If he's 14 you have to wonder how many of the actual "trailer guy" trailers this kid has seen in the wild. The Trailer Voice really died off at the end of the 90s.

The regions of which you speak belong to another era. Villages out there take days to walk to along mountain trails in some of the highest mountain ranges in the world. Is similiar to a lot of terrain in Afghanistan. Natural forts.

They've never really been conquered or been part of established empire. People are still organized along tribal lines, with the tribes engaged in continuous inter-tribe warfare. Every kid is handed a gun as soon as he's old enough to shoot and raised to abide by the honour code (pashtunwali, yes they even have a name for it). When the tribe is under attack, you don't question right or wrong, you defend the tribe. They're no electricity, television, newspapers, literacy, or any other medium that counters this message. I know it sounds racist but those boys are like klingons, the Pakistani government has never really dared to take them on.

Couple that with the decades of training provided in the arts of guerilla warfare; including drug running, weapons manufacture, crude bomb manufacture, etc. by the CIA and ISI during the cold war and the Soviet invasion, means they are a force to be reckoned with as the US is finding out in Afghanistan.

Despite all of that they've never really bothered us until the "war on terror". They've always bbeen kind of our crazy cousins. We don't wanna be around them but they're family. Most of the country is similarly undeveloped (as in people still live like 3000 years ago undeveloped) and backwards. Bringing them into the modern era is a long term project but there's a 150 million more people on that waiting list.

Since the war on terror Pakistan has taken a serious beating. This was supposed to be our decade of growth instead the economy is in shambles. We've been through yet another round of Western supported, foreign policy obsessed, military dictator leaving our civil institutions in shambles. We've lost around 4 thousand soldiers another 8.5 wounded. 40 thousand civilians killed and 3.5 million internal refugees (dirt poor and starving variety).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_North-West_Pakistan

Those are big numbers, people are angry. The Americans are unlikely to win in Afghanistan. They're putting tribe against tribe. All this talk of democracy vs. extremism/terrorism is not something the average Afghan understands. The average Afghan is illiterate and does not understand complex ideas. He understands this: foreigners, christian army, my tribe has chosen this side because we always hated those other fuckers anyways. Americans will leave, leaving Pakistan with a mess. They did it before and we've been screwed since. There's a huuuuge (as in a small city big) Afghan refugee camp near where I live that's some thirty years old, from the last time American boys were in the region playing their geopolitical monopoly game. It's horrible.

From the Pakistani perspective the War on Terror has been a disaster. It's solved nothing and created tenfold the problem it aimed to solve. The Afghans are a primitive bunch (made more so by warfare) and need to establish a government, after which they will slowly over time, maybe a century, join the civilized world. Pakistan wholeheartedly supported the Taliban (as did the US) when they took control of the country and brought peace to it. Warfare is the real bitch not how "extreme" they are. Saudi's are equally nuts and there's not a single American president who doesn't go pay a visit right away upon taking office. Best friends.

Now the government/military of Pakistan is in a tricky situation, we have to play both sides, thus the lack of trust. Either side has the ability to seriously take Pakistan on and bring it to it's knees. The government the American's have propped up in Kabul wouldn't last a month without them, is corrupt, and allied to the Indians, with whom we see ourselves as being in a state of justified war. What to do!? What to do!? (in a indian accent).

I guess my point being, we're actually not a bad bunch. Just in a shitty situation. Come sometime and I can show you around. Most of the country is safe. Safer than mexico anyways.

Sorry that was a long post





>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^FermitTheKrog:
Thanks for having a more nuanced understanding of the matter... thought I'd share a Pakistani perspective:
-Yes, no arabs here. Lots of Muslims though as in loads of other countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population
-Pakistani's despise the drone strikes for the same reason we despised the Bin Laden assasination. It is a terrible loss of sovereignity to have foreign soldiers killing with impunity, racking up civilian casualties, within your borders. It makes the matter worse, Pakistan is radicalizing tremendously fast and every time the US flattens another village in Afghanistan or our border regions, everytime American troops accidentally kill ours, that pace accelerates.
-An analogy: If Mexico had drones over the US taking out gang leaders in LA, the US would flatten Mexico in response. All we do is get angry.
-Things are not that bad: Liberals are not dying off. We are in government by popular vote. The Pakistani military is not some tinpot force, it is very much in control of itself and thus of it's nukes. We will deal with the militancy problem over time; education, economic opputurnity, writ of law; not bombs. We are a third world country, Afghanistan has been a war zone forever now, these things take time, most of us still shit in fields, out people are hungry, we have bigger problems to deal with than car bombs.
-In Pakistan, conservatives want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Palestine is the example. Amongst the ultra right (3-4% of the population, I'm sure you have them too, wherever you are) the "we" is Muslims and the "them" is a collaboration of Zionists and American bible thumpers.
Liberals want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Saudi Arab is the example. If they go away we can educate our people out of the mental cesspit they seem to be headed into. American bombs make us look like traitors to our people and weaken our stance.
Thanks for listening. Open to discussion


>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^vaire2ube:
well the trick is eventually we dont tell the kids running the drones that its actually REALITY! Ahh! Ender's Game!
But by then the arabs formics will be gone.

The populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are primarily Muslim, not Arab. There are in fact more Arabs living in America than there are in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined.
I know, not your point at all, but if you try and hash out the real news by reading through middle eastern news outlets you won't be able to make head from tails wondering why a pro-Arab outlet like Al Jazeera would willingly say anything bad about Iran. It's not until realizing that Iran is largely Persian and not Arab that it makes any sense.
I rant about this because it's crazily important and the details matter. American drone attacks have killed hundreds within Pakistan, but even by Pakistan's most anti-American media those people were largely militants responsible for killing Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani Taliban have meanwhile killed thousands of civilians, including former PM Benazir Bhutto, and there is infinitely more outrage and hatred for America's drones than for the Pakistani Taliban. It's something important to think about. What's more, there is MORE hatred in Pakistan over America's raid that killed Bin Laden than there is for the unmanned drone attacks. That's even more important to think about.
The reality is that the moderates in Pakistan are fighting an uphill struggle in Pakistan. We need them to win but they are being killed off faster than we can defend them, and even attempting to defend them is hurting their cause to boot. It's easy to declare that a strategy is bad and has horrible consequences, it's a lot more important though to propose a better alternative. Stop the attacks and do nothing means a Pakistan where the Taliban where still best friends with the military and intelligence agencies. It means a nuclear armed state that was best friends with terrorist organizations eager to use those nuclear weapons in their jihad while we lacked any way of assessing just how close and willing their partnership was. Don't dismiss this assessment as doomsday fear mongering. One of the debates in Pakistan's national assemblies after Osama's death included elected representatives bemoaning Pakistan's failure to protect a great Muslim hero like Bin Laden. Pakistan is a battle ground between extremist and moderate populations and we have a very vested interest in who wins that struggle.


Thank you for adding so much to the discussion, very much appreciated.
Yes, I do understand the sovereignty issue looms huge in the opinion of American actions within Pakistan's borders. I can really understand how that would enrage anyone with any manner of national pride. America is in a tough spot though too. The mountainous tribal regions along the Pak-Afghan border are not under the control of the Pakistani central government. On paper the border may run there, but in practice militants can relatively safely travel back and forth between the two. What's more, there still remain places within Pakistan's proper borders that are controlled by the local tribal leaders, and NOT the central Pakistani government. Those local tribal leaders are allying themselves to the Pakistani Taliban and providing them safe haven within Pakistan to launch attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghan part does make it America's business. The Pakistani part in my humble opinion, should be a source of greater public outrage than it is.
I guess I find it worrying that extremists can be in de-facto control of large swathes of land within Pakistan's proper borders. So much so that it is still unsafe for the Pakistani police and even military to patrol there. To me, that seems like it is already an enormous sovereignty issue. America's attacks against militants in that region I can understand being a source of outrage. I don't understand why there isn't equal or greater outrage that those regions on the ground are no longer under the control of the Pakistani government at all and being used as a base of operations for launching attacks on the rest of Pakistan.
I think America's problem is knowing whom they can trust within Pakistan's power structure to work against rather than with extremists like the Taliban. Hamid Gul, former leader of Pakistan's ISI, scares the crap out of me. How many of his friends are still in the ISI that think like him? The JUI-F party declared Osama a muslim hero in Pakistan's National Assemblies. How much support has that party been able to hold onto within Pakistan still after taking that stance? Political parties like the PPP seem to share alot of moderate values, but have historically been ridden out of office by the military every few years.
Do you have good reasons that those fears are unfounded? From what I see and read(largely from "The News International") the moderates like yourself have always been in an uphill struggle against extremists and the opportunists willing to work with them.

>> ^FermitTheKrog:

Thanks for having a more nuanced understanding of the matter... thought I'd share a Pakistani perspective:
-Yes, no arabs here. Lots of Muslims though as in loads of other countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population
-Pakistani's despise the drone strikes for the same reason we despised the Bin Laden assasination. It is a terrible loss of sovereignity to have foreign soldiers killing with impunity, racking up civilian casualties, within your borders. It makes the matter worse, Pakistan is radicalizing tremendously fast and every time the US flattens another village in Afghanistan or our border regions, everytime American troops accidentally kill ours, that pace accelerates.
-An analogy: If Mexico had drones over the US taking out gang leaders in LA, the US would flatten Mexico in response. All we do is get angry.
-Things are not that bad: Liberals are not dying off. We are in government by popular vote. The Pakistani military is not some tinpot force, it is very much in control of itself and thus of it's nukes. We will deal with the militancy problem over time; education, economic opputurnity, writ of law; not bombs. We are a third world country, Afghanistan has been a war zone forever now, these things take time, most of us still shit in fields, out people are hungry, we have bigger problems to deal with than car bombs.
-In Pakistan, conservatives want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Palestine is the example. Amongst the ultra right (3-4% of the population, I'm sure you have them too, wherever you are) the "we" is Muslims and the "them" is a collaboration of Zionists and American bible thumpers.
Liberals want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Saudi Arab is the example. If they go away we can educate our people out of the mental cesspit they seem to be headed into. American bombs make us look like traitors to our people and weaken our stance.
Thanks for listening. Open to discussion


>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^vaire2ube:
well the trick is eventually we dont tell the kids running the drones that its actually REALITY! Ahh! Ender's Game!
But by then the arabs formics will be gone.

The populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are primarily Muslim, not Arab. There are in fact more Arabs living in America than there are in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined.
I know, not your point at all, but if you try and hash out the real news by reading through middle eastern news outlets you won't be able to make head from tails wondering why a pro-Arab outlet like Al Jazeera would willingly say anything bad about Iran. It's not until realizing that Iran is largely Persian and not Arab that it makes any sense.
I rant about this because it's crazily important and the details matter. American drone attacks have killed hundreds within Pakistan, but even by Pakistan's most anti-American media those people were largely militants responsible for killing Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani Taliban have meanwhile killed thousands of civilians, including former PM Benazir Bhutto, and there is infinitely more outrage and hatred for America's drones than for the Pakistani Taliban. It's something important to think about. What's more, there is MORE hatred in Pakistan over America's raid that killed Bin Laden than there is for the unmanned drone attacks. That's even more important to think about.
The reality is that the moderates in Pakistan are fighting an uphill struggle in Pakistan. We need them to win but they are being killed off faster than we can defend them, and even attempting to defend them is hurting their cause to boot. It's easy to declare that a strategy is bad and has horrible consequences, it's a lot more important though to propose a better alternative. Stop the attacks and do nothing means a Pakistan where the Taliban where still best friends with the military and intelligence agencies. It means a nuclear armed state that was best friends with terrorist organizations eager to use those nuclear weapons in their jihad while we lacked any way of assessing just how close and willing their partnership was. Don't dismiss this assessment as doomsday fear mongering. One of the debates in Pakistan's national assemblies after Osama's death included elected representatives bemoaning Pakistan's failure to protect a great Muslim hero like Bin Laden. Pakistan is a battle ground between extremist and moderate populations and we have a very vested interest in who wins that struggle.



Thank you for adding so much to the discussion, very much appreciated.

Yes, I do understand the sovereignty issue looms huge in the opinion of American actions within Pakistan's borders. I can really understand how that would enrage anyone with any manner of national pride. America is in a tough spot though too. The mountainous tribal regions along the Pak-Afghan border are not under the control of the Pakistani central government. On paper the border may run there, but in practice militants can relatively safely travel back and forth between the two. What's more, there still remain places within Pakistan's proper borders that are controlled by the local tribal leaders, and NOT the central Pakistani government. Those local tribal leaders are allying themselves to the Pakistani Taliban and providing them safe haven within Pakistan to launch attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghan part does make it America's business. The Pakistani part in my humble opinion, should be a source of greater public outrage than it is.

I guess I find it worrying that extremists can be in de-facto control of large swathes of land within Pakistan's proper borders. So much so that it is still unsafe for the Pakistani police and even military to patrol there. To me, that seems like it is already an enormous sovereignty issue. America's attacks against militants in that region I can understand being a source of outrage. I don't understand why there isn't equal or greater outrage that those regions on the ground are no longer under the control of the Pakistani government at all and being used as a base of operations for launching attacks on the rest of Pakistan.

I think America's problem is knowing whom they can trust within Pakistan's power structure to work against rather than with extremists like the Taliban. Hamid Gul, former leader of Pakistan's ISI, scares the crap out of me. How many of his friends are still in the ISI that think like him? The JUI-F party declared Osama a muslim hero in Pakistan's National Assemblies. How much support has that party been able to hold onto within Pakistan still after taking that stance? Political parties like the PPP seem to share alot of moderate values, but have historically been ridden out of office by the military every few years.

Do you have good reasons that those fears are unfounded? From what I see and read(largely from "The News International") the moderates like yourself have always been in an uphill struggle against extremists and the opportunists willing to work with them.

Thanks for having a more nuanced understanding of the matter... thought I'd share a Pakistani perspective:

-Yes, no arabs here. Lots of Muslims though as in loads of other countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population

-Pakistani's despise the drone strikes for the same reason we despised the Bin Laden assasination. It is a terrible loss of sovereignity to have foreign soldiers killing with impunity, racking up civilian casualties, within your borders. It makes the matter worse, Pakistan is radicalizing tremendously fast and every time the US flattens another village in Afghanistan or our border regions, everytime American troops accidentally kill ours, that pace accelerates.

-An analogy: If Mexico had drones over the US taking out gang leaders in LA, the US would flatten Mexico in response. All we do is get angry.

-Things are not that bad: Liberals are not dying off. We are in government by popular vote. The Pakistani military is not some tinpot force, it is very much in control of itself and thus of it's nukes. We will deal with the militancy problem over time; education, economic opputurnity, writ of law; not bombs. We are a third world country, Afghanistan has been a war zone forever now, these things take time, most of us still shit in fields, out people are hungry, we have bigger problems to deal with than car bombs.

-In Pakistan, conservatives want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Palestine is the example. Amongst the ultra right (3-4% of the population, I'm sure you have them too, wherever you are) the "we" is Muslims and the "them" is a collaboration of Zionists and American bible thumpers.

Liberals want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Saudi Arab is the example. If they go away we can educate our people out of the mental cesspit they seem to be headed into. American bombs make us look like traitors to our people and weaken our stance.

Thanks for listening. Open to discussion




>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^vaire2ube:
well the trick is eventually we dont tell the kids running the drones that its actually REALITY! Ahh! Ender's Game!
But by then the arabs formics will be gone.

The populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are primarily Muslim, not Arab. There are in fact more Arabs living in America than there are in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined.
I know, not your point at all, but if you try and hash out the real news by reading through middle eastern news outlets you won't be able to make head from tails wondering why a pro-Arab outlet like Al Jazeera would willingly say anything bad about Iran. It's not until realizing that Iran is largely Persian and not Arab that it makes any sense.
I rant about this because it's crazily important and the details matter. American drone attacks have killed hundreds within Pakistan, but even by Pakistan's most anti-American media those people were largely militants responsible for killing Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani Taliban have meanwhile killed thousands of civilians, including former PM Benazir Bhutto, and there is infinitely more outrage and hatred for America's drones than for the Pakistani Taliban. It's something important to think about. What's more, there is MORE hatred in Pakistan over America's raid that killed Bin Laden than there is for the unmanned drone attacks. That's even more important to think about.
The reality is that the moderates in Pakistan are fighting an uphill struggle in Pakistan. We need them to win but they are being killed off faster than we can defend them, and even attempting to defend them is hurting their cause to boot. It's easy to declare that a strategy is bad and has horrible consequences, it's a lot more important though to propose a better alternative. Stop the attacks and do nothing means a Pakistan where the Taliban where still best friends with the military and intelligence agencies. It means a nuclear armed state that was best friends with terrorist organizations eager to use those nuclear weapons in their jihad while we lacked any way of assessing just how close and willing their partnership was. Don't dismiss this assessment as doomsday fear mongering. One of the debates in Pakistan's national assemblies after Osama's death included elected representatives bemoaning Pakistan's failure to protect a great Muslim hero like Bin Laden. Pakistan is a battle ground between extremist and moderate populations and we have a very vested interest in who wins that struggle.

For once it's nice that someone took cameraphone footage at a concert. Always liked him and it's a sad day for his passing.

All the people I grew up watching are dying off - getting old is a bittersweet thing.

Let's not get too overwrought here. At issue, one planet's climate/resources relative to the mammal(s) utilization and experience of the same and their viability on her surface. Only one species have brains large enough to postulate, process, and influence directly a variety of scenarios. The indigenous species with teensier brains on the surface of this ball have for centuries adapted to changes dealt from off-world or on. Some are no longer here. We may or may not be here in our present state regardless of, or due directly to alterations in a variety of scenarios. No-thing is sustainable indefinitely. This planet's human resources are finite as well. Fewer and fewer of them every day. Sad really, when we all die off the next wave will have to start with some toxic scratch!

Then you for sure should not read the last book.
And if that fat ass dies off before he gets the series done I'm gonna dig his rotted corpse up and piss in his coffin. The last book was good but talk about a CLIFF HANGER! and now comes the 5 year wait and torture for being a fan. Maybe I'll just piss in his coffin for all the time he made me wait for the next book.
>> ^Yogi:

>> ^thyazide:
Heh, everyone fucking dies in this series, read the books.
>> ^Yogi:
>> ^spoco2:
He is about the biggest (oh ha ha, hilarious reverse pun sir) reason I watch Game of Thrones. He is just wonderfully acerbic and hilarious in the role.

He's the only reason I watch...since they killed off the other reason. Which I will eventually beat someone to death for.


Ya know one of the things I study is Genocides and international justice. I don't want to watch all the good guys die in my fiction. It pisses me off because I think it's bullshit. You can't make fiction look like real life by just killing off people and then having DRAGONS!
Let me put it to you this way, I'm depressed most of the time...if that fat bearded mother fucker wants to make me depressed when I'm supposed to be enjoying nice stories it makes me want to kick his fat fucking ass into traffic. You can only push me with this violence soo far until I start trying to rescue characters!

>> ^kymbos:

I think we can underestimate the barriers to online purchasing that normal people perceive. I know people aged in their 30s who love comedy, film and tv but who cannot work out how to torrent let alone buy entertainment products online. They are beholden to the content of their local video shop for entertainment. It seems incredible, but it's true.


This is very true for a huge portion of population, the older set in particular. My Mother in law looks at our setup, with my media server and XBMC showing all these movies and tv shows in an easy to navigate environment and says "I want that, can I get that?"

And I want to be able to tell her "Yeah, sure"... but there's no way she'll ever be able to get the torrents herself. There's too much, just ingrained, knowledge there about how to spot a fake torrent from a real one, what things NOT to click, what's safe to click etc. Sure she can navigate XBMC when she's at our place, but it's the feeding of that with content that's the problem.

But she wants it, most people want it, they want the ability to watch what show they want when they want. I have a PVR, sure, but I've largely given up trying to record things, as I go to all the effort of setting up the weekly timer only to find part way through the series, when we're finally watching it, they changed the time/night. I know Tivo handles all of that, and that's pretty damn awesome, but it also doesn't help if you find out about a show after it's started airing.

We want to consume your material, huge mega corporations, we're actually willing to pay for it. But with your DRM, your fucking around with show schedules ALL the damn time, your forcing us to watch anti piracy ads and trailers on DVDs/BluRays WE PAID FOR... you just really don't get it. You don't get your market, and for that reason you should fail and die off. Let people who know how to SERVE others step in and give us what we want.

Louis CK just took in over Half a MILLION dollars in 3 days... using grass root style marketing only. Maybe you should take a look at that.

(By 'You', of course I mean the large corps, not you kymbos )

The metaphor of an endangered species of duck is still apt.


No. It is not an apt comparison, you should stop using it, thinking in these brackets and stop listening to whomever told you this crap:


1. Human beings are at the top of the food chain, intelligent, social and able to make babies with one another, as previously stated.

2. Ducks can be saved by humans because humans can save ducks because: point 1. Ducks cannot form eco-departments of duck governments to save other ducks. Because they are fucking ducks. Certain species of ducks cannot breed with other species of ducks. Because they are actually different in more ways than colour. So saving a certain species of duck makes sense for biodiversity and etc. Also, plants and whatnot.

3. Now: Human beings of whatever colour, culture or other dividing feature your racist brain cooks up, are NOT DUCKS. They are all equally human. All. Equally. Let it sink in. Aaaalll. Eeeequaally. Not one single person is above another.

The above considered, I plead that because a particular civilization finds itself below replacement level it is in a perilous state and merits attention. This is a conclusion that, again, assumes an overreaching, unfettered respect for diversity.


There it is again, the racism. See point 3 for physical racism. Now to your cultural racism: "Civilisations," cultures, religions are NOT DUCKS. They are collective constructs. They diminish, they go inert. You can look at them in museums. Because there are almost always remnants and relics. But cultures are never dead. They are not murdered, driven away by evil muslims, outbred or dying off.

Cultures go on in the following cultures. They are absorbed. They are mixed. They are in flux. As I mentioned before. Cultures change. It is inevitable. A few hundred years ago, German was spoken on the British isles. It mingled with Scandinavian, Celtic and french languages and cultures --> English.

You must extend your own desire to protect a unique given species to the right of a nation to maintain its own identifying characteristics. Realize that the desire for prosperity and sustained existence of a nation does not by definition mandate the impingement on another.

Bullshit. Any nation's "identifying characteristics" did not exist 200 years ago and will not exist in 200 years time. It doesn't even need an outside influence to do it. It happens. "Nations" do not have a right to maintain characteristics. Those which tried, failed. We live in a globally connected world now in which ideas, culture, science and knowledge can be shared freely. Look at yourself being lectured at by a post-racial, post-fascist human being on the internet. Whatever culture you belong to, it changed a lot and it will keep changing a lot. This is called progress. Otherwise we'd all be talking a babylonian language.


On the other hand, if like GenjiKilpatrick you harbour a sense that "whites" deserve to be eradicated because of who they are... you're barely human.

As far as I can see here, he never said such a thing. This is your irrational fearful racist mind at work. Try to look outside your head. I guess you misread this: Not to mention - Adult White Males have been the most privileged, self-entitled, killin' & manipulating "lesser" cultures type homo sapiens on the planet for a few centuries now, at least.
He says that white men were basically "in charge." Nowhere does he call for an eradication.

And again you are calling a fiction of your own "barely human". I do not think it, Genji does not think it. This is your racist mind creating fictions you can lash out at. Try to see how your own fears are all without merit. Group B will not destroy anyone's culture. They will enhance it. As they have done before. And Group A will enhance them. As they have done before. In fact, there are no group A or B. Just humans with interchanging, intermingling cultures. Stop thinking in black and white. In every aspect.

I had a go at the game and i believe it would have been nicer to let DNF die off a long time ago.

@Ryjkyj

I understand your viewpoint, but can you find one video news story about this cop's death? If you look on the memorial page for him here, it seems many people had no idea about this guy's life or death until this video surfaced. And we (or rather, @lucky760) discarded it.

I'm usually the first person to call snuff, but for me, the key factor in this is that this was not posted nor filmed for entertainment purposes. @Lawdeedaw clearly had multiple reasons for posting this (as he's already explained) concerning attitudes on the Sift towards police officers, the 2nd amendment, the sale of assault rifles, etc. I think this is exactly the kind of video that should be allowable. On the other hand, this one where someone died off-camera most definitely deserved being discarded. If you look at the posts you can see people basically laughing at the last seconds of this guy's life (mostly because they didn't realize he had died). I don't think that's the kind of community the Sift is trying to build.

I wish the Sift had had more time to discuss Lawdeedaw's vid before it got booted (though I suspect in the end it still would have been discarded).

Every time some stupid new internet meme starts, I think "I can't wait until this dies off". But I never seem to consider that something even dumber will inevitably follow it.

I wonder what's going to come after "...like a boss"?

Only one of them got laid while the rest were almost eaten? Not worth it. That species needs to just die off already.

>> ^MycroftHomlz:

As a physicist, I am utterly confused how quantum mechanics plays a role in determining random differences between humans. I think probably chaos is more at work here.
It seems like the rest is conjecture. Even twins sometimes turn out very different. I highly doubt that two people with different genetics when subjected to the same environment and conditioning will arrive at the same end state. There are just way too many variables to assume that that is always true.
>> ^kceaton1:
...True, free will has and will always be an utter joke. People claim they would not do something in someone else's shoes, but if you impose the same biology and conditions--YOU WILL do EXACTLY the same thing (except for random quantum mechanical variations). In fact when it is said and done your mind will be indistinguishable from theirs...



Well to be honest when I wrote "quantum mechanical fluctuations" I'm talking about extremely small scale instances that get "measured" slightly differently (I explain a tad further down below). As particles have a pesky nature of doing two things at once or being measured somewhere else than expected or acting different than expected--it's even been shown to a limited degree that quantum mechanical effects like the dual slit experiment, entanglement, and superposition/duality may have some large scale implications (large scale meaning, the size of a few atoms or a molecule). Anything that would have large scale influences would have to be akin to "The Butterfly Effect". Repeating an event over ,as far as we know, can't be done "perfectly". Hence, the only reason I said fluctuations--yes, folks they would "most likely" be incredibly negligible. Give it 10 billion years then we might have something to talk about (like the small-scale setup at the big bang basically determining the layout and setup of the Universe as we see it now).

Second, what I mean by "wearing someone else's shoes", is to show that that this line of reasoning is impossible as we understand physics and neurology. In my opinion it also shows a very large lack of empathy or understanding in someone. At the least they do not have a good grasp of multiple subjects and how they interrelate; especially concerning the sciences.

I'm saying we would take whatever constitutes "the soul" and stick it in the baby. From my understanding and point of view, as I don't believe in a magical source of self that exists at any level. This would mean, literally nothing changes. Then let things go from there; this really is a time-travel experiment. This is a ludicrous idea. Experience and time, what we face and our decisions, our neurons and their connections and the chemical composition and topography of the brain IS our soul. If you switched places, you WILL be that person; as you don't exist. In your example the other twin would have to literally occupy the exact time and space as her twin--which can't happen; it's untestable. It's a thought experiment. Quantum mechanics would by definition require some changes to occur if "the test" is possible to be created by us--we would change things by interfering in any way.

Only someone religious could ever find a separate or different answer.

I'm talking of a literally switch not a philosophical attributed example (like religion) or a biological test and study of nature/nurture. It is ludicrous, as everything we know about our psyche shows that we experience reality as a type of delusion (practically the only way to describe our reality, psychologically speaking) which can be changed by a great many factors (your biology, drugs, or any interaction). When we communicate to each other (and this is what makes humans so important on Earth and different) we are able to communicate and describe across that sensory and brain created "delusional" void. What can and does get across IS also immense: our experiences, our own point-of-view, our senses, our own delusion. Then we can compare and make a determination of what constitutes reality by ourselves or in a group. Even if someone is high or I should say using anything that will change perception or alter senses, they/we can tell that there is a change through internal logic and experience a new "delusion" or perception. Some religions see this as a way to communicate divinely or likewise; i.e. examples like Native Americans and peyote. It's THE supreme attribute and ability we have as humans as well as "old world" monkeys. They seem to also, "possibly" grasp this "void" and how that barrier can be crossed too. A VERY limited version of ours, however.

We have found ape fossils that suggest that there may've been apes in the past that had I.Q.s in the 300 range. But, without the ability to teach each other, in a very complex manner, they were useless and died off. The fact we can retain old knowledge and teach and re-teach, write it down, save it to a drive, etcetera is the reason why we prosper with a smaller I.Q..

I hope that's much clearer. Or at the least helps. Some is meant for general consumption by others.

/One thing. If you're a physicist as you say, please tell me you don't think "chaos theory" or something akin to it, works on any other level than "maybe" (as we don't know yet) the quantum mechanical level. Everything that is bigger than a particle has very straightforward understandings. Otherwise, we'd have nuclear reactors blowing up everywhere, planes falling out of the sky, etc... Even people would start doing things "for no reason" except: well chaos theory made me do it. If you're talking merely about small-scale interactions still bigger than an atom, then still if you had the detectors, math, and "layout" ready beforehand you'd be able to "predict" an amazing array of things.

The only reason it seems chaotic is sensory and theory deprivation. The main forces of physics (weak/strong/electromagnetism/gravity/pluswhatwefind) describe actions very well. Especially, when we build it.

//Sorry, I think that may be a little too adversarial, but chaos to me is just a lack of "x"--whatever your dealing with.
///Lastly, (a bit more about above) the brain is amazing, but I definitely know I do not even come remotely close to being able to claim I've made a choice due to free-will; modern psychology is starting to understand that this is a fallacy of perception--The Matrix got one thing very right (as much as I hated the second and third shows, THIS was a great line that bears repeating and understanding): It's not the choices that we make that should surprise us, it's why we made the choice in the first place. Free-will is used best with LOTS of pre-planning and thinking ahead; most choices are made for you already. Understanding the way the human brain is doing the stuff it's doing is showing us that "WE" or "ourselves" have a great ability to take horrifically misunderstood or saved-sensory information and make it fit what we want it to fit. It's our rational ability that is the amazing and saving grace for us, or we would ALL be truly mad and lost in our own delusional worlds--each person seeing the world immensely different; like people with illnesses/on drugs/ or having a true mental illness do.

It should be noted that other people can also act like drugs, illnesses, senses, and other type affects on you. Hence, religions do very well at self sustaining belief and manipulation; this goes for all group-think.

A bit long, but this is a subject that I'm impassioned about and I do hope some take it to heart and understand it's implications and ramifications as they're far reaching. It has brought me great peace to know I found some truth in this life. I also have peace in what I would say is my spiritual health (psyche, but more general--including memories and thinking). Losing faith with nothing to use is an extremely disheartening event; I know. Science and understanding helped me transition immensely. I know many others that did not have this to use; I'm not kidding when I say that all sciences and math comes to me easily--many I know don't have this ability. It caused me to fight lies, fear, misunderstandings, and ignorance with patience and the ability to never give up. Truth has one great quality in that it is a lot like water. It finds every nook and cranny on a rock. It goes everywhere and ultimately will collapse and destroy anything that isn't waterproofed and all it needs is time. Ideas are the same, but truth is like water. If you find someone that is willing to at least ask a question of you, that is the half way point. Point them in the right direction and time will cause the change, but they must be curious, steadfast, and ready to question the questions.

Adults are the most lost. With my understanding of the human mind it makes perfect sense why they are the hardest to change. It may eventually be shown that it's impossible to reach everyone, physiological and psychologically speaking. Their own neural pathways and memories literally make it impossible for them to make that change or escape their own delusion, their current mind/brain has no way physically to do it--maybe with drugs or surgery--extreme, I know, but this also goes for chronic depression, mania, and SO MANY other type of conditions.

/Wow, that covered a lot of ground--heavily edited in a few spots for better clarification or expansion of a notion that needed some meat to be understood correctly. Tom Cruise is a moron who may be like what I said in the last point (unfortunately). I hope this is more informative than derisive as some points will be no matter what.

WARNING: Meant to be long and informative.

I respect your right to your opinions. Like everyone here, I'm basing my views on the sliver of my own experience.

The real problem, and it most always is with government, is spending more money than it has, and more money than it has the ability to take in without becoming tyrannical.

I'm not singling out teachers for blame, except they're the latest to make the news. The idiots at Government Motors with their unsustainable union-runs-the-business model is another example. They should've declared bankruptcy and restructured or died off.

Idiot politicians can't be counted on, as they're focused only on the HERE and NOW of getting elected. How to pay for it all is the next guy's problem...or raither, it's OUR problem.

I hear many people start off the discusion of unions with something like this: "Once Upon a Time, unions were necessary." Fair enough.

However, these modern unions aren't asking for things taken for granted today. They aren't "asking", period. They're demanding, with threats in case their demands aren't met. They're as comical to me as the entertainment unions. During awards shows those H-wood dopes are all in one auditorium that can barely hold their egos; they really think if that building vanished into the ether, there would be no one to take their places. That no one would become an actor or director because there was no union???

We the People have too many other options to put up with such decadence, particularly in matters of education. There's homeschooling, tutors and private schools.

The real losers of these unions besides taxpayers are GOOD teachers. They will never be rewarded in a system that ignores merit and makes the System itself and money-hungry educrats the star players.

I understand I'm the minority opinion here and you may not agree, but the real problem remains: how are you going to pay for all of the decadent demands of the union, which in turn doesn't fulfill its basic responsibilities of educating kids? You can only tax the the "evil rich" so much before they pack up and leave.