Just looked at my spam folder

There were some 300 unmoderated spam comments sitting in there, on pretty much every post on this blog, most from the same automated spammer account. As far as I can tell, that account has been deleted, but those comments remained.

Now, ordinarily I wouldn't lose sleep over this kind of thing, even though I actually ranted about these viral marketing idiots before. I will briefly reiterate my feelings on them: if you work at a company that relies on spam bots to market itself, you work for pathetic idiots and you are yourself a waste of human life. If I was given a choice between saving your life or the life of a mosquito, I'd choose the mosquito because, unlike you, its existence contributes to the global ecosystem in some small way.

What makes this awful is that, because of the sheer torrent of spam comments, I've never bothered to even look through them before. As a result, somebody made a legitimate comment on a post of mine a while ago, and it went unpublished until now because I never knew it existed. It was buried in piles of filth in my spam folder.

You know, I really don't want to lose faith, but when it becomes possible for a real person to be silenced by overzealous spam filters, because spammers have gotten so out of control that they pose a real threat to productivity, it really makes me feel awful for the state of humanity.

I can't state this enough: humanity prospers through community and cooperation. That is the only way. If you bother or even harm other people for your own gains, you are a blight upon all that makes the human race great. It's taken us so long just to come this far, and still selfish people will tear down all that we hold dear just to make themselves a little bit more comfortable.

Now, I realize it seems silly for me to say all that about something as common and (mostly) benign as spammers, but this is just the final straw. Spammers are only one minor nuisance, but they're part of a systemic breakdown of our most treasured values. I see the tentacles of the human Id grasping at everything and everyone I care about. Half of the time, people don't even realize what they're doing is hurting others. The other half of the time, they simply do not care. It turns my stomach, and I can't bear to shut up about it.

Anyway, I'm sorry this has been kind of a downer. Obviously I'm in a bit of a depressed state lately, what with the mostly fruitless job search, my student loan debt, and all the unrelenting stress and drama of politics. I really should just unplug for a few days; stay off the Internet, away from the TV and radio.

The one bright side is that I have real friends now who always seem to renew my faith in people. In times like these, I can't forget about them, or anyone else I care about.

Alright, that's enough of that. I'll try to find something fun to talk about next time. Peace and love, readers.