Bill Maher Gets Something Right

[Eric Arthur Blair]

Bill Maher slammed for disrespecting Stan Lee, questioning the importance of comic books
About once a year loud mouth Bill Mahrer actually takes an intelligent stand. The last time I saw that he and Sam Harris were facing the awesome stupidity of Ben Affleck trying to defend Islam's tendency to kill those people that disagree with their insane religion.

This time Maher has dared to comment negatively on the outpouring of love for the departed Stan Lee and how he is being venerated now as some cultural icon when he really was just a guy who put out schlocky comic books which are a testament to our dumbed down society and how stupid the comic book reading public really is. I have to agree.

People used to actually read books and have thoughts and ideas and things. Now it's perfectly okay to be a comic book nerd who can explain why gamma rays turn Bruce Banner into the Hulk but have little to no idea of any importance. It's like the grown men that wear sports jerseys and baseball caps and listen to sports radio all day. They are virtual morons and pop culture makes their perpetual adolescence funny and a good thing. It is not.

It may be harmless to be a forty year old goofball who lives for his comic book collection and
fantasy football team but that's a brain that is operating at a severely reduced capacity
and that can't be a good thing.

It's okay to like Stan Lee. Let's not get carried away and think he is some untouchable sacred societal cow however. He's a man who spent his entire adult life making stupid comic books for stupid people. By the way, he was not "universally loved".
No one is universally loved.

 

[Rambunctious]

Bill Mahrer is an angry bitter rich fool that hates the nation that made him rich beyond his wildest dreams....

 

[Hossfly]

Bill Maher slammed for disrespecting Stan Lee, questioning the importance of comic books
About once a year loud mouth Bill Mahrer actually takes an intelligent stand. The last time I saw that he and Sam Harris were facing the awesome stupidity of Ben Affleck trying to defend Islam's tendency to kill those people that disagree with their insane religion.

This time Maher has dared to comment negatively on the outpouring of love for the departed Stan Lee and how he is being venerated now as some cultural icon when he really was just a guy who put out schlocky comic books which are a testament to our dumbed down society and how stupid the comic book reading public really is. I have to agree.

People used to actually read books and have thoughts and ideas and things. Now it's perfectly okay to be a comic book nerd who can explain why gamma rays turn Bruce Banner into the Hulk but have little to no idea of any importance. It's like the grown men that wear sports jerseys and baseball caps and listen to sports radio all day. They are virtual morons and pop culture makes their perpetual adolescence funny and a good thing. It is not.

It may be harmless to be a forty year old goofball who lives for his comic book collection and
fantasy football team but that's a brain that is operating at a severely reduced capacity
and that can't be a good thing.

It's okay to like Stan Lee. Let's not get carried away and think he is some untouchable sacred societal cow however. He's a man who spent his entire adult life making stupid comic books for stupid people. By the way, he was not "universally loved".
No one is universally loved.

{By the way, he was not "universally loved".
No one is universally loved.}

Trump is.

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

Bill Mahrer is an angry bitter rich fool that hates the nation that made him rich beyond his wildest dreams....

Yeah but sometimes his rants are on target. This is one of those times.

 

[Supposn]

... People used to actually read books and have thoughts and ideas and things. ...

Eric Arthur Blair, regarding Bill Maher's recent “put-down” of comic books, their characters, and what he considers as their unjustifiable status within our society’s culture:
Has Mr. Maher walked that back a bit? I hope that’s the case. I appreciate the intelligence and humor Mr. Maher often demonstrates. If he’s too certain that his positions on some issues are irrefutably correct, many of us share that same characteristic.

Among my prejudices is my significantly lesser respect for people that believe certain species of music, or art, or other communications and expressions are “ghetto”, and beneath consideration by the decent and intelligent segments of our society. The extents of my prejudices are (understandably) more intense when others find fault with what’s more to my own preferences.

I was for many years a computer programmer and analyst. In the earlier days of the computing industry, asking managers of other departments being served by the enterprise’s data processing department, what they “wished the machine to do, if it senses this, (a specific) condition?” received no useful response.

Intelligent people couldn’t seem to conceive due to mechanical failures, or more usually conditions that programmers inadvertently failed to anticipate or entirely appreciate, by default their programming instructions could consequentially reach unintentional conclusions. Additionally, managers couldn’t seem to appreciate the difficulty for programming systems to be of the least inconvenience and difficulty to their staff or their clients, while also retaining desired confidentiality or lesser exposure to fraud.

But then. (it seemed within the span of few months), I perceived that managers were more understanding and readily eager to consider and answer my questions. What changed was comic page Dick Tracy character was then currently investigating a crime of computer-fraud. All of those managers did not suddenly register for night school classes, they and their children were reading the comics.

There are some benefits from anything encouraging people, (not just children), to read, empathize, think, and possibly exposing them to what otherwise would be less familiar facts, concepts, and opinions.​

Enjoying comic book characters or comic books is not an indication of superior intelligence, but regardless of Bill Maher's opinion, it's not an indicator of lesser intellect. I’ve encountered some very capable and intelligent adults that continue to enjoy comics. I’m just too stingy to pay today’s prices for what we remember as dime comics.

Respectfully, Supposn

 

[Skull Pilot]

Bill Mahrer is an angry bitter rich fool that hates the nation that made him rich beyond his wildest dreams....

and he can only talk tough on the idiot box because in real life most 12 year old girls could wipe the floor with him

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

... People used to actually read books and have thoughts and ideas and things. ...

Eric Arthur Blair, regarding Bill Maher's recent “put-down” of comic books, their characters, and what he considers as their unjustifiable status within our society’s culture:
Has Mr. Maher walked that back a bit? I hope that’s the case. I appreciate the intelligence and humor Mr. Maher often demonstrates. If he’s too certain that his positions on some issues are irrefutably correct, many of us share that same characteristic.

Among my prejudices is my significantly lesser respect for people that believe certain species of music, or art, or other communications and expressions are “ghetto”, and beneath consideration by the decent and intelligent segments of our society. The extents of my prejudices are (understandably) more intense when others find fault with what’s more to my own preferences.

I was for many years a computer programmer and analyst. In the earlier days of the computing industry, asking managers of other departments being served by the enterprise’s data processing department, what they “wished the machine to do, if it senses this, (a specific) condition?” received no useful response.

Intelligent people couldn’t seem to conceive due to mechanical failures, or more usually conditions that programmers inadvertently failed to anticipate or entirely appreciate, by default their programming instructions could consequentially reach unintentional conclusions. Additionally, managers couldn’t seem to appreciate the difficulty for programming systems to be of the least inconvenience and difficulty to their staff or their clients, while also retaining desired confidentiality or lesser exposure to fraud.

But then. (it seemed within the span of few months), I perceived that managers were more understanding and readily eager to consider and answer my questions. What changed was comic page Dick Tracy character was then currently investigating a crime of computer-fraud. All of those managers did not suddenly register for night school classes, they and their children were reading the comics.

There are some benefits from anything encouraging people, (not just children), to read, empathize, think, and possibly exposing them to what otherwise would be less familiar facts, concepts, and opinions.​

Enjoying comic book characters or comic books is not an indication of superior intelligence, but regardless of Bill Maher's opinion, it's not an indicator of lesser intellect. I’ve encountered some very capable and intelligent adults that continue to enjoy comics. I’m just too stingy to pay today’s prices for what we remember as dime comics.

Respectfully, Supposn

While enjoying comic books doesn't necessarily make one someone of lesser intelligence (I was a fan myself...when
I was much younger- I had several first addition issues of very popular Marvel comics, though I preferred DC)
there is no doubt that comic books are a low brow form of literature and that's what Maher was saying.

Adults used to be expected to eventually to move away from comic books and other juvenile forms of entertainment
and progress to more challenging and enlightening forms of reading, and other arts, but something happened a few decades ago and comic books and nerd-dom became a societal phenomenon that gave people permission and approval
if they decided to dwell in a permanent sort of adolescence in lieu of growing up and challenging their brains to accept and process more sophisticated and complex stuff.

I agree with Maher that treating Stan Lee like an untouchable sacred societal cow is absurd and if you like reading comic books still, all the years after most people have stored them away in dusty moldy boxes in their garages, that's fine.
But let's not forget what comic books are....entertainment intended for young still forming minds.

I don't eat donuts and fast food in place of actual nutritious meals. It's not good for you.