>> ^Eukelek:

Most people are not conscious of what our priorities should be as a society, as a specie, nor will they spend money on such priorities, even if they were they are easily distract-able. Most people follow the priorities told to them, particularly when these make sense in ego-rationale. That is the essence of pop-culture, consumer societies and marketing.


In summary, as a species we're fucked.

Most people are not conscious of what our priorities should be as a society, as a specie, nor will they spend money on such priorities, even if they were they are easily distract-able. Most people follow the priorities told to them, particularly when these make sense in ego-rationale. That is the essence of pop-culture, consumer societies and marketing.

So that makes him a hipster elitist because he's not a Jerry Springer fan? Count me as one of them too because I watched that Springer element go from fringe to prime-time mainstream over the past 15 years and there's no escaping it. The in-your-face booger-eating shock value that at one time you only saw in the mentally-challenged kid in your school.

And now this instant powdered fame has become a bankable commodity, if you're a pretty girl who eats her own earwax or admits to liking the smell of farts you can become a star. Or you don't mind pranking your mother on-camera by telling her that you're pregnant with your high-school art teacher's baby, just to "push the envelope" of reality TV.

Like the guy in the movie my workplace is full of college grads who were weaned on this crap, it's all they know. They talk like they think they are some sitcom sidekick, spitting out this stream of snarky, hip, pop-culture references and this week's memes and reality show updates. With a smug grin because the studio audience in their head is cheering them on.

So you can have it. Call it a hipster pose but I am too good for this crap. I don't care if there are 32 million of them, this crap is for morons and it will only get worse.
>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

So you're including yourself in that group, yes?
Or are you too hipster for that? "I was counter-culture before counter-culture was a culture."
>> ^gorillaman:
I hope we all understand that you can nod your head along to the sentiments in this video and still be a part of the problem.

Funny thing is I could barely follow along with what he was saying. >> ^alien_concept:

This is probably way funnier if you're British, haha. I loved it! promote

>> ^ulysses1904:

I kept waiting for the misinformation but it all seemed like a pretty accurate picture of U.S. pop culture to me. Except the tobacco bit looked pretty outdated and I have no way of knowing how accurate the Iraqi civilian death statistic is.


Actually, Arnie can't be president because he's an immigrant. So that makes everything else false.

I kept waiting for the misinformation but it all seemed like a pretty accurate picture of U.S. pop culture to me. Except the tobacco bit looked pretty outdated and I have no way of knowing how accurate the Iraqi civilian death statistic is.

I read this in a book somewhere: the Sesame Street staff are constantly doing focus studies with real kids, measuring things like how long they watch before getting distracted, what they focus on when watching, what they remember after watching, etc. and one of the things that came out of their studies was that kids pay more attention and learn more if an adult is watching the show with them. But in order for an adult to sit through an entire show with a child, the adult also has to be entertained as well. Hence the pop-culture references (including stuff kids most likely have never seen).

Pixar does a great job with their movies along these lines as well by providing jokes only adults are likely to get mixed in with the more slap-stick stuff for the kids.

>> ^RFlagg:

I recall pop-culture references during the 70s, so parody is one of their mainstays. I find it odder when they parody of stuff the kids most likely never saw or know:
True Blood (True Mud):
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Mad Men (they left the title Mad Men for that one)
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I recall pop-culture references during the 70s, so parody is one of their mainstays. I find it odder when they parody of stuff the kids most likely never saw or know:

True Blood (True Mud):

>> ^artician:

Has Sesame Street always catered to pop culture like this?


I think it was in the past few years.

>> ^artician:

Has Sesame Street always catered to pop culture like this?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vftf8TTve4s

Has Sesame Street always catered to pop culture like this?

Who defined it? Don't avoid agency by using the passive voice.

That's what I mean by "rule", a pre-determined consequence. Who determined that disobedience would have to result in death (or the other "death" or whatever)? Surely God, right?

Natural death temporarily exists..the second death is eternal

Who gave the law? Enough with the passive voice.

Again, a ton more passive voice to avoid the issue of God's agency. God, himself, determined to give the law. If it's because of sin, God invented sin too. God invented sin and made us imperfect. God made commands that were against our natures to follow. Why not just not make those commands? It's like a parent leaving out a jar of cookies, and commanding the two-year-old not to eat them. What do you think is going to happen?

I've said pretty clearly that God defined what we should or shouldn't do, and outlined consequences for those actions. If you ask why God gave us the concept of right and wrong, could it be that He knew which behaviors were good for us and which were bad? If you ask why God gave us consequences, could it be that God wanted to discourage us from bad behavior?

Neither did God create sin. God created the conditions in which free will creatures could make a choice between obeying or disobeying God. He didn't create them to sin, and neither did He cause them to sin. He gave them an honest choice and it was their choice that created sin. What God allowed is the condition to exist where sin was possible. Why did God allow us to sin? Because if He didn't, we would be nothing more than robots.

I thought words had meaning. What the hell are you talking about with two deaths? Death is death. Now there's two kinds? why not eighteen kinds? Which kind did Eve bring?

The two kinds of death are, when the body dies, and when your soul is cast into hell.

This isn't a good analogy. A king is a mortal who has to maintain a false authority (unless you think that kings rule by divine providence). This king made a mistake, an oversight, and later realized the consequences of his mistake. So, he fudged it by letting his son keep his second eye (a tiny punishment compared with losing both eyes) took out one of his own (again, not a big deal, comparatively) and called it even. God doesn't make mistakes. God doesn't make oversights and later realize the consequences. He knew right from the beginning what would happen.

Are you saying that God was afraid of losing his authority or losing the force of law? How can there be any consequences for God when God invented the consequences and can change them at will?

It is a good analogy because it illustrates the conflict between justice and mercy, and why God sent His Son. On one hand, God is holy, and He must punish all sin. On the other, He is merciful and wants to forgive us. What I am saying is, God cannot compromise His integrity to forgive us. Therefore, He sent His Son to take our punishment, in our place, so that He could offer us forgiveness through the cross. If you want to know why God will not lower His standards, use some common sense. Should we just let murderers and rapists go free in the hopes they will reform themselves? Will this encourage or discourage more crime? What about the victims?

Why? Surely God decided that a sinless person would be required to act as a bridge? Why didn't God just make us closer to begin with? Or why didn't he just come on over himself? Couldn't he? Why did he determine that to disobey his commands would create distance?

God sent His Son over on His behalf, remember? Fellowship with God is a privilege, and to the extent that we abuse it, that is the extent to which He will remove Himself from it.

Exactly. And if my parents had also invented cars and paedophiles and put them near my house, I would ask them why the hell they did that. Wouldn't you? God created the law to protect us from a danger that God created himself. Why did he create the danger in the first place? Whim?

We created the evil in this world, not Him. He gave us laws to keep us from evil.

No, we are animals, and before God's law existed, we didn't know better. Otherwise, why make laws? I'm afraid to ask you to define "his image", but I've got to know how much we could possibly resemble an omnipotent omniscient omnipresent entity. Why make sin and laws and conscience and death and hell in the first place?

You believe you are an animal. And we did know better..God gave us a conscience to know right from wrong, and God told Adam and Eve what was good, and not good, to do. If you want to know more about what it means in the image of God, read this:

http://www.gotquestions.org/image-of-God.html

Why why why why why why? First, read some of the things I've said and connect the dots. Second, God created us to have fellowship with Him.

Death 1 or Death 2? Why does God need to punish us at all? Does that do any good once we're dead? Is he just trying to terrify the living into doing his will while we're still alive?

I've already answered about punishment. Again, God wants us to have fellowship with Him. Rebellion against God is a choice; God gives everyone enough information and opportunities to make the right choices.

So, man was uncorrupted before, but capable of sin, then immediately decided to sin and became corrupted. Simpler to say man was corrupted from the beginning, no? And it was just God's bad luck that the very first people he ever made screwed the pooch right off the bat? Or did he know they would screw up? Or did he design them to screw up? Did he make us a little too independent an rebellious? Could things have turned out any other way than they have?

Man wasn't corrupt before he sinned; he was created innocent. However, he was imbued with the ability to make a free choice. God didn't create man to sin, as I've said, and neither did he force man to obey him. He simply gave him the choices, showed him what was good and what wasn't, warned him of the consequences, and let him make the choice.

Did God know they would screw up? There is some contention there among theologians. Some believe that He did, and that He allowed creation to go forward to demonstrate His glory. I don't necessarily believe that, because scripture shows God dynamically interacting with His creation. If it were true that God knew absolutely everything that would happen, it would mean He was just "going through the motions". I believe that God does have an absolute foreknowledge about how His creation will turn out, and that He does know the future, but that He leaves some things open to give us free will.

And why did they become corrupt? That must have been one of God's rules, that when you sin the first time, you corrupt your DNA (or whatever) for all generations to follow. He created that consequence as much as he created the physical rules of the universe. Why?

They lost their innocence when they disobeyed God and ate of the fruit. Their nature fundamentally changed as a consequence. Also, death came into the world. The human experience went from paradise to paradise lost, and humans had to fend for themselves. The corruption was a confluence of all of these different factors.

Falsifying things is how scientists discover real truth. If you can falsify something, then it's false. If you can't, it might be true. Scientists who propose theories are often the ones who try the hardest to falsify them. If they can do so, they know they were wrong, or maybe a bit off-base. If they can't, then it stands as a very good theory. That's what I'm doing when I ask all these questions. I cannot possibly believe anything which on its face is impossible. What I'm trying to understand is you, the faithful person. In the face of what I see as a mind-numbing array of internal inconsistencies in the Bible, I'm curious to understand how an otherwise rational person doesn't see the same thing I do. So far, you've cleared up some misconceptions I did have, but otherwise you've managed to dance around things by changing definitions of words, defining things only vaguely, removing agency from God, and telling me I don't understand. The only thing I have ever done is challenge the theory you've put in front of me for my criticism. If it's true, then I'll eventually realize it, right? But the more I plumb its depths, the less plausible it is.

The only way you'll realize it is if the Holy Spirit changes your heart. Until then this remains the truth:

1 Corinthians 2:14

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

If I had such a son, and I'd also invented meth and venereal disease and made the human body both vulnerable and attracted to both of them, then I'd be pissed off at myself more than at him, and I would "uninvent" them both. And even in the real-life situation, my wife and I wouldn't resort to an ultimatum like hell. We would talk openly with him about what he's doing, what effects he thinks it's having on himself, on us, and on the rest of the family, and whether that's what he wants. We'd try and get the rest of the family to support him likewise. If he showed no intention of stopping and it was damaging the home environment, we would probably decide, regretfully, to ask him to leave with the understanding that any time for the rest of his life that he wanted to return and live like a family again, we would welcome him with open arms. What I wouldn't do is build a torture chamber in the basement and threaten him with it, then consign him there forever if he didn't change. That wouldn't be just.

God didn't invent the evil in the world, man did. Yes, you would kick him out of the house if he refused to change. What if after you kicked him out, he was shot and killed? Did you force him to act that way? Or did you do everything in your power to help him, and change him? Whether you think hell is fair or not, and remember that is based on your own imperfect sense of justice, I think you have to admit that people are ultimately responsible for their own choices. If God makes it clear what the consequences are, when someone ends up in hell, who else do they have to blame but themselves?

coming down from God out of heaven...

Cool. So it's only up to the last book of the Bible that heaven is in the clouds, and now heaven is on Earth. You're right that that's different from what's in the video, but it's no more ridiculous to talk about living in the sky than to talk about living in an alternate parallel dimension on Earth.

No, it's not. There is a Heaven in which God dwells, but He moves His dwelling place to Earth to live with us. That is what it says through the entire bible. What you're referring to is the pop-culture misconceptions of what scripture says. People hear their entire lives about scripture from the culture and assume they're true, and then they repeat them to others as fact, like in this video, because they are ignorant of what scripture actually says. Many of the bibles most ardent critics have never actually read it. Neither is it an "alternate parallel dimension" on Earth. It is here, on this Earth.

>> ^messenger

OK, so it looks like this is just a teaser for for a whole series of studies focusing on female characters and the use of cliche roles of women in gaming.

She is correct, games are becoming a more major part of our society and play a leading roll in pop culture. Does it need to be studied to this extent? Maybe, but for feminist purposes, no.

It's a fine line between watchdog and wanting to filter out basic human nature.
The reason these games are successful is partially because of the fantasy aspect. Take away the basic sex appeal and you take away the stimulus for it's appeal.

Lets face it, as humans we crave few things. We crave food, possessions for survival and lets face it, sex (or forms thereof.)

In games, there is usually a health meter and some way of measuring success. This builds on the basic functionality of the game. Then it needs a level of sexy to appeal to our base desires.

Now this isn't exclusive, I'm sure there are games out there which excuses at least one of these in any given formula but when it comes down to it, we crave what we crave and games facilitate that need.

I often think of Diablo and it's appeal to our needs of hunting and gathering instincts. And we are rewarded for the gathering as we advance throughout the game. And along the way we get to fantasize ourselves into one of the powerful characters which all satisfy the requirements of having exaggerated features, one way or another. (even the necro, which has an air of arrogance and demands respect, if not bulging muscles)

I'll round off my comments, though I think I could talk on about this for some time.
We need to cliches in our games. They hold the appeal for us and keep us wanting more.

>> ^FlowersInHisHair:

>> ^AeroMechanical:
>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
I'm starting to not get new pop culture references. Does this mean I'm getting old?
http://pinterest.com/

Oh, no. Of course not. It means you are an adult. That usually takes until at least 30 these days at a minimum.
edit: Almost as soon as I wrote that, I realized the logical fallacy. Truth be told, in all likelihood, the 25-year-olds I know today who still play Pokemon and watch Naruto will never really become adults. I suppose maybe that isn't a bad thing though.
So being an adult means you can't like fun stuff any more? Fuck that!


That's about the size of it. Instead, you have to get all excited about mortgage rates and how much your job matches you on your 401K. Then you have kids, which people say is a lot of fun, but looks more like stress and a lot of work to me.

The other day, a friend of mine said he didn't need to smoke ganja any more because when his baby daughter smiles, it's better than any drug. I just about puked.