First Contact has three unforgivable flaws.

1. The time travel plot makes zero sense. Why do the Borg need to go back to that particular time to assimilate humanity? Why don't they go back to pre-WW3, where there were a) more humans to assimilate and b) lower tech weapons? Why do they need to interrupt the moment of humanity's first contact with the Vulcans? Why do they give themselves such a tiny margin of error by only giving themselves a few days to assimilate Earth before the deadline? Why don't they send Borg down to begin assimilating humanity straight away? And the Enterprise conceals itself from the Vulcans by hiding behind the fucking moon.

2. The writers fundamentally ruin the idea of the Borg by giving it a figurehead it doesn't need. They are not a collective if they have a Queen; they are subjects.

3. Worst of all, Picard's characterisation is a complete volte face. Seven seasons of the TV show proved that Picard just isn't a man who stoops to revenge. Only a year or so after recovering from his own assimilation, Picard has the chance to cripple or destroy the Borg forever and he doesn't take it, because he's a man of balance and pragmatism, not of blind rage. His sudden change into Captain Ahab is lazy and it's unearned. Picard, like everything else in the film, is dumbed-down for the sake of the action, and the character as written undermines the work done over the course of the TV series, amputates him from Roddenberry, and is frankly unworthy of being performed by Patrick Stewart.

Star Trek: First Contact is fucking dumb.

Of course I have to concede to subjectivity and some of the action is very exciting (if still stupid; the "no firing at the deflector dish oh except when you do" incident is a prime example). But it's only possible to enjoy it as an action movie if you like your action movies to appeal to the very lowest common denominator.

I treat movies like these (like Oldboy, Edge of Tomorrow) as basically adaptations of foreign stories to Western society. It's not at all a surprise that Western audiences will generally want a Western lead, and studio execs know this. Besides what would be the point of remaking the anime/manga verbatim (besides converting anime to live action)? The original stands by itself.

What bothers me more is the inevitable dumbing down of the material. You can bet philosophical discussion on the boundary between human and machine, dualism and emergent bandwagon will be replaced by actions, explosions and CGI.

this is offensive on so many levels.
let me guess bob,because a black man posted this,it must,therefore NOT be racist?

this is incredibly racist,because this man is basically saying that black folk are too stupid to make up their own minds.that they are chumps and sell-outs for simply always voting democrat.

because republicans have ALWAYS been a voice of reason and championed the underclass! right bob?

we could use the same logic and apply it to the mind-numbing meth-head hillbillies who get cock hard at the voice of trump.who are convinced that the republicans represent freedom,liberty and the constitution.

while those very same republicans consistently rob these people,of modest means mind you,to pay their buddies in wall street.who pass legislation to poison their water,dumb down their kids,create food deserts,incarcerate them (while giving their CEO buddies a pass and a slap on the wrist).continue to allow tax breaks and subsidies for their donors.passing laws allowing big corporations to send jobs to china and utilizing prison labor (slaves) and then BLAMING the people!

yeah bob,that coin turns both ways.

so the black man who blindly votes democrat can be criticized for his lack of foresight,but so can the aging white racist who consistently votes republican.

because neither the republican nor the democratic party give a flying fuck about either of you.

you both are sell-outs,chumps and uncle toms to a system that threw you both overboard 40 years ago.

fuck this video,and fuck you bob.

I'm quite enjoying it myself, though I've been playing more Just Cause 3 since it came out.

Fallout 4 is mildly better than 3, especially the main story but not nearly as good as New Vegas (talk about dumbed down in comparison) but as other's have said I've always preferred Bethesda's Elder Scroll series.

That said, none of these titles has anything on Witcher 3, the out and out Goty and quite possibly Go/t... century!

I remember the Desert Combat mod for BF1942 was one of the first FPS with helicopters, and I also remember how every n00b would jump in, full throttle, and immediately kill themselves. While it had a steeper learning curve, once mastered, was very precise controls.
All later Battlefield games that had helis, they dumbed-down the controls to make it easier, and they just weren't as fun or precise.

You know what really bothers me about this video is CNN's dumbing-down caption below Dawkins, simply stating what he JUST said.
It adds NOTHING to the conversation/interview.
CNN, stop doing this.

insane, back when I was in highschool there was no cops/guards/etc

We even had a smoking section, and guns could be brought on campus.

For smoking section you just needed a letter from parents that they knew you smoked. and on recess the smokers all hung out there.

To bring gun to school, it was during any hunting season. You had to have note from parents that they know. The gun had to be visible, either gun rack in back window of truck or in passenger seat. Rifles and Shotguns only no pistols.

You had to have your Hunter's Safety Course card, Your Hunting License both on you to give copies at office.

You had to leave your vehicle keys with the front office and submit to random vehicle search of the hunter's vehicles only.

So while everyone could go to their cars at recess, or if you had extra empty elective, some of us juniors would drive up to Hardees before lunch and grab fast food then be back before 4th period started, but the hunters had to leave their keys with front office and they could not retrieve them until end of school.

So much more freedom.

Smoking was banned on campus for students only my 10th grade year, but Teachers had the smoking lounge in building. There was a teacher's lounge on each hall, the back hall F where weight lifting, welding, home ec, and vocational classes were was where the teacher's smoking lounge was. Most students friendly with teachers could sneak in there and smoke anyhow.

crazy times.

I had a 84 Camaro and kept a flare gun under seat my dad owned a boat and had couple extra flare guns. So I had that for some crazy reason thinking if someone attacked me, at point blank range I'd put on a huge firework show


Then there was the stereotypes that were proven right not wrong.

The jocks hung out together, the headbangers/smokers hung out together, the nerds, the band folks like me as my senior year I was drum major
and the blacks stayed together all in separate cliques at lunch and recess and before/after school.

stereotypes even went further.

the only highschool girls with babies (during time I was there I stress) were black girls, they had to build a daycare from the old mechanic shop behind the highschool for them. And even though this was the early 90s in the south, you'd hear over the Intercom every 6 months "All Black female students to gym at this time please" where they'd get lectured on abstinence, or condom use, and std's and such.

the only time rest of the student body went through that was in 10th grade they'd take the boys one day, and girls the next day.

We had a blast though as the guys, the protection/std talk was given by one of the football coaches, and during the talk with the guys and showing various "shock images" of std's on penis on the TV, when he got to the "sex ed" portion, he flipped in a Nina Hartley porn intro where a nude Nina Hartley showed the correct way to place a condom on. haha was hilarious looking back before "political correctness" went out of control.

I loved highschool and college.

Graduated high school in 94, got associates in 96, took year off then got bachelors in computer science in 99.

But 89-94 (our highschool here in the deep south is 8th through 12th) most are 9-12, but not here. It's still 8-12th here. So it's nothing seeing 12th graders dating 8th graders. Freaky yea, but not unusual.


If you got into a fight, if a coach was around he'd let the fight finish, unless it got a bit too over the top then they'd break it up. You didn't get suspended, you lost recess privileges usually 3 days plus the starter of the fight got 10 licks of the paddle in principle office, the other only got 1 to 3, or if person was just dominated and got ass kicked you just got detention.


Kids didn't act up at all most times. And the reason was Corporal Punishment. Not private paddling either.


Once I was having a bad day, me and "highschool" sweetheart were having a bit of a spat. We sat next to each other so we were bickering a bit during class. Teacher had yelled at me to shut up and do the work. I sighed "Leave me the fuck alone"

bad move.

She called me to front of class and I got 5 licks of paddle in front of everyone. They'd stick finger in your belt loop and yank it up tight to put that extra sting on it. Embarrassing as hell! Even female older teachers who didn't paddle hard, it was just too embarrassing to get paddled, so kids behaved.


And of course if you refused paddling which you could but you'd take a zero for the day's work. few of those in a semester and no matter how hard you worked you were flunking that semester.


But the system worked.

It wasn't until they went crazy insane on political correctness, stopping corporal punishment, and putting cops/rent a cops/guards in schools and after the No Child Left Behind was signed into law, they severely dumbed down kids forcing the smartest to learn at the slowest kids pace. Doc's prescribing SSRI's like candy to kids in MASSIVE quantities, that schools in today's culture are crazy.

proper amount of everything going on here, conspiracy to the right degree, mental but not full retard, not too tech, not too dumbed down, emotional enough... i'm definitely on board.

I don't watch regular TV for two reasons.
1). The shows are so dumbed down, I find them insulting.
2). Cable access is so ridiculously over priced, and they force you to pay for channels you don't want.

As far as commercials. I view commercials as short films. They have 30-60 seconds to sell a concept and a story. Most fail, but some get it right.

Being an old school MK player (I think I stopped at MK3 when SEGA Genesis was still a thing) I got that feeling too... I was wondering if they just dumbed down the game and let fatalities be a thing at the end of every match without knowing any button combos or if they looked them up and cut the scenes in. Either way I think their reactions to the gore are genuine and hilarious! Also I'm buying some Skittles for the big game!

I love a PSA that says "No one should be made to feel like crap."

Way to dumb down your language for the slow-witted racists of Australia.

I think it's sexist that they dumb-down basketball for the ladies by giving them a tiny ball and a gigantic net. Come on. They can play normal basketball just like the fellas.

Even if that is what he meant, he's still just as wrong. It doesn't matter what he meant, he made up his 'data' and believes that because most Faux viewers will agree with him, his made up 'data' is therefore just as valid as actual data.
He claims to speak for 'academia', while he seems to have not taken a basic high school science class. He makes completely ridiculous statements, then falsely claims 'no one will disagree' as if that validates his insanity.
Jumping on the hate train and pushing the throttle to MAX. Idiots like this need ridiculing and lambasting, or apologists will confuse the issue and leave his insanely wrong statements as 'facts' in his constituents minds, massively contributing to the dumbing down of America and making actual discussion of facts impossible. Worse, he's on the committee for natural resources and the environment while exhibiting a complete lack of knowledge about either, and has a 'following' of constituents that will quote him, giving credence to his argument in their minds, then he'll quote them, further solidifying his position and pretending they 'corroborate' his insanity.

Hate-a-hate-a-hate-a-hate-a, hate-a-hate-a-hate-a-hate-a-, hate-a-hate-a-hate-a-hate-a-, HATE HATE!

I don't give a single fuck about mainstream music, but, you really can't find fault in the artist at this point.
Just like automation has made many of us lazy in day to day tasks, I'm sure the benefits of digitization have made most of todays 'pop' artists not care too much about their real-life performances.
Not that this has to be said, hopefully, but: Ultimately 'pop' music is a construct of dozens of individuals, neatly produced, prepped and packaged for an audience with the sole intent of profit. Those that buy into it are far more worthy of ridicule than the artists themselves, even if the artists and all those who support them are guilty of dumbing down what most people consider art.
In the end, if you don't like this kind of shit, post, promote and value your favorite live bands. At least that introduces people to new, greater-quality experiences, whereas this won't change anyone's mind about the music. It just makes fans turn away, and those who already knew better feel good about themselves.
This wasn't aimed at the poster. Just humanity in general.

Everyone who wants to cover their assess in the coming full-blown police state should outfit their vehicles with audio/visual and ability to instantly upload to the cloud to marginally disrupt the state's ease in building an actionable case against you. Mind you, it's already a police state and the rights we barely enjoy as citizens anymore, fast-becoming merely obstacles to any righteous justice. Give the dumbing-down of another generation some time and you'll have nothing but husks of humans being walking around...