@NetRunner

I am a little confuzled about calling @Skeeve and my conversation both true and a non sequitur. I guess because I am addressing a more theoretical, man kind building question and you a more practical one. Your talking about the more practical, of making things work now, I am talking more about how I want things to work, for always. A the difference between the tangible and the ideal I guess.

The examples you pose are actually the exact ones I was thinking of when I think of the brutality of democratic things, at times. I have been considering the statement "the needs of the many..." for the course of a few weeks now. Forgive me, about to go on a tangent, but I want a trial by fire to so speak if you have the time. This will be a wall of text for the uninterested.

When I was first exposed to this phrase/idea, it was from Spock. And from then on, I always took it as the rational position one has to take to help the whole at the cost of the one. It was a profound idea in my youth. It had such a charity to it. It seemed to speak to the core of what is good. Everything that is good about man was contained in that one simple phrase. The devil is in the details, though, so I decided recently to examine my long held Vulcan heritage.

Over the past couple of years, since my fall from Grace, I have been increasingly interested in the role of evolution in the social development of our species. We have a lot in common with our animal kin, especially the social nature of mammalia. The role of emotions and intuitive social orders with post rationalized rule set changes are the order of our creed. For an animal that has a very long gestation period, few offspring per litter, and long maturation periods, certain social orders HAD to be developed or we wouldn't survive. Many of our longest held evolutionary advances aren't because they are "good" morally, but are good for survival when being chased by tigers. In that, I think the democratic pricible is actually as old as social creatures, and even more basic, as force.

I think the reason Spock's words stung so true in my heart of hearts is it spoke to millions of years of culture beyond my ability to fully comprehend. It spoke past my reason to the core of my being. Now, when I examine the phrase "the needs of the many..." and take into light the core being, I find a much different sentence. Let me tell you what I found that I didn't expect.

I find that the statement of "the needs of the many..." very closely relates to the Democratic position. When your tribe is 20 people, and the fate of your people all hang in the balance of routine decisions, evolutionary speaking, to survive, it is easier to remove the rational component of this choice. The rational implications of every choice you make determining the fate of your entire race is a burden that doesn't aid in decision making. It is much "better" to program in an emotional response and have that being post-rationalize later, intelligence is actually more of a burden than a tool in this area. This way, we remove the impotence one might face in the light of such a larger than life issue, and set in that mind a continuing sequence of emotional ties to the event through post-rationalizations.

I think the reason Democracy works so well, given this situation, is it very closely mimics the "rules of the jungle." By that, I mean force. Democracy is an interesting formalization of the rules of the jungle. Instead of the force being a stick or a knife, it is a vote. We might not consider our vote a weapon, but essentially, when you boil it down it is our most trusted language. So much so, that every animal we face understands it. We have subjugated nearly every animal on this planet via force, and now try our hands at the very planet itself. All the while, we never asked ourselves the question, is using force right?

When being chased by a tiger, you can't ask that question. Even more so, it is the application of force that seems to drive the evolution on this planet forward. However, it only advances the flags in the due course of force. Any being that comes after HAS to play by these rules or be defeated before it can flourish. But is this the way it HAS to be? Does humanity find itself on the precipice of being able to change the entire course of evolution on the planet? Perhaps so. Slowly, we have taken the cunning, and brutal wolfs of the winter lands to being the noblest of companions. And cats, wait, never mind, fuck cats.

Humans might soon, within perhaps our children's, children's lifetime, find themselves in the unique position to change the rules of the game, for good. Weather or not we want to will be the only question. So the question is, why? What is so wrong with Democracy and the underlying shreds of managed force something to be concerned about? Let me bring on my final point.

The course of discovery seems to be without end for man. It seems inevitable, that in time, each human will have access to such a level of technology that any one person could end all life on the planet with little to no effort. Our only current solutions for it are that of liberty, which would only take one crazy person to end it all, or regulations, of which would have to be of the most extreme kind to protect against knowledge that is easy to acquire and use. It seems that the current rules that bind this planet along with mans advancement in technology have set us on a collision course with a cruel destiny. While not a certainty, I do believe it is certain that the tools of Democratic force will not save us from our own self imposed destruction.

While I have still not made all my points, like why I also think the democratic position is actually bad (perhaps even morally bad); in spite of that, I do suppose that it is insufficient to manage our path. It isn't that I want it to be wrong, it is that we truly need something else if we intend to survive past an infant species. If we lose the game, the cycle of force will most likely continue on without us, spawning forth new entities of force. But if we win, we will rewrite the rules for all existence on the planet. No longer bound to rules that keep up from being eaten by tigers, but by rules that extend us to the furthest reaches of our dreams.

I think it will all start by eating all the cats, because anything that will bite you in your sleep isn't fit in this new world. And I yield my time back to an audience that is most likely not interested in my thought processes that go to solving less than practical problems. I will only continue on request as to not come off as pedantic, well, more so.


edit, grammar

This video has been declared a duplicate by the original submitter; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof declared by mintbbb.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Ants-mimic-liquids

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Ants-mimic-liquids

>> ^blankfist:

Two things would give away a video posted by @ant. 1. Ants. Obvious. 2. A cat video with "cat/kitten/kitteh" written in the title. My master sleuthing work here is done.


Sorry, you're wrong because it is a dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Ants-mimic-liquids ...

Yep, those crazy mimics.

In reply to this comment by BicycleRepairMan:
An article on myrmecomorphs, Ant imitators, that you might like.. pretty cool stuff
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/myrmecomorphs/

Eh... composed music is overrated. One of my favorite aspects of WoW, even moreso in BC was the ambient noise. The sound was damn near experimental but always felt rock solid along with the art direction. I liked the new Cataclysm content for 1-60 but after burning through the 80-85 bit I'm done with WoW, forever. I will always fondly look upon the years I played it on and off.

GW2 looks great and I'll definitely get it - but seriously, we need to get back to basics. Forget WoW for a second and let's make a virtual world, remember one of the first MMO's Ultima Online? Yeah, we need to revisit something on that scope in 3D. Do you remember how much more was possible in UO than in 99% of these shite MMOs? I used to walk upon entire PC run cities, I used to have a two story house by a productive mine, I used to live there! I used to have ship battles with many other people. One time I stole a rival guild's ship that was filled to the brim with weapons and armor and unloaded it to guildmates in a port outside of another city.

WoW is an amazing game but people have to realize that it isn't necessarily that WoW recycled all of it's elements from elsewhere... it did so with so much style and balance (not so sure if that balance is still there). Blizzard are king's of gameplay mechanics of which they have many armchair critics. I think probably that they are always changing the mechanics to always make the game feel like the gameplay is changing because it is the only way to make the game feel like it is a tad different because obviously, the player has no impact on the world of Azeroth. It is original in the way it tackled many MMO problems. But, stop trying to mimic it, it's a losing battle. Zones were cool in WoW, but the other original MMO UO was a full on virtual world. That is where we need to go again. If someone wants to get rid of their old armor and set it on the ground, they should be able to do so. If they want to build a vendor outside of the city, they should be able to do that. If they want to explore the open seas - they should be able to do that. If they want to try to pickpocket a PC or a NPC's wares... If they want to set portals to certain areas attached to a rune... fully customizable gear... Where are you Lord British, hiding in your castle? For the most part MMOs are a terribly, shitty waste of time and money.

I'd still say notadupe,...but to transfer the votes...*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Ants-mimic-liquids?fromdupe=Ant.

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by chicchorea. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

>> ^chicchorea:

Video behaving as a dupe. That's as close as I have seen. See http://videosift.com/video/Ants-mimic-liquids?fromdupe=Ant
-swarms-acting-like-fluids.


*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Ants-mimic-liquids?fromdupe=Ant-swarms-acting-like-fluids

>> ^chicchorea:

Video behaving as a dupe. That's as close as I have seen. See http://videosift.com/video/Ants-mimic-liquids?fromdupe=Ant
-swarms-acting-like-fluids.


DOH! *isdupe

Video behaving as a dupe. That's as close as I have seen. See http://videosift.com/video/Ants-mimic-liquids?fromdupe=Ant-swarms-acting-like-fluids.

>> ^bamdrew:

amazing.
I once heard a blue-headed parrot produce the sound of a babbling brook, and it completely blew my mind.


Have you seen that Lyre Bird video?

Yes, you have... nevermind.

Tap S to drag downed team member. Hold Q and E to shit pants in terror. Double tap W to throw up. Die to an IED. Respawn? Nope.

Honestly, the more games try to mimic the wars of today the more I have trouble stomaching it.

Holy crap that's awful! Same sorta thing happened to my Mom -- it's not well known that migraines can often mimic a stroke.
>> ^TheFreak:
So yeah...I had this happen to me once.