Dj Rolando is fucking awesome. This set (The aztec mystic mix) was the soundtrack to a road trip to Detroit Elctronic Music Festival I did while living in NY in 2002. Back then I would not listen to any music with human voices...

>> ^Diogenes:
erm, the term 'latin languages' is synonymous with 'romance languages' (i.e. spanish, portuguese, italian, french and romanian)
following the various conquests and subsequent colonization efforts, the people of european, primarily iberian, extraction referred to themselves by nationality generally, and regionality specifically (e.g. espanol and andaluz, respectively) -- purely indigenous peoples were called 'indios' and those of mixed race were called 'mestizos'
logically, as the numbers of the latter increased over time, they took to referring to themselves as latino-americanos or hispano-americanos, now shortened to latino and hispanic
being one of these, i don't find the terms particularly offensive -- what would you rather we do? would 'mexican-american' suffice? or do we need to be even more pc and culturally specific (i.e. moche, quechua, aymara, nazca, jivaro, mayan, olmec, toltec, mexica, aztec, oaxacan, nahuatlese, etc)?



It's not offensive, I'm just annoyed by the misnomer of applying the "latin" label to only a subset of romance-language speakers across the pond from where latin was spoken. We already have some more accurate labels for region of citizenship (mexican, honduran, central american, etc) and genetic origin (hispanic, native american, mixed)

erm, the term 'latin languages' is synonymous with 'romance languages' (i.e. spanish, portuguese, italian, french and romanian)

following the various conquests and subsequent colonization efforts, the people of european, primarily iberian, extraction referred to themselves by nationality generally, and regionality specifically (e.g. espanol and andaluz, respectively) -- purely indigenous peoples were called 'indios' and those of mixed race were called 'mestizos'

logically, as the numbers of the latter increased over time, they took to referring to themselves as latino-americanos or hispano-americanos, now shortened to latino and hispanic

being one of these, i don't find the terms particularly offensive -- what would you rather we do? would 'mexican-american' suffice? or do we need to be even more pc and culturally specific (i.e. moche, quechua, aymara, nazca, jivaro, mayan, olmec, toltec, mexica, aztec, oaxacan, nahuatlese, etc)?

Having known about the Mayan Calendar and the impending "End" in 2012 since 1996, I take it all with a grain of salt.

Although this cartoon depicts an Aztec calendar (and not the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar used by the Mayans), I still think it's funny.

What the fuck people? This is the Internet! You're not allowed to have better-halves, spouses, partners, occasional circle jerks, rolling blackouts, tree hugging marathons, gestational periods lasting longer than seven years, green furnaces covered in spruce tree sap, Oingo Boingo ticket stubs from 1984, barbecue-flavored popsicles, blankfist's herpes, sulfur dioxide crystals, porcupine shavings, weapons of mass construction, sanitary napkins shaped like Paul Anka's flaccid penis, mummified chickens, ancient Aztec secrets of pubic hair grooming styles, Bono, testicular fortitude, or lovers!

All your relationship are belong to me!

Hey, I wasn't intending to say in any way that this type of content is out-of-bounds for the Sift. And I agree on all points of slippery slopes of logical fallacy. I guess I was too lazy to express my personal distaste for exoskeletal gladiatorial combat, but didn't want to be a driveby downvoter with no explanation.

When I was a kid, I had a glass magnifying dome with a rim around the bottom that left a quarter inch gap between the bottom of the lens and the surface of the table, sealed on all edges. Two insects would enter and we would gleefully watch them tear each other's limbs off. I guess I feel bad about all the fun I had.

I will now wander over to the Mr. Fisk queue and see what there is for clickitys, by way of apology.

In reply to this comment by MrFisk:
In reply to this comment by schmawy:
Sorry for the downvote Mr. Fisk. Here's another one that I down-voted. There are lots of explanations as to why in the comments section.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Scorpion-vs-Black-Widow-Intense-sheesh

No offense schmawy, amigo, although I read through the entire thread and the primary argument against these type of videos seem to consist of nothing more than a slippery slope logical fallacy.

If A happens, then by a gradual series of small steps through B, C,…, X, Y, eventually Z will happen, too.
Z should not happen.
Therefore, A should not happen, either.

True, there are some who found this sort of entertainment truly offensive, and voiced there thoughts/opinions alongside their downvote. However, I checked the upvote count and felt I could garner more upvotes and close the gap between gold and bronze. Also, I found this to be entertaining myself and enjoyed sharing this vid with the sift. Furthermore, the other bug fight from this same japanesebugfights.com did not attract the negativity of the one which you mentioned, and that was the one I used as a comparison to measure if I were crossing the line. In conclusion, I vividly recall the account of a elephant vs. rhinoceros in the historical fiction I, Claudius by Robert Graves, and if there were a video of that, I would be delighted to post it here as well. FYI, the elephant won. To me, it would be more entertaining than soccer. Unless it were that soccer-basketball-like sport the Aztecs played were the losing team were executed. But then again my sense of humor is as twisted as a Texas tornado.

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
Sorry for the downvote Mr. Fisk. Here's another one that I down-voted. There are lots of explanations as to why in the comments section.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Scorpion-vs-Black-Widow-Intense-sheesh

No offense schmawy, amigo, although I read through the entire thread and the primary argument against these types of videos seem to consist of nothing more than a slippery slope logical fallacy.

If A happens, then by a gradual series of small steps through B, C,…, X, Y, eventually Z will happen, too.
Z should not happen.
Therefore, A should not happen, either.

True, there are some who found this sort of entertainment truly offensive, and voiced there thoughts/opinions alongside their downvote. However, I checked the upvote count and felt I could garner more upvotes and close the gap between gold and bronze. Also, I found this to be entertaining myself and enjoyed sharing this vid with the sift. Furthermore, the other bug fight from this same japanesebugfights.com did not attract the negativity of the one which you mentioned, and that was the one I used as a comparison to measure if I were crossing the line. In conclusion, I vividly recall the account of a elephant vs. rhinoceros in the historical fiction I, Claudius by Robert Graves, and if there were a video of that, I would be delighted to post it here as well. FYI, the elephant won. To me, it would be more entertaining than soccer. Unless it were that soccer-basketball-like sport the Aztecs played were the losing team were executed. But then again my sense of humor is as twisted as a Texas tornado.

No offense schmawy, amigo, although I read through the entire thread and the primary argument against these types of videos seem to consist of nothing more than a slippery slope logical fallacy.

If A happens, then by a gradual series of small steps through B, C,…, X, Y, eventually Z will happen, too.
Z should not happen.
Therefore, A should not happen, either.

True, there are some who found this sort of entertainment truly offensive, and voiced there thoughts/opinions alongside their downvote. However, I checked the upvote count and felt I could garner more upvotes and close the gap between gold and bronze. Also, I found this to be entertaining myself and enjoyed sharing this vid with the sift. Furthermore, the other bug fight from this same japanesebugfights.com did not attract the negativity of the one which you mentioned, and that was the one I used as a comparison to measure if I were crossing the line. In conclusion, I vividly recall the account of a elephant vs. rhinoceros in the historical fiction I, Claudius by Robert Graves, and if there were a video of that, I would be delighted to post it here as well. FYI, the elephant won. To me, it would be more entertaining than soccer. Unless it were that soccer-basketball-like sport the Aztecs played were the losing team were executed. But then again my sense of humor is as twisted as a Texas tornado.

Indigo prophecy syndrome. Yeah, Aztecs just came out of nowhere, and the big reveal was "hey look, we're the illuminati." When your supposed magical ally turned out not to be a creepy old woman but instead just turned out to be artificial intelligence incarnate I said "I'll play to the end but JESUS CHRIST!" And nothing did ever quite match up to the fight on the rooftop.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I have a hazy recollection of playing this. Though I may be confusing it with Aztec.

Good points, and largely in agreement.
Whereas individuals have restraint by rule of law (where it applies), sovereign states have none. The United Nations is not going to pull you over, put you in handcuffs and take you to jail if you are a misbehaving country.
Whether it's the Tasmanians, Australian Aborigines, Incas, Aztecs, or Native American Indians, it's the same story. Imperialist expansion doomed them all. Was it inevitable? History would seem to suggest that when competing civilizations collide, the weaker gets assimilated or consumed. Still it's a stain on humanity that these "indigenous" peoples were almost uniformly demoted to "sub-human" status so that displacement or extermination could be rationalized or justified.

I wish I could say it was different today. The recent genocides (although not in the eyes of the UN) in Rwanda and the Sudan suggest otherwise. Rwanda interests me in particular. It's one of the poorest nations on earth. Christian influence there is helping to heal the scars of that tragedy. I'm no saint, I'm just fortunate enough to have the opportunity, but I have provided medical equipment and supplies to the remote villages of Rwanda. My wife has worked in jungle clinics there, seeing children suffering from malaria, typhoid, and parasitic infections. It's frustrating not to be able to do more, but you do what you can do.

I got off the subject here, but my point is this....There is a huge amount of international charity work being done world-wide by Christian organizations. Let's not drag them thru the mud because some nuts are trying to convert people in a war zone.

The conflict in the Middle East in not about religion, you are absolutely right about that. It's about globalization. It's about the resultant loss of cultural identity and respect. From the US standpoint, it's also about oil, that should be evident to everyone.

Globalization is not going to stop because some want it to. We have to be realists about that. This is what makes the modern day situation so different from the past. Citing precedent, (in prior international conflicts) loses much in translation to the modern day situation. Communication, transportation, and world trade are making the earth smaller by the day. Intolerant and inflexible societies are at risk in this new paradigm, not so much from the outside but from the inside, as the new generation adopts the global (western if you want to call it that), ways. People say we should appeal to the "moderates" in these countries. The problem is, many of the moderates, with the means to do so, have left and are now living in the US or Europe. That's the "brain-drain" we've heard so much about. Most of the moderates were professionals, university professors, etc. So, the remaining are the most hard-line and fundamentalist. That makes it tough.

Tragically, the weakest societies are at risk of just getting run over completely. As you pointed out, it happened in our own backyard with the American Indian.

I really lament the homogenization of the US I've seen in my lifetime. Standing on any corner, of any street, in any town you see the same McDonalds, Pizza Huts, Walmarts, etc. Is that the fate of the world? God, let's hope not.

Never heard or seen this game. This game reminds me of Pitfall, Aztec, and Montezuma Revenge.

I strongly disagree. I think the cold hard facts from history disproves this idealistic claim.

Hate to bring up America's current biggest controversy here, but look at Iraq. It was a militant police state. There was cruelty and oppression but also control and order. You say freedom and democracy is better than order and control? Just look at Iraq and all its glory today.

Same can be said about Afghanistan, German Confederacy, post-world war 2 Czechoslovakia, Fascist Italy (Mussolini), Yugoslavia, Aztec Empire, post-colonial India, Roman Empire, the USSR, and perhaps the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Order and control is always better than the unlimited amount of freedom that comes when regimes are fallen afterwards.

Chaos (too much freedom) is no better than tyranny. But at least you can control the level of tyranny when things are organized (Russia has enough order and stability to 'fake' democratic elections). When you have chaos, you have power over nothing, and everything blows up with massive collateral damage, effectively undermining local populace' economy as well as infrastructure. Eliminating any means for them to rebound from their old regime and forced to live in extreme poverty.

Give Russia some time to economically develop and politically stabilize. And things will change by themselves (also speaking historically. higher economic power = higher civic power). But trying to force something that's clearly not ready for will only make things worse (Nepal). Because democracy is not the most ideal way of governance for every country (let alone a corporate company/private business) 100% of the time.

I think you're missing the point of my post. I was using homosexuality as an example of the difference between comments that stem debate, and comments that are personal attacks. A comment like "I disapprove of homosexuality because I consider it to be an unnatural relationship" is an example of a comment that could open up an interesting yet civil debate. (A perfect example is what you've done by sending this post to me.) However, the comment about homosexuals being AIDS-ridden and immoral is, as I pointed out, an impolite attack on someone who may be gay. Not all homosexuals have AIDS, and morality is subjective. Therefore a statement like that is an opinionated attack, which does not belong on a website such as Videosift. (Maybe Youtube, cause we all know the quality of the posts there . . .)

And so reverting this example back to religion, one can voice their thoughts on religion without saying anything insulting about the people involved. It's important to realize that in the end, even if you never come to agreement about the debate, you'll maintain mutual respect.

In reply to your comment:
“I strongly disagree with you on the subject of homosexuality. Scientists have observed many species of animals engaging in homosexual behavior. There is mounting evidence that a percentage of homosexuality can be adaptive for a species as a whole.

In light of these and other discoveries, it would seem that homosexuality is not a "choice" that a person makes. To condemn, or disdain, or otherwise disparage or discriminate against a person because of their sexual orientation, is just like discriminating against a person because of the colour of their skin, or the place where they were born.

Somebody can choose to become Muslim, Christian or Buddhist. But you can not choose to be a man or a woman, black or white, asian or african. We are born this way.

It is my opinion that a person's choice to become a member of a mind-controlling cult is probably not a good one. I think you would agree. We would also agree that a person who chooses to begin practicing a 13-century Aztec religion which practices human sacrifice is also misled. It is "okay" to be "prejudiced" against human sacrifice. Indeed, animal sacrifice is also not generally observed in modern day. But does not your own bible give directions for sacrificing animals to your own god?

My point is, religion is a choice, and therefore open for debate. If you make a bad choice, I'm going to tell you- "don't kill your daughter, that god doesn't exist!"

But when people start to say that black people are lazy, that women are emotional, that homosexuals are immoral.... that is too much.

In reply to your comment:
“I think that some people aren't understanding what the issue is here. Those who are offended by such comments as the one in the video are not offended because the people making those comments are against religion. They are offended because the comments are attacks against them.

It's fine to say "I'm not to crazy about [religion] because it's just a load of supernatural mythology," or something like that. And there's nothing wrong with even saying you despise a certain religion, though from there you have to remember that those who believe in it believe in it strongly, so they'll have a strong reaction.

What's not all right is saying something akin to "Those who believe in this religion are idiots," or something along those lines. This is a personal attack on those people, and is really unsubstantiated.

Taking it to a different level, someone may not approve of homosexuality. They may say something along the lines of "I don't approve because I consider it a sin," or "I consider it to be an unnatural relationship," (though the second may be stretching it in terms of civility, depending on the company). But saying something like "Homosexuals are all AIDS-ridden and immoral," is an attack on the people, which is never right.

What should be done is not to censor anyone for saying they may have different views on any subject, but to hold them accountable for what they say. If their comments are hateful or derogatory, then do they really have place on a site that proclaims itself to be above such things?””

I strongly disagree with you on the subject of homosexuality. Scientists have observed many species of animals engaging in homosexual behavior. There is mounting evidence that a percentage of homosexuality can be adaptive for a species as a whole.

In light of these and other discoveries, it would seem that homosexuality is not a "choice" that a person makes. To condemn, or disdain, or otherwise disparage or discriminate against a person because of their sexual orientation, is just like discriminating against a person because of the colour of their skin, or the place where they were born.

Somebody can choose to become Muslim, Christian or Buddhist. But you can not choose to be a man or a woman, black or white, asian or african. We are born this way.

It is my opinion that a person's choice to become a member of a mind-controlling cult is probably not a good one. I think you would agree. We would also agree that a person who chooses to begin practicing a 13-century Aztec religion which practices human sacrifice is also misled. It is "okay" to be "prejudiced" against human sacrifice. Indeed, animal sacrifice is also not generally observed in modern day. But does not your own bible give directions for sacrificing animals to your own god?

My point is, religion is a choice, and therefore open for debate. If you make a bad choice, I'm going to tell you- "don't kill your daughter, that god doesn't exist!"

But when people start to say that black people are lazy, that women are emotional, that homosexuals are immoral.... that is too much.

In reply to your comment:
“I think that some people aren't understanding what the issue is here. Those who are offended by such comments as the one in the video are not offended because the people making those comments are against religion. They are offended because the comments are attacks against them.

It's fine to say "I'm not to crazy about [religion] because it's just a load of supernatural mythology," or something like that. And there's nothing wrong with even saying you despise a certain religion, though from there you have to remember that those who believe in it believe in it strongly, so they'll have a strong reaction.

What's not all right is saying something akin to "Those who believe in this religion are idiots," or something along those lines. This is a personal attack on those people, and is really unsubstantiated.

Taking it to a different level, someone may not approve of homosexuality. They may say something along the lines of "I don't approve because I consider it a sin," or "I consider it to be an unnatural relationship," (though the second may be stretching it in terms of civility, depending on the company). But saying something like "Homosexuals are all AIDS-ridden and immoral," is an attack on the people, which is never right.

What should be done is not to censor anyone for saying they may have different views on any subject, but to hold them accountable for what they say. If their comments are hateful or derogatory, then do they really have place on a site that proclaims itself to be above such things?”