Seconded. Hey, look at me, I'm illegally climbing a 4,500 year old historically and culturally important structure and causing unknown damage to it in the process. I'm so brave to risk the personal injury!

So selfishly minded it just leaves my completely baffled. Showing such gross disrespect for the historical and cultural importance of the object you are on that you actually think the greater risk is that you might harm yourself than the structure that has been there 4,500 years.

My wife and I chose to not have kids, which doesn't matter to my family because they are dead, but her family thinks we are being selfish to not give them more grandkids (her sister had one).

Here, let me see if you agree.

Basically, there were three camps around Ron Paul.

1st was the conservative camp. 2nd was the liberal camp. 3rd was the everyone who voted for Paul camp.

In the 1st one people hated Paul because he didn't follow their platform. He didn't want to ban abortion at the level of the federal government, he didn't want to make gay marriage illegal with a broad pen stroke and he wasn't keen on telling people they could drink but not smoke pot. He believed the states should decide.

In other words, this camp was solely based on their own selfish beliefs. Me me me, greed greed greed. Give me. Fuck the honest guy.

In the second camp people hated Paul because he didn't follow their platform. He didn't want federal government handouts, one-sized fits-all approach to education or legalization of gay marriage or abortion at the federal level. He believed states should decide.

In other words, this camp was solely based on their own selfish beliefs. Me me me, greed greed greed. Give me. Fuck the honest guy.

Then there was the 3rd camp. They valued him as a candidate, and said fuck the platform. Platform voting has been destroying our country and polarizing our nation since the beginning.

What makes me so pissed is that the first 2 camps believe they were doing the right thing. Like a rapist in India trying to make a lesbian straight...yeah, great morals there guys...these delusional whack jobs disgust me. Yeah, it is fine to vote against Ron Paul without being labeled as such, so long as you 100% believed your candidate was morally superior to Paul. And as long as that belief had nothing to do with platform...

Or am I just being a prick?

Didn't watch the video, but did skim the comments... Christ...

First off, moving to Canada and any other decent first world nation be it New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Iceland, Netherlands, Canada etc... not as easy as just packing up and moving. You need a very narrow set of skills to move to those countries. We looked into all this countries, and all of their entry requirements exceeded what we had to offer them. People always say if you don't like it leave, but that ignores several facts. It isn't we don't like it, we just think it can be improved, change isn't bad. Humanity isn't bad. Caring for those less fortunate isn't bad. Guaranteeing everyone a minimum level of affordable health care isn't bad. Working to insure that all workers get a living wage (the way we used to have before the employers/owners started getting greedy and redistributing more wealth to themselves), isn't a bad goal, in fact it's a very good thing. The famed clip from the Newsroom's first episode when he goes on about how America isn't great anymore but it used to be...

Of course the whole concept of American exceptionalism, or any nation exceptionalism is flawed. We are all humans on this planet. Being American doesn't make you superior to somebody born in China or Mexico, Ethiopia, Syria or anywhere else. Location of birth is an accident of timing... and if it is divine intervention by God that placed you here instead of Ethiopia where you may have starved to death with an inflated malnourished belly despite all your prayers, then God is an ass and not worth serving. So if he's not an ass, then it is pure accident that you are here and not there. To think oneself superior and better than somebody in another nation because of their location of birth, and the religion that comes with that location, is insanity. And I draw that all ways. The Muslims who despise Christianity for not being the true faith, and Christians who despise Islam for not being the true faith. You are your faith by accident of birth, be it location and/or parentage etc... all of which is getting away from the point. Which is simply that to say that Chinese worker doesn't deserve a job manufacturing something that you think you should be building is asinine and not respectful of their humanity and a complete lack of any sort of empathy. Christ, I have Aspergers and I have more empathy in my farts than the entire Tea Party Christian Right.

Yes we need to respect the individual, but "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one"... and that quote is in context and not just a cherry pick sample. If it benefits just one and damages the many, then it is not a good thing. Most every faith in the world has some variation of the Golden Rule, to treat others the way you want others (not that specific person, but people as a general whole) to treat you. Christianity's Christ went further and said the greatest commandment was love, to show love to one another. Greed and selfishness is not love. Collectivism has many faults as well, but it isn't tyranny, and is certainly better for society as a whole in the long run than unrestrained greed motivated individualism. Like Pink Floyd's song, On the Turning Away, says, we are all "just a world we all must share". We can't turn away from the coldness inside towards others. We need to lift all of humanity up. Perhaps showing the Muslims love instead of hate and bigotry would convince them that perhaps Christianity isn't the enemy, that perhaps it is the answer, but showing them hate, and bigotry... and denying refugees trying to flee a horrible civil war is bigotry and hatred, and the fact that a rather disturbingly large percentage of the right can't see that isn't bigotry and hatred is scary beyond measure. I again find it amazing that people could lack that much empathy without a neurological disorder.

To invade others, tell them how to live their lives, to force democracy on them if they aren't ready, to insult them and belittle their faith, and all that isn't world building. It isn't reaching out with empathy. It's hate. It's bigotry and as noted by artician, it's what helps drive people to fly into buildings. They know that they know that their faith is the right one, and the lack of empathy to see that people of the Muslim faith have just as much faith in their religion as Christians have in theirs, that they have the same amount of knowledge and comfort from god that they are the correct faith, is what drives extremism.

And oh my god the guns. Guns would have saved the Jews. American mainland can't be invaded because too many people own guns... ask the Branch Davidians how well having not only military grade weapons but also training on how to use them worked for them against a slightly militarized police force, let alone an actual military. Yes, it would be incredibly hard, and resistance would probably eventually wear any invading force down the way the Taliban wore the Soviets down, or the Viet Cong did against the US Military might. So perhaps that can be counted as a victory, but would be long fought. Look, I support gun ownership. All I really call for is 1) allowing the CDC get back to it's job of collecting the data and finding out what's really going on with gun violence, and 2) closing the gun show loophole unless the CDC's investigation shows that it has zero effect, 3) you have to have a legal ID to own a gun and can't be on the no fly list, 4) the existing background checks kept the same, but also add a drug test, the right wants drug tests for welfare, then we should be testing for gun owenrship too. (I see little reason for "assault weapons" but aside from perhaps having perhaps a slightly better background check, I don't know if a ban yet needs to be called for, but I'm in the middle here.) Once we have have better data points from the CDC then we can really tackle the issue of gun violence. Yes, it will take years to get those answers, but I find it insane that the Republicans refuse to allow the investigation to go on, which says to me that they are afraid of what the data will show.

Unless you are nearly a pure Native American, then you are a refugee to the US.

The primary problem here and around the world is poverty and lack of proper education. This drives people to crime and extremism in religion which makes them susceptible to acting out terrorist acts, be it in the name of Allah (as is the public perceived norm) or Christ (ala the Planed Parenthood terrorist attack, the 2011 Norway attacks, etc). We need to address the growing income and wealth gaps. The way to doing that isn't by giving those at the top even more tax breaks and losing regulations (which is funny thing to complain about, too many regulations here in the US, meanwhile the same people complain about the low quality Chinese goods that aren't safe due to low regulations and poor labor conditions etc). We need to push education, and proper STEM programs, not deflated science trying to force Creationism in via so called "Intelligent Design" or "teaching the controversy" stick to the actual science. Don't object to the "new math" if it's teaching better fundamentals of understanding what the numbers are actually doing even if it doesn't teach the shortcuts we were taught... and lots of the stuff people complain about is just the fact we don't skip right to the shortcut that works. Yes, it works, but it helps if they better understand the underlying fundamentals of the numbers and the actual math. Again, change isn't a bad thing, to object just because you don't understand or don't like it compared to the simplified shortcut we all learned doesn't make it bad. Reading also needs pushed, and understanding of logical fallacies and logical and faulty thinking.

I believe that a post scarcity world is impossible due to the nature of humanity. There are far too many greedy people that will never want the world to get to that point. However, that should be the noble goal. Post scarcity society has many issues, but perhaps by the time we actually got there we'd be able to solve them.

TLDR: Basically it all comes down to empathy. To view everything as the others view it. I get the fear and panic and all that the right has, and not just because I once upon a time was a right wing evangelical Christian who called those who received food stamps lazy bums, who said that Democrats and the liberals just wanted to keep the poor trapped so they would always need help. Yes, I was there and that helps, but I can still empathize with them without that past. I've never been a Muslim raised in a nation dominated by Islam, but I can still empathize with the way they see what the US is doing to them, the way they have to see people like Donald Trump and the scary amount of Americans that support him. It's easy to see why some are driven to extremism. I can empathize with that Mexican who just wants a better life and knows that Mexico can't give it to him so he has to risk it all to try and immigrate to the US. I can empathize with the Chinese worker who has been given an opportunity to build something, to escape the poverty... for while perhaps still poverty, less poverty than before, and I'm thankful that I got that opportunity, and I'm sorry that somebody in the US doesn't get to do it, but I'm a human too. Empathy. Learn it. It can be learned, neurological disorder or not.

Oh I'm fully cognisant of the nature of the system, but it's telling that it originates from an entertainment company and a retailer rather than the Chinese gov...

It's capitalist totalitarianism. Using your customers as your advertising/enforcement, and as you said, playing on peoples selfishness. A viral promotion of obedience and conformity (because viral marketing started in China right? \= )

One of the most repressive regimes on the planet got schooled on invasive social engineering for better control by a couple of exploitative companies. Speaks volumes.

@Asmo
i get what you are saying but i think you are missing the insidious implications that this new system of indoctrination represents.

i think @ChaosEngine's term 'stealth totalitarianism" is rather clever..and apt.

i agree with you on the points of peer pressure and how people can easily be manipulated.we are all,to varying degrees,subjected to a plethora of propaganda and targeted rhetoric,all meant to mold and shape our opinions in order to sustain the status quo while giving the impression that somehow our conclusions are an organic and natural response,when in reality we have been duped.

on that point we agree that this is not actually something new or novel but an old,tried and true method of social control.

what is new about this 'gaming" system,is that it is not taking the more subtle and passive approach of what current and supposedly "free" societies now implement to control public opinions and attitudes in order to either remain in power,sway the public into policies against their own interest,or create an atmosphere of fear to foment opposition.

this new system is actually aggressive.
this system will actively use its own population to do the oppressing,manipulating and controlling FOR them.

it is brilliant in it's simplicity.
it will use very human attributes we all possess in order to enact a better system of control,all the while having the appearance of being a harmless and innocuous social media competition.

but it is anything but harmless.
nor innocuous.
it will and can affect every facet of someones life.from their job to where they will be able to live,to even HOW they live.

think back to the times of east germany and the stasi,or the weimar republic,or even the soviet union of the 80's.

all used elements this new gaming system is representing,but those systems of control,while relying on the public to do much of its surveilling,all had one thing in common that they ALL relied heavily on:fear.

fear of reprisal.
fear of exposure.
fear and suspicion were the driving forces that kept those systems in power and the people in a perpetual state of paranoia.

the dread of the midnight knock.
of jackboots and black bags.

but those systems of control were fragile and once even a little resistance was exerted those systems crumbled incredibly fast.

this new system is far more subtle and devious in my opinion,because it removes the spectre of an imposing and oppressive government that will respond with violence and replaces it with the citizen to do the work for them.

the government does not have to do anything.
your neighbor will,and not because of some fear-based reason but rather for points to propel their own ambitions.their own selfish desires.

the wholesale implications are absolutely terrifying if you really think about it.

i would speculate that within a very short amount of time dissent and criticism of the chinese government will all but have vanished.replaced by a obedient and compliant population.

not because they are afraid of reprisal from the government but rather fueled by their own selfish desires for a better job,better living quarters,more privileges etc etc.

so a seemingly benign system utilizing social media will become of a self-propelled system,where those who do not tow the party line soon face joblessness,homelessness and ostracization.

not because the government strong armed them into submission,but rather their own neighbors.

so you are right.
there is nothing new here,but this system has taken the old forms of social control and brilliantly utilized one of humanities greatest weaknesses:selfishness.

it is the simplicity that makes this so brilliant and yet so horrifying at the same time.

Exactly! the implications are huge in the understanding of evolution and even society, since say, the selfish gene in humans/red hair/disease/etc can be triggered or turned off, or say that there is an extra feedback mechanism in males´offspring! It could explain the enormously fast adaptability in the evolution of species and the programmed role of males in society and their EXPERIENCES/fears/emotions! Sperm production (gametogenesis) is constant in males, and nature is no dummy; one could hypothesize nature finds feedback mechanisms into genetics to compete and gain advantage with other males, even for future generations (?). This should have huge implications if the proper research is continued and these very interesting hypotheses and other´s are seriously questioned.

IS rare stupid selfish pricks, not all stupid selfish pricks are IS. It's a asymmetric relationship.

I can see you have strong views to the contrary but from where i'm sitting - Gitmo is not a solution to anything. The five men were held for 13 years without a charge, and now deemed by the department of defence as no longer being a risk. Leaving some 108 people left in gitmo.

the root cause of IS is stupid selfish pricks. We should stop calling them islamic extremists and just calling them assholes and pricks.

It's a valid point, but obviously completely objective and does not validly apply to everyone.

Whilst some people enjoy navigating VideoSift with fiery debate or insulting discourse, for others VideoSift is an escape and a place to mellow out by watching videos and chatting with online friends/acquaintances.

There have been many such people in the past who were great participating members just couldn't stand feeling miserable every time they came here, so they stopped coming.

Instead of weeding out members who want to avoid being provoked while chilling out here and focusing on preserving only members who enjoy or can tolerate aggressive, abrasive, and/or insulting comment-based attacks, the ability to completely ignore someone is a very acceptable compromise.

In real life if someone in your workplace or school or wherever was constantly getting in your face spouting off arguments or attacks and you kept turning around to get away, it would be absurd for your teacher or boss to demand that you listen to what they attacker had to say.

Likewise, it'd be absurd for us here to force members to teach themselves to be unaffected by everyone else, especially considering some people by design are simply incapable of that. It's not selfish and entitled for someone to want to avoid being stressed out and anxious after a hard, stressful day at work when they just want to kick back and mellow on some sift.

I know I don't participate much in this community but this is a stupid feature. I ignored a person ONCE in my entire time here. But then as the years went on and I gained some maturity (some) I learned to not be affected by the opinions of others so much. In fact, I prefer to see the opposing view point more than those that agree.

I think it's selfish and entitled to want to ignore and by extension, BLOT someone out of your community. If you don't want to be part of a community of freethinkers, don't bother looking at the comments.

This seems like a soft ban to me -- even if it is only for the person that is ignoring another person, it's banning their input from your screen.

If there's real life harm, death threats, or stalking akin to spam, I can understand -- but that should be something escalated to a community leader, as it should not be something that regularly occurs.

Too late for my input? lol

I finally just finished watching the 3 hour finale on my DVR (kept trying to avoid this spoiler post) and was thoroughly happy with the results.

I'm way on board with your sentiments, but must add my 2 cents.

First, I think it's important to realize it's not the way ANW runs the show that causes the competitors to behave the way they do; it's the American competitors themselves who share that undesirable selfish, braggadocious attitude/philosophy. Even when you watch the Japanese Sasuke competitions, when there's an American competing surrounded by Japanese competitors inside Japan, you still feel that same air of arrogance.

I've been watching the Sasuke for many years and started watching ANW before it was ANW (even in the first "seasons" on Attack of the Show where the competitors had bounce on a trampoline and swing on some monkey bars to earn their way to Japan). The American attitude always been something that bothers me and takes a huge chunk out of my interest.

I always find it disconcerting the way they don't explain any details, such as why Geoff got to climb first (which is why he gets to claim he's the first person to ever reach the top).

The other thing I've been crying "foul" on is that they seemed to lighten it up on the obstacles. This year there were 38 people to go to round 2. That's ridiculous. But what's worse is that round 2 had way too long a time limit. Normally competitors who succeed on stage 2 have about a second left when they hit the button, but many of those who went through to stage 3 had around 30 seconds on the clock.

I had to rewind a couple of times, but I confirmed Isaac said "share the moment" not the money.

My wife and I were both displeased that Geoff announced he gets to say he's the first to beat stage 4. That's such a poor attitude, and I liked Popeye a lot more until then. And regardless how they decided who got to go first, I think they both have to be considered as equally the first to finish stage 4. (Side note: I was really bummed they didn't use the loud "bang! bang!" sounds to start stage 4 like they do in Japan.)

I myself don't have a problem with the very redesigned courses each season.

The USA versus the World bullshit is some serious bullshit that's hard to swallow. Not only is the whole "our country is better than you" concept horrible, but the actual competition is shit. It's not the same beating the course one rested person at a time. But also last year the Europeans brought in a rock climber who knew nothing about Ninja Warrior and just sent him in fully rested to do the arm-centric work.

Boy, we could get together and write a dissertation on this subject.

Not at all joking.

If it was staged, then I rescind my remarks about this particular video, but the sentiment in general still stands.

I find it atrocious when people do little more than stand around laughing at someone who is in legitimate need of assistance or at least compassion from their fellow human beings.

I think that is probably lacking more in America (where so many people are so arrogant, selfish, self-centered, and entertained by and numb to the suffering of others) than many or most other first-world civilizations.

I believe mole rat jesus died on the 31st year, raised on the 33rd year, so it's more of a tradition of mole rat self sacrifice. Like seppuku or Harry Carry -- someone correct me on the written versus spoken forms of this Japanese tradition (in need of revival).

But you may wonder, "Aren't there any mole rats that don't believe in the tradition of self sacrifice?" And I would tell you, Yes. Yes, there are plenty that don't follow these traditions.

And you'd think in reply, "Well, that's odd. If these," let's called them "'alternative' mole rats broke away from the traditions of self sacrifice, why aren't there more older mole rats today?"

Well, it's a sad but simple truth, Timmy, but usually the jesus worshipping mole rats kill the nontraditional, alternative mole rats (who have the ability to live forever) -- and, really, any type of worshipper of something can fulfill this role of antagonizer: mole rats who worship pagan mole gods, power, money, the God of molterial possessions, AIDS. And these mole rats murder the alternative mole rats. Or drive them into suicide, fulfilling their ritualistic traditions of self sacrifice for their sun mole god. Or some type of mole rat god. There are many others...

One day the mole rat society will have a scientific term for the process by which a restrictive institution innately develops out of a fearful mass of moles, becoming normative mole rat behavior. One day we will understand how these fearful, normative moles inadvertently MURDER their fellow mole simply through their ignorance and their evil, sinful desires for power and dominance over their world, their fellow mole rat. (Is it a form of subconscious sociopathy? With hidden sociopaths leading the charge?)

They turn love into hate, declaring their moral mole rat codes as ethical, in order to profit and/or maintain their sense of safety, their illogical, SELFISH mole rat world order, to save their own asses and the asses of their mole rat children from mole rat hell. Sell. Fish. Mote. Eee. Vations.

It's a simple process of societal entropy within the mole rat community. An 'us versus them' mentality that just sits hidden between the conscious and subconscious mole rat mind. It's fucking not going to be "THEM" because those mole rats don't practice the ritual of self sacrifice to maintain the mole rat average life expectancy.

TL;DR: MOLE RATS DIE KNOWINGLY AND UNKNOWINGLY IN THE NAMES OF THE SUN GODS. Mole rat God bless mole rat America.

What seems mostly overlooked in this is, the molester has, for years, made his living by insisting that gay people are molesters and should be shunned and not have the rights heterosexual people do.
How can we still be fooled by these people? When a person demonizes another group and tries to deny them rights due to a behavior, invariably that person is 'guilty' of the offence they complain about.

Secondly, isn't having more than two children really a crime against the planet? In my eyes, too many people is the root reason for every problem the planet faces today, making 19+ more is criminally selfish and should be punished severly. I think the Chinese had it right with one family one child, and we have it 100% backwards by giving tax breaks for having more children.