So they should give the game a better review because of the hardships in making it? That's just silly...at the end of the day this is a product and reviews are meant to be a guide to what a consumer may or may not deem worthy of his or her money.>> ^JiggaJonson:

So many reviewers, ZP included, have been too hard on this game. While the game was conceived 12 years ago, it was redone a number of times on different engines. Those engines, starting as early as Quake II and the original Unreal engine, also frequently meant that the game changed hands a number of times.
Considering what the game started as in 1999 and what it turned out to be, I don't think it's fair to put all kinds of blame on the publishers of today and the final product they turned out.
I would say that the game turned out like an episode of "Chopped" where chefs are given a metaphorical ingredient set of "Duck heart, Watermelon, and Tortillas" and are expected to whip a good game out of it in a timely fashion.
Taking that into consideration I think they put out a decent game that I had fun playing. Saying over and over again that the game took twelve years to make doesn't tell the whole story and we should expect better from our game reviewers.

I reread every comment you made in this thread, and at no point until now did you assert that the peasant is the king's servant, much less his slave as you have now suggested. Not until I suggested that the peasant is in fact free to think as well as act did you suggest that the peasant was a slave. Even if we assume that the peasant is in fact a slave, you have still not demonstrated that his mental condition is in any way relevant to his ability to "perform his job", or "provide for his family", which I have proposed as his motivation for working, irrespective of his belief in an actual king.

You could have tried reading the original comment, which stated:

Now lets say one day you refuse to work, refuse to submit to his authority. You say to yourself, I don't believe this King is really real; I've never seen him with my own eyes.. This a conspiracy, I will just do whatever I want. You even decide to go into the towns square to tell others to stop working for this King. That it is a fools errand, the King is a hoax you say. You're wasting your lives when you could live for yourself! Yet, when the King gets wind of this he tells his soldiers "Fetch my ungrateful servant and bring him in front of me"

The peasants life is intrinsically tied to the King. The peasant is not just working to earn a wage, but to be freed from his obligation..to be freed from slavery basically..not only that but to attain what he could never attain on his own, for himself and his family: a future. Without the reward, the peasant would have to eke out a subsistance existence until he died. His motivation is not a living wage, it is freedom from having to produce. The only way he can do this is by living a life pleasing to the King. The King expects obedience, ie the peasant has to work. The King expects results, ie the work has to be satisfactory and yield a good harvest. The King expects gratitude, ie the work is not proportional to the reward.

Nothing the peasant could ever do in his entire life could earn that reward. Upon receiving the reward, the peasant will certainly be grateful. If he didn't believe the reward existed though, he would simply hate the King for having to work for him. He would desire to flee the Kings authority and live for himself. He would seek out the company of people who felt the same way about the King and form conspiracies against Him. He would recruit other people and say the King was unjust, that there was no reward.

Now say the King had mercy on these peasants who were rebelling against him. He was a good King and cared about his subjects. He only wanted to reward them ultimately, but neither could he force them to believe his promise. So, for a time he let the peasants have a piece of his land to cultivate. They constantly gave him problems, either by raiding his stocks (because they could not sustain production for themselves), or encouraging others into disobedience. He was occassionally forced to kill some of the worst offenders, for the sake of the stability of the Kingdom.

His plan was to ultimately move everyone onto His land, after enough was stored up so no one had to work any longer. He would send emissaries into the places of rebellion, to encourage the peasants to return. He offered complete forgiveness for their crimes, if they would only work again for the sake of the Kingdom (which was in their own self-interest). Some listened, but others did not want to give up their freedom and killed the emissaries or drove them out.

Eventually it came time to pass that the Kings plan came to fruition. All the peasants who obeyed the King lived with Him on his land in harmony with one another, with enough to last them the rest of their days. The rebellious peasants could no longer raid the Kings stocks because they were completely shut out. They begged to be let in, because they were now starving, but it was too late..the King was neither going to take from the reward of those who earned it, to give to those who didn't, and who were presented every opportunity to change their ways, nor was he going to pollute the harmony he had cultivated (harmony based on gratitude for the reward and his justness)..for the rebellious peasants were neither grateful nor did they think the King was just. For them, it was here today and gone tomorrow..that is how they lived and that is how they died.

People have certainly been argued into believing in Jesus is their savior. They are typically called children. But, to get to the crux of your argument, until I can believe in god, I can't believe in god. Or rather, until I believe in god, I will have no reason to do so. That is about as circular as you can get.....

No, I am saying that until you feel that you need to be saved, for whatever reason, then you won't come near Jesus. You have to feel you need a savior before you look for one. Curiousity might get you near, but it won't make you follow Him. It is useless to argue someone into knowing Jesus..Jesus Himself predicted the kind of Christians that would produce in the parable of the sower: A weak one the devil will come steal away in times of hardship.

Your arrogance truly knows no bounds, does it? First off, you're about 2 decades off in your estimation. Second, as I quite clearly noted in parens, my interest in knowing the lawmakers in DC has nothing to do with whether or not I accept the rules of society. I am in fact deeply interested in the persons that would rule us. Let me ask you - can you name more than 50% of the 535 elected representatives in Congress, and more than 50% of their aides? I deeply care who our elected officials are, what they are doing, why they run, and their ultimate goals (so far as they may be elucidated), but my reasons for doing so have absolutely nothing to do with acceptance of their "authority over me". I think it is you that needs to reread this discussion and find the truth of what was written. You "know" that I have not searched for a god? What incredible presumptuousness. Are you now claiming not only to know God's love, but also when and where He will demonstrate it? Are you the arbiter of God's will????

Don't know don't care pretty much spells it out doesn't it? Seems like that is pride in being uninformed to me. This is the comment that made me think you were young, because that kind of apathy is very common among youth. Generation Emo doesn't give a shit, doesn't want to work, does everything based on feelings, and hasn't thought too deeply about anything because they want instant answers to everything. I concede its possible you have honestly looked, and perhaps God will lead you to Him later, if there is something in your heart that desires to know Him. Whatever it was though, it wasn't good enough. Have you ever tried doing the things that are pleasing to God first, before jumping up and down in his throne room and demanding He dance for you like a court jester? Yes, I do know Gods love. That's why I am here.

It's a philosophical question. Not caring isn't a valid answer to the question.
Not valid for you. Take off your blinders. You do not get to determine what is or is not valid for everyone else's intellectual endeavors.

I accept [that] people see things differently but this question only has so many answers.
This question, as with all questions, has as many answers as individuals as are willing to answer it. If you refuse to accept an answer as "valid", you must logically provide evidence why that is so.

Come on..this issue has been deliberately complicated to an extreme..when it is quite simple. The question of whether the Universe was created is entirely valid and relevant, though atheists will try to make it seem ridiculous, because they want to avoid the simple truth that there are only 3 answers to that question, because if they answer truly they have a burden of proof. I think if you're going to be an atheist, have the balls to admit it and stop playing these childish games with semantics. An atheist is someone who doesn't believe the Universe was created by God(s), period.


Okay, lets start very simply. What does morality mean to you and how does it apply to the world?
I will glady entertain this question, but I do fear that this poor thread is terribly off course. You or I should create a new talk post in the religion or philosophy talk page to continue this. I'll gladly do that if you want.

I think it's doing just fine..however it may be necessary because of the broken comments system..the page is already freezing a bit. I'll get back to you if you don't want to continue on here.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Since you asked, I'll tell you why I believe in God. Up until 8 years ago I was agnostic. I was raised agnostic, without any religion. We celebrated Christmas and Easter, but that was about it. I wasn't raised to like or dislike religion, I was simply left free to decide what I believed.
At the time I became a theist, I didn't believe in a spiritual reality, or any God I had ever heard of, because like most of the people here I saw no evidence for it at all. I actually used to go into christian chat rooms and debate christians on what I saw to be inconsistances in the bible. A lot of what people have said in this thread are thoughts that I once had and arguments I used to use myself.
Then one day it all changed. I guess you could say my third eye was opened. I had something akin to a kundalini awakening, spontaneously out of nowhere. When it was over, I could suddenly perceive the spiritual reality. I didn't quite know what I was looking at, at the time..didn't truly understand what had happened to me (though through intuition i understood the great potential of it). It was only after researching it online and finding out about the chakras did I start to understand.
It's an amazing, truly truly amazing thing to find out everything you know is wrong. It is really utterly mind blowing. This however, was the conclusion I was forced to immediately reach however, because the evidence for it was right in front of my face. Everything that I had known up until the point I could perceive the spiritual was missing so many essential elements that I may as well have been just born.
I started to receive signs..little miracles, I would call them..like stepping in front of a vast panarama of nature and suddenly seeing it at an angle impossible to human sight, where everything is in focus at the same time, that produced such startling beauty it filled me to overflowing with estatic joy. I started to perceive there was a higher beauty, a higher love that had always been there but I had somehow missed it. I started to get the point, that there was something more. That there was a God.
When I conceded it was possible, to myself, it was then that I started to hear from Him directly. He let me know a couple of things, and proved to me that I wasn't just imagining Him. He showed me that He had been there my entire life, teaching me and guiding me as a child on, only I had been totally unaware of it. He showed me how we "shared space", and that not only could He read my mind, but in some essential way that He was what my mind is. That He is mind itself. He showed me how my thought process was more of a cooperative than a solitary thing.
Now before you say I just jumped at all of this because everyone wants to imagine a loving God, etc etc..untrue in my case. When I first found out He was definitely real, i was scared shitless. Up until that point, my thoughts about God were all negative. I figured if He did exist He probably hated me. You see, that is what I had gleaned growing up in a Christian society without actually knowing anything about it.
At this point I became a theist. I thought of God as a He because He seemed masculine rather than feminine, and also I thought of Him as the Creator. I didn't know anything about the bible, or the Holy Trinity, or what a messiah was, or any of that. I thought the God I knew must not be generally known because I had never seen anything out there that pointed to a loving God.
For the next 6 yeears I was on a spiritual journey. I studied all the various belief systems, spiritual or otherwise, all the religious history..east and west, north and south. I studied philosophy and esoteric wisdom, gurus and prophets. The one I really hadn't studied though, was Christianity. The reason being I didn't believe Jesus actually ever existed so I dismissed it out of hand.
Before I knew anything about Christianity, God taught me three important things about who He is. One, He taught me His nature is triune, that God is three. I didn't understand what that meant precisely, I just knew that was His nature. He also taught me that there was a Messiah. He taught me that there was someone whose job it was to save the world. The third thing and most important thing He taught me was about His love. That He loved everyone, and that He secretly took care of them whether they believed in Him or not. He showed me His perfect heart.
What led me to the bible was this: I asked Him who the Messiah was and He told me to look in a mirror. At the time I had been away from civilization for a few months and my beard had grown out for the first time in my life. I hadn't seen a mirror since I was clean shaven. I sought one out and when I saw my reflection I couldn't believe my eyes. I looked exactly like Jesus Christ. I mean to a T.
It was then I was forced to accept the possibility that Jesus was real. To be honest, I really didn't want to. I felt like I had a really special relationship with the Father and that Jesus could only get in the way of that. I didn't even feel like I could pay Him any real respect, because I knew the Father was greater than He was. But, I couldn't ignore what He was showing me, so I started to read the bible. To my surprise, I found out it was about the God I already knew.
Everything I read in the bible matched what I already knew about God . The Holy Trinity matched His triune nature. That there was a Messiah and Jesus was it. And most of all His love, His great and majestic love, for all people, was perfectly laid out in ways I had never before comprehended. The bible was the only information on Earth that accurately described what I already knew about God. That is how I knew it was true from the outset.
So that's when I became a Christian. I couldn't ignore the evidence. My journey to Christianity was based on rationality and logic, believe it or not, albiet with miracles and spirituality mixed in. Even the miracles themselves were logical, as God showed me how He worked from a meta-perspective, and that time and space didn't restrict Him at all. So there you have it..an interesting testimony to be sure.
I am unusual in that I didn't come to God on my own. God chose me, I didn't choose Him. I might never have come to God if He hadn't. I found out later that this means I was elected..in that, before God made the world He had already planned to create me to do His will. After He woke me up it never really took much faith to believe in God because He demonstrated to me His amazing power and ASTONISHING intellect in ways that were impossible to refute. Whatever brick wall I would put up, He would smash it down into oblivion. He favored me because I stayed hungry. I knew the truth was knowable, and I gunned for it 200 percent. I would have died for it.
So I empathize with the people here. Some of you might actually be elected too, it just is not your time to know. Some are probably angry/scared/rebelliious, while still others are intellectually incurious and swayed by hyperbole. I'm pretty sure not many people here have actually read the bible. I hadn't either..I was simply arrogant at the time.
So what I would say to people here is..there is far more going on than seems apparent..if you don't believe at least that there is a spiritual reality, you're practically rubbing two sticks together. God definitely exists and will prove it to you if you humble yourself, come to Him in sincerity, with your total heart and pray. Admit you're a sinner, and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior. Anyone can know God is real. I wish I had read it earlier..would have saved me a hardship. Save yourself the trouble and find out the truth for yourself, that God is real He loves you. God bless..


Wow, thanks for that detailed reply. Forgive me, but I've broken it down to basics here. Can you confirm that I've understood you correctly?:

OK, so in short:

- You were an atheist from birth.

- You had a dramatic and sudden spiritual awakening and began to perceive an extra spiritual dimension in the material world around you.

- You began to have visions that were akin to out of body experiences or remote viewing, but with an extra dimension of spiritual perception. You interpreted these experiences as little miracles, and that they were provided by a higher being: a god.

- At this point god spoke you directly and explicitly, and proved to you that you were not imagining him. He explained that he permeated *everything*, including your being, and that in many respects he *was* you.

- Over the next 6 years you studied, and were guided and tutored directly by god who explained to you more specifically about his nature, and what the bible was all about.

Or to break this down even further!:

You believe there is a god because, after a sudden spiritual awakening he spoke to you directly and proved to you that he exists.

Have I got the basics correct here? Just the very basics?

Since you asked, I'll tell you why I believe in God. Up until 8 years ago I was agnostic. I was raised agnostic, without any religion. We celebrated Christmas and Easter, but that was about it. I wasn't raised to like or dislike religion, I was simply left free to decide what I believed.

At the time I became a theist, I didn't believe in a spiritual reality, or any God I had ever heard of, because like most of the people here I saw no evidence for it at all. I actually used to go into christian chat rooms and debate christians on what I saw to be inconsistances in the bible. A lot of what people have said in this thread are thoughts that I once had and arguments I used to use myself.

Then one day it all changed. I guess you could say my third eye was opened. I had something akin to a kundalini awakening, spontaneously out of nowhere. When it was over, I could suddenly perceive the spiritual reality. I didn't quite know what I was looking at, at the time..didn't truly understand what had happened to me (though through intuition i understood the great potential of it). It was only after researching it online and finding out about the chakras did I start to understand.

It's an amazing, truly truly amazing thing to find out everything you know is wrong. It is really utterly mind blowing. This however, was the conclusion I was forced to immediately reach however, because the evidence for it was right in front of my face. Everything that I had known up until the point I could perceive the spiritual was missing so many essential elements that I may as well have been just born.

I started to receive signs..little miracles, I would call them..like stepping in front of a vast panarama of nature and suddenly seeing it at an angle impossible to human sight, where everything is in focus at the same time, that produced such startling beauty it filled me to overflowing with estatic joy. I started to perceive there was a higher beauty, a higher love that had always been there but I had somehow missed it. I started to get the point, that there was something more. That there was a God.

When I conceded it was possible, to myself, it was then that I started to hear from Him directly. He let me know a couple of things, and proved to me that I wasn't just imagining Him. He showed me that He had been there my entire life, teaching me and guiding me as a child on, only I had been totally unaware of it. He showed me how we "shared space", and that not only could He read my mind, but in some essential way that He was what my mind is. That He is mind itself. He showed me how my thought process was more of a cooperative than a solitary thing.

Now before you say I just jumped at all of this because everyone wants to imagine a loving God, etc etc..untrue in my case. When I first found out He was definitely real, i was scared shitless. Up until that point, my thoughts about God were all negative. I figured if He did exist He probably hated me. You see, that is what I had gleaned growing up in a Christian society without actually knowing anything about it.

At this point I became a theist. I thought of God as a He because He seemed masculine rather than feminine, and also I thought of Him as the Creator. I didn't know anything about the bible, or the Holy Trinity, or what a messiah was, or any of that. I thought the God I knew must not be generally known because I had never seen anything out there that pointed to a loving God.

For the next 6 yeears I was on a spiritual journey. I studied all the various belief systems, spiritual or otherwise, all the religious history..east and west, north and south. I studied philosophy and esoteric wisdom, gurus and prophets. The one I really hadn't studied though, was Christianity. The reason being I didn't believe Jesus actually ever existed so I dismissed it out of hand.

Before I knew anything about Christianity, God taught me three important things about who He is. One, He taught me His nature is triune, that God is three. I didn't understand what that meant precisely, I just knew that was His nature. He also taught me that there was a Messiah. He taught me that there was someone whose job it was to save the world. The third thing and most important thing He taught me was about His love. That He loved everyone, and that He secretly took care of them whether they believed in Him or not. He showed me His perfect heart.

What led me to the bible was this: I asked Him who the Messiah was and He told me to look in a mirror. At the time I had been away from civilization for a few months and my beard had grown out for the first time in my life. I hadn't seen a mirror since I was clean shaven. I sought one out and when I saw my reflection I couldn't believe my eyes. I looked *exactly* like Jesus Christ. I mean to a T.

It was then I was forced to accept the possibility that Jesus was real. To be honest, I really didn't want to. I felt like I had a really special relationship with the Father and that Jesus could only get in the way of that. I didn't even feel like I could pay Him any real respect, because I knew the Father was greater than He was. But, I couldn't ignore what He was showing me, so I started to read the bible. To my surprise, I found out it was about the God I already knew.

Everything I read in the bible matched what I already knew about God . The Holy Trinity matched His triune nature. That there was a Messiah and Jesus was it. And most of all His love, His great and majestic love, for all people, was perfectly laid out in ways I had never before comprehended. The bible was the only information on Earth that accurately described what I already knew about God. That is how I knew it was true from the outset.

So that's when I became a Christian. I couldn't ignore the evidence. My journey to Christianity was based on rationality and logic, believe it or not, albiet with miracles and spirituality mixed in. Even the miracles themselves were logical, as God showed me how He worked from a meta-perspective, and that time and space didn't restrict Him at all. So there you have it..an interesting testimony to be sure.

I am unusual in that I didn't come to God on my own. God chose me, I didn't choose Him. I might never have come to God if He hadn't. I found out later that this means I was elected..in that, before God made the world He had already planned to create me to do His will. After He woke me up it never really took much faith to believe in God because He demonstrated to me His amazing power and ASTONISHING intellect in ways that were impossible to refute. Whatever brick wall I would put up, He would smash it down into oblivion. He favored me because I stayed hungry. I knew the truth was knowable, and I gunned for it 200 percent. I would have died for it.

So I empathize with the people here. Some of you might actually be elected too, it just is not your time to know. Some are probably angry/scared/rebelliious, while still others are intellectually incurious and swayed by hyperbole. I'm pretty sure not many people here have actually read the bible. I hadn't either..I was simply arrogant at the time.

So what I would say to people here is..there is far more going on than seems apparent..if you don't believe at least that there is a spiritual reality, you're practically rubbing two sticks together. God definitely exists and will prove it to you if you humble yourself, come to Him in sincerity, with your total heart and pray. Admit you're a sinner, and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior. Anyone can know God is real. I wish I had read it earlier..would have saved me a hardship. Save yourself the trouble and find out the truth for yourself, that God is real He loves you. God bless..



>> ^TheSluiceGate:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Well, according to the dictionary:
dict.org
Atheism \A"the ism\, n. [Cf. F. ath['e]isme. See Atheist.]
1. The disbelief or denial of the existence of a God, or
supreme intelligent Being.
merriam-webster.com
Definition of ATHEISM
1archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity
a·the·ism   /ˈeɪθiˌɪzəm/ Show Spelled
[ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA
dictionary.reference.com
–noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no god.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
The definition of atheism is very clear; the belief that there is no God. If you don't really believe that, IE .0001 percent, then you're not an atheist. You can't just reinvent the definition so you have no burden of proof. That .0001 might as well be 99 percent for all the difference it makes. Personally, I think the definitions people are trying to use today for atheism are extremely intellectually dishonest.

The problem here, as MaxWilder suggested, is that arguing about what the word atheist means is just semantics. We could both quote dictionaries until the cows come home, but it would make no difference to the central argument. It's for reasons like this that other new terms such as "rationalist" or "humanist" are being coined all the time as a way of distancing traditional atheism from the word atheist itself. I realise now that me trying to clarify the manner in which many people commonly define their lack of a belief in a god is actually quite pointless. I'm even going to disregard that you didn't respond to the reason why it doesn't take faith to be an atheist. This thread needs to be brought down to brass tacks.
Let's simplify the central point here, the central point of both the video you posted, and of all the arguments in this thread: Can you give one reason why you , shinyblurry, personally believe that there is a god? Just your one best argument for a god's existence.
For my part, and in the interest of fairness, I will tell you briefly how I arrived at being an atheist. (You can comment on this separately if you wish, but please, not before addressing the above question!)
I was about 13 years old when, as a child brought up a catholic and attending weekly mass, I began to question the morality of the god described in the bible. I looked at the atrocities he committed and asked myself what I would think of a real flesh and blood person alive today who behaved in the manner of the actions attributed to him in the bible, and whether or not this person would be worthy of the praise and admiration heaped upon him. This central idea led to an increased questioning of all the aspects of the religion I had been brought up in, and an awareness that although there were many great ideas and philosophical truths in catholic teachings, there was no conclusive proof either in the bible, or in the world in general, for the existence of a supernatural god of any kind.
So if you, shinyblurry, were recording a video in the style of the one that you have posted, what would you be saying on camera was the one central reason for your belief?

-1 dumb for a person smart enough to know better.

Look bf, we have two angles on this issue, each of which have benefits and drawbacks.

You support an extreme version of capitalism that removes all barriers to trade, providing complete liberty to business people, but it comes at a cost. The downside of this kind of extreme capitalism is unemployment, low wages, income inequality, poverty, exploitation of labor, environmental destruction, small business hardships, etc. If you are going to embrace free markets, you need to disabuse yourself of the illusion that they are beneficial to all people, or even most people. They aren't. As capitalism grows more extreme in this country, you see all of the negative symptoms I've mentioned above manifest and intensify. You see the exact same thing in other countries where free market reforms are put in place - similarly against the will of the populace.

I support capitalism, but think there should be protections put in place to reduce capitalist related misery (unemployment, low wages, income inequality, poverty, exploitation of labor, pollution, small business harships). If I were to say that adding these protections would increase executive salaries and corporate bottom lines, I'd be just as dishonest as you claiming that removing these protections would increase economic liberty among the lower and middle classes. They don't.

I don't think you are dumb, but you sure do suffer from confirmation bias when it comes to your own belief system. Part of the problem is that you write off anything short of a completely free market as unrelated to your belief system. And, because there will never be a completely free market, there will always be room for you to avoid taking responsibility for negative effects of deregulation, privatization, austerity and other individual aspects of your belief system.

I could do the same. I could claim that there has never been a pure democracy and therefore you cannot judge existing partial democracies. I could tell you that the USSR diverged greatly from the principles of socialism and communism and therefore can't be used as negative examples of socialism. If I did either of these things, you'd object, and you'd be right to object, because results are ultimately more important intentions. It's in this spirit that I object not to your belief in free market principles, but to the pie in the sky, unicorns and rainbows that you promise will accompany these principals - this post being a perfect example.

To answer your question, it is the government's duty to try and minimize the negative effects of its economic system. Planned parenthood fits well within this duty.

>> ^skinnydaddy1:

>> ^SveNitoR:
>> ^skinnydaddy1:
>> ^SveNitoR:
>> ^skinnydaddy1:
So, the guy animates on a computer that uses 4 times the amount of materials that is in a mobile device. Just to tell us our love of gadgets is enslaving people who can only be freed by starting a war to kill the dictator and if we do that, we get antiwar animation pointing out how we are war mongers and now everyone hates the war mongers because they started a war and the only way not to make the rest of the world like them is to give up everything and live like a third world country while no other 1st world country does the same thing.
Right....
Define hypocrisy.

No, he claims that our extreme consumption patterns have negative effects, not that we should invade countries. We buy new, throw away, buy new, throw away... and so on. This is a quote from someone, whom I unfortunately forgot the name of: "We buy things we don't need, with money we don't have, to impress people we don't care about".

Sorry, still can't muster up enough to care anymore. Its just gotten to the point where some Self-righteous ass has to tell me how terrible a person I am because I got up this morning had a cup of coffee. SO instead of wasting their time creating an animation telling me I'm a horrible person. Take that time to volunteer and do some real work for once. I no longer will apologies for the way I live. I do not spend more than I have and if other people do that its their business. I know, I know. I sound like a douchbag. But to me now, So does the guy who created the animation. At what point do I get to live my life with out criticism? With out someone telling me what I should or should not do?
I've told this story in another of a video comments not long ago. I spent 5 months in and around Europe not long ago doing contract work. The job had me going from city to city just about every week. In EVERY city the second someone found out I was from the U.S. I had to hear about how we were destroying the world. The hypocrisy of being criticized by some ass holding blackberry or Iphone or netbook or whatever just because I was from the U.S. really really got to me. And if I said I have heard this before they just get really pissed like what they were saying was so different then what the last 10 people said.
I know its trendy to look progressive and forward thinking about the impact of what just owning a cell phone can be but FFS change your own life and live by example not by yelling at the Evil American. and before you say it. No I do not have to watch the video, but I did receive the link to it by someone saying how clever it was. So instead of the Funny I was looking for I got the "your killing the planet by breathing" video.
Sigh, Ok, I've ranted enough here. I really did not mean for it to go this long but explaining it never seems to fit in to a few line.
This rant brought to you by "Douchbag American" If the rest of the world don't like it. Blame the U.S.!

Hehe, yeah that was quite an impressive rant.
I understand your frustration with being treated like an asshole just because of your nationality (and I would guess that the average Swedish person is worse than the average USA-citizen when it comes to using resources). They are the idiots for doing that, but I believe the video was not aimed at Americans specifically, but rich societies in general. We all live more luxuriously than what the earth can support in the long run and quite frankly need to change our lives a bit.
Nothing dramatic, just stop buying tons of new shit all the time and see if there are any used products available instead. I'm equally bad at this and love having new stuff as much as anyone, but still see the need for a change.

Ya, I know. Its not been a stellar few years for me. Needless to say the company that sent me all over Europe to do work for went out of business before I got back to the U.S.. SO I did not get fully paid for the work done. No, It was not a free trip. I had to cover my own way back and that killed the little pay I did receive. Hey, Fun way to discover your company has gone under. "Credit Card Declined" and no answer at the main office while trying to check in to a hotel. I love new stuff also. I've not been able to buy new for a awhile now.
My personal favorite from the trip, Being told off by some French ass who was riding an $800 bike wearing Italian fashion, holding a blackberry. I'm on a park bench trying to figure out how I'm getting home in a late 90s tshirt i got free from a tech expo and jeans. Just because I was from the U.S. The Kicker, I almost get arrested because "I" was causing a commotion or something. (I'm not sure as I do not speak French and the person translating I'm pretty sure left some things out) Oh well. It's over with so I'll tag as an over costly learning experience and I can one up a lot of people in a "Worst Trip Ever" story.


Yeah you would definitely win over me there

I would say that experiencing different cultures in such a way is a very unique and good experience to have, both personally and professionally. Now you know what it's like to be both poor and an immigrant at least to an extent (of course that could have been true before that trip as well). I find that experiencing hardship in different ways has allowed me a more direct (not just intellectual) understanding of others, since I'm from a pretty safe middle-class, white neighbourhood. It helps me empathize with their struggle.

Not much consolation, but the loud mouthed idiots are not a majority anywhere in the world. They're like internet trolls: they take up a lot of space, but they do not represent the population in general. At least I hope that's the case

Anyone who thinks they have figured it out hasn't thought about it too deeply. That which is seen is a poor reflection of that which is unseen.

If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Actually, yes I do. Most of what you named where not clanish but rather dictatorships. Moreover, Irak, or as many of us spell it, Iraq, has only existed since British imperialism merged 3 separate states together. Even Afghanistan isn't exactly what I am talking about, nor a good seed state for any form of anything as it has been racked by centuries of wars and hardships. There is a difference from the pure tribal form, from which I am borrowing, and the idea of clans which I am proposing. It is more along the lines of Dune, but without the condition of it being strictly family or location based. Labor unions are already a close approximation to my idea, just of a more limited scope. Unless you are proposing that labor unions make us like Afghanistan, then I don't really think you have made a point yet.

>> ^Smugglarn:

A clan system? Like Afgahnistan, Irak, Libya, Saudi Arabia... need I go on?

A clan system? Like Afgahnistan, Irak, Libya, Saudi Arabia... need I go on?>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^Truckchase:
>> ^ridesallyridenc:
Truckchase, you're right. With regard to your last two paragraphs, I think we are more similar than I may have thought. At least with respect to our perceptions of the problem. Our individual ideas of how to address the problem, however, may be divergent.

Man do I appreciate that; this is why I love the sift! I really mean it when I say I'm open to ideas. The initial thought of my "solution" makes me ill at first glance, but I've thought about this one for a long time and haven't yet come up with any other way to stem the tide in our lifetime. I do think we'll eventually get a shift against the immense corporate and personal power of the ultra-huge and ultra-rich as the mainstream populous is denied what has been promised to them, but often we humans take generations to see what has right in front of our face. My real fear is that by the time the US citizens wake up and see what has been going on, it'll be too late and we'll be a severely dis-empowered country with a heavily entrenched ruling upper class.
That said I do think there is certainly a need for workforce stimulus as you have laid out. Balancing the two concepts is the exceptionally hard part... apathy is the mortal enemy of progress.
Edit: replaced "can't" with "haven't yet"

In my friends sci-fi, never to be, movie; the villain, through gene manipulation, became a world financial powerhouse. He was able to manipulate the world with this power, and the device of his power...a teleportation machine. Using this device, similar to the fly, he could modify himself, and indeed, store backup copies of himself if things went bad. The hero's couldn't combat him, he was to strong and powerful. The hero discovered that each day if the villain was alive, the clone was destroyed. The hero thought of a plan to combat the villain...with himself! They were able to unleash the clone of the villain, and of course, both wanted to be top dog.
I bring this story up because I think it has a lot to deal with our current situation. Their are 2 types of ultra rich, those who earned it, and those who exploited it. The former are more common then the later, but the later is the bad apple that spoils the bunch for sure. More often than not, usually their rise to power isn't because of any real thing, but of being able to game the system in their favor. The current game in town is government regulatory bodies. They are able to be top dog because they can run anyone out of business with their "power" (money, and the government is their teleportation device . In many cases, if you had other "villains" running around, they would be hard pressed to gain unchallengeable power. I have yet to be exposed to a "natural" monopoly spare ones dealing in raw earth resources.
I think one of the main problems you face if you wish to level the playing field with regulatory bodies is distributed costs, concentrated benefits. You can't gain much political capital to fight the unfair sugar tax all US citizens incur, the financial drain is just to small to get motivation to fight. That "tax" results in, if memory serves, a 4 billion dollar "subsidy" to the sugar growers of America. If you are a sugar company, it just makes since to pass laws like this. The same goes for any other US company. When you are talking billions of dollars, you can't NOT be in Washington...no matter how "legal" it is. If the drug war has taught us anything, when billions of dollars are at stake, there isn't a wall high enough to stop the flow. You will never, ever end regulatory corruption.
Personally, I feel things like videosift could replace many of what we consider government responsibilities. With, I say, about 120 people talking about all the things that matter, you could protect yourself from companies known for food contamination, health trends, investing in your retirement, ect. Even things like labor unions might be better served through communities of people and not just of workers.
I think that the answer to many social problems can be solved if we look to our own evolution. It has been said that brain size is directly correlated to the size of the animal group members. If you extrapolate from monkey brains to our brain size, the perfect group size is around 130-200 people. Any system larger than this flies in the face of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. You can expect much suffering and exploitation in a system that goes away from this number. I believe this is the reason a person can feel alone in a city of millions of people, your brain just isn't ready to handle it. Communities might not be the most efficient way to run things from a logical stand point...but we aren't mostly logical. We are animals trying to be more than what we are. As a result, we have caused much suffering and hardship.
My new metal experiment is developing a sort of "clan" system. Managing powers of clans and rights and responsible thereof. I think it would be inefficient, yet, highly effective because it takes into account the general nature of mankind. Of note, labor unions are already along the lines of clan thinking, so my thought experiment is already playing itself out through the natural course of the market.

>> ^Truckchase:

>> ^ridesallyridenc:
Truckchase, you're right. With regard to your last two paragraphs, I think we are more similar than I may have thought. At least with respect to our perceptions of the problem. Our individual ideas of how to address the problem, however, may be divergent.

Man do I appreciate that; this is why I love the sift! I really mean it when I say I'm open to ideas. The initial thought of my "solution" makes me ill at first glance, but I've thought about this one for a long time and haven't yet come up with any other way to stem the tide in our lifetime. I do think we'll eventually get a shift against the immense corporate and personal power of the ultra-huge and ultra-rich as the mainstream populous is denied what has been promised to them, but often we humans take generations to see what has right in front of our face. My real fear is that by the time the US citizens wake up and see what has been going on, it'll be too late and we'll be a severely dis-empowered country with a heavily entrenched ruling upper class.
That said I do think there is certainly a need for workforce stimulus as you have laid out. Balancing the two concepts is the exceptionally hard part... apathy is the mortal enemy of progress.
Edit: replaced "can't" with "haven't yet"


In my friends sci-fi, never to be, movie; the villain, through gene manipulation, became a world financial powerhouse. He was able to manipulate the world with this power, and the device of his power...a teleportation machine. Using this device, similar to the fly, he could modify himself, and indeed, store backup copies of himself if things went bad. The hero's couldn't combat him, he was to strong and powerful. The hero discovered that each day if the villain was alive, the clone was destroyed. The hero thought of a plan to combat the villain...with himself! They were able to unleash the clone of the villain, and of course, both wanted to be top dog.

I bring this story up because I think it has a lot to deal with our current situation. Their are 2 types of ultra rich, those who earned it, and those who exploited it. The former are more common then the later, but the later is the bad apple that spoils the bunch for sure. More often than not, usually their rise to power isn't because of any real thing, but of being able to game the system in their favor. The current game in town is government regulatory bodies. They are able to be top dog because they can run anyone out of business with their "power" (money, and the government is their teleportation device . In many cases, if you had other "villains" running around, they would be hard pressed to gain unchallengeable power. I have yet to be exposed to a "natural" monopoly spare ones dealing in raw earth resources.

I think one of the main problems you face if you wish to level the playing field with regulatory bodies is distributed costs, concentrated benefits. You can't gain much political capital to fight the unfair sugar tax all US citizens incur, the financial drain is just to small to get motivation to fight. That "tax" results in, if memory serves, a 4 billion dollar "subsidy" to the sugar growers of America. If you are a sugar company, it just makes since to pass laws like this. The same goes for any other US company. When you are talking billions of dollars, you can't NOT be in Washington...no matter how "legal" it is. If the drug war has taught us anything, when billions of dollars are at stake, there isn't a wall high enough to stop the flow. You will never, ever end regulatory corruption.

Personally, I feel things like videosift could replace many of what we consider government responsibilities. With, I say, about 120 people talking about all the things that matter, you could protect yourself from companies known for food contamination, health trends, investing in your retirement, ect. Even things like labor unions might be better served through communities of people and not just of workers.

I think that the answer to many social problems can be solved if we look to our own evolution. It has been said that brain size is directly correlated to the size of the animal group members. If you extrapolate from monkey brains to our brain size, the perfect group size is around 130-200 people. Any system larger than this flies in the face of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. You can expect much suffering and exploitation in a system that goes away from this number. I believe this is the reason a person can feel alone in a city of millions of people, your brain just isn't ready to handle it. Communities might not be the most efficient way to run things from a logical stand point...but we aren't mostly logical. We are animals trying to be more than what we are. As a result, we have caused much suffering and hardship.

My new metal experiment is developing a sort of "clan" system. Managing powers of clans and rights and responsible thereof. I think it would be inefficient, yet, highly effective because it takes into account the general nature of mankind. Of note, labor unions are already along the lines of clan thinking, so my thought experiment is already playing itself out through the natural course of the market.

Kind-of an aside:
It is extremely challenging in this country to simplify goals towards combating intractable poverty (or improving healthcare, etc.) and then maintain sight of those simple goals through the processes of solution identification and implementation.

This has always been a challenge for human society once a community becomes large and heterogeneous.

However! I'm writing this comment in a public forum in which individuals submit good ideas that are then analyzed, commented on and culled by an encouraging community. I'm here because this community is entertaining AND interesting AND self-encouraging of participation.

... therefor I propose that @dag run for President.

...OkNotReallyButWhatI'mSayingIs... with the internet we not only have access to knowledge, we have access to people's ideas to solve a problem and people to vet and cull and promote these ideas. In principle this should allow management of very simple anti-poverty ideas from birth to implementation to statistical analysis of the idea's impact.

Topic: Being poor is a taboo
Discussions: impact of self-identifying as poor, implementable ideas to address taboo of self-identifying as poor, and methods to quantify impact
Reward: Top 10 discussion notes, chosen by community, receive... um... 3 power points


>> ^peggedbea:

It seems ever so unlikely that economic, social, political and cultural devastation is going to put it in check now. Right around 15% of the country is now receiving food stamps. I think if we knew that, instead of "poor" being taboo, you'd be more likely to see some kind of authentic populist uprisings. I think the decades since the cold war have seen such a demonization (and femalization for that matter) of economic hardship, you're unlikely to meet enough people ready to come out of their homes and yell about it. Not only does the media and marketing make women feel bad about their bodies, I think it's making people feel bad about their inability to consume the desired quantity of shit.

I think this is the direct result of some very specific, intentional rhetoric. I think it is also mostly, specifically american.

I'm listening to an audio book right now about John Winthrop and the puritan dream of america. The book focuses a lot on his speech on the model of Christian charity. History has been more concerned with his excerpts from the sermon on the mount, focusing entirely on "the city upon a hill". America is a beacon to the rest of the world, Christian values and American exceptionalism and boundless opportunity ... except to Winthrop these things had a more egalitarian backbone. We would be exceptional because of our belief in Christ's charity.... among other things mixed in with calvinist self-hatred and a sense of impending apocalyptic doom.

Here's an excerpt from the speech:

that He might have the more occasion to manifest the work of his Spirit: first upon the wicked in moderating and restraining them, so that the rich and mighty should not eat up the poor.

Reagan of all people invoked this speech. Leaving out the part about the rich eating up the poor of course and focusing only on "that shining city upon a hill" .... I think you've touched on something with your cold war reference. Reagan made greed and enduring pride a national value during the cold war. Contextually, this seems sort of appropriate... if you're ronald reagan, it's the 80s and capitalism proving a more lasting and successful social/economic value than communism is of the utmost importance.
And somewhere between then and now, we've skipped the part where we redefine our national values and even 9/11 and the decade of war proceeding did not put our moral folly in check.

It seems ever so unlikely that economic, social, political and cultural devastation is going to put it in check now. Right around 15% of the country is now receiving food stamps. I think if we knew that, instead of "poor" being taboo, you'd be more likely to see some kind of authentic populist uprisings. I think the decades since the cold war have seen such a demonization (and femalization for that matter) of economic hardship, you're unlikely to meet enough people ready to come out of their homes and yell about it. Not only does the media and marketing make women feel bad about their bodies, I think it's making people feel bad about their inability to consume the desired quantity of shit.
>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I've noticed that even broaching the topic of poorness is taboo. You either get complete disinterest, eye rolling, jokes or people who try to explain to you that poor are really living it up on tax payer dollars. Even the democrats seem to avoid using the word 'poor', but they have no problem defending the 'middle class'. I'd love to see democrats combine the middle and poor classes into one 'underclass', since international free trade seems to be destroying the line between the middle and lower classes anyway.

Somewhere, in the depths of your personality..

there's a reasonable, well-informed, fact-checking, aware & receptive to the obscured realities and hardships which others face, science loving, strong need for evidence-based arguments [gasp] mushroom..

..waiting to spring forward. = P



>> ^quantumushroom:

Preaching to choir: End Drug Prohibition.

I dunno how much I agree with what she's saying. Action starts with thought. Of course it is delusional to think you can change the world with only your thoughts. But once those thoughts are tied to concrete actions it's absolutely amazing the things that people accomplish--in spite of all the supposed evidence to the contrary. Michael Jordon got cut from his high school varsity team. Should he have been "realistic" and given up basketball? He used the incident instead to motivate himself to be the best junior varsity player. His attitude was absolutely critical to his development and becoming a legendary NBA star.

Attitude is important. It's just not the only important thing. If all you do is sit around and feel sorry for yourself it's highly unlikely your circumstances are going to change at all. You are part of the equation. It's not delusional to believe that, or to believe that hardship can be used as an opportunity.

Honestly, I can't think of a healthier way to deal with adversity. Yeah, it sucks. Acknowledge it. But how much time do you really want to spend wallowing in it before you get back to living again? No, the physical world doesn't change by your attitude but your perception of it does entirely. I don't see how it could at all be healthier to choose an attitude that will make you miserable ("I lost my job and it is devastating") than to choose an attitude that will make you happy ("I lost my job, but I will use this as an opportunity").

I do absolutely agree with her, though, that when people who think alike and have a common goal come together, absolutely amazing things can happen. Habitat for Humanity is a great example. She's right that there isn't enough emphasis on that process of coming together to accomplish something beyond an individual dream and it should happen more often.

@Lawdeedaw, unless I'm missing something, it sounds like you're in agreement then, at least partially.

In particular, you describe necessary evil (eating other living beings to continue to live ourselves), and tensions between the rights of individuals to be free to act as they choose, vs. the rights of other individuals to not be harmed by others.

Which is to say, moral philosophy ain't easy, and it's certainly not as simple as "it's human nature, so it's okay".

It's also definitely not okay to consistently try to blame victims for their hardships, even when masked with humor...those people come pretty close to being villains, even though I'm sure such people occasionally help old ladies across the street rather than axe murder them for laughs.