>> ^residue:

ooh ooh, I'm good at this game.
This is not a video of a cat eating peanuts
>> ^mgittle:
This is not a video of a guy doing the same type of thing with a japanese zero and no jetpack.



No, you're bad at having watched this video, which happens to be #1, currently.

http://videosift.com/video/You-ve-got-to-be-joking

Oh, ok... Guess then that if this is the best Halo Reach teamwork, it must be a game with pretty much no teamwork involved. I have to agree with jmd that this has probably been recorded by someone who doesn't usually play games that do involve teamwork.

ooh ooh, I'm good at this game.
This is not a video of a cat eating peanuts

>> ^mgittle:

This is not a video of a guy doing the same type of thing with a japanese zero and no jetpack.

The teamwork was from the pilot who picked him up again, just in time before his jet pack ran out.>> ^Mandtis:

So, where was the "teamwork"...?

So, where was the "teamwork"...?

Your video, The best Halo Reach teamwork and kill you will ever see, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 14 Badge!

Have you been to or around any public schools lately?

Mainstream urban US public education is more the antithesis of what you describe. Antisocial behavior is rampant. Team building and problem solving...for some, for the most part,... walk and look around the cities,...workplaces for that matter. Incapability and disfunction are too well represented. Public schools are, too often, holding pens and clearing houses. I know and have talked to a number of educators. I have known a number of others, even a few that were functionally illiterate in highly rated schools.

Unbelievable horror stories. The seventh largest school district in the US and high school classrooms with 35 to 40 seats and 70-80 students sharing 30 odd books. That qualifies as teamwork and problem solving. I have known university graduates that could not spell much less write a sentence or a paragraph. Functionally illiterate from a major university with BBA's and such.

Is it proposed that exposure to every manner of behavioral expression, to put it euphemistically, is necessary to prepare one for the personal and interpersonal demands of life? Is it a given that those homeschooled live in a vacuum? Who should be the arbiter(s) of one's progeny's social, ideological, etc., etc., exposure and orientation? Personally, I would welcome that there were viable, wholesome, comprehensive, competent....

As to the characterizations that religious zealots comprises the preponderance of homeschool parents, it is over done. People that have the means, fiscally and personally, to devote their lives for the duration of a child's education period to provide the best, most solid and grounded framework for their progeny's foundation of knowledge in this difficult life are to be respected...revered. It is a remarkable and largely selfless sacrifice.
>> ^RedSky:

I mean more the sense of character it develops, ie resolving conflict, standing your own ground, working in teams, basically the kind of attitude that allows you to survive in a dog eat dog world. You could say that being home schooled still allows you to socialise and develop these same skills, but compared to the kids who spend 6 and a half hours, 5 days a week doing it at the least, they'll still be at a disadvantage.

>> ^A10anis:
I truly apologise to those who find this "sport" entertaining. I have tried - honest - but it seems to me that with a line to the target to follow, a target the size of a small car and some "helpers" with brushes to speed up/slow down the projectile, anybody, even drunk, could become proficient at it in about an hour. A similar game is played on cruise ships for the elderly to partake of "strain free exercise". Seriously, why is this an olympic event? We might aswell have dwarf throwing or spitting the furthest, or how fast can you go down an ice track, flat on your back, on a plank of wood - oops, sorry, think we have that one already.


Just a couple things. You don't know what you're talking about, and therefore you SHOULD have said such.

Curling is not shuffleboard. This statement alone proves your complete lack of understanding.

I bet, even sober, you would spend the first hour playing mostly flat on your ass. Even skating does not prepare you for what you need to do in curling.

Ever play pool? Imagine making a two bumper bank shot from 40ft away. (adjusted for size difference of cueball vs. rock)

The sweeps are there to stop the rock from curling until the shooter calls it. The sweeps are an extension of him/her. It is teamwork in it's purest form.

...and yes, you are insulting people who love the SPORT by belittling the skill of the players.



ps. about the luge comment "flat on your back, on wood, etc etc" I have never heard of a spitting contest where someone could be killed because of a split-second lapse in judgment.

The argument between you seems to be about a couple of different issues, which may have contributed to the increasingly harsh tone of your dismissing of each other.

It seems to me like Netrunner wants to highlight that the guy writing the article obviously has an agenda for writing what he did, namely his own. Simply accepting his side of the story, especially when he's making such a strong statement without anything to strengthen his claim except for an extremely hard-line approach as to the labeling of the actual events taking place in the cartoon, is disingenuous when presenting an unsubstantiated, biased opinion as anything but.

However, Blankfist wants to underline that pro-social messages intentionally inserted into cartoons is by its nature insidious. Presenting teamwork and camaradery in a light as to stifle a child's developing of a healthy ego, especially if it's deliberately engineered, is wrong and its practice as well as practitioners should be exposed and shunned.

On the one hand, we're discussing whether or not the pro-social message here is good or bad, and on the other hand we're discussing whether this is a pro-social message at all or just the bias or figment of imagination on the part of the writer.

Awesome teamwork and execution, love it.

@NetRunner. I'm not sure what you base your arguments on, but I've already admitted I think these pro-social messages are insidious. Teamwork is fine, if that's all the cartoons were showing, but to me this sounds more like social engineering than anything else, but I never said I had evidence for it. I just juxtaposed his comments with a personal anecdote about Sundance I thought was similar in its devious nature to shape the opinions of large groups through entertainment. I think to an average person they'd seem comparative, so I'm not sure what you're going on and on about if not to just stretch out an already belabored discussion about nothing at this point.

I bet you wish you played that evidence card before you made this comment, huh? You're adorable.

It's funny, you can literally recite the definition of a straw man attack, but then misuse it in the next sentence.

What I said was:

The Texas school board is currently trying to get history textbooks to do for the Great Depression and the New Deal what they've done for evolution. I say that's about a thousand times worse than your hint of a whiff of ideology you don't like in a Saturday morning cartoon.

But, apparently the cartoon struck a deeper chord with you because it's got a slight whiff of something you think is evil, when the blatant historical revisionism towards your view doesn't warrant comment.

I'm making my own argument there -- mostly I'm accusing you of having a double standard. Something that seems like a pro-liberal manipulation, you scream. Something that's blatant conservative manipulation, well, you probably hadn't even heard about it. I was inviting you to condemn what they're doing, and apparently you couldn't muster even a "I don't like what they're doing, either".

But in the spirit of fairness, I'll confess the above was an ad hominem argument, if a fairly gentle one that you could have easily deflated by conceding my point.

This particular case was a blog entry made by someone who claims to have first hand knowledge of being influenced by these groups, and collectivists find that threatening, so the only form of attack they have is to dip into their shameless partisan bag of tricks and pull out the "evidence" card for something this man obviously just remarked about as an aside in a blog about a Saturday morning cartoon he used to write for.

I admit I can be quite the conceited jerk at times, especially when I'm gloating a little bit, but blankfist, sweetie, asking for evidence isn't a dirty partisan trick.

In part, you're making my argument for me here by minimizing what it was you presented. My point is that you're trumpeting it like it's a big revelation of a sinister plot -- you even suggested that the only reason "teamwork" might sound good is because of indoctrination by cartoons -- when it sure sounded to me like Evanier's main point was "I just think that 'pro-social' message was bogus and ill-conceived", not "your children are being secretly brainwashed by mysterious parties to further their secret agenda".

You yourself said in your first comment that it sounded "a bit conspiratorial", and then recounted your belief that it's not just children's cartoons, but independent films.

I think my skepticism is perfectly healthy.

Good points. Let me think about that. I agree with everything you said, except I think that your blanket definition of "collectivism" is misguided, but then we start stepping into semantics and I'd rather avoid that for now, but maybe that's the only way to approach it.

My idea of collectivism is a lot like collaboration.

Your idea of collectivism is a lot like mob rule.

I need to think about this for a while, get it ironed out in my head. Both are group efforts, but one is working together to make things better for the group, and the other is a group effort (not always the majority I might add) to enforce their rules on other people.

That's a significant difference between the two, and I think that the use of one word to define both is misleading.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
I suppose this is a better explanation: http://www.videosift.com/talk/Saturday-morning-cartoons-taught-you-collectivism?loadcomm=1#comment-945608

I am more than okay with teamwork and doing what we can communally to coexist. That, to me, is not the hallmark of collectivism. To me, it's about generating uber-citizens that believe in the right of group might instead of the right of individuals.

Did you know the marriage license in this country started as a way to keep blacks from marrying whites? You see, the large collection of whites thought that was bad, and they were the majority. I wouldn't give a shit if they decided to band together as a team to raise a barn. I do, however, care when they decide what is best for everyone and use law and violence to do so.

Are you tired of Republicans chanting "USA! USA! USA!" at every tea party? Me too. That's collectivist behavior which is exactly what lead us into the Middle East and every other nation with brown people the US wants to bomb. How would you feel if Christians passed a law in the US that says the only recognized religion is Christianity and all children must be taught it in public school? Does that seem like harmless "teamwork" to you?

Here's the staple response you can expect from them: "Hey man, we're just working together to accomplish a common goal. This is what the majority wanted. If you have a problem with it, you should get involved in the political process and work to change it."

Think about that. When a group takes the rights away from an individual, you always hear the apologists asking for those who disagree to get involved in the political process if they want to change it. How about that arrogance? I suppose the blacks who were hung weren't getting involved enough in that process. Or the ones who were on the other end of the high pressure hoses. Or the ones who drank from the colored water fountain. Think about it. Collectivism is immoral for that reason alone.

In reply to this comment by rougy:

@NetRunner. Does the Watchmen even have a moral to teach? Sure, it's political, but a moral? Who cares either way, I suppose.

The fundamental difference is within the agenda of an interest group aimed at social engineering children vs. an author writing a political narrative. You seem to think somehow I'm trying to censor people or trying to enact a law to combat them, which is simply not the case, and quite frankly a pedestrian effort at a smear. I thought Mark Evanier's blog entry above was interesting and worth continuing the exposition, so I did because the nature of interest groups trying to secretly influence children is insidious and worthy of note, in my opinion.

It's not that it's solely aimed at kids; it's because of the hidden agenda to socially engineer us through repetitive indoctrination. Repetition is how children learn, and it's irresponsible of them to decide what subversive lesson to secretly teach children. If every Saturday morning cartoon taught children to go with the pack, be sheep and not question voices of concert, then think about the indoctrination they then reap upon their minds when they go to public school. We were taught American history as a historical triumph with clinical distance to the shameful parts of it. We were told to stand and cover our hearts for the pledge of allegiance. The presidents of the US were shown to us as nearly godlike champions in which we were to enshrine with our craft paper and glue. I still remember my President Lincoln log cabin I made from paper that had a silhouette of him in the door. We were all forced to make that, by the way. That wasn't something I chose.

That's the issue I take. The one-size-fits-all indoctrination of how to be an uber-citizen by doing what the group tells you is right. This is a horrible message to teach children. This has nothing to do with harmless teamwork and trying to be social and getting along with others. It's about being a cog. That's the issue I take. Clear enough?

Social behavior is fine. It's when it's being taught that being individual is wrong and group think is the only way that I have an issue. There's nothing wrong with people choosing to engage in teamwork. It's when the individual is sacrificed for the "greater good" that I have a problem. Especially when individualism is taught as being such a terrible plague on the group, i.e. D&D example above.