow (later today in the US I believe) I'll post a topic.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

You didn't provide us with a new topic IndyTX.

IndyTX did not provide us with a new topic because he is a poor and he probably got called in to toil away at his minimum wage indentured servitude, n'est ce pas?  Such is the plight of the capitalist system.  Oh despair!

I went to grab my coffee this morning and it was not as hot as it usually is when it's straight from the pot.  Why is this so? 

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

7/10

Well if coffee pots have a social conscious perhaps it is coming to realize that caffeine is yet one more tool used by capital to oppress labor.  After all, it keeps the workers energetic and productive during the hours they are required to toil for inadequate wages, but at a cost not simply to the economic well-being of the masses and to the health and contemplation.  Plus let us not ignore that all the contrived rituals associated with coffee consumption serve as replacement for the religion that many of the more aware proletariat are shunning.

The next time there is one of these urban protests, it should not be McDonalds that is the target of all the ire.  Rather Starbucks and its ilk should be ransacked and their barristas steamed by their own espresso machines.

That does bring to mind the question of why some workers such as the aforementioned barristas are willing assistants in their own exploitation?

[Indy Texas]

You didn't provide us with a new topic IndyTX.

IndyTX did not provide us with a new topic because he is a poor and he probably got called in to toil away at his minimum wage indentured servitude, n'est ce pas?  Such is the plight of the capitalist system.  Oh despair!

I went to grab my coffee this morning and it was not as hot as it usually is when it's straight from the pot.  Why is this so? 

I actually was at work most of the day today and wasn't able to post anything, though I did get the message. My apologies!

So here's a late question (and a hard one)...

How come the housekeeper always tells you to buy her more cleaning products and gets all specific about what kind and variety and whatnot and gets annoyed when you forget? Why doesn't she just charge more per hour and take into account the cost of bringing her own cleaning supplies with her?

[tik 🪀✨]

To tie off a few loose ends, I give IndyTexas a 5/10 (HockeyDude forgot to score, probably because it slipped his mind while he festered in endless toil). I found the connections made a little tenuous, although more or less opebo-esque.

To Ernest I give an 8/10. He took a difficult topic and managed to squeeze in why it continues the subjugation of the working class. He also seamlessly tied in a call for violent protest as well as his question.

Now there are two questions, and I will answer both of them. Because I'm greedy.

That does bring to mind the question of why some workers such as the aforementioned barristas are willing assistants in their own exploitation?

The barristas, ignorant poors that they are, have been brought up under the tutelage of an education system that seeks to further their own slavery by instilling in them the false hope of future prosperity. Toil longer, sweat more, and perhaps one day your band, your screenplay, or your mind will be discovered. Pampered into thinking they can one day become an owner, they have given up on finding better, secure work in the hopes of winning the capitalist lottery. Were they to discover this exploitation, surely boiling hot water would find its way into the laps of their betters.

How come the housekeeper always tells you to buy her more cleaning products and gets all specific about what kind and variety and whatnot and gets annoyed when you forget? Why doesn't she just charge more per hour and take into account the cost of bringing her own cleaning supplies with her?

Ah, the housekeeper. Back in my days of leisure our housekeeper was a snappy young thing, always bustling around the house patiently cleaning the commodes and hallways. My father had his eye on her, as did I. Even now I occassionally find a working girl with a duster that sends a quiver up my spine. But I digress...

Our housekeeper did not come with her own cleaning supplies, either, besides her hands. We probably didn't pay her enough to do so, and she had barely any means to transport them to and fro anyway. I suspect therein lies the problem: a meager wage for work that even the ruling class typically associates with browns especially; and browns should be happy with whatever stale crumbs fall from the table.
Feel free to grade me once for each. And if anyone else happens to find two unanswered questions, whatever, go for it. Too many things to remember I guess. Anyway, my question is this: Why don't we having accessible flying automobiles yet?

[Zanas]

I'll give Tik a 4 on baristas and a 3 on housekeepers : you just covered the basics, but didn't put too much effort in it.

Cheesepizza shall have a 2 on flying cars, and it would have been a one save for the guillotine.

Now why is the sky blue my fellows ? Actually, the sky hasn't always been blue. In the ancient days, before the Middle Ages, there were only three basic colors, and they were white, black and red. All other colors were a combination of these one. Blue, was a type of red that would have been deviated towards a purple tone, with a touch of black. So, you see, actually, the sky in those days and in the minds and writings of those people was made of nuances of black and red. It is still black at night by the way, and you know that the Sun is really some kind of red, so that makes perfect sense.

And in the political symbolic, what trends are embodied by the colors black and red ? Yes, you nailed it. Black is anarchy, but it is originally "organized anarchy", the revolutionaries of the French 19th century used it as their flag, and floated it on Paris city hall in 1830. To copy them, the communist revolutionaries adopted a color of their own : and what color could possibly serve that purpose better that the other color of the sky, red ? The red flag is tainted by the blood of the innocents, I'll grant you that, but it's also certainly the color of the Sun rising upon the world.

So you can now fully understand why the capitalist bourgeoisie needed to implement the idea that the day sky was really not red or black, but blue, which they chose as their symbolic color nowadays. Your inversion of the colors of the left and the right, that dates back to only 2000, is rather heretic in that prospect, and the media pundits that enabled it should be hunted down and shot. Maybe they would bleed blue blood...


So, why is it that you can't lick your own elbow ?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

The pro God capitalist machine designed human beings to be unable to lick their own elbows to keep them chained under the rule of oilgarchs. Wage Slavery, Plantations, etc, etc.

Why has Communism failed?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

2/10

That communism has failed is a bourgeois myth.  It has unfortunately been sabotaged by reactionary forces who rightly fear that if the proletariat were to gain proper class consciousness they would be sent to their guillotines for their crimes against poors.  That is why the dictatorship of the people had been thought essential, yet the cunning running dogs have so far managed to subvert such dictatorships for their own purposes and thus promote the mistaken belief that communism has failed.  Thus we can see that despite our strong desire for communism in our time we cannot rush the historical dialectic and must realize that we must wait until the world-wide proletariat has proper class consciousness before attempting to implement communism.

Will the internets prove to be a means of raising class consciousness, or are things such as facial book a new opiate being fed to the masses?

[opebo]

Overall I'm not terribly impressed, guys.  I think you need to try harder to put yourselves in my shoes.

Going back over it a bit I'd say Hockeydude was hitting a right note on tone (though a very short post), and Tik's was the best overall.

[CatoMinor]

opebo: 4/10

Hockeydude and Tik seem to have the right idea. For Hockeydude, I'd say that he has the advantage of being a prisoner of the Bad Place and is self aware enough to realize just how hopeless the situation is. (That is until enough poors become well acquainted with their truest champion:

)
As for the rest I have to say I am not too impressed. You all can do much better than this.


The Great Leap Forward

[tik 🪀✨]

I'm giving Zanas a 4 as, while it is quite bizarre, it did have some interesting ideas and managed to sort of tie to the theme of things. While making big leaps in logic to reach the point is commendable, having them sort of seem to have a basis in reality is always a plus.

Ernest I give an 7. Quite the enlightening little diatribe, that was. Perhaps I do not exercise my mind enough, as I had never thought of it in such a way. Well done. It would have been a little higher, though, had the subject matter been more difficult. That is to say, more ridiculous.

And to opebo I'd say (and I will) that even though this game is clearly in your honour, it isn't exactly supposed to be "post as though you are opebo" but, rather, tie everything to capitalism's failings, revolution, etc etc. Nevertheless, thanks for the compliment for my efforts. Anyway, to reply to Ernest:

Of course the internet can be used as tool for expanding the awareness of class consciousness. What are we doing here right now? Although the myface isn't exactly bursting at the seams with the debates of the intelligentsia, on the whole we exist in a unique timeframe where everyone can compare themselves to everyone else. And if they were more honest, they'd see their paltry earnings pale in comparison to their masters, and organise. Instead they obsess not with the vast canyon between themselves and the elite, but rather the ditch between themselves and their own neighbours. This is something that will change - must change - given enough time, and if the interwebs remain unshackled, as more and more realise their despair is not only preventable but easily fixable. God help us if the destitutes remain locked in to ogling over each others' golden bracelets and well manicured lawns for too long, however, as their own homes and cities fall down around them. Such is life in the Bad Place for the many at the moment. The elites are right to hoard their wealth in this day and age, as the shimmer of their bloody treasure surely beats the inevitable sheen of the falling blade.

Which reminds me, naturally: Why does it take so long for the smell of citrus to leave my hands after I've eaten an orange?

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

6/10.

Why does it take so long for the smell of citrus to leave my hands after I've eaten an orange?
Well, the owning class, I'm sure we all know by now, likes to keep its slaves fat and thus harmless. And one way they do that is by taking those who try to break this unspoken rule and singling them out, marking them as different. Having the smell of citrus on your hands thus loudly proclaims that you are a traitor against capitalism and so on.

Why is it impossible to square the circle?

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

6.5/10

Why is it impossible to square the circle?
Maths such as these are obviously able to be done, prude. 



Huzzah!  I've done it, as you see.  Naturally, it is within the interests of the owning class to keep toiling poors preoccupied with "mathematical inquiries" such as squaring the circle.  The dumbs in the toiling class will never figure out how to square the circle.  Smarts in the toiling class will square it, and question why they say it's impossible.  This of course distracts them whilst the owning capitalists live off their labors. 

[tik 🪀✨]

Got a new query for us, there, sunshine?