qbert, it's way more than a moral question: it's a legal one. Every one of those guys that punched the male would be found guilty of battery in a court of law. "Teaching someone a lesson" is not a valid legal reason for throwing a punch. You are only allowed to use as much force as necessary to stop the assailant and it's clear in the video that the guy is being clocked AFTER being separated from the girl.

For all the knight-in-shining-armor wannabes who seem to be posting here, let me give you a reality check. My roommate in college was best buds with one of his male cousins--they used to hang out all the time. Anyway, this cousin overhears his sister telling their parents that her boyfriend had raped her. Said cousin gets two other guys together and they go out to "teach the guy a lesson." They find him, drag him out to a deserted spot, and proceed to beat the living crap out of him. Justice served right?

Problem is, one of the guys my roommate's cousin brought along was a little overzealous. He was packing heat and when they were through beating the guy he pulled the gun and shot the alleged rapist in the head. But hey, the guy deserved it right?

Well not exactly. Turns out the sister was lying about the rape. See, my roommate was Filipino and everyone in his family is strict Catholic. The girl had gotten pregnant and couldn't admit to her parents that she'd had premarital sex. So she made up the rape story to cover.

My roommate's cousin and his two friends all got life in prison. Even though two of them didn't know the third was even carrying a gun, they were considered accessories to the murder by virtue of the fact that they had set out with the intent to cause the victim harm. So all through freshman year of college my roommate got to spend his weekends visiting his best bud in a maximum security prison. The cousin was 18 at the time of his arrest (same age as me and my roommate at the time). He basically threw away his whole life in order to "teach a guy a lesson."

Think it can't happen to you? People can die from a single punch. Maybe you didn't mean to kill the guy. Won't matter in court. You can kiss your life as you knew it goodbye with at a minimum a felony manslaughter charge. In this video, in all the confusion, someone (like some of the bystanders you can see scrambling to get out of the way) easily could have gotten knocked unconscious accidentally by a missed punch and slipped underwater before anyone realized what was happening. Is that justice?

Vigilante violence doesn't teach anybody anything. Supposing the guy in this vid truly is a chronic woman abuser, all these guys did by kicking his ass is to make him take his embarrassment and emasculation out on the next girlfriend by beating her twice as hard. Good work.

Make no mistake about it: if you're willing to jump in there to throw punches at this guy, you're not interested in justice or protecting the woman. You're interested in stroking your own ego by actualizing the over-glorified bullsh*t cultural stereotype that equates "justice" with ass-kicking. And even though you see yourself as the good guy--like my roommate's cousin did--you will be in for a rude awakening about how the world really works in the event the police do show up and start sorting things out.

It wasn't that long ago when I was a n00b, so I know what it's like.

Now get to work!

In reply to this comment by ObsidianStorm:
Thanks for the prodding! Already on it.

By the way, I really enjoyed your post about supporting new members - it is appreciated.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Dude, what's the point of being a charter member if you're not going to post shit? Your freshman vids have been pretty good, so why stop now? Get some stars, damn it!

Thanks for the prodding! Already on it.

By the way, I really enjoyed your post about supporting new members - it is appreciated.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Dude, what's the point of being a charter member if you're not going to post shit? Your freshman vids have been pretty good, so why stop now? Get some stars, damn it!

Dude, what's the point of being a charter member if you're not going to post shit? Your freshman vids have been pretty good, so why stop now? Get some stars, damn it!

>> ^Grimm:
>> ^Crosswords:
I disagree with Ron Paul on quiet a few things, but what he said there couldn't have echoed my own thoughts and words on the matter more closely. I'm glad someone like him is running on the republican side because of all places that's where those words need to be spoken the most.

Just don't be blind to the dems role in all of this. Bush took us to war with Iraq because both republicans and democrats gave him the thumbs up. Even though most of the dems in congress try to play it off like they are against this war...what have they done to stop it since they were put back in the majority?
One might argue that the true evil is not the republicans who supported this war then and now...but it's the dems who tell us they are against the war and how bad the republicans are who support it and yet they just stand to the side and do nothing to stop it.

Come on Grimm - you're smarter than that. Imagine yourself as a junior senator on the intelligence committee being fed bogus data, and with little access to the full story going on inside the intel community (cheney's strong-arming, etc.).

As for the failed promises of 2007, again, a freshman senator like Jim Webb for instance, wouldn't have a chance in hell of getting a bill to deauthorize Bush from conducting offensive operations in Iraq to the floor. No doubt that Reid deserves mountains of disdain for doing little more than calling for repeated votes on useless bills for no other purpose than to score political points. But don't throw out the baby with the bath water.

The people who say the Iraq war isn't a major drag use the past 4 years of growth to justify their claim. To me, this is the typical short sighted analysis that make macroeconomics so confusing to the layman.

The US has been running huge current account deficit, and it's well known that inflation initially provides a growth surge and increases employment. The keyword here is initially, because there's no such thing as a free lunch, and printing massive amounts of money inevitably leads to the type of financial crisis we're beginning to see now. This phenomenon is called the inflation/unemployment trade-off (in a global scale), and is taught in every single economics freshman course out there.

Of course there are other factors that permitted the US to print so much money for so long before any measurable side-effects. It only happened because the USD is the world currency, and that Asian markets bought an enormous quantity of US treasury issues (bills, notes, bonds) during this period. No one in the world in their right mind would bet against the US dollar, so every international banker played along.

While the US analysts are playing this short sighted game and placing the blame on subprime loans and rising food prices (not a joke -- this was published on Yahoo News today), the Chinese have secured 25 year contracts with all major suppliers. The US totally lost track of the big picture, and is going to pay for it.

I was a freshman in high school when I heard Mountain's "Mississippi Queen." As soon as I heard that screaming Les Paul Jr., I knew I was destined to rock. I bought a Tele from a guy down the street and started jamming. I dropped out of college formed a band, hit the road, and the rest is rock n roll history. For the next year I nearly starved, saw minimal groupie action, said "to hell with this" and went back to school.

What frightens me the most is that seven years ago I was learning these same facts about Al Qaeda's decentralized structure as a lowly college freshman in my PoliSci 101 course.

My brother (R-Massachusetts, a rare breed =]) joined Army ROTC freshman year at his college in Virginia. He liked it so much that he joined the Virginia National Guard as well. Military service is appealing to a lot of people... maybe because he gets paid so well (for his age).

karaidl, ya sure you don't want to be Mr. Pink?

MINK, ' glad to see ya with an avatar.

More sifters should get them. I suggested before that we have the default be a beenie. That is what a typical Freshman beenie looked like - long before my time - old black and white movies have 'em. The interesting thing is the other beenie hats that came up in a search were much more hip.

sweet movie, indeed

funny little tidbit is that i went to high school with danny lloyd - he was a freshman the year i graduated, and although he was a bit intimidated by the attention of an upperclassmen, we struck up a friendship - nice kid... i called him 'hollywood' for kicks

I saw him once live... in 2000, my freshman year of college, he played at a friend's frat. It was kind of fucked up, there he was, all big and sweaty and drunk, singing his heart out... and all these dumbass frat types and their sorostitute girlfriends just gawked at him, "like eeewww gross... what's that thing on his face??" Assholes. My friend swears however that Wesley had a good time, and partied down with the brothers after the performance... I wouldn't know though, it was too exploitive, so I left early.

written by jmzero
"If logic (and by extension, math) has nothing to say about God, then by the same argument it has nothing to say about the rest of reality. And yet every time I put two sticks on top of two sticks I end up with a pile of 4 sticks. I'm just lucky I guess.


Whoever did this video completely missed the point of freshman logic."

Well, logic doesn't have much to do with reality. It does however have to do with our understanding of reality. Reality or truth is often different of what we understand of it.

written by HaricotVert
"For information on how to argue logically and without fallacies, go here.

I think both SilentPoet and the video itself are missing the purpose of logic in argumentation.

Logic is a very critical (and necessary!) part of argumentation and constructive debate - if one point does not logically follow from another, then the argument is invalid, and thus fallacious.

What this video is presenting are VALID arguments, but they are not logically SOUND arguments (yes, there is a difference). Since an argument is a dialogue of sorts, there must be another person to agree on the PREMISES of the argument.

If an argument is valid, and in addition it started from TRUE premises, then it is called a SOUND argument. A sound argument must arrive at a true conclusion.

It is the premises of the arguments here that I (and many others) cannot verify as true ("If Man is Complex, then God created him" is an entirely unverifiable/untrue conditional premise), and thus I cannot accept the argument, though the conclusion follows logically from its stated premises.

Logic is just a formalization of a series of connected statements in order to establish a definite conclusion. It is a tool. It is not the argument itself. You are putting too much weight on the tool when it should be placed on the arguments. The premises of both of the arguments are the problems here, and thus making them UNSOUND arguments, despite their logical VALIDITY.

EDIT: Also, why the "lol" tag? This is hardly comedy, the way it misrepresents logic."

Again, the point of this video is to show how logic can be abused. Yes, the premises in the video cannot be proven true or false, but the premises are given to show that using them is an abuse of logic. However, thank you for the info. I found it very useful.

On a side note, I added to "lol" tag since I did infact laugh out loud after watching this.

written by bluecliff
"yup, this is great, man, just great!
to anyone who's out here this video is all about hte truth man!

ok. I'l get to grips with myself -

the point of the video is to show that logic is just a formal set of rules, it has actualy little to do with the object we are using. Be it God, paper, rock, scissors.It's absolutely abstract - you cano't use logic to disprove the "flying spaghetti monster" (shudders), logic simply doesn't do that. it's not a tool for truth exclusively, but it is a tool for thought an for evaluating mistakes in thought.
The point wasn't that God created man or anything, it's that the argument isn't logically flawed.


grspec said
The statement "if man is complex then god created him" is completely illogical.

No it isn't! it's just not TRUE. But it is logical.
an ilogical statement would be - this metal is made out of wood. Because the term metal automatically excludes the possibility of it being wood. Or a better example - "this triangle is round.""

Thank you. Logic has little to do with truth, but a lot to do with what we understand of it.

If logic (and by extension, math) has nothing to say about God, then by the same argument it has nothing to say about the rest of reality. And yet every time I put two sticks on top of two sticks I end up with a pile of 4 sticks. I'm just lucky I guess.

Whoever did this video completely missed the point of freshman logic.

I heard he refused to give the DNC's prepared speech and wrote this one himself. Trying to track down confirmation on that one ... upvote for the pissed-off freshman Senator in the meantime.