i think some here are missing the point of this short video.
while we can all argue the particulars of religion,it's failings and its successes,the fundamental reasons for its existence remains.

the militant atheist will argue holy text with the very same literalism that a fundamentalist exhibits,all the while ignoring the massive contributions to humanity in the realms of:art,philosophy,politics and even science.

while this dynamic of the argument is not necessarily wrong,it is,however,inaccurate.one cannot ignore,nor dismiss the positive contributions of religions,which have been legion.this does not mean that religion is above reproach nor criticism,just that a militants argument is incomplete without acknowledging this vital facet of human history.

the problem gentlemen,is fundamentalism,of ANY flavor.
religion is not going anywhere,much to the chagrin of atheists,but the reasons why humanity gravitates towards religion,or a search for the divine and sacred,remain a very powerful influence.

religion must,and has over the centuries,evolve to incorporate the paradigms that are added daily.the religion that is rigid in its interpretations and implaccable in its philosophy...dies.human history is littered with the remains of lost religions that refused to evolve with humanity.

a good example is the dark ages.which was partially perpetrated by a rigid understanding of christian theology (and an abuse of power and authority)affecting millions.it halted human progress and imposed a suffering and misery that is still remembered to this day.then the church experienced a philisophical shift and the reformation was exacted,ending the dark ages and introducing the 'age of enlightenment"...and human progress was allowed to proceed.

interestingly enough,while this was all happening in europe and human misery was a direct result of religious rigidity,the muslims were carrying the torch for human progress.making such additions as algebra and other huge strides in the sciences.

how is that for irony?

fundamentalism,in any form,must be fought at every level.so on that note i tend to side with atheists who are on a constant vigil in revealing the utter hypocrisy of a fundamentalist theosophy,but i will not ignore the wonderful and fantastic contributions that religion has added to human history.

because the fundamental reason why humanity gravitates toward religion is still there and it is not going anywhere.so religion,like man,must evolve to encompass the new paradigm in order to express our humanity,inspiration and awe in the face of the divine.

i am not an overly religious man.
that form of theosophy is not my path,but i recognize the importance of religion and its positive contributions.the challenge is to allow the more archaic and atrophied theosophy to fall away and dissolve like a vestigal limb.keep the parts that inspire and exalt humanity and allow the unnecessary and irrelevant to die with dignity,to become a footnote in our history.

which is what i gathered this video was attempting to convey and why i found it interesting.

@shinyblurry
thanks for the link buddy,now i am depressed.

@bobknight33
please do not take offense when i say:your last comment is so riddled with contradictions,fallacies and outright ignorance in the understandings of -religious history,politics and philosophy that i cannot even begin to address a singular point.that comment is just one big mess.

i will say this in regards to your comment.
to assert that atheists have no moral compass due to their lack of faith and/or religion is just patently bullshit.unless of course,you secretly wish to murder,steal and bang your neighbors wife and the ONLY thing keeping you from acting out is your fear of god.
or hell..whatever..judgement.

do you see what a facile and inept argument that is? morality is inherent to each individual.we all develop our own moral code.now religion can help clarify that moral code,but if you take religion away? we still will all have a moral code we live by.

we also rationalize.
ah..now there is something we humans excel at..rationalizing.or better put:lying to ourselves in order to justify poor behavior.here is where the atheist and the religious diverge.because the atheist has no holy text to twist and manipulate in order to justify that poor behavior,they have to own it and take responsibility.the religious person,however,can abdicate responsibility onto an ancient text based solely on their own interpretation (or some authority they have given power).human history is burdened with the mass graves of such justifications.

ok..i am rambling.
i love this subject and rarely get to engage in discussions such as this.if you have made it this far..i thank you for your kind patience with my own proclivities towards verbosity.

Congratulations! Your video, I may have found athletes more inept that myself, has reached the #1 spot in the current Top 15 New Videos listing. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish but you managed to pull it off. For your contribution you have been awarded 2 Power Points.

This achievement has earned you your "Golden One" Level 11 Badge!

Your video, I may have found athletes more inept that myself, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

@Enzoblue

Thunderf00t is probably the least level-headed response you will find. His video is terrible for a lot of reasons, mostly because he does all the same things Anita Sarkessian is accused of doing (for example, cherry-picking) to an exponential degree, but I recommend you watch it anyway and draw your own conclusions.

As much as some Gamergate supporters would like the movement to be about ethics in gaming journalism, it has its roots in a witch-hunt started by claims from a jilted ex-boyfriend that his girlfriend (Zoe Quinn) slept with reporters to get good reviews--claims that were later shown to be completely untrue but not before the Gamergate movement had found a cause to rally around. From the very start, the movement had trouble separating actual journalistic ethical problems (i.e. gifts from game publishers to game reviewers... see pretty much any tweet or video by TotalBiscuit about Gamergate for a reasoned overview of the problems) from anti-feminist screeds against Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and later Brianna Wu. And it only got worse over time.

To understand why people might be opposed to Sarkeesian's critiques, you should probably read: this article. Just to summarize the article's main thesis: there is a group of gamers out there who refuse to see a problem with the status quo and make the claim that anyone trying to point out a problem is demanding special privileges. This is not to say that Sarkeesian's critiques aren't without flaws. It is rather to explain how so many people got enraged by her analysis that they felt the need to personally attack her.

So, to put it in a nutshell, there ARE some problems with gaming journalism but they are akin to the same kinds of problems entertainment journalism has in general (Colbert's point). But there are also some serious problems with gaming culture that were brought under the magnifying glass by the whole Gamergate phenomenon.

Frankly, as a "hardcore gamer" (30+ years of gaming experience including games across dozens of consoles and the PC), watching the "debate" on the topic has been embarrassing to say the least. Gaming was finally overcoming the stigma and stereotypes that it had been shackled with before this thing blew up and made us look like the bunch of socially inept man-babies the rest of society assumed we were.

I think not only is it going to take years for our social image to recover, it is going to take years to overcome the toxicity that has pervaded the debate. People on both sides are seriously butt-hurt about how everything went down and the back and forth has been more on the emotional side than the intellectual, leading to lots of flame wars and very little critical reflection.

OR chiccorea, SHALL WE DRAG, the entire sift community into your fucking therapy sesson, and make a deal of it, which I am VERY want to do. You have shown your ass here with regard to myself, are shitting once-again, on one of my posts, my comments, and you have a fucking problem that may very well cause my account to be unilaterally by admins stripped from me, and I consider ALL of my actions art in my life, INCLUDING my participation on this website.

You are forcing me to be this dick sir, and you have some real problems which are detrimental to this forum. Calling you out once again you pathetic asshole, what's it gonna be??

I'd be more than unhappy to have my account stripped from me by someone who obviously needs some hard-core therapy. You're socially inept and incite these incursions unilaterally with a view to my demise and I take issue with it. Does this make me your whipping-bitch?? Fuck that and no sir, it does not.

All you do here is hunt new submissions to see if you can ban someone for violations of rules, hassle me, and otherwise make benign, one-line comments with a brown-nose-finish as a thematic device.


*edit: I'll let this thread lay fallow or not and then take chichorreas's bullshit to the sift talk forum, I'm tired of one user's mental illness fucking with my place here....

Very interesting and efficient in delivering the information in a short and entertaining span of time.

These brothers (Hank and John Green) are *really* good at this kind of thing. I propose that instead of having public schools, we just mandate that kids watch SciShow and Crash Course clips...

OK, maybe not really, but they sure do a better job of informing / teaching in subjects like Science and History than what I got from frequently-inept teacher/coach combos (who given every benefit of the doubt evidently were hired more for their coaching ability rather than teaching).

Obama...how liberals spell 'inept'.

Just asking.

Why do you think it too so long ? Government bureaucracy? ineptness? No one really cares how long you wait? Surge of ill people causing temporary under staffing?

Why did Australia service you so quickly?

People so emotionally attached to the regime (as @st0nedeye seems to be) are often either regime propagandists being handsomely compensated or serfs who feel so vulnerable and afraid (and maybe even inept themselves) that they can't think of how they would survive without the "rulers" to protect them. (Of course, the jokes on them since that protection, safety, and security, is mostly an illusion.)

If they are regime propagandists, then unless you pay them more to take on whatever views you want them to stick to in the hopes of cashing in on the cronyism.

If they are true believers or fanatics (due to fear, insecurity, envy, etc.), then they will try to tear up anyone who tries to give them information, even if that information will ultimately help them out, improve their lot (help, to be sure, that was not solicited by them, and they have a right not to be given).

These are the attitudes that made Edward Bernays and others rather loathe "the people," allowing them to rationalize the various forms of manipulation imposed in the 20th century. This propaganda was ostensibly for "the people's" "safety," but was more accurately for personal profit. It's a fate though that I can't totally disagree is not deserved.

Still, despite the crazy analysis, I commend @st0nedeye for bringing up the interesting topic of the situation in Europe after the "fall" of Rome (which happened gradually and parallels that of most empires, including this current one). It's worth considering that the collapse of the Soviet Union also, a collapse that even to this day many in Russia bemoan -- just like st0nedeye bemoans the collapse of Rome. Life under the Roman bureaucracy and plutocracy was not as glamorous as many people would have you believe (maybe if you were a one of the beneficiary plutocrats).

It's a really complicated issue, especially in countries/areas/societies where sex is taboo.

But I can't help but feel that while transgenders may not "fit in" anywhere, there are plenty of people out there who feel the same way who are "normal" (boy/girl relationships) in terms of their society/area but are socially inept, deformed, ugly, etc.

I think the biggest thing that transgenders will have to overcome is the ability to have a child. It's just too ingrained into people that you get married and have kids. It's so important that sterility could be cause for a divorce. You pretty much know what to expect in most circumstances, guy/guy, guy/girl, girl/girl and the options at hand for whatever decision you make. But if you THINK you're dating a guy or a girl........and then you find out otherwise, it's not really fair to expect someone not to be upset IMO. Ignoring the whole are they a boy or girl question. It's equivalent to a man whose had a vasectomy dating a woman who has made it clear that she wants kids, and him keeping quiet about it. Or a woman who has been told she's unlikely to be able to have kids dating a man who wants kids, and not passing along that information until he starts wondering what the problem is after they've agreed to try.


That's ignoring the question of "Does me liking this transgender person mean Im gay/straight/bi/etc?" I just think it's hard to ignore the pregnancy/children aspect of it, since it's biological and a major driving force in people's lives.

@bmacs27: GOD I fucking hate when people use the word "CLEARLY!" CLEARLY this blah blah blah and CLEARLY...Stop it...makes you sound like a pretentious idiot.

Look-All this ineffectual spit-poppin' on this thread:

Guy goes to school to pick up his kids and is harassed by bullshit rules and bullshit police. SIMPLE

THAT'S COMPLETE BULLSHIT-HE GOD FUCKED UNDESERVEDLY


The incident is complete bullshit, and a symptom of the insanity of shit like homeland security that relentlessly inept citizenry (insert blog-bitcher here) have let complete agenda-oriented cabals of politicians and their keepers, hustle you for.

Didn't Ben Fucking Franklin warn that anyone who sacrifices freedom for security deserve neither??

Ya buncha fucking idiots...

Not condoning the dick bikers here peeps, I was assessing the best option for the Rover's crew-The shotgun blast into the air was the, "scare the mob away and make em think twice" scenario-Mind you....It's not wise to fire a long arm through the sunroof into the air, but it beats the alternative should the mob's frustration escalate into a drag-out-and-beat-me scenario.

It wouldn't have gone this way had I been driving the Rover though, I would have not been caught-up in the middle of that pack and would have already let them pass me after-having waved them on.

Best not to rile bikers-The hardcore enthusists and lifetime fans of bikes already hate the fact that most motorists drive like dumbasses and the worst of them pay NO attention to rules of the road regarding motorcycles.

I rode motorcycles off and on for years and know the pain of cycling in both Texas and California, two VERY different vibes as Californians seem to have a better handle on motoring around bikers there being so many more on the road there than in Texas hence, a better consciousness on the roadway with regard to motorbikes.

This is New York. New York is NOT an automobile-dependent state and people there (I imagine) drive like inept, first-timers on pharmaceuticals with anger-management issues.

Upon first seeing this clip he's mashed I thought to myself, "What the fuck kinna drugs is Biden on?" He looks afternoon drunk or tanked on pharmaceuticals. He should never gotten on mic for that fucking interview. Mind you, the interview if you wanted to deconstruct it was a complete insult to humanity, to every anti OR pro gun ignoramus but, Joe.....Yer fucking high and this about to be on the internet and go fucking viral so, maybe get yer bullshit together a bit better and uhhh, the freakozoid that's interviewing you....Do you really wanna be seen with someone as inept with obvious socialization issues??

most people cant just roll through, did he produce a licence, he may have been drunk, where was his insurance/ registration. The cop is inept and lazy

Living in Thailand, most TV shows aren't available here until WAY after the Western airdate, if ever.

I live in a pretty small town. Western movies don't play here, and if I travel an hour or so to a town where they do, they do they are dubbed in Thai with no English subtitles. DVDs are readily available, but they are usually pirated cam copies burned to disc, and again dubbed in Thai.

Games? Not available in stores in my town. Bangkok, sure -- but again they are almost always pirated copies burned to disk. Console games are the same way and any shops selling the game will also chip the console to play pirated disks. I could, and admittedly probably SHOULD use steam for PC games.

Other software? Basically same story as games. If you go to a computer store here, advertising usually says that they are sold with Linux OS or bare drives. But, the shop will automatically put on a pirated Windows plus loads of software (office, Photoshop if you ask for it, etc.) upon purchasing the hardware. They are usually fairly inept at it, frequently have viruses or fail to actually activate the OS, etc. so I tell them to leave the drives bare and do all that stuff myself. But for 99% of people who buy a PC here, they will automatically get a pirated OS and software along with it.

Basically, my default mode of getting ANY media is piracy. Price (free versus not) is a part of that. Incomes are low here, but cost of living is comparatively even lower. Still, if media was fully available here but equal to the price in, say, the US the vast majority of people here don't have enough disposable income to afford much if any of it. A bigger issue for me personally is convenience. Piracy (torrents, etc.) as a distribution system is infinitely more convenient, easy, and "customer"-friendly than any more legitimate service. I get what I want very quickly, usually in multiple options for filesize vs quality on up to as-good-as-broadcast/blu-ray 1080p, with most everything available from a single source (isoHunt, kickass, PirateBay, take your pick). In terms of user experience, legitimate distribution can't even begin to compete with that -- and that is BEFORE considering price.

Instead, they exacerbate the difference by treating paying customers with open contempt. Pay for TV service? Enjoy 10 minutes of ads for every 12 minutes of show. Buy a DVD? Sit through un-skippable ads, dire piracy warnings, etc. before the show actually starts. Move or simply take the disk on vacation to another country and you will likely be screwed by region locking. Buy software? Get some DRM that slows things down or restricts fully NORMAL use of the software, nags you to register, etc. On the other hand, if you pirate stuff all of that goes away. No ads. Watch/use the media wherever you want, whenever you want, on whatever device you want. Software DRM circumvented easily, usually hours after the first release if not *before*.

I honestly see it as a problem that I am not supporting the creators of the media that I enjoy. But, Pandora's box has been opened on this one. Generation X and Y learned to scoff at the idea of paying for music due to Napster. iTunes has been extremely lucky to turn that around even slightly, making lots of mistakes along the way (DRM and device-locking, etc.). Gen Y and beyond are going to have the same attitude towards piracy with regards to ALL MEDIA that we learned to have towards music. I don't think there is any getting around that.

For content creators, I think that funding via Label / Publisher / Network is going to die out. And soon. The good news is that something akin to an evolution of patronage of arts and creators can work even better than it did in the past. The Motzarts and Beethovens of the future don't need 1 rich duke or king to commision a work, they need 10,000 average Joes on kickstarter or the like. I see things trending more and more in that direction, and all the time. I think it is an exciting time -- unless you're an exec in one of the old dinosaur publishers/networks.