Friday, January 4, 2008

Hatemail: I can't get nothing I want!

On Jan 4, 2008, at 8:03 PM, Derek Finch wrote:

I am genuinely and deeply dissapointed. I was on the web looking for nothing and came across your site and as such I feel this as an intrusion on my right to find nothing if that is what I am searching for. You claim to offer nothing but in fact such a claim is by definition a contradiction. When I search for nothing I expect a blank page with no links, no text, not even any color. Your site, on the other hand, is offensively full of content. I am so upset I have decided not to order anyting from you. If you are unable to deliver I will refer your organisation to the BBB and hope they sue you for every last noncents you have.

DF

To which I responded:

Derek,

I appreciate the disappointment you suffered when you found something about nothing when you were searching for nothing. May I ask though, would you have continued your search forever if you hadn't found this site? Or indeed, would you have stopped searching once you didn't find the nothing.net web site?

I submit that you were looking to start a big fuss over nothing so you thought anyone claiming to offer nothing would be an easy target. I must admit you have quite a pair of "huevos del ganso" to pick a fight with the leading authorities on nothing.

Since you started off trying to find nothing, perhaps you are simply trying to finish what you started. Ideally this would end in nothing. Am I on the right track here? If so, that means that you win if you lose this argument. However, if I let you win you'll lose.

Either of these options is a losing proposition for me, because win or lose you win and lose. Ideally, I would accomplish nothing, yet at the same time I would need to prevent you from accomplishing nothing, not because I wouldn't love for you to have nothing, but because you want me to not give you anything retroactively and it's not polite to try to make people travel through time just to make less things happen to you than would have happened if you weren't out looking for something regarding nothing to cause trouble about. Plus, it's impossible, which makes it all the more rude and disrespectful.

Although my following statements could appear to make me the winner (and thus the loser) of this argument, I must take this tack for a moment. You say that when looking for nothing, "I expect a blank page", yet a blank page is something. My point here is that you really were looking for something, you simply wanted that something to APPEAR to be nothing. Seeing that you browsed the site, you must have realized that no matter how content rich it may appear, we are all about nothing.

Knowing that you knew that you were not serious about anything you wrote in your letter, means that both of us were fully aware that there was no point to your initial letter or this lengthy reply. This means you must have written your letter with full knowledge that I would not reply, thus you felt that you had accomplished nothing by your e-mail complaint. Since I chose to respond, your e-mail did not actually accomplish its intended purpose which was nothing. Yet, my letter (being a totally unnecessary response about nothing) remains totally pointless. This means that while I have accomplished nothing, you haven't.

All that being summed up, the paradox is broken, I win. But in a way don't we all?

--Xymyl (KON)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Darwin's favorite bird, and Xymyl,

Saying that you were out looking for "nothing" and claiming you found "something" is akin to saying "I want to find gravity!" You can't find nothing! Nothing finds you! Much like dark matter (if I am getting to deep let me know and I will try to use smaller words) you can't see it, lick it, or any other it. You only know it is there by the effects it creates. Much like nothing. And by the way the BBB doesn't sue businesses. If you are going to hurl threats and spit, at least make it believable! Just my prerogative!

Anonymous said...

hmm...would it cost nothing to get some PR4?

Judith Shapiro said...

i tried to vote for none of the choices on vote for a definition of nothing but i was unable to choose none of the choices. i guess there's nothing i can do about it.

Anonymous said...

hello
i found your site when i was looking for nothing - but there you were - so in fact surely you are something? i really like the thought of nothing though :o)

Something said...

Nothing is Something

This is intended for the nothing.net people. I enjoy reading your comments on nothing but there is no such thing as nothing. When asked, "What are you doing?" and the response is "Nothing" there is always something that a person is doing. Whether it is laying down or resting it is always something. In one blog you wrote that the universe is mostly nothing. It is something. Space is something. It is what it is. Although it may seem as if you are writing about nothing at all, you are still writing about something.

What is there? Nothing. Well, yes, there is something. It could be air or a tree or walls or a person etc... Nothing is always something. Please try to prove to me that nothing actually exists. I don't believe that it does.

In a response to someone being dissappointed in your web site the complainer wrote about the website having something and he/she was expecting a blank page with no links or anything else. You made a strong point for my case that nothing is always something. A blank page is something. It is a blank page, not nothing.

½ said...

Perception of the understanding of something determines IT is something. Perception is reality and without there is a dream. For if you're not perceiving anything, then surely you understand it already. It is impossible to perceive nothing to the affect that Nothing is nothing. If you claim to understand nothing then you are mistaken. Nothing can be used to understand nothing. Only in a dream can Nothing be experienced along with anything. As Bue-Bye said: "Ain't no place that there never was."

Anonymous said...

this depends on your perception of 'nothing'