@bareboards2

Oh, I totally get what you are saying. You've seen my comments in other threads. You know I think there are definitely social issues with how women are both perceived and treated in real life and portrayed in media. Yeah, absolutely, we can look at this story from the perspective of "men behaving badly" because they have the power and they can. And they certainly did. Totally agree with you that it is misogynistic behavior and that we can use the story as an example highlighting social problems and showcasing how one woman tried to turn the tables.

But that's only one perspective to view the story from. We can also view the story as a cautionary tale about Internet safety in the 21st century and comment on how the victim in this case actively (albeit completely unintentionally) contributed to her own victimization. And that's another valid perspective. Personally, I don't see them in conflict, nor do I see the need to shout down one perspective in favor of the other. I could see someone coming along and trying to use the 2nd perspective to negate the 1st (i.e. something along the lines of "she got what she deserved because she behaved like a slut") but ironically a comment like that would only validate the 1st perspective even further.

Speaking to kids as though they are idiots is a terrible approach, and people really shouldn't do that. Even as young as six or so, most of them are much more intelligent and thoughtful than they're usually given credit for.

Granted, I wouldn't want to dictate the way other people raise their kids, but the years I spent volunteering with children taught me that they will be a lot more open, honest and comfortable with you if you converse with them with all the seriousness and respect that you would an important adult, but of course all the while understanding and having empathy for their necessarily limited set of experiences, egocentricity and smaller view of the world. For example, "my best friend hates me" seems trivial to an adult ("make new friends"), but could be a kid's whole world crashing down.

Even though the people in this video are doing an admirable job (even those who screwed up earlier by inventing a fairy tales to avoid a brief moment of embarrassment), the underlying subtext that the kids are likely picking up from their parents obvious uncomfortableness is that sex is a shameful thing and that discussing it (such as if they have questions in the future) will be painful and is best avoided.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'tales, of, mere, existence, agentXPQ, Lev, Yilmaz, depression' to 'tales of mere existence, agentXPQ, Lev Yilmaz, depression' - edited by Lilithia

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee."
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
when the "Gales of November" came early.

The ship was the pride of the American side
coming back from some mill in Wisconsin.
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
with a crew and good captain well seasoned,
concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
when they left fully loaded for Cleveland.
And later that night when the ship's bell rang,
could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
and a wave broke over the railing.
And ev'ry man knew, as the captain did too
'twas the witch of November come stealin'.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
when the Gales of November came slashin'.
When afternoon came it was freezin' rain
in the face of a hurricane west wind.

When suppertime came the old cook came on deck sayin'.
"Fellas, it's too rough t'feed ya."
At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in; he said,
"Fellas, it's bin good t'know ya!"
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
and the good ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when 'is lights went outta sight
came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does any one know where the love of God goes
when the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
if they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
they may have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
in the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams;
the islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
with the Gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
in the "Maritime Sailors' Cathedral."
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they call "Gitche Gumee."
"Superior," they said, "never gives up her dead
when the gales of November come early!"

Replacing with proper embed. Matched from previous thumbnail *backup=[...snipped...]

All impressive and well done but that Duck Tales is just sweeping and beautiful.

NOMA as in how Dawkins criticises NOMA?

I think there's a subtle distinction between what NDGT is saying and NOMA, which is that i don't think he suggested that any religion should be given the position to present what they know as fact. He seemed to suggest that the American physicists he knows, if they are shall we say 'spiritual' then they are spiritual in a more open sense than being classed as any particular religion. Perhaps in the sense that they see no reason for there NOT to be different realities or even that the universe is not a part of something else. In that way they may be open to spirituality even if just in a general well-being sense, and use religious texts as interesting moralistic tales. If you believe in the possibility of something greater than yourself and that it is abstract and unlike anything we can imagine, then you could use the christian god as a 'good enough' placeholder, even though you believe in the physical universe as being separate to 'god'.

At the end of the day, no matter how cutting Dawkins can be, he himself knows that you can't prove anything about this god or that god, and ultimately anything to do with why there is this reality nor what any alternative might be. He's just a guy with opinions about how this place works too, and he's certainly not the smartest of us to ever have been.

Might you be putting too much focus on the (i think facetious) comment that it teaches how to go to heaven not how the heavens go? I think, or rather hope, that he was trying to say that there's no way to tell one way or the other, but he can understand why people feel comforted by it, why some people are moved by their own unique experiences to feel that way. Also that you can say you subscribe to something even whilst you hold your own completely modified version of it according to what you experience in this reality!

100% agree. Too much pussy footing around ( not accusing Tyson here just in general )
The bullshit fairy tales have got to go
and guess what ? There's no Father Christmas or tooth fairy either.
There is no equivalency in the different sides. One is just plain lies and bullshit. The other is objective truth.
I have never heard a religious person gently explain they a religious and like to tolerate science, they just start screaming 'Praise Jeebus'
For fucks sake, even religious morons use a cell phone, hospital, electricity, cars etc etc So Fucking Dumb

Oh great now you'll make security guards sphere repeat occurrences during their rounds. Everywhere on the globe, people will stair as the number will rise and the attacks run rampant. This can only escalator even worse cause injury due to copycat attacks. This unfortunate storey will take flight, I'm certain. In any event, the tale will be moving.

P.S. expression on watcher dude's face at 00:54 - the perfect "Schwwaaaa....?"

I've seen that once. Might have been after one of the irish scandals, a guy holding a sign with a little kid and an old clergyman with a robe-tent approaching with his hands out like mr burns and a big grin. The thing is when it comes to paedophilia, you can't think it of anyone you think you know, so you discard images like that as silly fairy tales without thinking beyond the metaphor. You don't want to be wondering if the guy you just shook hands with gets drunk before sunday school and manipulates extra private tuition with the shy kid who doesn't have a dad and cries a lot.

Sorry to be so graphic there, but it is what it is in all its vileness, and everyone complicit ought to feel fucking ashamed of themselves. I'll stop before i derail, but the moral standards these people are hiding behind are very shady indeed, because somewhere in that chain of command someone knew and kept quiet about the institutional rape-centres the Catholics kept running for many decades. Unless they've leaned on their own faith-leaders to press for justice and HARD, their hands are dirty, and they are ridiculous to stand there shouting shame on someone else.

Man, i think i'm in love with this woman..

Well, the radius of the moon is about 1,080 miles, and the radius of the Sun is about 432,687 miles.
Do I need to say the rest of your grasp of the science involved is not firm?

Newtboy, please pull out a calculator and punch in 1080 x 400..the answer is 432000.

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-earth/moon-general.html

"The Moon's size and distance contribute to a wonderful coincidence for those of us who live here on Earth. The Moon is about 400 times smaller than the Sun, but it also just happens to be about 400 times closer. The result is that from Earth, they appear to be the same size. And when its orbit around Earth takes the Moon directly between Earth and the Sun, the Moon blocks our view of the Sun in what we call a solar eclipse. This is just the same as when you use your thumb to block your view of something that is both much larger and much farther away."

See, my fairy tale tells me that giant bean stalks are real

I think you have a misunderstanding of what faith is. I have faith that the Sun will rise tomorrow because the evidence shows that it is more likely to happen than not. No one could prove that it would, but my faith is justified based on the evidence. In the same way, I have faith that Christianity is true based on the evidence of the life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe the evidence is extraordinary and sufficient to place my faith in, and that the contrary case is insufficient. Have you ever studied the evidence for the resurrection? If you haven't then you have rejected it based on your preconceived notions and biases rather than because you believe the evidence is insufficient. There are plenty of things we take on faith and believe and are perfectly rational for doing so. Here is a highlight that talks about 5 different things we all take on faith:

Oh Shiny....SOOO much and so large a failure of fact here....
A quick science fact for YOU....(cut and pasted from Google)

How many of earth's moon would fit inside the sun if it were hollow?

Well, the radius of the moon is about 1,080 miles, and the radius of the Sun is about 432,687 miles. The moon and the sun are both spheres, and math tells us how to relate the volume inside a sphere to its radius. I don't know how much math you have done, so let me just tell you the answer and you can maybe ask your teacher for more information. The answer is that you could get about 64.3 million moons inside the Sun if it were hollow.
Do I need to say the rest of your grasp of the science involved is not firm?

I must also tell you, being able to say "we don't know exactly" about what happened BEFORE the big bang is no where near 'faith'...'faith' is making up some BS and claiming 'See, my fairy tale tells me that giant bean stalks are real, you're just deluding yourself that they're all tiny. Just because you (along with everyone else) has never SEEN a giant one means nothing, my book said they're real, so they're real'. Science says 'we've never seen a giant bean stalk, ever, and genetics and physics tell us they never can exist'. The 'faithful' then say 'science is wrong and delusional and ignores all our evidence of giant bean stalks...namely the stories in our book, and look, I found this large bean, it's proof that there are GIANT beans out there.'. If you don't 'believe' the book is 'true', it's useless as 'proof'. Just consider all the other 'holy' books you discount...that's how I see ALL holy books. I only took it one step farther than you, though, before you think differently.

At least originally, I think that was the point of Dredd. He was never meant to be the good guy, he was a cautionary tale.

As the character became more popular, they had to justify his actions more and more until he eventually became the good guy, even if only in comparison to his enemies.

I liked that about him though. The writers weren't heavy handed. Dredd could do something incredibly cool one minute, and then they would remind you that, yeah, this guy's a one man personification of the police state. It made for uncomfortable reading.

While the movie didn't really capture that, it was still a great flick and it's a shame they never made a sequel

I believe the problem is with the government's use of competitive judiciary : where each side debates their case, regardless of merit, and the expectation is that the 'right' argument will win simply because truth should naturally be able to present a stronger argument.

This assumption not only leads to some face-palm-worthy cases/charges, it also inevitably leads to people being convicted in situations where everyone involved knows with absolute certainty that the defender is innocent (often because quirks within the rules of the official process).

In this case, the "right" thing to do is : Apologize to the man, and refund him any costs that he's incurred so far due to this mess.

But "process" requires that the government push their argument to its absolute limit, even with zero merit, because the officially sanctioned way by which the situation is resolved is via argument in court (conveniently, the need to do this is also decided by people working in court - effectively excusing their professional existence and securing their very employment).

There is no 'admitting there was a mistake'. A mistake has to be proven in court. So even though everyone involved knows that the man is not at any fault, they will still force him to spend his time and money arguing a case, just to jump through hoops, and in the end it's _extremely_ unlikely that his personal costs will be refunded to him (lawyer fees, etc).

In the mean time, everyone on the government side is simply doing their 9-5. None of this is a burden to them, and it's in fact 'how they put food on the table'. If they aren't charging him, they're charging someone else. This is just another day at the office.

The guy getting screwed can't say 'no thanks, I'll not participate', because men with guns will show up and drag him away (police arrest for not going to court). It's effectively a predatory practice whereby the government fleeces people. Everyone involved knows it's meritless, but they simply force you to dance [else go to jail], and collect some fees in the process.

Because, really, what's at stake is not 'the truth' or 'justice'. It's simply "process". An excuse to inflate the number of court cases, to keep court spending high (to secure next year's budget - "use it or lose it" accounting), to keep collections high, and generally keep the high paid welfare cases (9/10 govt employees) employed.
TBH, for a country that supposedly "hates communism", actual communist countries haven't even managed to work it out this well. (I'm not talking fairy tale boogey man communism like you see in old propaganda. I mean the practical day to day actual workings. Vast government employment, bureaucracy, "process above all".)

-scheherazade

Almost put this in the comedy channel (although, it's more like a tragedy for the guy). It's more like a bureaucratic farce, regardless.. And, like all good comedies, a cautionary tale.

No big deal, of course. It's not like many taxpayers don't already pay for other people's kids... (and, likely, WAY more than $30K, because, y'know... "common good.")

In cases like these, they may just have well used a lottery of all registered voters and randomly select one of them to pay. Like a jury duty, but with child-support duty... Maybe even have a woman be the "deadbeat dad." And then the Great Fiction could be enjoyed as though it were a game.. like poker..

or roulette.

Perhaps we should all treat him that way...if you say 'I believe in fairy tales, magic dudes, and talking snakes' we should simply walk away, because you're an idiot, and likely a dangerous angry zealous one.
It's hard to single out Steve for his 'opinion' since MOST 'christians' and other religious people actually think this way. Most of them don't have the strength of their convictions enough to follow through on this smarmy assholyness (pun intended) or even state it out loud, but it is not a minority thought.
What a douche...I nominate Steve for the next 'Biggest Douche in the Universe' for having the bad taste to say this hateful ignorant crap out loud on TV.