You just received a gift of 1 Power Point from member @CaptainPlanet. What a generous specimen of awesomeness.

I found you're contribution to the female supremacy thread very enlightening. Thank you for being a sifter

...not a damn thang 'cept bein' the gorillaman-I get randy when I drink Cheers from choggie☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯
775;☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯☯
;☯☯☯☯☯☯☯

You just received a gift of 1 Power Point from member @chingalera. What a generous meatbag.

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

This achievement has earned you your "Silver Tongue" Level 4 Badge!

See, that's exactly the kind of attitude I cannot stand. But you already know that.
In reply to this comment by gorillaman:
If you want to see a cop under a lot of pressure just watch what happens when I get my hands on them.

Just because I condemn riot police ripping into peaceful protesters does not mean I adhere to the "fuck the cops/fascist police state" mentality. Moreover, it's useful to remember that the cops themselves are under a lot of pressure: http://videosift.com/video/Secret-Recording-of-NYPD-Stop-and-Frisk

edit: completely unrelated, but I just had to say that I love your new avatar pic
In reply to this comment by gorillaman:
Your ignorance/paranoia speaks for itself.
In reply to this comment by hpqp:
Fuck everything about this. I usually am very pro- law enforcement but this isn't law enforcement, this is totalitarian oppression. And yes, it is mostly "the rich"'s fault. It's the fault of those who gamble with the funds and resources of whole populations and then get reimbursed when they lose their bets by robbing said populations blind. Spain is doing what the Rethuglicans in the US are doing and want to do even further: raise taxes on the poor and middle class and cut the most vital social spending (education and health) so they can pay debts caused by criminal banking shenanigans and fill their thieving pockets. Keep the people poor, hungry and uneducated so you can have an easily manipulated mass to generate riches for a tiny elite, who have the government solidly in their pocket. It's the middle ages all over again.

Either this was a brilliant troll attempt or a hilariously written rant. Either way, good job. Upvoted.

In reply to this comment by gorillaman:
I only wish this were true, but so many homos have allowed themselves to be conditioned to tolerate and even respect, uncritically, inferior cultures.

I care that they're offended. I can sense their confused, mooing outrage like a bad smell. It's psychic baggage I'm tired of carrying. There are too many muslims in the world and the stink is becoming unbearable.

As a proudly hardened islamophobe, let me tell you apologists something. The correct word for islamic 'fundamentalist' or 'extremist' is muslim. These are the ones who actually believe in the doctrine of their absurd cult. I bet you don't even know what that doctrine is; go do some research instead of just smugly congratulating yourselves for holding the sanctioned position. The so-called majority, which is not so much a majority as you like to tell yourselves, of peaceful muslims aren't muslims at all; they're liars and cowards who pay lip service to their cultural standards without really believing in them or having the strength to form contrary ideas of their own - they're just like you.

Happy anniversary! Today marks year number 6 since you first became a Sifter and the community is better for having you. Thanks for your contributions!

It was a good try, but even with one quality and two promotes, the vid still picked up just 6 votes. There's no love for song-poems on the Sift, I guess. Glad you liked it anyway. (Maybe I should have mentioned it was recommended by Penn Jillette.)
In reply to this comment by gorillaman:
*promote

"Less opportunity of progress"? Only if we're having an argument with the deluded intention of convincing the other person of our specific viewpoint. (As I said in that other discussion, I'm super excited that we're going to Solve Abortion, right here on The Sift.) If we're not afraid to describe what we believe and why, then discourse is likely to strengthen our understanding of our own position, even if we discount entirely the possibility that we may gain new insight from the other parties involved.

Sure, the cognition\consciousness rabbit hole swirls right down into "metaphysical and epistemological" unknowns and becomes the equivalent of mental masturbation at that point, but that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable. And you certainly stated your view on Mind with the conviction of someone who feels pretty confident about it.

So if you'd rather not, ok, but I'll leave the door open, like so:

I had intended to leave my views on cognition and consciousness (and why I describe them as illusive and scarcely-understood) out of the abortion thread, but they ended up surfacing anyway. Essentially, I think the "ability of a candidate to engage with that process" is a good test, but it's only useful for the individual engaging in it. In my view, an outside observer isn't going to be able to tell with any degree of certainty, because the human brain appears to have everything it needs to behave like a conscious being even in the absence of Mind.
Picture the protagonist in the video for Metallica's "One" as an example on the other extreme (possessing of Mind but unable to communicate it).

I wanted to continue this discussion, but it's going off in a different direction, so I figured I'd bring it here onto your home turf. You've obviously traveled this road before, but I'm coming along for the ride this time. (Road trip!)

We'll start here and see where this takes us: What's your reasoning for saying that a baby (or someone with a cognitive disability, or hell, an animal) is not Mind? I know where I'd like this to go, but I'll let you drive.
In reply to this comment by gorillaman:
So the question you ask yourself when considering the rights of a creature is 'what is the condition of its intellect; to what extent is it conscious; is it Mind?'

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

This achievement has earned you your "Silver Tongue" Level 3 Badge!