WEEKLY WHINE

Mere herd victim

As you are no doubt well aware by this point, Meredith McIver exists. The existence of her error in including words from a 2008 Michelle Obama speech in a 2016 Melania Trump speech is, however, open to debate.

This question regarding Meredith McIver’s existence has, of course, opened everyone’s minds to greater questions of existence. What sorts of things can be said to exist? Can things be said to exist? How do you sort things? Who is going to provide the boxes into which things can be sorted? How do we sort the boxes? What colour will the boxes be? Does the U in colour exist?

We here at GoobNet, of course, are the world’s leading experts in ontology, in that our entire staff exists. And actually, totally exists, not Meredith McIver exists. So we thought that it was only fair to respond to your questions about existence that reached us via the GoobNet Mailbox. Therefore, please ensure your anagram protection cream is liberally applied to your skin, and not sloppily liberated your LA ink.

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Do I exist?

– JD Salinger
Cornish, NH, USA

No. You died on WED 27 JAN 2010.

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Do I exist?

– Kate Valentine
New York City, NY, USA

Yes, but most people do not know you under that name. However, we are still uncertain as to whether those people exist.

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Do words exist?

– Libby Copeland
New York City, NY, USA

For your sake, we hope they do.

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Does hope exist?

– Malcolm Turnbull
Deakin, ACT, Australia

Yes, but we here at GoobNet are having difficulty determining why.

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Does Donald Trump exist?

– Rafael Cruz
Houston, TX, USA

Are you kidding? Donald Trump is great at existing. He’s the best at existing. Ask anyone. He’s the best exister there ever was. You know what else exists? Mexico. And you know what else exists? The money that they’re going to give us to pay for that wall.

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Does money exist?

– Molly White
Belton, TX, USA

Cash has a physical existence. The value that it represents, however, is what we assume you are describing by the word money. Said value is held only within the minds of those who exchange money for goods, services, and other things that represent value. The amount by which those people’s minds value those things changes over time; for example, the British pound is currently worth significantly less than it was a month ago. From this, we conclude that the British pound has no inherent value, and therefore, that money does not exist.

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Does existence exist?

– Charlotte Elizabeth Diana Mountbatten-Windsor
London, England, UK

What are you trying to do, create a total existence metacrisis?

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Do total existence metacrises exist?

– Kaija Saariaho
Paris, France

Go away.