Accept ambiguity, bitches.

The message is morally unambiguous - life is tough, don't give up, all those other feel good messages. No one worth mentioning disagrees with that.

The context in which it is delivered is morally ambiguous because it deals with things like fighting, training through pain, stuff like that.

Some kids benefit a lot from tough love and painful life lessons. Believe me when i say some kids are ruined by it. I assume this gentleman understands that and probably doesn't treat every kid the same way.

Wisdoms like "to toughen him up", "make a man of him", "for his own good" and the like can remind people of how their own abusers or bullies would excuse their behaviour. Obviously this video has nothing to do with that kind of thing, but you can understand how it might be more obvious to some than others.

That all probably sounds strange if you've never been bullied or treated like that, but yeah, that's what the video brought to my mind.

Um....I was about to upvote at 1:15....then the video kept going and went batshit insane and was terribly edited.

At 5:32, sorry woman, there's more than two, there's also multi gender/non gender/ambiguous gender people (for example, hermaphrodites).
Sorry feminist woman, but your sexual identity is not the same thing as your gender.

@newtboy and @scheherazade, good discussion, you two.

It seems pretty clear that the wording is ambiguous in today's parlance. Of course, you would never get anyone to agree on an updated version, so you're probably stuck with it.

I could go either way without wider context, I was basing my comments pretty much entirely on my past experience with such people.

However going only off the vid, the couple filming make it clear they hadn't actually paid for the sauces yet, suggesting that the way they asked had caused the conflict if you see what I mean.

i.e. it wasn't withholding already paid for services

When I said entitlement, I really just meant that it seemed like they couldn't handle the idea that they didn't get exactly what they demanded regardless of how they asked or behaved. But it was purely intuition from past experience. Without wider context I couldn't say with any conviction.

I don't have a lot of time for people who conveniently forget you are still a human being just because you work somewhere. I'd always put basic human respect first and never had much time for "the customer is always right" thing if you know what I mean. (I'm not the best guy to hire for such a job as a result)

I think it would be a more civil society if customers were also held responsible for their actions by more companies, but I recognise this is probably hopelessly wishful thinking.

I do recognise that much of our culture is not set up that way, that's why I consider him a braver man than I in some sense. I would just pussy out in favour of economic stability and whatnot.

I would be foolish if I expected things to not work as you have described. But I did feel a little swelling of pride to see the guy appearing to put his dignity before economics. (or just me projecting)

Probably not a smart move, but laudable perhaps in its own little way.
If the job actually matters that much to him, then yes that was clearly self destructive. Though I felt there was a healthy dose of sarcasm when he referred to it as his nestegg. Perhaps I just misread that.

And again, I may just be projecting all of this.

As for the last part, I really just meant that in the grand scheme of things this probably shouldn't matter that much to them. Either they were being assholes, or this guy had bigger problems than they did with his life.

If it had been a habitual problem that could be another matter, but I see no suggestion of that.

Could so easily go the other way, just that the couple instantly set off my "entitled asshole alarm" for whatever reason. It's usually right, but I don't for a moment think it forms the basis of a valid argument. That's why I went to great pains to use only ambiguous language.

I reserve the right to be wrong at all times in life.

Basically, it's not an issue here because while anime characters are culturally Japanese (they speak Japanese, bow, eat with chopsticks, etc.), many times they also live in countries that are clearly NOT Japan. The ambiguous cultural status of the characters lets the writers put them in a variety of both familiar and exotic situations (i.e. going to a public bath vs. going to a high school prom,) which creates interesting tensions.

You see this a lot in anime like the Gundam series in which battles take place over several different countries on earth, as well as across space colonies, and yet everyone involved in the war, whether they have Japanese names or not, acts pretty damned Japanese all the time. Yet, the series incorporates non-Japanese elements as well. The building architecture of the Zeon space colonies, for example, is clearly European-inspired.

So Japanese people are used to the ambiguity of the "nationality" of their anime characters. I don't think Japanese people will have any problem with Scarlett Johansson unless the movie doesn't stay true to the character itself.

Now if a non-Japanese person had been cast to play Ryouma Sakamoto or some other real-life Japanese historical figure, I think there would be a pretty big reaction.

You can call me an ass all you want, just don't take yourself too important. Your "punches" don't touch me the slightest. With "sad" I didn't mean myself but the fact that so many people are absolutely ignorant to the downsides of modern media.
I never wanted to say that I think there might be any physical dangers for the child coming from the screen, my thoughts were more in the direction LiquidAvatar mentioned.
And please excuse me if I apparently failed to explain what I meant without ambiguity, English isn't my native language.
I just wrote what I think about it and I'm well aware that my view on this matter won't find a majority. That doesn't make me automatically wrong though.
I'm very sorry I apparently upset some of you guys, but hey, that's the internet, right?

You know, I read a recent interview with John Oliver where he is very emphatic that his show is "comedy" and that, despite what people want to read into it, he is not making political statements. I think if I had watched this video before reading that interview I would have scoffed (as others here already have). But it's pretty clear to me now that he and his writers know exactly what they are doing.

Basically, this video is the result of John Oliver saying, "You know, when you think about this history of racism in American cinema you can find some pretty fucked up stuff. How can we make a joke out of that?"

It's not designed to be an actual literary critique, it's meant to use the facts to play up a punch line. I'm pretty sure John and his writing crew know that "The Last Samurai" does not refer to Tom Cruise's character (i.e. just because the character is trained how to use the sword and armor does not automatically make him a samurai), but it's easy to see how they can make a joke out of the ambiguity of the title and Americans' tendency for self-centeredness (I'm sure there are people in the U.S. who think the title does indeed refer to Cruise's character).

I actually don't have a problem with actors "playing outside their ethnicity" (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean). I'm reminded of the recent controversy about the video game Uncharted 4 which has a white actress voice-acting the role of a black South African character. The Creative Director responded to the controversy by pointing out that a white character is voiced by a black actor in the same game, and that the decisions were made based on the choosing the best actor for the role--not on what the actor looked like in real life (read more about the story here).

As CG progresses and digital characters become a norm, I think this is an issue that's only going to get greater in the film industry. In our demand for political correctness will we demand that the actors physically resemble the characters they are portraying onscreen? That seems a bit absurd to me. But so too is the idea of excluding people for consideration from roles based solely on the color of their skin.

The Jews were not fleeing anything but fear in the 30s...or came too late and missed the cutoff.

So, the Jews that fled in the 30s weren't legitimately fleeing anything but fear, and the Jews that fled after the 30s weren't legitimate because they waited until too late. Gotcha.

Perhaps you came closer to summarizing your position earlier:
Perhaps if those Jews were still in Europe fighting against the Nazis, they wouldn't have made it out of Germany.

Historically, there is a zero percent chance that more Jewish fighters in Europe could've kept the Nazi's from making it out of Germany. Worse, the ambiguity of your sentence also suggests that maybe your suggesting that if the Jews had stayed in Europe fighting, it was them that wouldn't have made it out of Germany, which would be quite correct.

You are making it very difficult to interpret your view in any kind of positive light. Despite the fact that one of the greatest genocides in history was about to hit them and their children, you insist that Jews fleeing in 30s were fleeing "nothing but fear". More over, you seem adamant in defending the notion that as the holocaust survivors landed in Palestine and were being looked after by existing Jewish Palestinians, it is they and they alone that were the aggressors in Palestine. It is well established history that BOTH Arab and Jewish Palestinians treated each other equally poorly through the 30s and 40s. More over, the Jewish Palestinians remained the minority. I'm inclined to lend a bit of understanding to an aggressive response from holocaust survivors yet again facing repression and saying NO! Doubly so when upon accepting a 2 state solution, all the surrounding nations of the middle east jointly declared war upon them with the declared intent of driving the Jews into the sea. It was only 2 years prior that the whole of Europe was controlled by Nazis trying to do the same thing. What can be realistically expected of the Jewish refugees in Palestine? Fighting kept them alive, in Palestine and I find it hard to fathom an alternate history were laying down arms would've seen any Jews still alive in the area,

Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch... Funny, but a stretch.

The bit about "what does the ring DO?!" in the beginning was interesting to me because that is one thing that I also dislike about Tolkien's works (as a nerdy reader of the Silmarillion like Soren in the video). The three elven rings Narya, Nenya, and Vilya all grant enhanced "elemental" type powers (for example, Gandalf has Narya, which is why he's got the beefy fire magic). Invisibility seems like a pretty poor ultimate power for the *ONE* ring (yes, there are other features, but invisibility is the primary *active* power of the ring).

Personally, I think that it would be cooler if the mighty *one* ring granted the single ability that any individual user would be most tempted to use, and eventually ABuse -- to facilitate its corruption of the wearer. Smeagol/Gollum, Bilbo, and Frodo, being Hobbits, are already predisposed to stealthiness, so granting them invisibility on top of that makes sense and would tempt them to use the invisibility to do more morally ambiguous things and possibly eventually outright evil things. Isildur, being human, could/should have been granted a different power by the ring. Extreme combat prowess or something. Certainly overconfidence in that could just as easily have led to his death via the "betrayal" of the ring.

Some bits it glosses over :

Puppet dictatorship is basically a description of every US and Soviet backed b-list nation on earth back then. The fact that it's a puppet state shouldn't be used to imply anything.
For example, the U.S.S.R. had modernization programs for its satellite states, building power plants, roads, hospitals, universities, etc, in an attempt to fast forward development and catch up with the west asap. They also did this while spouting secular rhetoric.
In a general attempt to undermine soviet efforts (*both sides tried to contain each other's influence world wide), the U.S. looked for any groups within the U.S.S.R. satellite nations that would be an 'in' for U.S. power/influence. For Afghanistan, this was the people most offended by the U.S.S.R.'s [secular] agenda, and most likely to make good on foreign anti-soviet backing - the religious Jihadists. Everyone knew very well what it would mean for the local people if Jihadists took over Afghanistan - but at the time, the soviets were considered a bigger problem than Jihadists (possibility of nuclear annihilation), so better to have Jihadists in power than soviets.

Also, Assad's release of prisoners was officially part of an amnesty for political prisoners - something the people and foreign groups were asking for.
Saying that Assad tolerated AQ or Isis is misleading. These groups gained power during the Arab spring, when a large portion of the civilian population wanted a new government, but lacked the military power to force change. Militants stepped into the situation by /graciously/ offering their military strength, in exchange for economic/resource/political support to help make it happen. After a short while, these groups coopted the entire effort against Assad. Once they were established, they simply put the people under their boot, effectively replacing Assad with something even worse within the regions they held. Assad lacked/lacks the military power and support to expel the militant groups, so they fight to a stalemate. But a stalemate is by no means tolerance.
One similarity that Syria has to Afghanistan, is that the anti-government kernel within the population that birthed the revolt, did so for anti-secular reasons. In Syria's case, it was in large part people from the region that had earlier attempted an Islamist uprising during Assad's father's reign (which was put down by the government, culminating in the 'hama massacre', leaving some intense anti-government sentiment in the region).
In any case, the available choices for power in Syria are 'political dictatorship' or 'religious dictatorship'. Whoever wins, regular people lose. It's not as if regular people have the arms necessary to force anyone to listen to them. Anyone with any brains or initiative knows that their best option is neither, so they leave (hence all the refugees).

The video also omits the ambiguous alliances in the region. Early on, you had the UAE, Saudis, and Turks supporting ISIS - because an enemy of your enemy is your friend. It wasn't until ISIS started to encroach on them that they tempered their support. Turkey remains ambiguous, by some accounts being the gateway/laundromat for ISIS oil sales... because ISIS is a solution to the 'Kurdish problem' for Turkey.
If you watch some of the VICE documentaries, you can see interviews where locals on the Turkish border say that militants and arms cross form Turkey into Syria to join ISIS every night.
Then you have countries like Iran and Syria fighting ISIS, but by official accounts these countries are the west's enemy. Recently, French leadership (after the Paris bombings) has stated that they are done playing politics, and just want to get rid of ISIS in the most practical manner possible, and are willing to work with Russia and Assad to do it.

It's worth noting that ISIS' main enemy/target is 'non Sunni Islam'. U.S./Europe tend to only mention ISIS attacks on their persons/places, and it leaves western people thinking that ISIS is against the west - but in fact the west is merely an afterthought for ISIS. For every one attack on a western asset/person, there are countless attacks on Shia, etc.

-scheherazade

Tom seems more amused and confused than offended or aggravated. He has a smirk on his face the whole time, and his only answer to the direct question is a simple, calm "Why?" which is totally valid.

The reporter asked a stupid, unclear, amateurish question that was hardly even a question. "You did an interview where your sexuality seemed ambiguous. Do you find it hard for celebrities to talk about their sexuality?"

Does he think Tom Hardy interviews celebrities? Shouldn't the reporter be the one to say if he thinks it's hard for celebrities he's interviewed to talk about their sexuality?

Or does he think Tom is a clearing house for all celebrity interviews where he reads each one and thus has inside knowledge on how they all feel about discussing their sexuality.

Make a name for yourself, reporters. Just do it for doing something interesting instead of for muttering nonsensical questions.

Sounds like he has English parents but lives in Scotland or the other way around. For the record the elder (I believe its a grandfather) has a pretty strong northern English accent so it's reasonable to suppose the family has a bit of a mixture and that's represented in his ambiguous accent.

I detect no Irish, though.

Clues: The way he says 'nine' is Scottish. Irish would tend towards 'noyn'. When he says 'It is a real one', the 'it is' is characteristically Scottish. When the elder says 'I know' he says 'I naaaw' which is so Northern English its untrue - the final 'E R' nails it.

A couple of things:

I have verifiable evidence than Marijuana is both addictive and harmful

unless you've conducted double-blinded randomised controlled trials, you don't have evidence, you have anecdotes. Yeah, that sounds kinda dickish, but it's really important.

no one should dictate what plants others can eat

That's pretty ambiguous. First, we're not just talking about eating, we're talking about using in other ways too (in this case, smoking). Second, we already regulate other plants/products, like alcohol and tobacco.

For me, it's pretty simple. Marijuana does not cause sufficient harm as to warrant making it illegal. If an informed consenting adult chooses to smoke, drink or get stoned, that should be their choice. Obviously you shouldn't be drunk or stoned while driving or doing surgery or caring for kids, etc, but we already control for these cases with alcohol.

TBH, as much as I love beer, whiskey and wine, it's much harder to justify keeping alcohol legal than it is to keep marijuana illegal.