I love how tourists (myself included) think there is some sort of cone of invulnerability that descends around them in activities like this...
And of course---
There isn't....

Clegane invulnerability and Stark lightning-rod-ness might cancel out and give the kids a chance at normal life!

Agent Coulson is a super hero.
He's the first hero whose super power is "No Fucks Given".

Anyone could defend humanity with super strength, invulnerability, unstoppable force...Coulson doesn't have these powers though. He walks into the fight armed with nothing less than his steel clad will and a pair of balls that must be hauled around in a semi-trailer.

Who's the real hero, Captain America?

Superman doesn't have accelerated healing, he has invulnerability to non-magical attacks.

Lol I love how you go on this big long rant, and half the stuff you say is just rubbish. At least get your facts straight before whining.

I don't think we need another Iron Man. I love Iron Man, but Clark Kent is not Tony Stark.

If you want funny read a Deadpool comic.

Superman has other weaknesses - a quick example is his compassion. Superman may be nearly invulnerable but the people he loves are not.

Are you familiar with the concept that the world belongs to the living and not the dead? Sure, the US Constitution has some good stuff in it, built upon the collective reason of several previous centuries' of legal thought.

What I'm trying to figure out is why anyone would think that there hasn't been any rational thought on the subject in the last two centuries.

Yogi is right - the Constitution is no more sacred than the paper I wipe my ass with. It certainly holds no magic that renders it invulnerable to time. It is a document written for people living in the 18th century. This is not unlike the Old Testament being largely obviated by the New Testament. The Ten Commandments are meaningless in the face of Christ's sacrifice. The same is true of the laws of man. Yeah, much of what they were saying still makes sense in a narrowly defined way, but ultimately, those laws are useless in our current context.
In reply to this comment by bobknight33:
You dumb ass piece of shit. You typify the losers who are ruining this country. The constitution is what this country is founded on. It is the most document this country has. Its what separates us from dictatorships and other evil forms of governments. How stupid can you be?

Just because our leaders have wiped their asses with it does not make it less important. The words in the document are powerful. Did you ever read it? Or are you some flunky useless member of society?

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^bobknight33:
There is no room in government for Democrats or Republicans. Only those who obey the principles of the constitution. They do take an oath to obey and uphold the constitution but then quickly do as they want for self political gain.
I would say that less then 10% of elected officials truly desire to follow the oath they take.

Who is to blame, the elected officials or are they just the reflection of society?

The constitution is a piece of crap paper that doesn't mean anything. We're a race of highly evolved monkeys clinging to a rock that's hurtling through space and dying. Fuck off with your stupid piece of shit paper and die already.

Here are her other talks:

The Price of Invulnerability http://videosift.com/video/The-Price-of-Invulnerability


Ted Talks - Are You Worthy? http://videosift.com/video/Ted-Talks-Are-You-Worthy

There's a GURPS advantage called Sanitized Metabolism, which reads:

"You are totally clean. Your native intestinal enzymes and symbiotic bacteria eliminate your body odor and make efficient use of food and drink, leaving minimal, sanitized waste products. You never suffer from bad breath, excessive perspiration or unsightly skin problems."

Always wished I could put that on my RL character sheet.


That said, there's a strict hierarchy of super powers:

Level 1, God:
Omnipotence
Batman

Level 2, Cosmic:
'Omnipotence'
'Reality' Manipulation
Time Manipulation

Level 3, Rule the World:
Mind Control
'Luck' Manipulation
Kill Anyone
Speed
Magic
Genius
Hyper-Technology

Level 4, Super:
'Luck'
Invulnerability
Healing Factor
Insubstantiality
Invisibility
Teleportation
Telekinesis
etc.

Level 5, Overrated:
Ninja
Flight
Eye Beams
Strength
etc.

Level 6, Worthless:
Aquaman


I spend a lot of time thinking about this.

Wouldn't flight without an engine, except jumping and wings, have to be manipulation of gravity?

I figure that is the way Superman flies. Hes not jumping or gliding, but he is manipulating gravity (also, he is a machine, but let's not get into that now)

Anyway - since gravity manipulation would render you pretty much invulnerable, and give you the ability to travel great distances and possibly the only way to "stop time" - I would go with that.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^astr0:
One thing that slightly bothered me with the video is when the Medic activates the Uber on the Heavy he doesn't receive the Uber only the Heavy does

That's actually the effect of the new medigun. It heals much faster but the medic isn't invulnerable.


Ahh, makes sense

>> ^astr0:

One thing that slightly bothered me with the video is when the Medic activates the Uber on the Heavy he doesn't receive the Uber only the Heavy does


That's actually the effect of the new medigun. It heals much faster but the medic isn't invulnerable.

"Depending on the writer, Diana's invulnerability and power varied greatly according to the needs of the story. "

source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Woman#Pre-Crisis

Wow! I had no idea this was a problem. I almost did this when I was a kid only without any kind of fancy jump through the sky glitches.

If memory serves: I was pissed that my brother kicked the NES when I was playing. Having to restart back from level one was so infuriating that I was determined to rush through everything, points be damned! In that process, I gained some momentum in about the area where you get the star, hit the brick and bumped a turtle just right and was able to keep going and not quite have the star yet. I jumped up to get it trying to keep moving forward in the process and with my newfound invulnerability I zipped through everything, jumping as often as possible.

The fates were smiling upon me my friends, the last jumps I landed were so lucky that I never stopped that momentum and my final jump was done in possibly the MOST ideal conditions possible. I still had the star, I was coming off another run/jump, and hit probably as close to the edge as is possible without missing it. Although it looked like i cleared the flag, my toe must have been touching it or something b/c it brought me down. In any case, fireworks went off like crazy and the music changed from the ending music to like the music at the beginning of the level. Ahh where is my old NES?

@xxovercastxx

I apologize for my tardiness. I'll try to slice my way through your response while the aftertaste of this thread still lingers. It's rapidly fading from memory.

1. Relating to the proposition that prioritizing issues is invalid

This seems to be an argument that arises logically and naturally. Starting from the top, the quantity of world resources exceeds the requirements of any given problem at any given time. The idea that lesser issues ought to be sidelined until we have resolved the greater ones, amongst which we might consider genocides, global warming, poverty and disease, strikes me as both bizarre and having no logical foundation to stand on.

I share, completely, the concerns and convictions that relate to those greater problems, and they are indeed deserving of all of our collective attention. However, the human species, and its capacity for problem solving, are not analogous to a single-core CPU; we are capable of confronting more than one thing at one time. We need not be exclusivist, dealing with issues in a step-by-step manner until we've worked our way down the chain of strife, and to contend that lesser issues are not even worth our time while greater evils remain is daft and short-sighted.

2. Consent

You mention Yogi's point about the voluntary nature of joining and participating in the Church of Scientology. Many of the techniques that Scientology employs to keep people in the church, to keep them isolated from information and criticism of the church, and to disconnect people from those outside the church are outlined in the very video to which this thread belongs. I do not believe that consent makes legitimate the manipulation of people in the church to stay in the church. I do not believe that consent granted by someone of compromised judgement is legitimate. I don't believe that these premises give me a legitimate moral basis for acting contrary to people's wishes, when their judgement is compromised and consent is ill-given, but I do think it must negate the idea that these people are acting autonomously, sensibly, intelligently and with their best interests in mind.

Basically, I say that their choices are sometimes invalid in cases where their independence has been compromised, but I also say that I have no right to intervene and contradict whatever free will they're exerting. Manipulation, propaganda and indoctrination are they key words, and they're techniques being used to enormous effect in the CoS, as the documentary above illustrates quite well.

3. 9/11 conspiracy comparison / straw-man assessment

"Look I get you want to be up in arms about this, it's something you've put a lot of stock into. It's pretty much like 9/11 conspiracy theories. You can talk and post and tell people they're full of shit when they question why this is such a big deal but you've missed the point. You've been completely neutralized, we don't have to worry about you actually bringing about any sort of change that's meaningful since you're going after this silly Religion."

I still don't think I overplayed it. I understand what you're getting at, but I believe my interpretation is closer to what he meant.

> Look I get you want to be up in arms about this, it's something you've put a lot of stock into. It's pretty much like 9/11 conspiracy theories.

This statement stands by itself. It's not connected to the following except by proximity, which is :

> You can talk and post and tell people they're full of shit when they question why this is such a big deal but you've missed the point.

In the second portion of this, Yogi is referring to the current discussion, and both my and Genji's disagreement with the idea that the CoS is no big deal. Thus the second sentence is self-contained and the 9/11 conspiracy statement is concluded immediately after it's mentioned. Logically, this must mean that a connection, even if vague, is being made between two very different positions : he's saying that our, or mine, or Genji's objectivity is compromised to the extent that we are almost fanatical. That is the comparison being made, and the comparison to which I have been referring.

When I say that Yogi was suggesting our objectivity was compromised, several things give it away. The biggest is "want to be up in arms about this". "Want to" implies a personal investment that we'd not be willing to surrender and that the participation goes beyond a moral assessment, and into the realm of the irrational. "It's something you've put a lot of stock into" suggests, again, a personal investment that mandates never surrendering in argument, and having an irrational attachment to your position. Thirdly, "it's pretty much like 9/11 conspiracy theories". There are several ways you can interpret this, but it suggests to me that he thinks the opposition is fundamentally irrational, disconnected from reality and deeply biased to a particular outcome, irregardless of the actual conditions from which you draw your moral conclusion about the CoS. Thus, he seemed to think that the sentiment was immovable and the argument was only doing the bidding of an invulnerable bias.

I disagree with you. I don't think it was a straw man that I installed, I think it was a valid and accurate interpretation of what he was saying. I will concede, though, that it's easy to misread me as misreading him, based on what mention I made of the 9/11 thing. If that makes sense.

4. Genji suggesting Yogi was an irrational, thick-skulled, sick fuck who might kill kittens

I wasn't shocked. I thought it was in bad taste at the time, and I still do. I'm not used to the dynamics of debates that aren't 1-on-1, and I make no apology for it.

5. The Genji-won't-do-nothin'; the twisting of a statement

> "You've been completely neutralized, we don't have to worry about you actually bringing about any sort of change that's meaningful since you're going after this silly Religion.

You won't help anyone, you won't effect anything, you'll just stamp your feet and get all pissed off over the internet about things that simply aren't important. Now run along and keep doing that, I'm going over here to feed these homeless people some sammiches"

This comment, to me, suggests and suggested that Yogi was implying the following, and forgive my shoddy paraphrasing:

"You are absorbed by a non-issue. You could be investing your time in an actual problem, and perhaps be contributing to a resolution. You will have no effect on anything important, because you are involved in something that is a waste of your time; an irrelevant problem."

"You won't help anyone, you won't effect anything" needs no interpretation or translation of any kind. Surely this statement is unambiguous. Was I really twisting his statement? Perhaps I could've articulated myself better, but was I wrong? I say not, and I think as I did then.

6. My First Hypocrisy : An adventure in target management, Drive-by commenting, etc.

You're right that I should've commented on what GK actually said. It's not hypocrisy, but it was unfair and unbalanced.

I was referring to you with the drive-by assessment comment. I felt as if you had installed yourself into the discussion and had promptly left it, when there seemed to be no need for moderation. I think, in light of the scope of the post I'm responding to, I'd be happy to apologize for that.

I didn't realize you meant GK. Now I do. Woo.

I think that's it. Thanks.

My standard for sci-fi movies isn't that they make real-world sense. If I wanted that, I'd watch documentaries.

What I want, is for the movie to make sense with it's own set of rules, and when it breaks any real-world rules, it should at least explain why it works that way in it's own world...

For example, I have no problem with Superman flying around, being invulnerable and seeing through anything but lead. I do, however, have a problem with the assumption that a projectile moving fast enough around the planet will turn back time.

At least explain it... He just goes and does it like it's common sense...