Well, I don't believe people have a soul, and miraculously, I've made it almost 36 years so far with an acceptable level of murder (i.e. none). Not that I haven't wanted to kill some people at times, but there's that whole annoying morality thing that I developed for myself.

That said, here's an interesting point. I don't have a problem gunning down hordes of beautifully rendered avatars because they have no sentience.

But what happens when that changes? At what point on the AI curve is it no longer acceptable to drop entities into a virtual world to experience fear and be slaughtered?

Iain M. Banks called it the simulation problem. Let's say you have a noble goal: you want to determine what economic methodologies will produce the best outcome for your citizens. So you develop a model of the countries economy, and in order to simulate it as accurately as possible you make each citizen an intelligent agent with needs, fears, desires, etc. You then subject them to a few million iterations with everything from fascism to communism and all stops in between. Right now? not a big deal. But in the future as computing power grows exponentially, the possibility of modelling those citizens as self ware becomes greater.

I don't mind killing a realistic avatar for fun. I wouldn't even mind if I knew that that avatar was controlled by a human doing the same. But I'd have a real problem killing an AI that could think and feel.

Yeah, darn people actually know the definition of fascism because the news they watch doesn't simply throw it at anyone who disagrees with them.

Have you seen the things people say at Tea Party rallies? Or, Republicans say in Congress? They're a lot dumber than the people interviewed here.

@Confucius
maybe i am reading your comment wrong.
i feel this is important because manning had the courage to expose the hypocrisy and malfeasance of the state department.

i feel this is important because it brings to light how the obama administration has used the espionage act 6 times.which is more than any other administration combined in the 100 yrs of precedent.

my hope is that this trial will illuminate the absolute hypocrisy being practiced by an administration that speaks of liberties and constitutional rights but in actuality does everything within its power to squash those very rights it pretends to champion.

so..yeah.while it may be sad it is very important.

@lantern53 i dont understand you man.
you profess to be all about smaller government and more liberty but are absolutely fine with an authoritarian governmental style.
government social programs are bad but fascism is ok?

you are a walking contradiction my friend.

Hey detheter.." when an American tried to use an isolated case in Canada to justify opposition to gun regulations in the US"

Not true. Regulation of the insanity is all. See, here in America the current atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust of government was created not by and for any people but the ones running the entire planet into the shitter.
The worst city in the country(the one the President called home) from the worst state for crime (including police, whose collusion with criminals' in tomes) has the most restrictive gun laws. Television, the vilest of offenders offers-up pharmaceuticals, bobble-heads re-writing the English language and grooms fleshapoids for agendas whose brains are putty after years of programming.

Bottom-line for me nutters-all, would be this simple fact:
The police, military, active reserves, prison guards, private security forces, Nato troops, Swat teams, etc., all have weapons more capable of wreaking havoc on civilians than what civilians may already own or purchase therefore, Shouldn't civilians be so armed, under mandate of the natural order of life and freewill should they chose to do so, for what ever the reason as long as they are responsible for the same and ALSO responsible for taking part in the process that determines the equity of the laws governing their ownership and usage?

For the U.S., it will come eventually, as it will to the entire planet. Police, security, controlled, ordered, and sanctioned by mandate not vote.
Fascism plain and simple.
Radical Democracy, corporate police state, I don't care for either option thank you, and our shit would work just fine if the cunts were toppled and the script adjusted in favor of sanity over developmental disability and cushy slavery. Fuck That.

Radical DEMOCRACY Adjustment For Fascism, NOW!

Democracy only really works when all parties have an equal say AND, adjustments are made accordingly for the benefit of all, right?? Well....When elected officials (United States version of concept) neglect or otherwise usurp through whatever means the ability of the stated so-defined system to function as envisioned, what then does one at the bottom of the societal food chain do?

America ain't no democracy, there has never been one anyhoo, nor can there ever be. We're something different here in the U.S. of the "now", and Amy, (I love ya honey please try some flattering threads and maybe eat more, yer on camera a whole fuck of a lot!) what Americans from anywhere have in America, changes constantly to the detriment of stagnation, de-evolution, or assholedouchbagcunts running the whole planet into the sewer.

Now, back to what I mentioned earlier in this rant as to what to do when the "the ability of the stated so-defined system to function as envisioned"...

One must create, outside of the realm of what they are programmed with...(a large piece of quality paper is included with the design instructions that came with this clusterfuck and's still quite legible and straight-forward in tone), and adjust the fuck out that system in a sane, fair humane, disorderly fashion that works for the MAJORITY of peeps,and this process must be maintained constantly....to keep it from becomming this bullshit again and again and again in one form or another.

Then move forward from there??

How to fix that which everyone seems to ignore as broken, but refuses to do much immediately about??
Who the fuck knows, but the guy or gal or imminent threat from oncoming space debris that provides a suitable answer that sticks for longer than a few thousand years,may get some attention-My bet would not be a politician-only-type.

As a species we're fucked-fucked if nanobots can't help us

Hint: Votes don't count, help, or get you free food, power, internet, etc.

(We could have all had this and more already y'know, if assholes weren't left free to run free and fuck and make more douchebag children of the same ilk.....This is why we should all have the same pointy-stick access to defend ourselves maybe???

Had to down-vote that comment. Sorry.
It's, at best a completely uninformed comment, at worst, it's words meant for trollin'.

A Union is not an organization to force people to join so they can have a job.
A Union is a collective bargaining unit and a consolidation/solidarity of workers banded together to fight for fair working conditions and pay.

Members of said bargaining unit pay dues to pay for legal costs and pay strike pay incurred during a dispute. Eliminating these systems will definitely result in the degradation of workers rights and fair compensation. Corporations don't care about workers, only the bottom line.

Workers who do not pay into this system should not be benefiting from the work of the paid legal representation provided by the worker assisted unions who have fought to establish and fight for better conditions without helping to fund or pay into that system.

Please take your plight of Fascism to a fight where it has merit.

Being forced to join a politically active organization just to have a job. That's not freedom, it's fascism.

There should be a bit more of that fascism orange in the modern age part...

The door is open.

Thanks.

Anyway, I think it is foolish for anyone to say that god does not exist and they know it. But, god could mean so many things. All I know is that a bunch of dudes wrote the Bible based on older stories. It is man made, there may be some truth to it but there is some truth to everything. The kind of fascism hypocricy that today's extremist republican christians exhibit disgusts me. They would let rich, corrupt motherfuckers, manipulate them for their own gain and throw them from a plane. Their perception of reality is so completely bent by right wing think tanks and corporatism that they live in some sort of Christian inspired DaDa universe while the rich send their zombie minds to the polls to vote with their manipulated hearts and steal every last penny from their coffers as they self willingly turn a blind eye.

Well, in this context God means the being that created the Universe. The scripture claims to be revelation from this God, in the person of Jesus Christ. God says we have all sinned and are accountable to Him for our sins, but He sent a Savior who paid the price for our sins so we could be forgiven and have eternal life with Him. Jesus says everyone who comes to God must go through Him:

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So, God could be many things, but there is only one way to know God according to Jesus. So, it's not something you can just pick and choose from. If Jesus wasn't raised from the dead, none of it is true. I have found His claims to be true.

I can't speak for your impressions of Christians as seen through the lens of our current culture, but seen through the lens of society at large Christians have been a force for good. Before the welfare system was created, the church in America was providing the social safety net, and still does in a number of ways. They're the ones running the charities, food banks, youth centers, blood drives, homeless shelters, etc. Look in any community, you will undoubtedly find Christians taking care of the poor and doing good works. I'm not saying there are no secular charities, food banks, etc, but this is something the church is well noted for.

There is some truth to what you say. Christians are not perfect, and unfortunately in the western church this sometimes becomes very apparent. You do not usually see this kind of behavior from Christians in countries where there is some cost to becoming a Christian. When there is no cost to following Christ, the church becomes lazy and apostate, as you see today in America. A good percentage of American Christians probably are not saved. This isn't though a reason to reject Jesus. He in fact predicted this behavior from Christians in Matthew 24. It is simply that we are not following His ways that you see this kind of behavior.

Question: Do you have any church background or were you raised in a secular home?

Hey Shinyblurry,

This is exactly why you should come over to my house and try some DMT. You said anyone who does it is under control of demons. How would you know if you havent tried? Are you saying that you do not really know anything at all?

The door is open.

Anyway, I think it is foolish for anyone to say that god does not exist and they know it. But, god could mean so many things. All I know is that a bunch of dudes wrote the Bible based on older stories. It is man made, there may be some truth to it but there is some truth to everything. The kind of fascism hypocricy that today's extremist republican christians exhibit disgusts me. They would let rich, corrupt motherfuckers, manipulate them for their own gain and throw them from a plane. Their perception of reality is so completely bent by right wing think tanks and corporatism that they live in some sort of Christian inspired DaDa universe while the rich send their zombie minds to the polls to vote with their manipulated hearts and steal every last penny from their coffers as they self willingly turn a blind eye.

Point 1: If by misquote, you mean substituted a larger term (religion) for a smaller one (churches), I suppose I did. But without religion, there -are- no churches. I don't see any meaningful difference.

Point 2: Texas has worked damned hard to earn its reputation as a major-league collection of wingnuts. I'm not sure how you can justify getting upset when that reputation is assumed to be true. You have a problem with the reputation, maybe you should start blaming the people who are going out of their way to earn it...like Rick Perry, or the Texas Board of Education. As long as the state is trying to rewrite history to eliminate reality's liberal bias, you're going to be stuck with that.

Point 3: Perhaps I should have slowed down and spent more time in the step-by-step logic...I really thought most people who read her could follow the shorthand, but I did indeed jump about a bit.

In many ways, churches are no different than any corporation. They exist as a means to concentrate funds and offer the controller(s) of those funds a method of avoiding personal responsibility for misuse of those funds. On top of that, churches pay no taxes, although they still make liberal use of publicly funded services, -and- in many cases, they keep lobbying for public funds to be handed over to them as well. Now add how many churches are politically active and advising their cult members how to vote, and you might begin to see why I refer to them all as corporate welfare queens. Or maybe not...I don't know if you're even going to try to follow it or not, and don't much care at this point.
>> ^chingalera:

>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^chingalera:
>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

I was gonna...but then decided it's not worth it, then changed my mind one last time.
I suspect aAnyone who can call religion "the last bastion of sanity" is too far gone to make sense, but... Religion supplies a cushy lifestyle for priests...that's the sum total of it's accomplishments. Churches have, if anything, helped push the government down the path you so self-righteously condemn...and they preach and stump political issues all without paying any taxes. Yet more corporate welfare.
It's time for the -real- welfare queens to start paying their share...churches, Wall Street, Defense contractors, big Pharma, etc. Time to either start contributing to the upkeep of society, or be broken up (or strung up, as the case may be).

No, you misquote me and then infer bullshit in that same smug manner that libby there used and that anyone on the receiving end of such smug could expect after reading a gajillion similar quips. I said CHURCHES and meant the members of the same whose communal efforts keep the building's physical plant in order and supports the members in time of want or need. You know...The first places to get raided and ransacked when the jackboots come??
This didn't start about about religion: I started it when Potato-libro there took a jab at Texas and lighted upon another opportunity to bash "them ignernt conservatives, etc.", NOT UNLIKE a shitload of folks with "holier than thou" attitudes concerning politics and government. QUITE laughable really, because the opinions they have and the conclusions they have arrived at, are based on limited and incomplete information or worse, they have been programmed to do so through systematic efforts by do-nothings in colleges or universities.
Stormsinger, YOUR rant began with religion and politics and manically concluded with corporations and Wall Street....WTF??!! By the way, my solution as an anarchistic, soon-to-be expatriate is to use the BIG TEX method on governments and corporations. You hate em so much, be like the Hulk. SMAAAASH! Then burn, repeat.
Can we talk about how fucking progressive IDAHO is now??? Jesus Christ, Allah Mustapha!!
I suspect anyone who can start with anti-religion rants, switch to blaming churches for the state of America's demise, bash tax-exemption and somehow blame corporate welfare (whatever the fuck!??...see where this is going?) and arrive at a total solution by blaming BELTWAY INSIDERS AND THE SENATORS/CONGRESSMEN THEY HAVE BOUGHT for pharma, defense, etc. shifting the blame to people without any power or influence???....I'd have to call them schizophrenic! Which is how most rabid concerning politics ion one side or the other are to me. ALLL OF THEM, conservative or liberal. I could give a fiddler's fist-fuck about working within a failed system. I prefer to keep to the fringes of this broken machine and put as little of my resources or mentations into it.
But some, like stormie and libby here...well, hopeless fiends and junkies for the dance politic. Playing right into the hands of the corporations iffn ya axe me!

>> ^Stormsinger:

>> ^chingalera:
>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

I was gonna...but then decided it's not worth it, then changed my mind one last time.
I suspect aAnyone who can call religion "the last bastion of sanity" is too far gone to make sense, but... Religion supplies a cushy lifestyle for priests...that's the sum total of it's accomplishments. Churches have, if anything, helped push the government down the path you so self-righteously condemn...and they preach and stump political issues all without paying any taxes. Yet more corporate welfare.
It's time for the -real- welfare queens to start paying their share...churches, Wall Street, Defense contractors, big Pharma, etc. Time to either start contributing to the upkeep of society, or be broken up (or strung up, as the case may be).


No, you misquote me and then infer bullshit in that same smug manner that libby there used and that anyone on the receiving end of such smug could expect after reading a gajillion similar quips. I said CHURCHES and meant the members of the same whose communal efforts keep the building's physical plant in order and supports the members in time of want or need. You know...The first places to get raided and ransacked when the jackboots come??

This didn't start about about religion: I started it when Potato-libro there took a jab at Texas and lighted upon another opportunity to bash "them ignernt conservatives, etc.", NOT UNLIKE a shitload of folks with "holier than thou" attitudes concerning politics and government. QUITE laughable really, because the opinions they have and the conclusions they have arrived at, are based on limited and incomplete information or worse, they have been programmed to do so through systematic efforts by do-nothings in colleges or universities.

Stormsinger, YOUR rant began with religion and politics and manically concluded with corporations and Wall Street....WTF??!! By the way, my solution as an anarchistic, soon-to-be expatriate is to use the BIG TEX method on governments and corporations. You hate em so much, be like the Hulk. SMAAAASH! Then burn, repeat.

Can we talk about how fucking progressive IDAHO is now??? Jesus Christ, Allah Mustapha!!
I suspect anyone who can start with anti-religion rants, switch to blaming churches for the state of America's demise, bash tax-exemption and somehow blame corporate welfare (whatever the fuck!??...see where this is going?) and arrive at a total solution by blaming BELTWAY INSIDERS AND THE SENATORS/CONGRESSMEN THEY HAVE BOUGHT for pharma, defense, etc. shifting the blame to people without any power or influence???....I'd have to call them schizophrenic! Which is how most rabid concerning politics ion one side or the other are to me. ALLL OF THEM, conservative or liberal. I could give a fiddler's fist-fuck about working within a failed system. I prefer to keep to the fringes of this broken machine and put as little of my resources or mentations into it.

But some, like stormie and libby here...well, hopeless fiends and junkies for the dance politic. Playing right into the hands of the corporations iffn ya axe me!

>> ^chingalera:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-


Well, that escalated quickly

>> ^chingalera:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

I was gonna...but then decided it's not worth it, then changed my mind one last time.

I suspect aAnyone who can call religion "the last bastion of sanity" is too far gone to make sense, but... Religion supplies a cushy lifestyle for priests...that's the sum total of it's accomplishments. Churches have, if anything, helped push the government down the path you so self-righteously condemn...and they preach and stump political issues all without paying any taxes. Yet more corporate welfare.

It's time for the -real- welfare queens to start paying their share...churches, Wall Street, Defense contractors, big Pharma, etc. Time to either start contributing to the upkeep of society, or be broken up (or strung up, as the case may be).

>> ^Boise_Lib:

Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.


Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.

As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-