@chingalera, I must say I'm not surprised that you would be one of the few people that could only see a negative here and get outraged by it. You have this inane ability to not listen to what people actually say, instead only hearing what you want to hear and make up bat shit insane nonsense over it based on your own bias.
I'm not against debate (although I do not enjoy participating, usually), and I enjoy hearing multiple views and reasoning behind them, when they are well thought out and make me consider my own view. Your babbling has never done that. At first it was amusing, but it soon became tedious and annoying.

And I've had enough, which is unfortunate because once in a blue moon you are capable of friendly or considerate banter, but these are all too infrequent. I shall be adding you to my ignore list, and I hope that someday you'll begin to consider what you say and consider another's opinion before going off half cocked.

Good day, sir.

Ya know, you're all complaining about infant mortality when you should be complaining about obvious, inane, laugh tracks.

Jesus fucking christ. GoPro viral marketing has finally penetrated nightly news.
The news anchor's narration is insanely over-dramatic and inane as well.

Looking around the Internet (AFTER making that comment) I find that you are correct:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States
, amongst other sources.
I therefore completely redact my initial statement.
Slight note on my behalf: A link to such a source in addition to calling me "uninformed" instead of using the term "inane" goes a long way in terms of communication and persuasion :-)

An inane comment, since some groups of white men have also not had equal rights until recently; since people in the groups you mentioned are homosexuals; and since people in the groups you mentioned that are not homosexuals do indeed speak out for gay rights.

I will try to say this as nicely as possible, Letting one group change the name of something because another group doesn't want to have to be reminded of the past is a prime example of how our history gets "erased". Someone decides that it makes sense that others shouldn't have to remember a person, place or concept that evokes negativeness. I guess it's just unfortunate that I have to voice my opinion on this controversial and inane concept of history rewriting (sort of). It's one of those things were rules or laws are created and we must abide by them and not make excuses or reasons to bend them per situation (I know that law doesn't apply to this situation in particular, but it is a decent enough simile to try and get my point across). I am not in disagreement as to understanding why people would like the name changed. I am in disagreement to the idea of letting someone attempt to bend the law or whatever because they don't agree with something. It's not like this park was just named after him yesterday. It was founded in 1929 and "encompasses part of Forrest's operational area during the 1864 Battle of Johnsonville, in which Forrest attacked and destroyed a Union supply depot and transfer station on the opposite bank of the river." (per wikipedia).

I guess it is also sad and possibly a reflection of myself that I like to listen to the 'stupid' rant about their one sided opinions whatever they may be; mostly so I can be reminded why I could give a shit less about politics and community.

Please excuse my probably confusing rant.

@00Scud00 Determine the actual "whos and whys" of such inane restrictions to ownership and licensing and herein lies the ruse and absurdity of restrictions of any kind:

i don't feel a need to push down other people's videos, i just have a sense of frustration that inane, unfunny, bullshit is what people want and enjoy. does that make sense?

@VoodooV Like I've been saying all along, your posts are mostly attempts at intimidation. I enjoy answering some of your questions, because it helps me question my beliefs, something I think is constructive and that you seriously shouldn't be afraid of. We are all supposedly looking for the truth anyways. All this could be settled by answering my simple question, whether you'd agree or not, it wouldn't even necessarily be an argument against gun control. I was pointing out the apparent conflict between wanting people to be more responsible by taking their freedoms away, when taking their freedoms away might not contribute to making them responsible people in the long run. An unpresumptuous suggestion meant to be taken as food for thought.

Instead, you resort to being juvenile and making fun of me, while writing huge posts with my entire posts quoted afterwards as an attempt at making me turn away in horror at the sight of a huge wall of text. Sure, it takes me time to sift through all of it to see what really matters. You're trying to muscle your way through, and it's a waste of everyone's time. I actually take the time to make my posts short and to the point, did you notice that? I happen to think it's a good habit to have some consideration for the reader, why am I not surprised you have none for me?

So, instead of appreciating that I don't waste your time by making an effort at being succinct, you accuse me of avoiding some of your arguments. It's true, I avoid a few of them because I think they're irrelevant, it's called being selective. Now I know that was a bad idea. I'm terribly sorry. I won't do it anymore. I will take the time to answer the most points I can to the best of my ability, and if that my makes my posts tiresomely long and wastes my time, so be it.

I bet you're trying to flood me with words because this isn't about any truth, is it? It's about discouraging and distracting me from something. Ever heard of picking your fights? It's about being reasonable about yours and other people's times. After all, I do assume you have a life outside of this internet topic on videosift, don't you? Anyway, let's get to it:

- About emotional manipulation, you FAILED to prove it, and here's why:

When you obey traffic laws, you are being coerced if there is coercion as consequence for not obeying them. Will you get arrested? Will you get your car, which is your property, impounded if you disobey? Then yes, they are coercive laws.

When you decide not kill someone because the law will coerce you if you do, you're being coerced into not killing, even if you freely decide not to kill out of good morals and empathy for fellow human beings, the option of killing is always there in reality (you can always kill anyone if you really want to), but not legally. If you kill, you're under the threat of going to prison. The positive or negative language seems completely irrelevant, what matters is what happens when you disobey the law. If coercion ensues, the law is coercive, or, more accurately, its enforcement. I'm not actually making the distinction right now if it's a rule related to coercion itself (a rule that makes coercion more or less likely to happen), just pointing out the irrelevance of your distinction between negative and positive language.

Now, I have to admit that there is divergence when it comes to defining coercion, but there is no emotional content here as far as I can tell. I'm using it in the sense that people have a right to their life, property and freedoms, and when you take or threaten to take away any of those things (and have the power to do so), THAT is coercion. There is no emotion here, I am offended that you would think that I would resort to that, because I don't even have to. Coercion has a meaning to me, I'm just using the concept as it is. If there is an emotional content, SHOW ME what emotion that is. Up until now, you have FAILED to do so.

- About requiring things before freedoms are granted, I think you FAILED to make your point, here's why:

To type boring senseless posts on the internet, you require a keyboard. Maybe, if you could type with voice recognition, like I do, you wouldn't need a keyboard, but what matters is that you use something to type or produce characters that will be submitted to the videosift website and become a useless post. So, for the sake of argument, let's call this an "actual physical requirement".

Now, with a gun to your head, if I require that you, VoodooV, jump through actual flaming hula-hoops positioned vertically on an intricate obstacle course before typing in your videosift comments, the world would be a better place (at least videosift would). However, my requirements would be arbitrary in the sense that it imposes something not actually physically necessary to enjoy the hypothetical "freedom to post inane ramblings on videosift" (we are assuming it's a right), can you spot the difference?

So, requiring things that are not necessary to enjoy a freedom is not something that makes the freedom better or is in any way justifiable just because history is littered with the precedent of assholes like kings and despots requiring stupid things before we can enjoy freedoms that we supposedly already have. When it comes to guns, a law says we have a right to bear them. Any laws that restrict that supposed right are infringing on the freedom that comes from having that right.

- About the claim that people will be less responsible if they have less freedom:

"If I made decisions for you, I could make you act more responsibly, but that's not the same thing as making you a more responsible person."

"Over time, when we take people's freedoms away, they tend to be less responsible about the decisions we're not letting them make. There's no way they can learn about any different (good or bad) outcomes related to decisions they couldn't make, and they can't be held responsible for them either, so they can hardly become more responsible."

- About your reduction to absurdity claim that removing all the rules would make us "SUPER-Responsible":

"I don't think rules inevitably destroys our freedoms, let's make a more refined distinction:

- If a rule is meant to stop people from infringing on each other's freedoms, if it's a rule that makes people less likely to coerce each other, it's a good rule because we end up with less coercion happening (even counting the coercion necessary to enforce the rule), we end up with a more civilized society. There are not many of those kinds of rules around.

- If it's a rule that imposes some regulation because we don't trust that people will be responsible enough to do what's best for them regarding something unrelated to coercion, we not only restrict their freedom by coercion (in this case, coercion by the government), it doesn't make coercion less likely, so it's likely a bad rule."

The problem with removing all rules is that, without rules related to coercion, people would be too subjected to the threat or actual coercion from other people around them, society would be less civilized. Would that make them more responsible? That's a good question. On one side, they would have a lot more responsibilities if they had to worry about their own lives and safety every frickin' day, and all the terrible worries that comes with the unstable chaos of anarchy. However, given that they would enjoy less freedoms due to the constant coercion of others, they would likely end up being a lot less responsible, because they would have far less choices.

That's why I took the time to explain the difference between rules related to coercion and rules that just infringe on freedoms.

- About your examples of requirements before freedoms and rights are granted, here's a list of your "numerous examples" and my reply to each of them:

VoodooV: "You have the freedom to go to college..."
VoodooV: "You have the freedom to have a certain job..."

"Going to college or getting a job are not things people are entitled to (supposedly), there are no rights involved, so no freedom is being denied."

VoodooV: "You have the freedom to imbibe alcohol....IF you are a certain age and can demonstrate that you can use it safely"

I don't know about using it safely (what does that mean?), but regarding age restriction, I don't agree with those laws. I know, very "liberal" of me, but I think children are the responsibility of their parents, so it's a law that steps into parenting territory.

VoodooV: "And according to the right, you have the freedom to vote..."

About voting, I don't know, I guess being registered is a requirement for the voting process? Like the right to life requires... being alive?

"The voting process, on the other hand, seems to be something that requires registration (again, I'm not an expert on voting, so forgive me if I'm wrong), otherwise we end up just shouting to ourselves, "I vote for X"!"

VoodooV: "And having a gun, or a car, has a significant risk to infringe upon other's freedoms so it's not unreasonable to ask that you demonstrate proficiency and safety before using said items."

A driver's license is not about owning or using a car, but about driving in public venues. I could be wrong, but we don't need a license to drive a car in our own backyards, do we?

Simply owning a gun, on the other hand, not only isn't a violation of anything, it supposedly provides protection against these violations.

- About me supposedly contradicting myself, saying "there are no rules for us talking", then proposing a dare:

Did I shoot you in the face when you failed my dare? So I guess it's not the kind of rule in the sense that I didn't threaten to coerce you if you failed it. Do you understand what kind of rule I was talking about? Do you even understand what a contradiction means, or are you just taking advantage that not everyone that reads your posts knows exactly what you're referring to make yourself look smart even though you can't point out a contradiction if it rested flat in your deepest held political beliefs?

On the subject of contradictions, strictly speaking, there's no contradiction between calling you juvenile and being juvenile myself, even if I did so afterwards, and in retaliation, to give you a taste of it.

Ooooooooh... must be very embarrassing for you not to know what a contradiction stands for.

Here's your entire post quoted, because, why not?

The question seems pretty inane to me. I mean, are we talking about a sort of pascal's wager thing here or are we literally asking what the null hypothesis of atheism is?

The consequences of being wrong shouldn't have any impact on your decision. It is not evidence one way or the other. If you want to get really existential you might as well ask, "What if I am wrong about ME existing".

Well, he started with a fair question... but collapsed into inanity under interrogation.

@criticalthud - Pretty much completely eradicating smallpox and polio, rabies is no longer a death sentence, there has been a 55% reduction in cardiovascular disease fatalities since the fifties, there is a 90% childhood leukemia survival rate, transplants, bacterial infections are generally no longer a big deal...

This is just what comes to me off the top of my head, with research I could go on for hours.

Of course there are flaws and in some cases corruption in western medicine just as you would expect with any such massively complex and lucrative human endeavor, but trying to equate it with the blatant quackery of "alternative medicine" only displays your intentional ignorance of reality and makes you the butt of any joke.

I have no patience for this kind of mindless drivel. Somehow, it has become trendy to ignore the benefits of modern medicine. Honestly, I don't care if you die needlessly of cancer because you waited too long to see some western doctors, but when scum like you try to contribute to the general atmosphere of rampant unfounded mistrust of science based techniques that have an astoundingly successful track record, then you are trying to spread your inane poison and I have to reprimand your idiocy.




http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195150698.001.0001/acprof-9780195150698-chapter-18

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/news/childhood-leukemia-survival-rates-improve-significantly

In feminist theory there are many branches. There are two main branches that have sub-branches.

Liberal feminism - the idea that we are all equal through our capacity for rationality. Equality will come about through the practice and recognition of this equal capacity for rationality and as institutions change so too will women's capacity to demonstrate this. The reason that this currently can't be exhibited is because of a patriarchal system that views women as weak and soft minded. This leads lib fems to try to be "man-like" of mind so as to assert their equal status; girly but strong minded, ie. Thatcher(extreme example), Clinton, Rachel Maddow.

Radical feminism - Men are the oppressive class and women are the oppressed. (Try to deny it seriously. If not within the West then within the rest of the world) As a result women must form a opposition to this oppression by mens of taking sides. Women can still be equal of any attribute such as reason etc but none the less by virtue of their biological sex they are relegated to 2nd place based on that alone. The response is to form an equally if not more powerful class to overthrow the patriarchal system. Now this is where the original video things its anti men. It is anti patriarchy, anti a system millennia old that places political capital on birth right/biology. To argue against this risks committing a naturalistic fallacy whereby what IS is what is RIGHT. Through time we can cite all sorts of examples where that is not the case - slavery, pederasty, segregation. One way of addressing this patriarchy oppression is by banding together and attacking overt examples of gender/sex discrinination and oppression as is put forward in the video as reverse oppression (whatever). The other more radical feminism asks that women forgo their own proclivities and become political lesbians. This requires that they become a lesbian not only in solidarity with their sexed brethren but also actively reject men as a necessary part of a flourishing life.

So much of the discourse, on both sides, confuses the aims of which ever brand of feminism they prescribe (sometimes a mix of both) with instances of activism/oppression. Anecdotal evidence can only do so much in a systematic and ingrained norm such as gender roles.

The original video is laughably inane and self-agrandising in its selective use of anecdotes and conflation of one idea with another. It is as worse than radical-radical feminist arguments insofar as it cherry picks examples to highlight that which is unsystematic whereas rad fems point out things that are systematic but their ends are not understandable, or acceptable if understood, by most. That doesn't mean they are wrong.

TLDR; Lib fem, go with the flow and ask for gradual change. Rad fem, form a opposition of power and overthrow current system then restructure from what is divorced from historically contingient oppressive gender description.

Well see, what happened TangledThorns was, since the proposed, inane bills appear to be falling on "fuck THAT noise" ears in the Senate, it's regarded as a crushing defeat for the cause of insanity, so they simply stopped talking about it. Took almost as long to forget the Great Privileged Rich White Kid Massacre of Newtown

There's a Jimmy Kimmel video floating around where he talks about the british kid who sold his app to yahoo for $30,000,000. He then goes out and asks a load of teenagers what their greatest achievement is. They give various inane responses as you would expect and Kimmel says he no longer has faith in the kids as the future of the nation.

Kids like this turn all that on it's head.

The kid who sold his app, well great. He's loaded but he hasn't really made a difference. Richard Turere will have a major effect on the lives of thousands of his countrymen. He will have saved the lives of the villagers, their cattle and the endangered lions. Now that's a major lifetime achievement and he's only thirteen. He had virtually no resources and won't have had much if any formal education and yet he's made a real difference.

Kids like this are the real future of not only their town or nation but the world. Imagine what a kid like this could do with the resources available to the typical western teen.