Payback, uhmm, an atm spitting money out would need to be reported to the fbi if they want their cash back. Now sure, about all they would have is you on that awesome studio grade camera on the atm machine, but since it would become a federal investigation they MAY pull close by security cameras to locate a car.. or another place you shopped at and may have used a card. The whole process is pretty much the same as if a money bag was left or fell off a brinks truck. The money isn't traceable and the bets they can really do is however involved in security cameras they choose to get.

Its such a rare incident though, there are so many electronics that need to fail in perfect harmony for money to continually spit out, so you never hear of it. There are easily way more atm attempted breakins to worry about.

"If more parents treated their children like adults, we would have more adults in the world that grown-up children."

What a load of horseshit... Kids/teens are not adults and the ones that act like adults are usually the ones that have taken responsibility (got a job etc), or had responsibility thrust upon them, rather than bitching about the 30 minutes a day they have to contribute to the family.

Respect is earned, not freely handed out, and she has no respect for him despite the fact that he's providing for her. Why the fuck should he treat her like an adult when she isn't acting like one?

Freely admit the guy probably could have done something else with the lappy rather than blast the shit out of it, but you can tell all the way through that vid that he is pissed as hell and just holding on. Perhaps all the people bitching about how immature he's being would prefer he took a 3 inch belt and strapped some sense in to her?

That's a big problem with the world today, not parents snapping after being driven to the brink, kids who are so fucking entitled they believe everything should come to them and just can't understand why a parent wouldn't be more 'mature' about it. Actions have consequences and she just got hers. Kudos to the dad.

Great find, i can't believe that 16 people got arrested for crashing the unlawful activities of Paypal against activist websites such as wiki-leaks, yet were is all this police presence when the corporations in the financial sector brought the entire economy to the brink of collapse & walked away Scott-free. truly unbelievable.

>> ^criticalthud:

hope and change will have new meaning:
thanks for changing our fundamental rights. i hope i get out of prison some day.
at this point i would actually consider voting for a republican, in the hope that things would become bad enough that in 4 years we might actually get a real progressive in office.
once again the"middle" has been pushed to the far right, and the far right is now just fucking insane.
and leaves the american people with the typical - pick-the-lesser-evil type of decision.


I think this has shown us right, left distinctions are meaningless; mere distractions created by our "betters" to create a impetus of infighting and faction. Eisenhower warned of this decades ago, and is now being fully realized. The republic stands on the brink, I am doubtful of a peaceful resolution and fully expect an American line of Cesar's to come about.

I like both Chris and Sam, but after reading the passage I think Sam was irresponsible in his writing - though I see it as more glib than malicious. I'm happy to discuss it with anyone who disagrees, but the way I interpret the passage is...

"If Muslim Jihadists - who fear not death and want nothing more than to nuke us for religious reasons - ever came to power in a state that possessed nuclear weapons, our only option would be to nuke them first. It would be horrible, absurd, unthinkable and would result in millions of deaths and would likely lead to retaliation.... BUT IT WOULD BE THE FAULT OF RELIGION."

I think the problem is three-fold, a) that he mounts an argument that justifies preemptive global nuclear war, b) that, sadly, he paints our conflict as one of religion and not one of foreign policy and c) that he sees Muslims as crazy people who would sacrifice the lives of their children in exchange for dead Americans and heavenly virgins. This is indefensible.

Let me respectfully remind my good sift libs that Middle Eastern rage against the US has to do with foreign policy, not religion. It's blowback. It was Bush that said they hate us for our freedom, and Chomsky (on the left) and Ron Paul (on the right) that said they want us to stop bombing them, building bases in their countries and installing puppet dictators. Are we really going to side with the Bush doctrine instead of having to concede something to a person of faith?

Again, I like both these guys and would rather they didn't fight, but Hedges makes a fair point. We atheists aren't used to being criticized from the left and it puts us in a weird position. I don't think Sam is a hater, I think he just wrote an irresponsible couple of paragraphs in haste.

Anyway, the full passage is below. Judge for yourself. Tell me where I'm wrong.

SAM HARRIS: "It should be of particular concern to us that the beliefs of Muslims pose a special problem for nuclear deterrence. There is little possibility of our having a cold war with an Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons. A cold war requires that the parties be mutually deterred by the threat of death. Notions of martyrdom and jihad run roughshod over the logic that allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink of Armageddon. What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime—as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day—but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe. How would such an unconscionable act of self-defense be perceived by the rest of the Muslim world? It would likely be seen as the first incursion of a genocidal crusade. The horrible irony here is that seeing could make it so: this very perception could plunge us into a state of hot war with any Muslim state that had the capacity to pose a nuclear threat of its own. All of this is perfectly insane, of course: I have just described a plausible scenario in which much of the world’s population could be annihilated on account of religious ideas that belong on the same shelf with Batman, the philosopher’s stone, and unicorns. That it would be a horrible absurdity for so many of us to die for the sake of myth does not mean, however, that it could not happen. Indeed, given the immunity to all reasonable intrusions that faith enjoys in our discourse, a catastrophe of this sort seems increasingly likely. We must come to terms with the possibility that men who are every bit as zealous to die as the nineteen hijackers may one day get their hands on long-range nuclear weaponry. The Muslim world in particular must anticipate this possibility and find some way to prevent it. Given the steady proliferation of technology, it is safe to say that time is not on our side."

Of course, just about universally, humans hold very similar moral values about certain behaviours like killing, inflicting pain, caring, protecting and so on. To determine what this entails, I need to know if you agree with this snippet from my earlier comment:

...[our agreed-upon standard definition of "objective moral values" as given verbatim by Craig] entails that if all humans on Earth agreed that torturing babies for fun was morally acceptable, that it would still not be morally acceptable. In fact, it also entails that if all humans were dead, those moral values would still exist...

This part of the definition (the "objective" part) is necessary for determining that a god must have made the OMVs.

Yes, I agree that even if every human decided that torturing babies was good, it would still be objectively evil.

On the other hand, if you agree with that quote, then you have to admit that just because humans all exhibit the moral belief that torturing children is bad, it isn't entailed that torturing children would continue to be bad if humans all changed their minds about it or if humans were all wiped out. In other words, to say there is a universal human moral value is not to say that the value itself transcends our DNA and is therefore an objective moral value (by Craig's definition: "independent of whether anybody believes it to be so"). In this case, Premise 2, the existence of an objective moral value, remains unproven.

That there are universal moral values in humanity is clearly evidence for and not against the existence of objective moral values. To turn around and say that just because they exist doesn't automatically mean they are objective isn't an argument. You need to flesh this out. Are you saying there aren't any objective moral values? That it isn't absolutely wrong to torture babies for fun?

In this argument, I have taken no position whatsoever about the nature of moral values. This was on purpose and with great restraint. I've had dozens of serious drawn-out ontological discussions with believers, and when their own position is pushed against the wall, they get desperate to find out what I think, then when I tell them, they point out how it's possible that my theory is wrong or that it doesn't explain everything, and say I'm close-minded for not considering their theory, and dance around the room saying that my theory isn't necessarily true either. It's the "either" that really pisses me off because it implies that their various beliefs are merely "not necessarily true", and on equal footing with my own non-proven beliefs, whereas I have actually shown their beliefs to be self-contradictory, unlike my own.

Well, we haven't gotten anywhere near what you're talking about. I said that your beliefs are relevant in engaging the argument. I do find it fairly common though that atheists will resist revealing their true positions, nearly to the brink of death. Probably for the reason you have revealed, that they balk at there being any inference drawn to a parity between the respective belief systems. I would say though that if you accuse some of having beliefs which lack evidence, and you yourself have beliefs that lack evidence, then there is indeed a parity, no matter how internally consistent you believe you're being.

Or if I have merely shown that one particular assertion of theirs is not necessarily true, they think it's a massive victory to prove the same about something, anything that I believe, and spend a great deal of effort in the process, even though I already knew it wasn't necessarily true when I woke up that morning, and I don't care.

I'm not trying to win the argument, and it isn't important for me to do so. I am only interested in what you believe and having a fruitful dialogue.

"Breaking apart" an argument is how I "engage the argument". What other way is there? You say Craig is right, and I go about proving he's not necessarily right, then you say I'm not engaging the argument because I won't talk about the side issue of my own beliefs. I'll answer any questions you have about my beliefs once this Craig argument is settled. If we can't settle a formal logical debate on logical terms, then I don't see any point in having any logical discussions.

In my reply, I gave a refutation to your objection as well as noting that I would like to advance to the actual argument. I don't have a problem with logical argumentation, I just was somewhat disheartened to see you were trying to kill off the argument without engaging it.

>> ^messenger:

@shinyblurry
Of course, just about universally, humans hold very similar moral values about certain behaviours like killing, inflicting pain, caring, protecting and so on. To determine what this entails, I need to know if you agree with this snippet from my earlier comment:
...[our agreed-upon standard definition of "objective moral values" as given verbatim by Craig] entails that if all humans on Earth agreed that torturing babies for fun was morally acceptable, that it would still not be morally acceptable. In fact, it also entails that if all humans were dead, those moral values would still exist...
This part of the definition (the "objective" part) is necessary for determining that a god must have made the OMVs.
If you don't agree with that quote, then all you're saying is if any moral values (not necessarily objective moral values) demonstrably exist in humans, then a god exists, without determining what is so special about these moral values that a god must have made them. If human moral values are no more metaphysically significant than large brains, upright posture, self-awareness, reason, guile, or any other human characteristic, then there's no reason to suggest they must have come from a god, and Premise 1 (that a god necessarily created OMVs) remains unproven.
On the other hand, if you agree with that quote, then you have to admit that just because humans all exhibit the moral belief that torturing children is bad, it isn't entailed that torturing children would continue to be bad if humans all changed their minds about it or if humans were all wiped out. In other words, to say there is a universal human moral value is not to say that the value itself transcends our DNA and is therefore an objective moral value (by Craig's definition: "independent of whether anybody believes it to be so"). In this case, Premise 2, the existence of an objective moral value, remains unproven.
what do you believe? That is what is truly relevant to the argument.
If you want to take a position of moral skepticism, then feel free, but you don't get to dismiss the argument over it. How we determine whether premise 2 is true or false is at the heart of how you approach this entire problem. How about you engage the argument rather than trying to break it apart so you don't have to take any position? It would be nice if we could advance the discussion.
I joined this argument to see how you think, and how someone being logical might think that Craig's argument was valid, and to challenge that position. What I personally believe has absolutely nothing to do with the validity of Craig's argument, just as a defence attorney's opinion of their client's guilt or innocence holds no weight in the courtroom. It's only the people who make propositions (like Craig) who must defend them. I have no interest in defending my own positions because I know they're not provable, and may even be false. I also don't guide my life by them, so it doesn't matter.
In this argument, I have taken no position whatsoever about the nature of moral values. This was on purpose and with great restraint. I've had dozens of serious drawn-out ontological discussions with believers, and when their own position is pushed against the wall, they get desperate to find out what I think, then when I tell them, they point out how it's possible that my theory is wrong or that it doesn't explain everything, and say I'm close-minded for not considering their theory, and dance around the room saying that my theory isn't necessarily true either. It's the "either" that really pisses me off because it implies that their various beliefs are merely "not necessarily true", and on equal footing with my own non-proven beliefs, whereas I have actually shown their beliefs to be self-contradictory, unlike my own.
Or if I have merely shown that one particular assertion of theirs is not necessarily true, they think it's a massive victory to prove the same about something, anything that I believe, and spend a great deal of effort in the process, even though I already knew it wasn't necessarily true when I woke up that morning, and I don't care.
So as a rule, if I'm in an ontological debate with an opponent and I intend to join the debate seriously, I keep my own opinions out because I'm not trying to prove any propositions, and my own unproven opinions cannot disprove anyone else's anyway. Only logic and reason can do that, so that's what I use. I don't hold anything to be absolutely true, so if they demonstrate what I believe is not necessarily true by proposing an intelligent creator as an alternate theory to mine, I'll just agree.
"Breaking apart" an argument is how I "engage the argument". What other way is there? You say Craig is right, and I go about proving he's not necessarily right, then you say I'm not engaging the argument because I won't talk about the side issue of my own beliefs. I'll answer any questions you have about my beliefs once this Craig argument is settled. If we can't settle a formal logical debate on logical terms, then I don't see any point in having any logical discussions.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

@criticalthud I find some marginal intellectual value in it, to be sure. But we aren't so different than 2000 years ago, it doesn't take much to loose all foundations of order as recent events all around the globe show. While the language we use to talk bout rights and such might have become more sophisticated, the man behind the language lingers on.
Comparing direct Democracy to cooperation is much like comparing your neighbor to your best friend. The former is cooperation by force of conditions (his relation to your own set of circumstances) and the later force of both your desires (your friend's and your own to be in a mutual relationship). The latter carries more weight when you make choices. The challenge I have to myself is how to make a system that harnesses this much stronger force of cooperation to a larger set of people. To be sure, most of the people you would elect don't actually care about you in a very real way. And conversely, neither do 1 million people in California. For me, both representative and direct democracy have a lack of care towards individual members.


thank you for a well thought out and articulate response. it is this kind of exchange that gives me hope. I would submit that we are quite a bit different from greek era consciousness, and that the age of reliance upon myth and superstition is at a close. This may or may not happen in our lifetime but we are and have been turning away from superstition to explain the world favoring and science instead. We are altering both our behaviors and our consciousness to become more rational human beings, and this change is happening at a very high rate, especially now that we are talking with each other.

are we on the brink of destruction...sucking the ecosphere dry? yeah, probably, and we're still too mired in the age of the ego to really give a fuck as a species. but i'm still finding you far more rational than michelle bachman, and I trust my neighbor far more than a politician in the pocket of big pharma.

I would submit that recent event around the globe are not indicative of a loss of order, rather a recognition by the general populace of their continued and growing irrelevancy. Despite the chaos, there is an increased sense of awareness that is developing on this planet.... and rapidly. And once it starts, it is potentially infinite.

people all around the world are quickly figuring out that they are getting fucked and they want to do something about it.
and we are quickly figuring out that we are not god's chosen and the world is not our domain to rule as we see fit. we're just another species, and we are fucking up the planet in a bad way.
and we are modifying their behavior to become more rational beings.
and rationality values cooperation

or who knows. maybe i'm just trippy dippy

I have to agree with Chaosengine. Being Portuguese I can assure you our problems are not a direct result of a socialist agenda. In fact, it's the direct result of governments borrowing more than we can pay, and leaving the tab for the next guy like the assholes that they are, and spending money on completely moronic things.

Did you know Portugal is actually one of the countries in the world with the best network of roads? There are no more, no less that 3 different roads, in parallel connecting Lisbon and Porto (the two biggest cities). You have the A1 (the most important highway), then the A17 (a newer highway) and the old N1 (just a regular 2 lane road). WHY? We don't need it.

A few years back, the then Minister of Defence (who is now the foreign affairs minister, a disgusting weasel) order 2 fucking submarines from Germany. They cost 500 million euros each (1 billion in total). Now... It's true that Portugal has an absolutely huge area of the Atlantic to survey, control, and administer, but anyone with half a brain knows that you do that with frigates and fast ships. That 1 billion euros could have been used to save a big famous shipyard which is on the brink of bankruptcy, and could have easily manufactured hundreds of smaller vessels. (oh.. and that shit head of a minister, when he was the defence minister actually told the people who worked at the shipyard that they would be building what I just said. Of course, they never did)

The previous government insisted against EVERYONE that Lisbon needed a new Airport. Of course, that is now on the shelf, be cause it was completely stupid and it would cost several billion euros.

Oh, did I mention the TGV? (the high speed train). Porto and Lisbon are connected by a train called the Pendular, which looks a lot like a tgv, and is supposed to reach speeds of 250 km/h (which is great really. At that speed the trip between the two cities would take no more than 2 hours) the problem is, greedy incompetent assholes always get their hands on government funded programs, and they built the whole line between Porto and Lisbon (which is about 350km's in lenght) and the only place the train can achieve the top speed is between my city and another one to the south, in a journey of no more than 50km's (it's not a safety thing mind you, it's just the track wasn't built like it was supposed to) The rest of the time, the train hops along a 150.. 170km/h. WHY THE FUCK WOULD WE NEED A TGV between the two cities when the existing train is already great IF it had been properly built. Thankfully that's also in the shelf.

The European Championship of 2004... it was great. Portugal almost won the championship, which would have been great, since we were the hosts. And everything went great. Several new stadiums were built, the festivities were very nice, etc. The problem is, most of these stadiums are now a maintenance nightmare, because the ones left with the bill are the cities and not the government. My own city is 200 million in the red because of all this shit (a city of less than 80,000 people. although the whole district has a lot more people. About 600,000).

These are just a few examples, and not ONE of them is a result of socialism, but of stupid management and capitalism, and wanting to buy shiny things.

AND then we also get fucked nice and royally in the ass by most atrocious capitalist system in the world, the american one, which has the 3 most notorious rating agencies spewing nothing but stupidity, speculation, lies, and anything that gets their fuck buddies some extra euros or dollars. The United States was 2 days away from going into default, and only came up with a ridiculous temporary measure. Yet, none of the agencies touched the american rating. How curious! Portugal was bailed out by the IMF, it has a majority government, consensus from the people that sacrifices must be done even though they suck and in some cases are completely unfair, was actually going beyond what the IMF requested, and still Moody's slashed the rating to junk.

In short... this whole financial crisis was caused by over-consumption, really shitty management, and a lot of business practices that should, quite frankly be a crime!

This is the type of story that stirs me to the brink of rage. I hope this man sues the shit out of the real criminals here: the bank.

I'm sure the actual prices are distributor enforced but the way they label it in USD is just shameless. A blatant attempt to mislead consumers into not realising that they are being IP screened and not actually paying US prices.>> ^Gallowflak:

>> ^Asmo:
To give some context to the cost of Brink in Aus (where Yahtzee buys his games), Brink on Steam is 89.99 AUD (making it ~95-97 USD) and can be found for 109.99 across some counters...
For a game that is essentially multiplayer only (Hell, Section 8:Prejudice had multi + single player campaign + class based for 15 AUD ffs...) this is a blatant fucking rip.
Given the poor reviews so far, I don't think I'll even bother once it hits the bargain basement bin...

http://www.steamprices.com/au
Yep. But the price of the game has next to nothing to do with the developer. If I recall, digitally-distributed games in Australia are kept at high prices to cut the Australian retail market some slack. Next stop: subsidies.
As for Steam prices, though, screw it. If an American happens to buy it for me as a gift, who's to know?

>> ^Asmo:

To give some context to the cost of Brink in Aus (where Yahtzee buys his games), Brink on Steam is 89.99 AUD (making it ~95-97 USD) and can be found for 109.99 across some counters...
For a game that is essentially multiplayer only (Hell, Section 8:Prejudice had multi + single player campaign + class based for 15 AUD ffs...) this is a blatant fucking rip.
Given the poor reviews so far, I don't think I'll even bother once it hits the bargain basement bin...


http://www.steamprices.com/au

Yep. But the price of the game has next to nothing to do with the developer. If I recall, digitally-distributed games in Australia are kept at high prices to cut the Australian retail market some slack. Next stop: subsidies.

As for Steam prices, though, screw it. If an American happens to buy it for me as a gift, who's to know?

To give some context to the cost of Brink in Aus (where Yahtzee buys his games), Brink on Steam is 89.99 AUD (making it ~95-97 USD) and can be found for 109.99 across some counters...

For a game that is essentially multiplayer only (Hell, Section 8:Prejudice had multi + single player campaign + class based for 15 AUD ffs...) this is a blatant fucking rip.

Given the poor reviews so far, I don't think I'll even bother once it hits the bargain basement bin...

Too me Brink felt alittle to stiff, not as smooth as they pictured it to be.

However, Im at 1800 hours played of Team Fortress 2...

>> ^lord_null:

Only 9 shots. I'm not even buzzed.


You're not drinking the right stuff.

>> ^KnivesOut:

My son is playing Brink as I type this, and enjoying it immensely.
However, he's 13, which makes him legally retarded, so what does he know.


I upvoted this much like everyone else because we can all agree on one thing. Young people are all bastards.