@enoch, words are important. You should know as you seem to be unable to edit any of them out.

Briefly (because responding to your entire post would put us considerably closer to the entropic death of the universe) yes, I used to respect Frys opinions, now I don't. This is called changing your mind in light of new evidence.

Previously he was eloquent and compassionate, saving his ire for those deserving of it. Here he's just spiteful and grouchy, and his target is abuse victims??

As I said, even he realised how completely wrong he was.

But more importantly, you (and everyone else on this particular"anti-PC" bandwagon) seem to have confused criticism with censorship.

Go back and read my posts. Did I ever call for him to be censored? No, I responded to what he said and called it stupid. That is the essence of free speech.

I don't even fully disagree with him on a lot of his points. I don't really believe in "safe spaces" (I can understand the desire for them, but university is not an appropriate venue for them. I'm not keen on trigger warnings either, but OTOH, I haven't suffered that kind of trauma, so ultimately, I really don't think they do any harm, (although I would argue that a few seconds research should render many of them unnecessary). I would certainly never say that you can't study Titus Andronicus in class, but I don't see the harm in warning a rape survivor of the content either.

Basically, you and he are inventing boogeymen. There are a few instances of stupidity out there, but they are always there.

As I've said before, the "dangers of PC" are vastly outweighed by the dangers of people using the so-called dangers of PC as an excuse for racist, sexist bullshit. This is how it works. They get to say their shit and we get to call them on it.

The concept of veganism is to reduce unnecessary suffering and exploitation, no more no less. A lot of vegans don't even understand that concept. Letting nature take it's course, is not the vegan concept. If a lion jumped out and started mauling you I'd still try to save you (assuming I wasn't running way LOL), but of course I'd try to do it in a way that did as little harm to the lion as possible with weighing in the speed at which I'd have to act in order to have the least harm done to you by the lion as well.

It's not a black and white rule book, rather it's a philosophical and ethical balancing act that takes in a lot of considerations. I hope no vegans would be against the guinea worm going extinct. As far as I know (I don't know much about it) is that won't affect any other eco system if it goes extinct. It's not exactly a sentient being either. So removing it from existence as far as we are able to tell will do more good than bad. It will in that case cause less suffering.

Of course some nut job from PETA might disagree with me.

As disparate and fractured as US society is, I think that one good catastrophe could still unite us.

Politicians used 9/11 that way, and we actually did come together quite a bit. They turned that unity into terrible purposes, (unnecessary and idiotic wars, Patriot Act, torture programs, stomping on constitutional protections, mass surveillance, etc.) but a lot of stuff got done.

I'm more optimistic (if that is at all the right word) about the unifying power of a Trumptastrophe, AND optimistic about our ability to spin a reaction to a Trumptastrophe in a more positive direction than what happened after 9/11, but I can easily understand your reservations also.

Though granted I'm only basing this off of a brief look, I'm thinking using a microcontroller just added a lot of unnecessary complexity.

The hilarious thing is that all of this is completely unnecessary.

Firstly, it's of questionable value anyway. I have seen little evidence that Farook wasn't acting pretty much alone. Even if the unlock his phone, they'll probably just find he likes ISIS on facebook or follows some well known twitter accounts.

But more importantly, all of the data on the phone would have been backed up to iCloud, which Apple does have access to and was willing to turn over to the government.

But then some muppet in the FBI changed the password

Yeah, these are really the kind of geniuses we want deciding how companies should write secure software.

And forget taxes, Apple should use some of their $18 billion profit (for a quarter!!!!) and pay their workers in China a decent wage. Seriously, it works out at just a few percent of their profits.

I look at ultrasounds too. While I understand the sentiment of wanting to show that it's not just a lump of tissue, and it's certainly not a lie, it is also completely unnecessary. The government forcing you to do this is a violation of your rights.

Also, withdrawal of support is not the same as murdering. Even if you believe a fetus is alive and deserves the same protections as any human being, a woman should still have the rights for an abortion. The ethical arguments is thus:

If in some hypothetical situation, an adult human such as yourself, became completely dependent on my body to survive, your right to life does not trump my rights to my body. You cannot force yourself to leech off of my body for the next 9 months. I have the right to refuse you and let you die. It may not be a nice thing to do, and should be avoided whenever possible, but it is my right.

It is strange to me when conservatives who support small government and individual rights (including those who support laws like stand your ground, which lets you kill another human being), does not understand this concept.

Also promoting abstinence has been proven to be ineffective compared to education about birth control.

0:53, "we're not going to tolerate abuse of the public...in that manner"

So slapping is out but say, unnecessary tasing, is alright?

Well, from my read that's much worse.

I'm sorry, that's apparently wrong, it's been reported that they did go around the internet shutting down videos.

If you're correct (I note that on their video they use the word copyright time and again to explain exactly what they DIDN'T copyright, leading to the inference that they have a copyright), then they got a permanent trademark for a format of show that they didn't create, a format that's quite popular and ubiquitous.
React videos are something that's been around since the 60's. Ever hear of Candid Camera? It's a bit like trademarking 'news programs' and anyone who makes 'news' or calls their video 'news' now has to beg for permission-or like trademarking 'talks' videos. They didn't invent this format, they aren't the only creators of this content, they are simply trying to grasp control over this content. Eventually they'll likely require payment for that permission and they'll claim it's to cover costs until it's clear that it's not.

No matter what the reality of the situation is, they screwed up and killed their company with this internet power grab...and I think they deserve go out of business. What a terrible, unnecessary idea to boost their youtube channel.

Sorry, it turns out my fresh install of my email client decided to sort Videosift emails into the junk folder, so I missed a bunch of replies.

Mainly I was ready to string these guys up for mucking around with historical artifacts. The sensitivity to it is because the current occupiers of this country already wiped out millions of indigenous people, and now the least intelligent among us have to drag what's left further through the mud with their buffoonery.

I also think the way the government has dealt with this is perfect, but, I still cringe when considering the disparity between how this was dealt with, versus so many recent, violent and unnecessary urban confrontations lately.

OK, we're pretty much on the same page then.
I don't have an answer to how one might warn those that are only turned off by those images while also getting those that don't believe the torture happens to see them, but I do fear they do your issue more harm than good as is.
While I may disagree with some of your points, I do agree with your (apparent) goal of ending unnecessary animal suffering.

@ChaosEngine

So yeah, there's a lot of common ground. Of course there is: values can overlap ideologies; something that, let's say, 'the kind of feminism I dislike' refuses to allow. Everything that says women should be treated reasonably is feminism, which gives us the credibility to declare that anyone who opposes any aspect of feminist doctrine hates women.

I think the concept you're talking about is a part of the makeup of any rational person's mind, and indeed advocacy on its behalf is still necessary. I don't think the particular movement that grew around that advocacy in the latter half of the 20th century is still useful, and I say that it was flawed from the first, even as those flaws were mitigated in the short term by what it accomplished.

It's important to maintain that distinction, and I would strongly prefer that this basic concept wasn't referred to as 'feminism'. Dictionaries describe usage rather than determining reality, and in this case as in so many others I think the majority have got it horribly wrong.

edit: Something of an academic and unnecessary addendum, but I've heard Hitchens say that a few times and I always winced when he did. It's a little trite. The kind of cure he's talking about, birth control, could just as easily be effected by forcibly sterilising women after their first or second child. What he might have said, somewhat less snappily, was, "The empowerment of women, an excellent goal in itself, also handily has the effect of countering explosive population growth and adding more skilled workers to the economy."

i am gonna call bullshit.
i am not disputing that study he referenced nor am i going to defend wine snobbery (cuz thats just being an asshole).

but i have known a few people who could tell you the varietal or appellation just by taste.

hell,twenty years ago i was running a ballroom at this very affluent country club and every year one of the main partners would come down from canada and every year me and my boss would try to trick him with a wine tasting.

we even blindfolded his ass.
and every single time he would nail it.
sometimes even by vintner!
the man was impressive.

wine snobs are just trying to keep themselves relevant,but wine is fairly easy once you know the basics:
1.the things that raise the price of wine (not make it better in most cases) is storage time and name of vintner.
2.wines can be broken down into basic categories:
dry-semi dry
sweet-semi sweet
and of course white or red.(and i guess blush/rose)

dont get all caught up in intimidating processes that are unnecessary and frankly..useless.

drink what you like,and you dont have to break the bank for a good wine.

The electoral college is an unnecessary relic. At the time you would actually need a person from each state to physically go down to DC and cast a vote. With today's technology this has become clearly obsolete.

That shouldn't be a thing(as far as i know or ever heard of). Maybe try again. If it persists id contact @lucky760 to help sort you out.

-edit-
if that's true which it may be it seems. Think we should rethink that rule. Seems unnecessary and a hinderance to sifters participating.

Whoa, let's not go nuts. Chaos Engine's point and yours was clear from the beginning - there's a difference between what people actually need and what people choose, say they need, or think they need. That difference was clearly communicated, numerous times, and BB2 decided to go on a weird rant about zealotry instead of owning his fuck-up.

That doesn't make him a bad person, or wrong in the grand scheme of things - I just don't want the actual truth of the matter to be overshadowed by your spirit of goodwill and understanding. Your communication was clear to a 3rd party, as was ChaosEngine's. I'm all for building bridges and meeting others halfway, but not through unnecessary self-criticism.