The closest major galaxy to us is 2.5 million light years away, a light year is 6 trillion miles. So it would be 2.5 million x 6 trillion miles. The scope of the universe is freaking huge.

NWA "Fuck Tha Police":

Right about now, N.W.A. court is in full effect
Judge Dre presiding
In the case of N.W.A. vs. the Police Department;
prosecuting attorney's are: MC Ren, Ice Cube,
and Eazy-motherfucking-E

Order, order, order
Ice Cube, take the motherfucking stand
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth so help your black ass?

You god damn right!

Well won't you tell everybody what the fuck you gotta say?

Fuck the police coming straight from the underground
A young nigga got it bad cause I'm brown
And not the other color so police think
they have the authority to kill a minority
Fuck that shit, cause I ain't the one
for a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun
to be beating on, and thrown in jail
We can go toe to toe in the middle of a cell
Fucking with me cause I'm a teenager
with a little bit of gold and a pager
Searching my car, looking for the product
Thinking every nigga is selling narcotics
You'd rather see, me in the pen
than me and Lorenzo rolling in a Benz-o
Beat a police out of shape
and when I'm finished, bring the yellow tape
To tape off the scene of the slaughter
Still getting swoll off bread and water
I don't know if they fags or what
Search a nigga down, and grabbing his nuts
And on the other hand, without a gun they can't get none
But don't let it be a black and a white one
Cause they'll slam ya down to the street top
Black police showing out for the white cop
Ice Cube will swarm
on ANY motherfucker in a blue uniform
Just cause I'm from, the CPT
Punk police are afraid of me!
HUH, a young nigga on the warpath
And when I'm finished, it's gonna be a bloodbath
of cops, dying in L.A.
Yo Dre, I got something to say

Fuck the police
Fuck the police
Fuck the police
Fuck the police

Example of scene one

Pull your god damn ass over right now
Aww shit, now what the fuck you pulling me over for?
Cause I feel like it!
Just sit your ass on the curb and shut the fuck up
Man, fuck this shit
Aight smartass, I'm taking your black ass to jail!

MC Ren, will you please give your testimony
to the jury about this fucked up incident?

Fuck the police and Ren said it with authority
because the niggas on the street is a majority
A gang, is with whoever I'm stepping
and the motherfucking weapon is kept in
a stash box, for the so-called law
Wishing Ren was a nigga that they never saw
Lights start flashing behind me
But they're scared of a nigga so they mace me to blind me
But that shit don't work, I just laugh
because it gives em a hint, not to step in my path
For police, I'm saying, "Fuck you punk!"
Reading my rights and shit, it's all junk
Pulling out a silly club, so you stand
with a fake-assed badge and a gun in your hand
But take off the gun so you can see what's up
And we'll go at it punk, and I'ma fuck you up!
Make you think I'ma kick your ass
but drop your gat, and Ren's gonna blast
I'm sneaky as fuck when it comes to crime
But I'ma smoke 'em now and not next time
Smoke any motherfucker that sweats me
or any asshole, that threatens me
I'm a sniper with a hell of a scope
Taking out a cop or two, they can't cope with me
The motherfucking villain that's mad
With potential, to get bad as fuck
So I'ma turn it around
Put in my clip, yo, and this is the sound
[BOOM, BOOM] Yeah, something like that
but it all depends on the size of the gat
Taking out a police, would make my day
But a nigga like Ren don't give a fuck to say

Fuck the police
Fuck the police
Fuck the police
Fuck the police

Yeah man, what you need?
Police, open now
Aww shit
We have a warrant for Eazy-E's arrest
Get down and put your hands up where I can see 'em
(Move motherfucker, move now!)
What the fuck did I do, man what did I do?
Just shut the fuck up
and get your motherfucking ass on the floor
(You heard the man, shut the fuck up!)
But I didn't do shit
Man just shut the fuck up!

Eazy-E, won't you step up to the stand
and tell the jury how you feel about this bullshit?

I'm tired of the motherfucking jacking
Sweating my gang, while I'm chilling in the shack, and
shining the light in my face, and for what?
Maybe it's because I kick so much butt
I kick ass - or maybe cause I blast
on a stupid-assed nigga when I'm playing with the trigger
of any Uzi or an AK
Cause the police always got something stupid to say
They put out my picture with silence
Cause my identity by itself causes violence
The E with the criminal behavior
Yeah, I'm a gangsta, but still I got flavor
Without a gun and a badge, what do ya got?
A sucker in a uniform waiting to get shot
by me, or another nigga
And with a gat it don't matter if he's smaller or bigger

Size ain't shit, he's from the old school fool)
And as you all know, E's here to rule
Whenever I'm rolling, keep looking in the mirror
And ears on cue, yo, so I can hear a
dumb motherfucker with a gun
And if I'm rolling off the 8, he'll be the one
that I take out, and then get away
While I'm driving off laughing this is what I'll say

Fuck the police
Fuck the police
Fuck the police
Fuck the police

The verdict

The jury has found you guilty of being a redneck,
white bread, chickenshit motherfucker
But wait, that's a lie! That's a god damn lie!
Get him out of here!
I want justice!
Get him the fuck out my face!
I want justice!
Out, RIGHT NOW!
FUCK YOU, YOU BLACK MOTHER-FUCKERS!

Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!

I believe that you are correct, and Carr was not actually fined or otherwise legally penalized for his remarks.

However, it *was* a possibility that he would be, according to the first line in the article I linked to in my first post in this thread:
"Jimmy Carr could face sanctions for making a joke about dwarves during an appearance on BBC1’s The One Show."

I believe that I read other news articles that suggested that was a possibility at the time it happened, but I can't find anything with a real quick search now.

Going outside of the scope of that single incident, I definitely have seen quite a few reports of things that I would consider to be fairly trivial incidents like this being looked at by the UK government as "hate speech" and therefore potentially subject to "fines, imprisonment, or both" (according to that wikipedia article).

Samples from a quick search include a politician being arrested for quoting a passage about Islam from a book by Winston Churchill, a young man who was jailed for 12 weeks because of "some offensive Facebook posts making derogatory comments about a missing child" (it doesn't say what the posts were exactly; I am not saying I would defend his posts but I don't think anyone should go to jail for being an idiot and running their mouth on the internet), and another young man who was fined for saying that "all soldiers should die and go to hell". Plenty more incidents beyond those as well, it seems.

So while Jimmy Carr didn't end up actually facing any legal repercussions for his joke, I think it is not far fetched at all to suggest that he might have (and there seems to be some evidence that legal repercussions enacted by the government were being considered in that particular incident).

That is what seems crazy / wrong to me. That is NOT freedom of speech; it is freedom of benign speech, with an increasingly narrow view of what speech is benign.

I'm 100% OK with their being "consequences" for Jimmy Carr for his joke. But the government shouldn't be involved in that (and again, to be fair they DID end up staying out of it in that case). The consequences that I think are fine include:

* Ofcom or the BBC passing on some/all of any fines that the government levels against them on to Carr (ie., IF they get fined for breaking broadcast decency standards, make Carr foot the some or all of the bill for that).

* Ofcom or the BBC electing not to invite Carr to appear on any more programs if they are concerned about preventing fines / protecting their image / whatever. They are a business, they gotta look out for themselves.

* Individual people who were offended by Carr's joke boycotting programs that he appears on, refusing to pay to attend his live performances, etc. Obviously. If you don't like what he has to say, you are are of course not obliged to continue to listen to him.

Anything beyond those consequences is going too far in a society that claims it is democratic and free, in my opinion.

@Payback -- that helps with the "how", thanks.

A big part of my confusion was/is from how it started the hop *before* it got close to the object. Without driver input that would require sensors aiming ahead (some mix of cameras, sonar, laser range, etc.) that I can see being a part of a car built around such a system from the ground up, but would go beyond the scope of a drop-in "suspension replacement".

But I can see a reactive suspension system working like that -- it has a computer control unit that normally just responds to sensors in the suspension (reactive rather than predictive), but has a button that can manually initiate that maneuver just like you described. In that way I guess it isn't that much different from a Tesla Model S "insane mode"; driver initiates it and the computer (and car) does the rest.

Interesting.

I think the crux is the sense of right and wrong. A victim in Europe has the authorities on her side, whereas a victim in extremely conservative societies has the authorities against her side. (Not just in Islam - there's a lot of slut-shaming that goes on in super churchy crowds).

I'm not sure of the specific distribution of circumstances either. I haven't heard of any European rapes perpetrated specifically as an attack/punishment for perceived improper/unacceptable dress or social norms.
I think people in the west look at the motivations differently. Not sure if the varying motivations/circumstances make much (if any) difference to the victims - although at least one circumstance is a tad safer (eg. such as, what do you do if someone runs by and rips off your hijab - in one society, you could get raped and sent to jail if someone sees you like that... in the other society, nothing.).

Regarding the video, the guy is telling it how it is... but without any sense of scope. Yeah, these things happened. But, there are millions of immigrants, it's not as if all of them participated. It also omits rape and mistreatment that anti-immigrant natives have done to immigrants (which, likewise, it's not as if all anti-immigrant natives participated).
This is all an exercise in branding. You might as well say that white people are thieves because a white guy robbed a 7-11, or all gun owners are dangerous because a dude shot up a place.

-scheherazade

It's not inhumane ('humane' being another oxymoron, because it's meaning, and acting like a normal human, are opposites) because 1)they have a life at all, which they would not if not given the opportunity by my family 2) they have a place to live that life, which they would not if not given the use of the land and 3) nature also creates barriers to movement, so it's not unnatural for an animal to live it's entire lifespan in one place...perhaps for cattle, but not the rest. Farm animals are not humans, and those that have an aversion to being stationary have no place on a farm. You could say that not being nomadic is 'inhumane', as our natural state is not sedentary, but few would argue it's 'cruel'.
'Animals' are not humans, so are not slaves. That idea makes you sound ridiculous. See the South Park episode for a good example.
Stopping suffering is not within our scope.
There are many reasons why stopping meat eating is not reasonable, but the one you should be the most interested in is, if humans didn't eat cattle, they might be extinct. The same goes for many animals we eat, and if we didn't eat things like pork, the ecological disaster feral pigs create would be almost as bad as what humans do.
It would be easier and cheaper to change the conditions in the slums of India and elsewhere than it would be to eradicate the meat production (edit:and consumption) of the entire planet. What do the people do now that no longer have jobs? What do you do with all the animals that no longer have a 'use' and don't own property to move onto? How do you control their numbers so they don't destroy what's left of the planet?
Technically, yes, all humans are animals. Mentally handicapped humans are not TREATED 'like animals', by which you MEAN treated poorly and without thought for their comfort and well being, which in fact is NOT how most animals are treated in our first world society, no matter how much you think so. Factory farms are a different matter.
When dolphins take control, they can treat mentally handicapped dolphins better than average humans. It's not arbitrary to treat your own species as the most important, it's an evolutionary trait almost all species likely possess.
No, I can't eat an entire vegan diet. I've tried many vegan foods, and found them ALL inedible, some made me sick.

You made blanket statements about how ALL animals are treated, and how ALL meat is produced and then defended that blanket statement. I'm glad you now admit your mistake, I hope you can see it through and stop blanket blaming ALL meat eaters.

What other people eat is farther outside your influence than how they treat their children.

Without the calorie dense food that is 'meat', we would still be nomadic gatherers, if we could exist at all. Eating meat is one of the things that gave us the energy to evolve those 'higher brains' that can choose our actions and determine what's 'rational'.
You will never see a vegan Olympic athlete. (Edit: well, maybe in Olympic curling...)

Daesh has brought about change...a change that THEY see as positive. That's not a good argument.

Yes, you are a monster for supporting such unabashed, unproductive carnivores ;-)...and I would hazard a guess that you don't feed them only free range, gmo free turkey carcasses, so you sound worse than me, the unashamed meat eater that pays the extra money for proper animal treatment....not just for them but because it's healthier meat too.

I did my part for the animals and the planet by not having children. ;-) Too bad I'm such a minority that it won't make a whit of difference.

@newtboy: Just to be clear, I really appreciate your comments. It's nice to talk to an omnivore who doesn't just respond with "I'LL EAT TWICE AS MUCH MEAT AS YOU DO TO MAKE UP FOR YOUR VEGANISM!" I'm trying to be objective, and I appreciate your attempt as well.

That being said...

I respect the genuine care you give to your animals. I didn't know you or your family (or both) owned such a farm. It does sound like you do, truly, meet their needs as animals. However, (and I hate to bring out the really controversial stuff), I'm sure plenty of slave-owners treated their slaves with genuine humanity. But that doesn't excuse the categorical enslavement of other beings. Despite all care given to those animals, they are still not able to live their natural lives as animals on earth. I don't see why our subjugation, no matter how "humane", can be considered anything less than "inhumane".

Now, the comparison to "most children in the world" is a moot one. Yes, of course everywhere there are going to be worse things happening. But the point is that we are rational, (hopefully) decent, higher-order-understanding-of-the-universe beings. Humans seem to like to cherry-pick when their huge brain is an excuse for greatness, or ignored and "we're just animals after all". So, just because there is suffering outside the scope of our influence, we do all have the ability to stop eating meat. Pretty easily, in fact, since there are tons and tons and tons of other means to get all the nutrition we need (not to mention way, way healthier means).

The point is that we are completely and totally (especially as upper-middle class 1st-world citizens) capable of not eating meat this very moment. You can't, however, change the living conditions in the slums of India by yourself right now.

And explain to me how mentally handicapped humans are not animals. What is the distinction? They are both objectively less intelligent. If anything, animals are more capable of surviving on their own. What makes mentally handicapped people any more special than animals? Just because they're human? That seems arbitrary. True, they should be treated differently because they are different animals, but I mean why should one be treated to our moral consideration and one should not? What makes humans so damn special?

And that "sustenance" argument is really, really misguided. As said above, you can eat an entire vegan diet and be probably even more healthy than an omnivore. And animals are not minimally suffering. Yes, a very cherished, rare group, as your animals are, are "minimally suffering", but many, many, many, many more are being horribly abused for that sustenance that can be gained elsewhere (with suffering of its own, truly. I always hear the "well, there are people given slave wages to pick vegetables in California". But, you'll be eating those vegetables and fruits anyway. That's an entirely other battle that needs to be waged in other ways, not through lack of consumption).

My assumption was not that 100% of farmers treat their animals inhumanely. My assumption was that billions of animals are being treated inhumanely. And the way parents treat their children is a red herring. That's not my argument at all. And again, it's outside the realm of my influence.

And to counter your last argument... my same argument above follows for the "food chain/web" argument. Once and for all:

We are rational, amazing, smart, complex and powerful beings on this planet. We have it within our power (each of us) to not eat meat. This is "against nature". But so is basically OUR ENTIRE CIVILIZATION. What makes us truly different from animals is that exact ability. To step back and choose our actions. Are you saying humans not capable of choosing their actions -- those with so much in the 1st world countries? That we're all forced to, by nature, to eat meat? That is the cognitive dissonance I speak of. That we're so special because we are rational beings, but at the same time we must eat meat because we are not rational human beings.

This entire argument was not endorsed by PETA, because they're a bunch of assholes -- but despite being assholes one can't argue that they have brought about change. Change comes from all angles. Grassroots, insane radicals, scientists, humanitarians. They all try to bring change in different ways and succeed influencing different groups. PETA's brazenness is its power. Large corporations, like McDonald's, must respond to such a power. Despite being assholes. Both of them.

--

I want to end on a note of humility -- that I admit to having that same cognitive dissonance when it comes to animals. As a cat owner, I often visualize the mound of turkey carcasses that both of my lovable kittens live on top of. And they truly are carnivores in that they cannot find sustenance outside of meat. How do I rationalize all the turkey deaths (my cats only exclusively eat turkey for some goddamn reason) just so I can have my lovable pets? I can't. And it kills me. Not sure if I'll get cats after they die.

--

Thanks for reading. That was a lot.

I'm not intending to split hairs at all. I think it's an important distinction when in one case the corporations are individual corporations working for their own financial gain, and in the other they are all state sponsored/owned and are all working for a singular state goal of controlling the internet speech and actions of it's citizens.

I don't disagree that the tools were created by the 'west', but the impact of what they are doing is exponentially greater, as it's being done by the government, not an individual company, with real life consequences, not levels of benefits in a rewards plan.

There's little chance of someone not getting a job because they haven't posted enough pro-government (or, for example, pro Apple) statements, posts, tweets, pictures, and links in the west...only if they've posted negative things that might hurt the company image. Here, however, if they aren't pro-china enough, they just won't have enough 'points', and probably will have serious consequences. I think that's where the outrage is coming from, not about the points program itself, but about the way they intend to use it. If your >700 points only got you 5% off at Alibaba, I would not see a big problem, since <700 will likely keep you from a good job, apartment, etc., there is a big problem.
Your examples do not seem to be on topic except for the exploitation of social pressure, which have been exceedingly few and minor in the west compared to this program, which is new in it's scope, design, designers, and intent. The west only wishes it was that good at manipulation.

The thing that really pisses me off about these places is that they exist in a legal grey zone. In Ontario, you have to be a licensed auto mechanic (OCoT scope of practice) to fix cars. But because they only change fluids, the franchise owners were able to worm their way into only hiring flunkies off of the street with minimal training. They haven't done an apprenticeship, and don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. They shouldn't be "recommending" anything. It's like asking a truck driver for heart surgery advice.

You may not have words, but the youtube link has PLU-ENTY:

www.snuffpuppets.com

Everybody’s born

Everybody cries

Everybody shits

Everybody dies

Conceived in 2012, Everybody is a giant 26.5m human puppet with articulated, detachable and interactive body parts and organs. Ambitious in scope and subject, it is the largest human puppet on the planet and represents the essential humanness of everybody.

Everybody‘s build is experimental; it’s kind of unimaginable, so big and complex but without high-tech design. Its creation is brute, rough, handmade. Everybody is all genders and multi-racial.

Everybody lies down indoors in theatres, outdoors in parks and in open public spaces. In repose, Everybody sleeps, breaths and stirs. Everybody is not just one puppet but a multitude of independent, roaming human body parts and organs; they are characters in their own epic tale of human existence.

Everybody is an immersive experience. Audiences can walk around, sit on, lie against, get inside, and cuddle up to Everybody and all its beautiful body parts. The giant human puppet is viewed in 360 degrees. Everybody, the experience, is a six-hour interactive art installation, or a 90-minute stage show.

The piece begins with the death of the giant human puppet via a brick thrown at Everybody’s head. The head cracks and its brain oozes out. Everybody watches its life flash before its eyes, from birth through life and ultimately death. Everybody’s now independent body parts and organs perform the journey of its life stages. Everybody is in 4 Acts: Everybody’s Born, Everybody Cries, Everybody Shits, Everybody Dies.

Human performers play audience members or passers-by who find themselves transported into, then flung out of, the brain of Everybody. Everybody is made up of: Mouth, Eye, Poo, Foot, Ear, Nose, Brain, Lungs, Baby, Penis, Vagina, Bum, Skin, Heart, Hand, Guts, Breast and Hair. And with guests, Pig and Brick.

[author flagged as a spammer - redacted]

1) Not if the specific individuals didn't actually repeatedly communicate with him, which it seems like they didn't - they just prompted a large number of people to be aware of and possibly contact him. It could possibly be labeled conspiracy to harass or incitement to harass, but that's not necessarily an actionable offense. He'd probably have more luck suing for defamation.

2) 'Feeling harassed' is super-actionable; it's the defining prerequisite for the crime of harassment to have taken place. As long as you fear for your safety, and that can be your psychological or social safety, you're technically within the scope of the broadly written statute. It's most likely written that broadly to ensure that obviously harassing behavior is not missed on a technicality, and courts, as well as plaintiffs, are expected to exercise common sense.

I also bet it won't go anywhere after the court of first instance.

@artician
i hear ya man,
but tolkien set the bar where all other fantasy writers had to follow.

personally i found the "the chronicles of thomas covenant-the unbeliever" to be perhaps the best fantasy series to take what tolkien did to a much greater depth and scope and incorporating much of what C.S lewis laid down.

what a great series.the protagonist is such an anti-hero and you struggle for three books to even like him,nevermind identify with him.

but like you,i sometimes struggle when a writers influence is so blatant.

take Dean Koontz...really...take him..
i find him to be an utter hack,and while his prose is readable,his storylines and ideas are so obviously plucked from better writers and then mashed together so we wont notice.

i notice...and thats why any book of his given to me has a permanent place on my bathroom shelves.that man is pure crapper reading,since i get to play "recognize the plot" without any real exertion ....mentally.

but let us be honest.
while tolkien created a very diverse and detailed land with lore and history.painting a picture in our heads this fantastic world he created.the basic plotline is not that original.

it is your basic heroes quest with an extremely detailed backdrop.

so i will give this show a pass,just as i did brooks books.they were engaging and entertaining,and at the end of the day...what more do we wish out of our books?

ever read any of piers anthony's xanth novels?
they are puntastic and a fun ride (even if a bit cheeky),and nowhere near great literature.

but fun...and i can live with that.

Fallout 1 was a technically antiquated VGA (that's right, 640x480, 256 colours) post-apocalyptic turn-based tactical RPG where you could not control you team mates during combat. It was a bit buggy (and so was F2). It was Mad Max, without cars.

And yet.

Fallout is arguably the best world-building work in the history of video games. People are probably going to dispute that, but most other games are built on pre-existing lore or works, or do not have that scope*. Fallout built its world pretty much from scratch, conflating a pre-war 1950's, golden-era, overly-optimistic world-view with the bleak desolation of the nuclear holocaust that ensued (to clarify for those who really know nothing about Fallout: in this universe a nuclear war happened in the 50s**. all that's left is from that era). Beside its content which was plentiful in and of itself, this created a contrasted, yet highly coherent and mature world (and by mature I don't just mean killing friendly NPC, I mean doing Morally Very Bad Things that don't necessarily result in graphic scenes). An open world that you could roam freely, be surprised by a new discovery that you made, and at the same time find these discoveries to fit perfectly with the game's logic. In most large games you just access new areas or are carried by the story, in Fallout you would go "Holy shit I'm in the middle of a city populated by centenarian ghouls!", shortly followed by "ho, of course it's full of ghouls, that's perfectly normal". There are not many games that have this mix of unexpected/logical and dark/humorous content.

Fallout 2 had the same ho-my-God-how-could-they-get-away-with-it VGA engine (so next to zero evolution there), but quadrupled the world map (with a minimum overlap with the one from F1) and brought it fifty or so years forward, expanding the world greatly (there are now rival quasi-city-states, and your action may influence their future), while also building on the first one: some antagonists 'classes' from F1 have now grown their own identity and became NPC, and some characters are still around -- a young character you saved in F1 went back to her settlement, became its leader, built it into a town, and is now in the process of expanding it into a new state...So Fallout 2 is basically the same game, except they did that one important thing: push the game world's boundaries even more. You could never guess what next city would be like, but you could bet it would have some crazy shit in it, and yet somehow still make sense.

That's why many people don't like Fallout 3. It is not in itself a bad game, but comparatively, it's kind of coasting. Also it's too damn easy.

I'm sorry, I got carried away, you were asking if you should play the previous ones? No, you 'should' not. But you could, and for F1 & F2 you would certainly not lose your time if you know what you're getting into. And if you don't, at least go and watch their intro on Youtube, they'll give you the feel of the world.

* Possible contenders in terms of "original video game world": Elder Scrolls (vast, but less original), Deus ex (not as large), Bioshock (same), Final Fantasy (original and vast, but not as complex). Any other idea?
** Technically not the 1950s, but in practice the 50s + a bunch of high tech gizmo.

That assumes that we understand the nature of the Universe to an advanced degree enough to determine through our imagination (that was created in this Universe/Multiverse) - that an advanced species that exists far back in time, for a far longer time would evolve in somehow the same way as we have ("technology") and not have evolved on some entirely other level that we could not even imagine (yet) or even have the senses for.

There is the possibility for many dimensions. Using our monkey brains, with our monkey imaginations that are still evolving & being built upon - I might imagine that an intelligent civilization that has existed for billions of years would try to find the SAFEST place to exist. The safest place to exist (without fear of black holes, planet destroying comets, natural disaster, corruption, etc) would be in the form of energy; existing on a harmonic frequency that other intelligent lifeforms can tap into if they wish. But, once again that would assume that the senses I have been given and tools/experiences I have are valid in the grand scope of the Universe; of which they probably are not.