...Self-Righteousness is the bane of good causes...

You might not know it given the ever cynical tone of my blog...but I'm actually FOR a lot of things. Good things too. Various causes and beliefs that I feel the vast majority of people would agree with. I'm pro-choice, I believe in being green, and I am for gay marriage just to name a few. These are all things that I do believe in and that I do care about deeply. And generally speaking, I support the organizations that work towards these causes. That said, I've noticed that, and I'm sure people who fall on the other side of the fence from me on these issues will attest, that those who tend to work for organizations with the goal of bettering the world in the manner that they see fit, tend to be incredibly self righteous snobs.

How did I come across this topic you might ask? Well today I was toddling around a few articles related to green technologies and I came across a link in one of these articles that was supposed to lead to a related article on Greenpeace's website. Well unfortunately for me, this link ended up leading nowhere. Now for those of you who don't know, many websites have taken to crafting their own "page not found" page, rather than just using the generic 404 Error page that most browsers display on their own. They do this for many reasons, the most important of which is that they get to keep you on their site, where you are more likely to click on their links to read more of their content (It's your eyeballs they're after!!!!).

Well most websites simply put up a generic "Oh we're sorry....but you seem to have found a part of our site that either no longer exists, or never existed in the first place. Please try again, or maybe Google can help you find what you're looking for!" (not Bing....Google...It's always Google...) But Greenpeace? No they can't leave well enough alone...they can't simply say "Sorry this page isn't here". No...they have to take it one step further. Take this page for example....which I just made up....

Go on...read what they have to say...go on...


Read it? That's right. They GUILT TRIP you WHILE you're busy surfing THEIR site. I'm sorry Greenpeace, I know you're VERY disappointed in me for going to YOUR website and having the GALL to look up a page that YOU didn't create. How DARE I!

Seriously Greenpeace, I'm on your site, looking up information that you're putting up about saving the environment. Being a smug, self-righteous asshole about how pious and eco-friendly you are isn't endearing myself to your cause. In fact, chances are, people who are far less eco-minded than myself probably closed their computer, went outside, burned a gallon of gasoline on their front lawns, turned their heaters up all the way and punched a dolphin in the face because of you. Making people feel like shit is NOT a good way of making friends...You can ask the 3 people that still read my blog...

...And that's what I learned today.