>> ^mentality:

>> ^shinyblurry:
I know all about the schitzophrenic nuance militant atheists attempt to interject into the debate ..which really is because atheism is completely indefensible as a belief. At least someone like Christopher Hitchens is intellectually honest enough to say he doesn't believe..but many atheists try to hide behind an ambiguous definition by redefining atheism as not making any particular claims, which is patently false. I really don't care what wikipedia says, I'll go with the dictionary on this one, as well as personal experience. I've yet to meet an atheist who said he "lacked" belief who didn't unequivocably assert he is right, and not only right, but so right that I was in comparison intellectually inferior. Which is amusing to me, because as far as I am concerned an atheist might as well be rubbing two sticks together for all the discernment about reality.
Wrong. It is not a "redefinition" of atheism. It's a way of classifying different kinds of atheism. The kind of atheism that you're used to dealing with is merely a subset of atheists, the explicit/strong kind. Did you even try to read the wikipedia article? Oh wait, you're too arrogant to care. How would you like it if people bunched all Christians together, and viewed all of you as the Westboro Baptist Church?
And yet again you ignore the rest of my post. I'll spell it out again for you:
"I know this... I know that... I know all about... I don't care..."
These are all the signs of your own hubris. You don't know. You don't know and you don't care that there are different kinds of atheism. You don't know string theory, or general relativity, evolutionary biology, or even what the word "evidence" means. Yet you have the arrogance to talk like you are an expert. You sound like Ray Comfort - a fool, sure of his own righteousness and superiority. In the end, the only thing you achieve is to marginalize the Christian faith and make religious people look bad.
Try to remember that religion is a personal thing. Faith does not need your silly proofs and God does not need you to defend him.
Goodbye and good luck.


Good luck reasoning with him, mentality. I had a very long and thorough discussion with shiny about the different kinds of atheism, but he trots out that one dictionary definition and shuts off his brain. No amount of reasonable discussion penetrates.

And all of his expertise on various subjects comes from creationist websites that warp science and quote-mine to back up their theological preconceptions.

If you designed a computer program to defend the worst, must unscientific perspective on Christianity, you'd get something like shinyblurry. He's programmed to believe one thing, and nothing anybody says can alter it in the slightest. I doubt he'd pass a Turing test.

I only post messages to him when I feel like venting. It's not anything like a conversation.

>> ^nock:

Actually, it blocks nerve transmissions temporarily. As far as I know it does not permanently destroy neurons. Extensive use can lead to muscle atrophy as the muscles will not be utilized enough to maintain their bulk. It is approved for use with certain conditions causing muscle contractures and for cosmetic purposes. The mother should not be administering this medication as too much (I think the maximum allowed dose is 100 units) or improper (think arterial) injections can cause death from phrenic nerve paralysis.
>> ^xxovercastxx:
For anyone who doesn't know how Botox works, it's a neurotoxin. That means it damages and eventually destroys neurons, effectively shutting off the muscles that they control.
Don't like the way your nose wrinkles when you smile? Turn off the muscles that trigger it.
Generally a pretty stupid thing to be using for something as trivial as wrinkles but shockingly stupid to be using on a kid who isn't old enough to understand the repercussions.



Neurotoxins, by definition, cause nerve damage. A single proper dose of Botox will not destroy neurons but repeated use over time can.

Botox is serious shit. The LD50 on the medical strain is 1ng. For comparison, black mamba venom is 250-320ng.

Actually, it blocks nerve transmissions temporarily. As far as I know it does not permanently destroy neurons. Extensive use can lead to muscle atrophy as the muscles will not be utilized enough to maintain their bulk. It is approved for use with certain conditions causing muscle contractures and for cosmetic purposes. The mother should not be administering this medication as too much (I think the maximum allowed dose is 100 units) or improper (think arterial) injections can cause death from phrenic nerve paralysis.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

For anyone who doesn't know how Botox works, it's a neurotoxin. That means it damages and eventually destroys neurons, effectively shutting off the muscles that they control.
Don't like the way your nose wrinkles when you smile? Turn off the muscles that trigger it.
Generally a pretty stupid thing to be using for something as trivial as wrinkles but shockingly stupid to be using on a kid who isn't old enough to understand the repercussions.

For anyone who doesn't know how Botox works, it's a neurotoxin. That means it damages and eventually destroys neurons, effectively shutting off the muscles that they control.

Don't like the way your nose wrinkles when you smile? Turn off the muscles that trigger it.

Generally a pretty stupid thing to be using for something as trivial as wrinkles but shockingly stupid to be using on a kid who isn't old enough to understand the repercussions.

Humans and in fact all animals capable of learning patterns of some kind, have a natural bent towards recognizing and in turn, attempting to discern patterns of cause and effect. "This happened because I did this" and so on. When events occur that we can't explain however, this instinct doesn't shut off. We want to know, we have an inborn *need* to know what caused this earthquake, this inexplicable illness, this strange mental phenomena. With no readily available explanation humans will invariably make up their own reason for it.
This in no way makes any of it real by any stretch of the imagination. Why is there so much religion and belief in a higher power? Because *surprise!* the human race didn't know or comprehend 99.9% of anything going on for the past several hundreds of thousands (or thousands if you believe in a god that is attempting to play practical jokes on us all), so we made our own reasons for it. Only relatively recently have we begun to truly understand anything at all about the greater universe, whether you contest six thousand or a hundred thousand years of human history. Only a few hundred years at best have we been able to seriously study and understand all of "this". Compared to the thousands of years before of attributing every little thing we couldn't grasp to deities of one form or another, it would be more surprising if there wasn't as much religion as there is right now.
Sheer numbers is not an argument for anything. Just an argument that because there are a lot of you, it somehow means your right. When a few people believe in something unprovable or highly unlikely, we call this mental illness. When many believe the same things, we call this religion.

*kill

I hope it shuts off on ya

lies...
"For the first time in history, a government has shut down all national Internet and cellular access."

Ok forgetting about China and DPRK use of filtering and control of the internet.
Iran did this EXACT SAME THING about a year ago when they shut off access to Twitter ad much of SMS and internet in major cities when they had the same protests.

So, what is with the lies like Eqypt is different and Iran this never happened.

Via ANTI* Net-Neutrality

The concept of internet neutrality is as it exists today (for the most part), an open bastion for anyone who wants to, being able to express themselves in a multitude of ways.

I wish we had a better name for it, like Liberty Net or something. Everyone tends to hear the neutrality part as neutering or neutralizing, when in fact it is trying to express that the net should not have limits/censorship/bias.

>> ^blankfist:

Their government shut off the internet. In unrelated news, the US moves to give government absolute control over the internet via Net Neutrality.

Their government shut off the internet. In unrelated news, the US moves to give government absolute control over the internet via Net Neutrality.

I agree with DRM "punishing your customers". The only DRM I can tolerate is what Steam uses to encrypt files. And that's because Steam is more convenient than physical media and constantly-patching all your PC games.

Disagree with his notion of "always on" network connection solving the DRM problem. Ubisoft does this with their newer titles, and I don't like it. Even for single player games, like Assassins Creed 2, you have to be constantly connected. You lose your connection, game pauses or doesn't start. Ubi's servers went down too - no one could play AC2 for 6 hours the day after it was released. They claim it was a DOS attack, but likely it was unexpected demand. Oh, can't confirm it, but that DRM was already patched out and there are pirated versions of UBI games out there already. I won't purchase any new UBI game which uses this Always-On-DRM.

The reward system is up to the reseller, not up to the publisher. Truth is that resellers don't make much profit from selling new games. That is why Gamestop is always pushing their used titles (and have rewards program for it) - the profit margin is astoundingly higher. Although the publisher can offer some rebates, like if you own the prior title, you get a discount on the sequel. These are few and far between though.

I bought a PS3 to put linux on it. But that was when it first came out, and there aren't many games on it, so no compelling reason to own it. I only put linux on it to try out Cell programming. Honestly YDL was slooooowwwww on the PS3. Other than Cell programming, there's no compelling reason to put linux on a PS3. Sony was selling the PS3 at a loss, and could do so because of future profits from selling games. I'm not sure if the newer Slim models are profitable or not, but I understand them removing support for it. (my conspiracy theory is that IBM also twisted their arm, since a Cell-BE blade or workstation is $8000+). Now, I use my PS3 for games occasionally, but mostly for blu-ray. I don't feel ripped off. The PS3 still does quite a lot, just not Everything.

Disagree with "shuts off servers for favorite game" argument too. If they want to stop running "official servers" fine - but they should just release open-source version of a dedicated server for anyone who wants to run their own server, after they stopped caring about their old titles. id software consistently released the source for their entire games, not just the server.

I don't think I've ever heard of someone justifying piracy because there was no demo available...Did anyone pirate a game just to try it, then like it and buy the full version? I've heard of people buying the game, hating the DRM, then getting the crack for it so they could actually play what they paid for.

He left out high school and college students (bulk of game pirates) in the "I'm too poor" argument. They all got the consoles or PC's as presents from their parents, and can't budget $60/month for games because they aren't working. And if the parents are already paying for their housing and food, they don't want to buy their kids new games every month, so those kids do what's easy - pirate games.

In all though, I do agree with him - that you should pay for games because developers worked hard on them.

Also if you see a title that is older and discounted, and a new copy is $19.99 and the used one is $17.99 - please buy the new one, cause the developers get $0.00 from used game sales.

This is basically what religions have been doing for thousands of years - drowning out the other voices. We have the one true word, so sayeth Rachel Maddow/Glenn Beck/Ron Paul/Mohammed/Jesus/dag/etc.
>> ^NetRunner:

Words fail to describe how awesome this paragraph is.
I think the issue with the word "bias" is that people have forgotten the real meaning of the word. Arguments are only "bias" because it's become synonymous with "expresses a view I don't share".
The tragedy of this is kind of thinking is that it actually ends up causing a real bias: confirmation bias (or what you called "echo chamber syndrome"). This new definition of "bias" encourages people to tune out information that doesn't fit neatly into their own viewpoint because -- by definition -- it's "biased." As a result they wind up seeing only the things that confirm their preconceived notions, hence the name confirmation bias.
In my opinion, the key to living in modern society is being ever vigilant for confirmation bias in yourself, and doing your best to try to remember that no one holds a viewpoint that they themselves think is untrue.
>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
There is nothing wrong with political slant. You have a slant. I have a slant. Anyone with any understanding of politics has a political slant, and to attempt to hide that slant just makes you deceptive. The bigger problem with the concept of 'bias' or 'slant' is that it causes people to shut off their brains if they are exposed to anything outside of their own ideology. 'Bias' serves as a default argument for people not informed enough to form their own arguments. How many times have you seen an argument dismissed entirely because of 'bias'. Arguments ARE bias. Liberals should listen to conservative and libertarian slant, conservatives should listen to liberal and libertarian slant, libertarians should listen to conservative and liberal slant, if for no other reason than to challenge their own belief systems, to make sure they aren't suffering from the echo chamber syndrome.

<blushes> Thank you for the kind words, NetRunner. >> ^NetRunner:

Words fail to describe how awesome this paragraph is.
I think the issue with the word "bias" is that people have forgotten the real meaning of the word. Arguments are only "bias" because it's become synonymous with "expresses a view I don't share".
The tragedy of this is kind of thinking is that it actually ends up causing a real bias: confirmation bias (or what you called "echo chamber syndrome"). This new definition of "bias" encourages people to tune out information that doesn't fit neatly into their own viewpoint because -- by definition -- it's "biased." As a result they wind up seeing only the things that confirm their preconceived notions, hence the name confirmation bias.
In my opinion, the key to living in modern society is being ever vigilant for confirmation bias in yourself, and doing your best to try to remember that no one holds a viewpoint that they themselves think is untrue.
>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
There is nothing wrong with political slant. You have a slant. I have a slant. Anyone with any understanding of politics has a political slant, and to attempt to hide that slant just makes you deceptive. The bigger problem with the concept of 'bias' or 'slant' is that it causes people to shut off their brains if they are exposed to anything outside of their own ideology. 'Bias' serves as a default argument for people not informed enough to form their own arguments. How many times have you seen an argument dismissed entirely because of 'bias'. Arguments ARE bias. Liberals should listen to conservative and libertarian slant, conservatives should listen to liberal and libertarian slant, libertarians should listen to conservative and liberal slant, if for no other reason than to challenge their own belief systems, to make sure they aren't suffering from the echo chamber syndrome.

Words fail to describe how awesome this paragraph is.

I think the issue with the word "bias" is that people have forgotten the real meaning of the word. Arguments are only "bias" because it's become synonymous with "expresses a view I don't share".

The tragedy of this is kind of thinking is that it actually ends up causing a real bias: confirmation bias (or what you called "echo chamber syndrome"). This new definition of "bias" encourages people to tune out information that doesn't fit neatly into their own viewpoint because -- by definition -- it's "biased." As a result they wind up seeing only the things that confirm their preconceived notions, hence the name confirmation bias.

In my opinion, the key to living in modern society is being ever vigilant for confirmation bias in yourself, and doing your best to try to remember that no one holds a viewpoint that they themselves think is untrue.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

There is nothing wrong with political slant. You have a slant. I have a slant. Anyone with any understanding of politics has a political slant, and to attempt to hide that slant just makes you deceptive. The bigger problem with the concept of 'bias' or 'slant' is that it causes people to shut off their brains if they are exposed to anything outside of their own ideology. 'Bias' serves as a default argument for people not informed enough to form their own arguments. How many times have you seen an argument dismissed entirely because of 'bias'. Arguments ARE bias. Liberals should listen to conservative and libertarian slant, conservatives should listen to liberal and libertarian slant, libertarians should listen to conservative and liberal slant, if for no other reason than to challenge their own belief systems, to make sure they aren't suffering from the echo chamber syndrome.

TL;DR version - my team is better than your team.
>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I'm sick of fan-boy politics. Do you have any ideas of your own, beyond my team is better than your team? I'm sick of liberal fan boys, conservative fan boys and libertarian fan boys. Instead of insults and distractions, why not put forth a fucking original thought for once. Behind each of these political brands are real life ideas that we can talk about. Let's shut off Glenn Beck and Air America and ReasonTV and do some thinking for ourselves. These motherfuckers do not speak for us. These motherfuckers do not work for us. These motherfuckers do not think for us.
Glenn Beck is sick in the head, and if him calling for the execution of his opponents isn't reason enough for you to abandon him, then you've got problems. What if I said bobknight should be shot in the head and skull fucked? Would you find that to be enlightening discourse? Would you consider that left wing slant? Or would you consider that the unproductive words of a sociopath?
There is nothing wrong with political slant. You have a slant. I have a slant. Anyone with any understanding of politics has a political slant, and to attempt to hide that slant just makes you deceptive. The bigger problem with the concept of 'bias' or 'slant' is that it causes people to shut off their brains if they are exposed to anything outside of their own ideology. 'Bias' serves as a default argument for people not informed enough to form their own arguments. How many times have you seen an argument dismissed entirely because of 'bias'. Arguments ARE bias. Liberals should listen to conservative and libertarian slant, conservatives should listen to liberal and libertarian slant, libertarians should listen to conservative and liberal slant, if for no other reason than to challenge their own belief systems, to make sure they aren't suffering from the echo chamber syndrome.
Do you know that if you took a more intellectual approach to political discourse, that you'd get more respect and your arguments would be much more persuasive? Flush Fox news down the toilet and pick up a book. Surely the right must have their own Howard Zinns and Noam Chomskys, right? Take back your ideology from these manipulative corporate media clowns.
Talk to Geesussfreek. I don't agree with him, but he's obviously well read, intelligent and knows how to put an argument together. I'd like you to be a more formidable political adversary and to stop wasting your breath with "Glen Beck is great. Far better that any of the slanted leftest pukes on MSnbc". I know you can do better. I know you could kick some serious liberal ass on this site if you educated yourself.
Same goes for liberals. Enough with the namecalling. If we are going to take this country back, we are going to have to do it with ideas, not with insults. I've been guilty of all of this stuff too, and I'm making efforts to change. If I engage in useless idea-free insults in the future, you should call me on it .
Note for any future reference back to this comment: insults and criticism are not the same thing


>> ^bobknight33:
Glen Beck is great. Far better that any of the slanted leftest pukes on MSnbc

>> ^marinara:

buy a rice cooker. cook yer rice and it shuts off into "warm mode"


Or use a pot you already own, use your brain which you supposedly have operating.. and use each in a sort of symbiotic relationship, to.. measure out water, boil water, add rice,cover rice,reduce heat,time 20 (or so minutes) and save yourself 60 dollars, all the while feeling neat-o for not needing a machine to cook rice.. what next, a pasta boiler ?