LOL! He didn't follow you, he was just everywhere at all times spreading his evilly Democrat rhetoric. It was a social experiment that didn't grow wings. Now that you banned me, I won't be able to create a new sockpuppet because my IP is banned from making any new user accounts.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Really? I guess that makes sense, since it was obsessively following me around the site. You stalker.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Cool. It was me.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Trolling.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
My question is, what was his bannable offense? That he was a troll? Or that he was a sock puppet? Or that he was a nerd? Or that he was BillO? Or that you didn't like someone acting evilly liberal?

I loved it. I wish him back and in greater numbers. Haha!

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Not a bad troll concept, but poor execution and a bit too obvious for his own good.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Haha, was keitherolbermango hitting too close to home?

He did sound a lot like you guys, I must admit. I'm surprised you didn't embrace it.

Vote for stupid people and you get what you deserve. Bush was a knee-jerk reactor of little substance. Obama treats the economy like a social experiment. I didn't vote for either of them. It is a frustrating thing to be a helmsman on the Titanic frantically shouting about the huge iceberg of debt while Captain Obama tells the hoi polloi he has locked down below decks that everything is fine.

I don't really think you are like the skull guy, just having some fun with you.

As far as I know, not paying your taxes will only result in gun play if you fire first. Paying income tax is part of our system and no one is forcing you to work or live in this country, just like no one is forced to work at Wal*Mart. You can petition the government to change it's stance on income tax, and I can petition the government to change it's stance on abusive corporations, but in the meantime, our reality is what it is.

I don't see poorness as a permanent state of victimhood - which, btw, is classic right wing radio way of demonizing people who give a shit (*fear) - I just believe they shouldn't have to work more than 40 hours a week to make ends meet. I don't think capitalism is immoral, either, but I do think it amoral and have no problem curbing its destructive properties.

It's no mystery why Wal*Mart is popular. Its dirt cheap prices are subsidized by abuse of its workers, union busting, and government welfare. Just because something is popular and successful doesn't mean it is good or healthy. (ex: boy bands, Titanic, sniffing glue)

I'm sure cigarettes and alcohol would be very popular among grade schoolers, but I don't hear anyone lobbying on their behalf. Removing speed limits would probably go over well too, but would be a death warrant for countless people.

I believe LA did mount a large, successful campaign to keep Wal*Mart out, which is a fight most smaller cities are not powerful enough to wage (which is why there should be limits on corporate size and power). There are several Targets in LA, which are better stores anyway. They are much more respectful of employees too.



In reply to this comment by blankfist:
You can try your best to push me to the fringe with your personal attack, but there's a big difference between the guy in the skull mask's message and mine. Here's a little social experiment for you. Why not stop paying your income taxes, and every time you're contacted by the IRS or any government bureaucrat just ignore them. Let's see if they send men with guns to your house. But, that wouldn't be violent, would it? No, they're all "peace officers" there to keep the peace for you and me, right? They would never shoot you or me.

Back to your wage slavery. I think you have a very strong isolationist perspective of people. You see poor people as hapless victims floating alone in the world, unable to get above it all because of an evil capitalist system permeating society around them. They're not alone. We all coexist together. If someone wants to live better, they have a chance to work together to improve their conditions... without Walmart if they choose.

If you don't want Walmarts in your community, then you can always be persuasive and convince people to voluntarily not be patrons of the store. It's not like they moved into every city in the country overnight and destroyed small business by force. They were allowed in and welcomed. Why have you turned me into a defender of Walmart! You bastard!

By the way, I don't see a Walmart in Los Angeles. The closest one is in Long Beach, and it opened a long while back. Maybe people in LA don't want to give up their boutique style shops for that kind of thing? I don't know.

You can try your best to push me to the fringe with your personal attack, but there's a big difference between the guy in the skull mask's message and mine. Here's a little social experiment for you. Why not stop paying your income taxes, and every time you're contacted by the IRS or any government bureaucrat just ignore them. Let's see if they send men with guns to your house. But, that wouldn't be violent, would it? No, they're all "peace officers" there to keep the peace for you and me, right? They would never shoot you or me.

Back to your wage slavery. I think you have a very strong isolationist perspective of people. You see poor people as hapless victims floating alone in the world, unable to get above it all because of an evil capitalist system permeating society around them. They're not alone. We all coexist together. If someone wants to live better, they have a chance to work together to improve their conditions... without Walmart if they choose.

If you don't want Walmarts in your community, then you can always be persuasive and convince people to voluntarily not be patrons of the store. It's not like they moved into every city in the country overnight and destroyed small business by force. They were allowed in and welcomed. Why have you turned me into a defender of Walmart! You bastard!

By the way, I don't see a Walmart in Los Angeles. The closest one is in Long Beach, and it opened a long while back. Maybe people in LA don't want to give up their boutique style shops for that kind of thing? I don't know.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
If you want to live in an apartment and eat food, work is compulsory. If you live in a small town where WalMart has killed all the local businesses, AND you want to live in an apartment and eat food, then working at WalMart is compulsory. Wage-Slavery.

How about some turn about. If you don't want to pay taxes, then don't own property, work or ever buy anything. You are free to not participate in activities that require you to pay taxes. You are making a choice to pay taxes.

Also, enough of the violent victim fantasies. No one is going to shoot you. You sound like that skull guy.

More of a not-so-subtle debasement of the status quo. Subtly risks going over the heads of 95% of Sifters. This way, most will get it, although, alas, most won't care.

In reply to this comment by Edeot:
Let me just say that I'm a huge fan of your new social experiment. The subtle genius lies in the fact that it's not subtle at all.

I only think I've seen you refer to the sift as a social experiment, actually.

But yeah, it is a bit unnerving that any diamond can hobble anyone just like that. Perhaps we should be required to have to write a "reason" for the hobbling, which is posted to the profile page, or maybe we should have a hobbler's corner, so that we can follow any such behavior and police the police, as it were.

spoco you just exploded my orwellometer. i told you not to do that.

"just because YOU don't know what it's all about, doesn't mean that there isn't good reason for it."

omfg.

listen, i might be "taking this seriously" but that's because i think studying human behaviour in internet communities, and rections to different kinds of authority, is fucking interesting. and the leader of the community has stated repeatedly that part of his reason for starting and continuing the Sift is as a social experiment. He is also completely against authoritarianism, which is why I find it fascinating that he is so strangely authoritarian, or "passive dictatorial" as I like to call it. It is a well known trait of "free" and "open" communities that they have an authoritarian undertone which nobody wants to talk about. Fascinating to see that happening here in microcosm.

just because YOU don't have a clue what i am talking about, doesn't mean that there isn't a good reason for it.

first they came for UsesProzac, and we did nothing.

>> ^dag:
That's not cool - when his social experiment is doing this kind of damage to the Sift, the game is over. I vote ban.


Social Experiment? Fuck that noise. BiilOReily has never been a good member of the sift! Downvote all his videos! Ban him! Right the fuck now!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

That's not cool - when his social experiment is doing this kind of damage to the Sift, the game is over. I vote ban.

This will be an interesting social experiment.

Now all we need is for someone to volunteer to misbehave to see how well it works.

Preferably, let's have it be someone with a lot of friends, to really test it.

While I don't want children myself, and being atheist, I have thought about this conundrum. I was raised believing in Santa Claus, and came to the realization on my own that he did not exist. I didn't harbour ill-will towards my parents for pertpetuating the lie throughout my childhood either (I harbour enough ill-will towards them anyways for other crap ).

I thought that it would be a good lesson in critical-thinking skills. That is, if they could come to the conclusion as I did. Though I'd nurse those skills as they grew up, and when they questioned things about Santa (as I'd hope they would) I'd answer truthfull and honestly, using as much explaination as necessary.

I would also use the experience to teach them about the lies and trickery used in other aspects of life, such as Religion, and how it is used to control and deceive children into believing all kinds of nonsense. With these new-found tools and examples, I'd hope to instill a harder outlook on society and reality with battle-tested critical thinking capabilities.

But, then again, I decided that children are a waste of my time and resources, so I won't ever get to try that particular experiment. (With good reason, I'd probably spend most of the time doing social experiments on my child while raising them.)

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Wow, congratulations Bill'0 I know you are really a Green Peace member conducting a social experiment. But I'm glad you're around anyway.

>> ^NordlichReiter:
You know that choggie will be back... and much stronger than before.
You people take the sift to serious. The sift is after all a clustering of binary digits in the vastness of cyberspace. It is a collection of XML, HTML, Data Tables, (C# Java or some other behind language) Transact SQL... I digress.
Any way Choggie(his name makes me think of haggish) will always push the limits of the rules, that is what many of us do, and some of us will break those rules.
Ad Hominem here Beware:
Just because some of you (I wrote it) got offended or hurt by him shows that you care to much for what may be going on in this social experiment.


I really hate that as an argument when people are rude or verbally abusive online. "Oh, you're taking it all too seriously, this isn't real life".

Well screw that, I really don't think people should get some free pass to be complete dicks just because we aren't face to face, that's a great way to create an environment that people don't want to have discussions in.

Be civil everywhere, in 'real' life, online, on the phone, via letters... it's just decent dammit.

You know that choggie will be back... and much stronger than before.

You people take the sift to serious. The sift is after all a clustering of binary digits in the vastness of cyberspace. It is a collection of XML, HTML, Data Tables, (C# Java or some other behind language) Transact SQL... I digress.

Any way Choggie(his name makes me think of haggish) will always push the limits of the rules, that is what many of us do, and some of us will break those rules.

Ad Hominem here Beware:
Just because some of you (I wrote it) got offended or hurt by him shows that you care to much for what may be going on in this social experiment.

Thanks for asking, NR. I wasn't sure how apparent the situation would be without an appropriate description, so you helped my social experiment.

The police were in high speed pursuit of a suspect. Upon refusal to stop the coppers set up a roadblock, and this is geographically where the video begins. The suspect surely saw the car in the road and could have stopped, but decided to slam head-on (apply directly to your forehead) instead. The French fuzz took that opportunity to apprehend that stinker.