You're overcomplicating it.

Wordless assent is fine, especially in an already committed relationship.

The issue here is less about consent and more about refusal.

If you're feeding each other and someone wants you to stop, just stop. Ok, if you're literally pouring tea into them at the time, it's not going to be instantaneous, but it's still pretty clear that they're no longer into it. Especially if they say "no" or try to push you away.

This isn't rocket science.

"[I] didn't watch the Ted talk, sorry. Too long to make a point for me."

Then you missed the entire argument.

Everything you said is moot in the face of Lawrence Lessig's talk.

This kind of thinking: "Granted, neither choice is usually good, but one is definitely less bad....and far more sane and rational."Is completely missing the point.

If you are continuing to see this this as a partisan problem, you do not grok this issue.

You should not be choosing between "terrible and slightly less terrible." You should be choosing between "good and better."

I reiterate: The roots of this issue in the US go deeper than partisan "Dems vs. Reps" politics. This issue is money in politics.

"I want you to take hold, to grab the issue you care the most about. Climate change is mine, but it might be financial reform or a simpler tax system or inequality. Grab that issue, sit it down in front of you, look straight in its eyes, and tell it there is no Christmas this year. There will never be a Christmas. We will never get your issue solved until we fix this issue first."

Here's a video referencing a Princeton study that backs up Lessig's arguments pretty well.



As an aside, Lawrence Lessig tried to run for president last year...

Even if no one served the Lord, it doesn't change the fact that the Lord loves you and wants you to turn back to Him. You're speaking of others conviction; I am here doing the Lord's will and telling you that He is calling you; do you have any conviction about that? I pray that you do.

Jesus spoke about these times:

Matthew 24:10-12

And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold

Paul also spoke about these times:

2 Timothy 3

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was

So what you're seeing and what you're angry about are the signs which confirm we are in the last days. Our reaction to that should be humility, not anger. These are the last days and the Lord is coming back to judge the Earth. The Lord will cleanse His church like He cleansed the temple; judgment begins at the house of the Lord. Our response to these things should be personal repentance and a determination to take on the responsibility of carrying the message of redemption to all people.

You must take your eyes off of men and put them back on the Lord, because that is the only place you will find clarity. God is calling you back to Himself.

It is in the best interest of media, news and politicians to keep this poisoned fruit of racism alive. There is big money in it. They don't want you to truly know the 'other'.

Daryl Davis is doing a good job.

First of all, you realize that you posted nearly the same reply twice in a row? Are you copy&pasting replies now?
Second, sincerely, fuck you Bob. You don't get to put words in my mouth. You're a white american and you have to own your shitty, racist past.
It's not about reperations or blame, it's about your unwillingness to own your countries' racist, slave-owning, segregationist past.
The ancestors of white americans invaded, stole, raped, murdered, kidnapped and enslaved brown people to get where they are today. Your ancestors did.
If you refuse to own this, you make yourself an accomplice. You help the perpetrators to get away with it.
I own my countries past. I'll tell you all I know. It may be too little, it may be not good enough but at least I'll try. Go visit Buchenwald. I did it twice and I must say, the first time I was too stupid to understand what it meant. I'm ashamed of that.
I stood in the doorstep of a tiny little room where people would enter, believing they were there to have their height measured. They didn't know there was tiny opening in the wall where they stood. They didn't know that on the other side of the wall there's a man with a pistol waiting to shoot them in the neck. They burned the bodies in a large oven.
I want you to know this. I want everybody to know this.
I'm not at fault. I wasn't around. I'll be an accomplice if I wouldn't tell you about it. I know about a crime and I will tell you all I know about it. That's why I'm not guilty.

You, on the other hand, stand in a puddle of blood (haha, you're a clown called Puddles) and deny anything's wrong.
Maybe you didn't own slaves. Maybe you never lynched a black man. Maybe you're not a cop who shot a black person for no reason. Maybe it's not your fault.
But you help them to get away with this by telling me there's no crime.

That's the difference between us two, you don't mind the blood on your hands while typing your manifestos on the internet. I do. I'll tell you all about it.

Like the cheeto in chief, you may not even realize you're standing with the Nazis, but make no mistake, they see it and understand.
Edit: if you want them to stand alone, you, and the exalted leader need to do a MUCH better job of both distancing yourselves and being clear they are alone in their levels of evil and bile, not state plainly that they are standing on a morality scale right next to some pc thugs (ugly as they may be, pc thugs don't advocate mass murders/genocides).
The KKK, neonazis, and alt right are absolutely on your Republican team, you can't wash your hands of them now after they voted with you because Trump's plan and statements mirrored theirs.

Edit: I may have misread you. Are you saying the republican "team" isn't on America's side? Because I'm saying the KKK and Nazis are undeniably Trump Republicans.

I refuse to acknowledge that ridiculous term....but I absolutely don't stand with the far left. I've said my entire adult lifetime that I would vote republican if only they would...but republicans today don't resemble the party I would have joined. They turned pro war, anti thought, pro spend, anti tax, pro debt, anti responsibility, pro corporation, anti citizen, pro oil, anti progress....I could go on but why?

Um...duh Bob, then you still had it badly wrong. Anti first amendment is still antifa, not anfta.

Actually, I do have fond memories of Berkeley, because I lived there in the 80's, not because I'm a leftist fascist.

Yes, he disavowed them, and in the same breath defends them and lumps his political enemies in with them, as if they're equally evil.
The media isn't saying he didn't say they're bad, it's saying he clearly didn't mean it.

If anti Nazi, anti fascist is the wrong side, color me proudly wrong.

I want you in that slinky black backless mini dress and a pushup bra please. I can't wait.

Your video, RANT: 20 Things Your IT Guys Want You to Know, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I understand, and "pollution per capita" is a logical argument. But from my point of view there are some critical problems and many flaws with following such reasoning. For example:

The US isn't the greatest emitter of Co2 per capita, but when that's brought up...the argument falls back to emissions in absolute terms. Many would say that that's hypocritical.

Wealth inequality is particularly bad in the US, with the top 20% of the population holding upwards of 88% of all wealth (while the total wealth of individuals isn't GDP, it does correlate with income flow). Doesn't this skew GDP per capita, holding the poor in the US to an unfair standard, vis a vis emissions? If it doesn't, then how is it unfair to poor, rural Chinese?

No international organizations agree on the definition of a "developing" country. Without this, aren't these types of arguments extremely subjective and open to abuse? The point being that there are very, very few "apples-to-apples" comparisons available. For example, would it be a fair comparison if I told you that China's per capita Co2 emissions exceeded the per capita emissions of the EU starting back in 2014?

But you're right...in that the US has polluted the most in absolute terms historically (with China catching up pretty fast). We didn't have a "God-given" right to do it; for most of it, we didn't even know that "it" (Co2) was a pollutant.

You're also right that as individual Americans we have more power to demand change. I understand and accept the dangers of climate change, and I very much want to do something about it. This is why I'm so frustrated with our current administration.

I just want you to understand that I'm not strictly pro-US and/or anti-China. In my opinion, climate change is giving us one resource to either take advantage of or to squander. That resource is time. And time isn't going to make accommodations for any nation, big or small, rich or poor.

This is why I'm troubled by a government like the CCP, that has plans to accelerate their emissions. We know better now (re. Co2), and so such actions on their part are unreasonably selfish. They know their actions will likely hurt or kill all of us, and yet they continue...with the hope that other nations will sacrifice so much as to be properly weakened while they themselves are strengthened.

I understand that in a perfect world, we'd have an equality of outcome. Wouldn't that be great? But we don't have the time left to make most of South America, much of Asia and virtually all of Africa economic equals. What we can do is get our own emissions down to as close to zero as possible, and help these nations build up an infrastructure using green energy. In this way, maybe we can try to foster at least an equality of opportunity energy-wise. The Chinese government has the funds to not only fully transform their own nation, but also to help to some degree in the aforementioned global initiative. But instead of being honestly proactive, they're creating a new cold-war mindset. This is not only wasting time, but also resources (both their own and those of the US in seeking to maintain their strategic edge militarily) that could be better used to help the less fortunate.

So what do we do? Well, I'm not entirely sure. But I can tell you that having other countries paint the US as a villain in this issue, and China as a saint certainly isn't helping.

Some additional notes based on growing up in a wheat / corn farming family:

My family uses GMO herbicide/pesticide-resistant corn seed (Roundup Ready). It's a tradeoff, because:

1) Roundup Ready seed is somewhat expensive, especially compared to just holding on to a small amount of your own harvested crop as next year's seed.

2) Like the video mentioned, the GM seeds we used have been modified to be sterile, so the grain they produce can't be replanted. Part of the justification for that is not wanting the GM version to intermingle with unmodified strains. But, most is pure profit motivation -- they want you to be forced to buy that GM seed. I don't really see that as nefarious, just business -- but opinions differ.

3) My family discovered that for corn, we could us the GM Roundup Ready seed roughly once every 5 years while still benefiting from drastically reduced insect / plant pests. If corn is within pollination range of another less known crop plant called milo, the plants can hybridize and produce a plant called shattercane. Shattercane is essentially worthless as a food crop, but is very hardy, and can spread and in many cases outcompete the corn or milo that you really want.

Getting rid of it was a very difficult and intensive process -- until the GM seed came along. Now if we see shattercane starting to make incursions, we can plant the GM seeds the next year and then hit the field with a herbicide that kills the shattercane. It works so well that the field remains clear of the pest plants / insects for several years after that without having to use much if any herbicides / pesticides.

4) In our situation, we found that we used way less herbicide / pesticide per year on average once we started rotating in the GM seeds once every several years. That would be close to a wash, but still likely a net savings even if we used the GM seeds every year (seed companies will try to sell it to you every year). Factor in increased crop yields because of the reduced/eliminated pests, and it is a clear win.

5) I'm sort of worried about the potential for a "superbug" effect, similar to overusing / misusing antibiotics. If farmers buy into the GM seed thing 100% and use it every year, I think it will increase the chances / rate of the pests becoming resistant to the pesticides / herbicides used. That's a long-term concern, and in my opinion doesn't even come close to outweighing the "pro" side of the GM argument (at least from the perspective of my family's farm), but it is something to think about.

It's that balance between decent people and arseholes - it's always favourable to the arseholes.

In politics or any serious consideration, if an opportunist cheats there will be a small scandal - but it's to be expected of them, time passes and eventually they're credited for their ingenuity and resourcefulness. If a decent person cheats once, it can be held against them forever, a lifelong symbol of moral bankruptcy.

That's the difference between an arsehole and a decent person. Both types of people have some kind of moral balance, with "good" on one side of the see-saw and "bad" on the other side. The problem is, arseholes move the pivot closer to the "good" side when they're talking about someone virtuous - any bad counts double.

Before i get accused of insulting some group or other, the left and right and centre all have arseholes, it applies to every group. If someone wants to say that I'm biased, and "arseholes" say the exact same thing about me, only i'm the arsehole. Well i can certainly consider that, but if we were to search through all news items in the western world to see how the 'virtuous' are held to account compared to the 'non-virtuous', does anyone doubt which way that would go? For whatever agreed definition of virtuous.

I think it's about time the left started fighting dirty, personally. Go ahead and punch a nazi - i won't criticise you for violence. The little bastard wouldn't care if one of his mates punched me.

If something bad happens to them, they want you to moralise. If something bad happens to you, lol you're a fucking snowflake.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Welp, here we go. I don't believe in forbidden words, but we do have a rule against hate speech - lest we turn into a Youtube comment thread.

There's a reason why VideoSift has at least slightly more intelligent commentary than Youtube - we do care about what you write here and always want you to consider that there are humans hanging on the ends of keyboards writing comments.

VideoSift is also akin to a club, a very loose one (we let anybody in) but we reserve the right to kick you out if you violate our rules.

Gman, although I would say you have contributed a great deal of controversial but worthwhile commentary to this community, the line has been crossed.

VideoSift is not your venue for free speech. We have rules and we live by them.

With much deliberation and consideration, I hereby ban Gorillaman from VideoSift. May Siftbot have mercy on your soul.

HERE'S WISHING YOU A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS MY AND HAPPY NEW YEAR MY OLD FRIEND!!!!!

I hope you are having/had a great one and got all you wanted.

You are missed.

At least this one is honest. All the rest try to feign neutrality by telling you that you should vote regardless of who you're voting for when in truth, they want you to vote Democrat.

Is it a statistical fact that Democrats are less likely to vote than Republicans? It seems like it since we see so many celebrities doing ads like this.