It's a close call between a few, but even with its warts, all and all Human Revolution might be my favorite mass market video game of the last ten years. More of the same would be fine by me.

Also, in cases like this video, they were probably getting credit back from the publishers. It's common practice that the items need to be destroyed for them to get back their credit. It's cheaper than shipping all back to the distributors.

I've also worked in a large book store. (Chapters/Indigo Books)
When all mass market books are removed from the shelves, we stripped the book jackets from the books (tore the covers off) and ripped the rest of the books up. we only had to send the covers back to the publishers to get our credit back on them (same with Magazines). We would destroy books by the hundreds, because it was cheaper to destroy them, and have them print more than to ship them back for re-distribution.

@lantern53

ah my friend.
you seem to have fallen into the propaganda trap.
allow enoch to chat with you for a bit.

are you comfy? need a drink? coffee? a beer?

ok,then let us begin

this is not a political ideology.
this is not right nor left.(seriously limiting terms anyways).

this is about the full picture.

so let us discuss WHAT propaganda actual is,rather than what we are TOLD it is.
propaganda is simply manipulated information presented in a way to appeal to our irrational and emotional response rather than our rational and reasonable.

when i use the term "manipulated" i am not inferring or implying an outright conspiracy (though often-times it may possibly be a conspiracy) but rather a set goal to illicit the desired response.

and there is always an element of truth in propaganda but the truth being presented is controlled and manipulated.which is apparent in your commentary.

corporations use this tactic and we call it mass marketing but the first usage was that of the state to control its own citizenry.america being the major and first to pioneer this tactic.see:edward bernaise and the council of propaganda (later changed to the council of public relations).

so let us break down your examples which i assume are an attempt by you to discredit the assertions in dr wasfi's speech in this video.

1.to point out the crimes against humanity is a straw man argument.
it is irrelevant.
it is a last ditch effort by the american government to excuse and/or validate an illegal war of aggression:
a.no weapons of mass destruction
b.no connection to al qaeda
c.almost 1 trillion lost (literally,they cant account for that money)

so the american government points to the atrocities of saddam hussein and says "look! look at what a bad person he is"!

SQUIRREL!

which brings us to your next point.

2.the atrocities you are referring to were well know when saddam was a paid participant by multiple government agencies.
let me say that again for you:
saddams atrocities were WELL known and was on the american government payroll.
did saddam gas the kurds?------yes
who sold him the gas components?---we did.

so when my government,in a last ditch effort to absolve its complicity in the wreckage that is iraq by pointing to the awful and horrific acts saddam perpetrated on his own people as somehow making the invasion of iraq a righteous act is utter..and complete..hypocrisy.

they KNEW what he was doing and did nothing because it was politically expedient for them to do so.they wished to corral iran and the ends justified the means.see:Zbigniew Brzezinski-the grand chessboard

there are many MANY accounts where the american government turned a blind eye to the suffering of other nation-states citizens because it did not align with our interests.

i find the whole situation morally repugnant and it angers me even further when i see the propaganda twisting my fellow countrymen into believing this is somehow a morally just way to deal with despots,tyrants,zealots.

when it was MY country who put them in power in the first place!

the rationalizations are so deeply cynical and hypocritical that it creates an almost vacuum of cognitive dissonance.

and this is my main point in regards to your commentary.
it is a rationalization given to you by those who wish to continue to oppress,dominate and control those who are powerless.

it gives a semblance of morality where there is none.

because if we took your commentary to its logical conclusion:that sometimes war is necessary to rid the world of "evil" (an arbitrary term based on perspective),then why are we not in those countries that ALSO oppress,kill,maim,torture and immiserate their citizens?

answer:because it does not serve the interests of this government.

so the only usage of emotional heart string pulling is to give americans a sense of moral superiority,while not dealing with the actual reality.

you are being manipulated my friend.
and they have given you a convenient myth to hold onto.

by my commentary i am not dismissing the great works of my country nor am i saying that my country is inherently evil.
i served my country and did my duty.

but i also will not turn a blind eye to the reality on the ground just because i find that information..uncomfortable.

many times the truth is uncomfortable and it takes courage to look at it with clear eyes and a critical mind.

i always stick to the axiom:governments lie

as for your nazi reference,
i invoke godwins law.
the death camps were not even a known reality till the war was almost over and were not the reasons for the war in the first place.
so the context is irrelevant.

as always,
eyes open...
and stay sharp.

@lantern53 keepin it frosty since 1982.stay awesome my man

@Stormsinger
beat me to it.
freud was a cunt.
his nephew was a cunt.
mass marketing=propaganda systems anyone?


see? a family of elitist privileged cunts.
and for anybody working in mass marketing?
kill yourselves.
you are satans little helpers and you need to end yourself.

@gwiz665
this doesnt even fit into any definition of religion.
how you extrapolated religion from this video is a stretch of logic.
disagree with premise? thats fine.
calling it religion? not a chance.i dont see any dogmatic approach based on doctrine.do you?

which brings me to @Engels commentary.
this video proposes an alternative way of dealing with bi-polar.this alternative has been proven to work in some cases.
does this mean that we should dump modern psychology?
well this video does not make that assertion.

it simply offers an alternative way of dealing with people in crisis.
who are you to judge the validity or success of something that may work for some people?

or has psychology answered all the questions pertaining to consciousness and i just missed the memo?

i understand your skepticism concerning methods such as represented in this video but as @eric3579 suggested.if you have never experienced:depression,mania,psychotic episodes then you are already at a disadvantage in your understanding.

medication is not the end-all be-all of answers.sometimes compassion,understanding and empathy are far better fascilitators in helping a person overcome episodes of depression or mania.

when we consider just how prevalent diagnosis and medication have become:
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0030185

we should all stand up and take notice.
or do you feel the 1 in 5 numbers are correct?
that even pre-teens can be bipolar?
and if so.could you please tell me the conclusive test a psychologist uses to determine if someone is bipolar?

i am in no way by my commentary dismissing the exceptional works psychology has brought to the human table.i am just saying that it is still a work in progress and the field of psychology has not answered every question.

on a side note.freud along with his nephew edward bernaise helped create mass marketing and propaganda systems.
so....yeah.fuck freud.

@renatojj Apologies for the late reply, have been running for work and it doesnt look like that will stop

True that some countries may have less cooperation, though is that dependent on the economic system used or something else? For instance, East Germany had 100% employment and a very active economy, more so then west Germany in some regards. It was ofc run top down with little choice and politically biased, but I am not sure if that lessons the amount of economic transactions, ie cooperation. I guess it comes down to what you define as cooperation.

BTW "those criticisms of the depletion of finite natural resources consists of the economic Law of Diminishing Returns, opportunity cost, and scarcity in economics" -- I never understood what they mean with that. Even if the resource cost goes up strongly due to scarcity it doesnt mean that that resource can be replaced by something else, or that the higher cost (than the original cost of the scarce resource) of the replacement can be born by its consumers.

Now you say something very interesting: I agree with you that capitalism isnt always about ever-increasing competitiveness, in practice. In cases where you have competition, you get ever-increasing competitiveness. (This is in theory what all capitalism strives for) In cases where you do not have competition you dont. That is exactly what we are talking about. Free market philosophy assumes there is always near perfect competition right? How else would the market balance itself if there is no competition? Would you agree that free markets only work where there is competition?

Lets see when we have competition:

"competition is proportional to the difference between supply and demand" That doesnt sound right. If there is large demand and little supply (the difference is big), there is little competition as all suppliers will overcharge like hell as they will be able to sell anything they can manufacturer anyway. If there is large supply and little demand there can be competition, though usually this results in companies leaving the market until you have: If the supply and demand are about equal, you SOMETIMES have competition that keeps things in balance. Or you can have a monopoly for whatever reason and that market has again little to no competition. In other words, in no single scenario is competition guaranteed. Actually, there is good reason to assume markets move to monopolies naturally in all cases. In a market that is turning from early adopters to mass market, there is always focus on economies of scale. Companies need to get bigger to make sure they have the lowest cost price (best competitive edge) and to keep their shareholders happy as they demand growth to make their investments worth more. Bigger companies means fewer companies on the long run, as the market is always limited. This means companies will take over other companies until only a handful remain. Voila. Actually, if it werent for (anti-free market) anti-monopoly rules lots of markets would only have 1 company left. That company would be so big it would be impossible for a new entry to push them out of the market or even get a foothold unless the market itself crumbles because a newer range of products exist that make the old one obsolete. Again, without rules governing economies, things just go bust.

Which was what happened in the derivatives market. It was a completely deregulated market that was exploding itself as there were no rules governing it. When it did explode (ie when the free market failed) there were 2 options left: Let all banks fail or bail them out. Think of the consequences of following your recommendation: If 1 bank fails, it will pull the others down with it as they are all strongly interconnected. As banks are key in the economical world, the entire system would collapse. The amount of devastation would be huge, would probably kill the entire system. Now, you can argue that would be good for us, as we could build a fully new system. But before we would get there, there would be years if not decades of nightmares.
I agree with you that the fall of the derivatives market should never have happened in the first place which is exactly the reason to not follow free markets.

Above clarifies a bit my way of thinking: for many of these markets (be it banks or utilities or employment) the consequences of letting that market fail are just too big. If you have the guts to follow free markets to the end, it might work (isnt proven though) but you come to a point where you destabilize your country in such a manner that things like revolts and all kind of nastiness are highly possible and even likely. That is not progress, that is barbarianism.

You mention yourself that there are practically no free markets anywhere. You say that is because they havent been tried. I say that they have been tried again and again but never last.

I want to go on the record and say that "booty wave" is one of the better mass-market pop songs I have heard recently.

Ah, yes.. it is of limited mass-market appeal, this one, but it tickles my fancy

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
Thanks : (polishes shiny gold star)

I suspect it'll take more than 1 quality before the sift at large sees the inherent quality of this video, but I could be wrong.
In reply to this comment by taranimator:
Thanks, oritteropo!! nice shiny gold star!

>> ^Jinx:

I'm just really bored at the stagnate FPS genre atm. Hasn't been a good recent multiplayer FPS game recently apart from TF2, and that was a while back. Even then the focus is clearly on public play and the competitive community is small and dying out pretty quickly. Its sad that in this e-sports renaissance created by SC2 there is no FPS game to really step up and enter the limelight. The Arena style of Quake needs to make a comeback. Its so watchable as a spectator sport, and the skill the best players display is just astounding. Even watching these speedruns etc makes my jaw drop.
Instead we get boring Modern Yawnfair 12 - For Xbox360 and PS3! And yah, I'm a PC elitist. I watched some Halo3/Reach @ MLG and while it wasn't terrible, it was lightyears behind Quake. CS:GO is on the horizon, and I hope steam support that as much as they are pouring money into DotA2, but still, I prefer an FPS where you don't die in one pixelshot or from wallbanging spam.
/rant
Oh, and a new tribes is coming, but I was super turned off by their free2play model. If its anything like LoL I am not interested. I'd rather pay upfront and know I am on a equal footing than everybody else rather than sink limitless cash into making sure I can remain competitive.


I realize I'm necroing a 2 week old video thread, but, there are some things that nobody bothered to say.

Jinx: Many of these F2P games are not Pay2Win. You simply pay for variety/speed of unlocks. Nothing you can pay for with cash can make you do more damage, move faster, etc. The only things in LoL that absolutely require actual cash are character skins and extra rune pages. Everything else can be unlocked with the same points even the richest person has to earn by playing matches. Can you spend $1-200 and unlock every character? Yes. Do you have to...is it worth it? No. Just play with the free rotated characters each week. Personally, I'm sick of paying up front for shitty games or games I don't play that often.


@EvilDeathBee The difference is, many of the companies that used to produce the best stuff now produce mass market crap and many of the great companies were bought out and/or ruined by EA/Activision. Westwood Studios...gone. Lucasarts is plagued by the same mass market bullshit problems as the newer movie trilogy. id hasn't made a good shooter since before Doom 3, and Rage is the latest crap they've spewed out. You can find videos of Carmack saying they're being held back by console graphics/memory considerations. Luckily we have Blizzard and Valve still, though Blizzard is now Activision Blizzard, and is making console Diablo 3 and has added friggin Facebook to Battle net. GG. Valve seems to want to make hats, ignore HL2:Ep3 while splitting the already-split MOBA community by releasing DOTA2, which nobody really asked for given that HoN and LoL are rather popular. But, at least Valve and Blizz put out quality PC games. BF3 now has the useless Origin, which is nothing but a business move and provides zero benefit to gamers.

Games used to be art. Now they're all about money.

@Hawkinson "A few thousand"? Doom 2 sold like 2 million back before PC gaming was at all popular. Quake 2 sold 1-1.5 million also. I couldn't find Q1 numbers but I'd guess they're similar. You're also forgetting that Doom 2 was distributed as shareware, and I've seen estimates that 15 million played it. Give google a try next time you want to pull statistics out of your ass

Most games today are developed with consoles in mind with the PC as an afterthought. This is largely why they are dumbed down, with few options to tune the graphics, and more simplistic game design. They're appealing to the mass market console audience, which includes people who need their hands held and others with slow reaction times.

The money is with the mass market, so PC gaming while not dead I doubt will ever enjoy the hayday it once had. I don't really care since I don't really play many games anymore, but it is kind of sad to see how it has been watered down and co-opted by console gaming.

As for me, I used to play doom 2 on dwango, and RA2 online..and between those two I lost more of my life than I care to admit.

>> ^RedSky:

I'm enjoying it as well, but I think it's hardly unfair to say they made compromises from the original to appeal to today's mass market audiences.>> ^sillma:
I'm a pretty huge DX1 fan, and DXHR didn't disappoint me at all. Pretty awesome game all in all, you can easily leave yourself with a negative image of a game if you listen to all the biggest whiners of the internet.



Aye aye, but that's how it goes nowadays unfortunately. Much better game than I expected it to be, nowadays I have very low expectations on games that claim to claim any former glory, since they usually fail miserably. Only thing I was disappointed was the size of the world, the cities could've been larger with more side quests, but ah well it was properly long game anyhow. Gotta do the next playthrough with non-lethal approach

I'm enjoying it as well, but I think it's hardly unfair to say they made compromises from the original to appeal to today's mass market audiences.>> ^sillma:

I'm a pretty huge DX1 fan, and DXHR didn't disappoint me at all. Pretty awesome game all in all, you can easily leave yourself with a negative image of a game if you listen to all the biggest whiners of the internet.

>> ^jmzero:

I'm torn on this.
I wasn't a big fan of Kill Bill - especially the second part. Certainly some great scenes, but too much winking self-awareness. Some of this trailer (especially the beginning) has this same kind of lazy looking self parody. I see what they're getting at, but I'm not a fan.
But it also has some absolute top shelf action talent, and every reason to believe it will have amazing action scenes. Oh, and Michelle Yeoh apparently.
So, yeah, this'll be awesome.


Just watched it. It's clear they cut the trailer to appeal to mass market America who loved the fact that the latest Karate Kid was about Kung Fu. It's not at all humorous as the trailer makes it out to be. They obviously mentioned Kill Bill among others for the same reason, but in fact the only "people who brought you..." they're really referring to is Yuen Woo Ping.

It is a bit fractured for it to be a perfect flick, but it was highly enjoyable to me. I recommend it especially to folks who know and appreciate the genre.

As you may have notice, this message is very long. Please take a while and read it a few times, in chunks, before you respond. I ask a lot of questions here so I’d like it you pretended as if you were asking the questions to yourself.

I should have qualified my statement about religions. I meant to clarify that in the Persian and Pre-Rome regions of the world, which were primarily Pagan, a huge majority of the religions didn’t have religious structures that were based around fear, for the most part. Yes, I admit that there was the concept of retribution from the gods but it wasn’t anything to the degree of everlasting punishment. I currently don’t know anything about the religions of the very early Americas (Mayans, etc). It wasn’t until the god concepts became more personalized and more humans that it became more about fear. There is a natural progression in the ideological development in religions that goes from being nothing about humans to being all about humans. Eternal suffering or anything resembling a “hell” is relatively new and came about around the time of monotheistic religions.

Let me ask you a question. Why do you trust your personal revelation?

I ask this because I used to be very “spiritual” and I’ve even had out-of-body experiences, experiences that I can only call past life regressions. I grew up in a practicing Christian family and I have memories of experience that I can only call “personal revelation”. I’ve come to a lot of reasons why I shouldn’t trust those personal revelations; I want to know if you’ve come to understand how the human brain is very easily tricked into irrational behaviors and beliefs (not just religious)

You say that this has been an ongoing revelation since you were 14. If you had not had this history of personal revelation at all and it came to you suddenly today, would you find it believable? I imagine that you’re beliefs have been challenged many times. Are you certain that the strengthening effect of the challenges aren’t just from the boomerang effect, caused by a need to justify something that you feel committed to?

Here is another great question. How much of your belief system is tied to your identity; how much do you identify with it, personally or socially? Meaning, if you came to disbelieve what you now believe, would you know who you are or would you have a sort of identity crisis? If you stopped believing as you do now, do you feel that you would you lose a part of who you are?

You ask a good question in “Maybe it is you who is delusion and I see things as they actually are.” Yes, perhaps I am and perhaps you are and perhaps we both are. So how can we know, how would we find out, what kinds of tests and experiments could we do to illuminate the answer. It isn’t good enough to simply say that we both might be delusional; therefore our views are equally valid. Either one of us is correct and the other is not, or we are both incorrect.
You know, I used to have a dualistic view on the nature of humans. I used to believe in the soul or the spirit as something separate from the body. I used to resonate heavily with the lyrics of Tool and the ideas behind the art of Alex Grey.

I guess my biggest question would stem from this statement that you made
“My faith is that i have a spirit, a soul, a divine spark that is connected to the ALL, the ONE, also known as "the source".”
What makes you think that there is an “ALL”, a “ONE” or “the source” and how do you know that you’re not just fooling yourself? What would it mean if you discovered that it’s probably not true, and that the real explanation for the subjective experiences that you’ve had are far more elegant and interesting than the ideas of spirituality that you currently hold?

To be blunt, I don’t think that you’re thinking this whole notion of an ego through far enough. It sounds like you’re just accepting the ideas as being true without going through the motions of analyzing what the concept implies. The notion of an ego implies several things; one of which is that we as humans are special to the degree that we have egos when, either, other animals don’t, or, other animals are better than us in controlling it. The questions then become, do other animals have egos? If so, how does the ego operate in them? Do other life forms, such as plants or bacteria, also have egos, or does the ego require a certain degree of cognitive function? If the ego does require certain cognitive functions to be noticeable, and since we are extremely closely related to other apes such as chimpanzees, do they also exhibit features of having egos? If they don’t and having an ego is strictly a human feature, what happened during the development of the brain that allowed for the access to what we might call the ego and at this point, do we really believe that the “ego” is actually something that exists outside of the brain? If it doesn’t exist outside of the brain than how can we separate who you perceive as yourself and what you perceive as the “ego”? Are all “ego’s” the same or is it brain dependent with variations depending on brain structure and chemistry? Can you see why I would say that the notion of the ego as something outside of or separate from oneself is inherently egotistical.

The way that you talk about the ego makes it seem mystical and somehow separate from “self”. To me, that sounds like someone trying to escape responsibility. Why not just cut out the middle man and admit that you, not your ego, has the tendency to be possessive, needy, insecure, wishes for self-aggrandizement, etc. The notion that “negative” qualities are part and partial of some sort of external thing that is separate from “you” just seems childish to me, not to mention, completely unsupported by research.

For myself, I suppose that I recoil at the idea of an “ALL”, or “ONE”, or “the source” because it doesn’t really answer any questions. If someone were presenting these ideas to me for the first time, I would immediately start asking questions like “What is it made out of, what kind(s) of particles?” “How does it perpetuate?” “What is the physics of this thing?” “By what mechanism does it connect to everything?” “How does a source not also have its own source?” “What tests and experiments can we do to learn more about this thing?” “What objective information do we have about it?” “Does this thing operate differently between animate and inanimate objects?” “If spirit or soul is inherent in the system, do animals and plants also have a spirit or soul?” “What exactly constitutes as a spirit or soul, what can it be defined by?” “Did “the source” have a beginning or a history?”

I think you understand my point. My problem with subjectively believing something is true is that it’s more susceptible to not going far enough in scrutiny. It is much easier to subjectively believe something that feels good or feels right and not go any further than that. Very few subjective beliefs translate into objective or rational understandings of nature; it’s very easy to get it wrong. Subjective beliefs are as prone to fallibility as humans are to irrational thinking.


In reply to this comment by enoch:
hmmmm..
i disagree with your statement that only the monotheistic religion control by fear.
buddhism (yes..buddhism) shinto,mayan,toltec,arminianism,zoroastriasm..the list is legion and they ALL have punishment/reward doctrine.each at varying degrees but its in there.

i do enjoy hearing an atheists perspective on how my faith translates.
very..analytical of you my friend.
suffice to say my faith is born from personal revelation and has been an ongoing revelation since i was 14.
nothing i have encountered or experienced has taken away from this revelation,in fact it has strengthened it.
could i be delusional?
i guess its possible.
or maybe it is you who are delusional and i see things as they actually are.
not trying to be an ass,just pointing out the subjective nature of this particular polemic.

i guess..in its most simplest of terms.
my faith is that i have a spirit,a soul,a divine spark that is connected to the ALL,the ONE,also known as "the source".
freud believed that the ego WAS who you were.i could not disagree with that more.
the ego is who you THINK you are.predicated and perpetrated by those who are close to you.
we cant help that.it is very human.
so around 12 yrs old we start to have a sense of self.this self understands the world and how he/she interacts with it by rules set by his/her parents.
as we grow older so does the circle of influence i.e:friends,lovers,teachers etc etc.
think about this for a second because i am expressing a very huge idea in a very short amount of time and glossing over all the implications of said idea.

my philosophy..or my faith if you will,views the ego as my "false" self.
the ego wishes only to validate itself (thats why mass marketing is very VERY effective).
the ego wishes to perpetuate its own existence by way of constant feed-back.
the ego gets jealous and possesive.
the ego gets insecure and needy.
the ego has demands...and desires...which seek only for self aggrandizement.
now societal roles consisting of compassion and empathy will,and can,curb the destructive nature of the ego (think your teenage years and just how self centered you were to give you an idea of ego gone wild)

through my faith and discipline i am quite aware of my ego and have suppressed it to the point where it no longer manipulates my thinking nor my emotions.
so i have no urge nor a desire to be perceived as "correct" because to me that is irrelevant.
(though i do prefer to be "corrected" if i misstate something).
i do not experience jealousy,nor envy.
but i do experience pride.
i do not allow anothers limited perception of me based on their own subjective reasoning influence how i feel about who i am.
i am open and honest because my faith is that we are all connected with the divine and to lie,steal or cheat you is to be doing to myself also.
i do not judge anothers faith or lack of it because that is THEIR path and the only time i ever feel the need to intercede is when it flows into my domain and affects me in some way.

even as i write these words,which to me seem pretty articulate and clear,i know that you will understand them based solely on..well..your understanding.
i do not say that as a slight but rather a statement.
trying to convey complex thought patterns by way of text can be so..limiting.

everything i do or say i do so with spirit in mind.
sometimes i fail..sometimes i succeed.
i am human.
with a spirit! ziiiiing!
anyways..
i really do enjoy our conversations.
you are a pleasure my friend.
namaste.
(look that word up btw..its a great word)

hmmmm..
i disagree with your statement that only the monotheistic religion control by fear.
buddhism (yes..buddhism) shinto,mayan,toltec,arminianism,zoroastriasm..the list is legion and they ALL have punishment/reward doctrine.each at varying degrees but its in there.

i do enjoy hearing an atheists perspective on how my faith translates.
very..analytical of you my friend.
suffice to say my faith is born from personal revelation and has been an ongoing revelation since i was 14.
nothing i have encountered or experienced has taken away from this revelation,in fact it has strengthened it.
could i be delusional?
i guess its possible.
or maybe it is you who are delusional and i see things as they actually are.
not trying to be an ass,just pointing out the subjective nature of this particular polemic.

i guess..in its most simplest of terms.
my faith is that i have a spirit,a soul,a divine spark that is connected to the ALL,the ONE,also known as "the source".
freud believed that the ego WAS who you were.i could not disagree with that more.
the ego is who you THINK you are.predicated and perpetrated by those who are close to you.
we cant help that.it is very human.
so around 12 yrs old we start to have a sense of self.this self understands the world and how he/she interacts with it by rules set by his/her parents.
as we grow older so does the circle of influence i.e:friends,lovers,teachers etc etc.
think about this for a second because i am expressing a very huge idea in a very short amount of time and glossing over all the implications of said idea.

my philosophy..or my faith if you will,views the ego as my "false" self.
the ego wishes only to validate itself (thats why mass marketing is very VERY effective).
the ego wishes to perpetuate its own existence by way of constant feed-back.
the ego gets jealous and possesive.
the ego gets insecure and needy.
the ego has demands...and desires...which seek only for self aggrandizement.
now societal roles consisting of compassion and empathy will,and can,curb the destructive nature of the ego (think your teenage years and just how self centered you were to give you an idea of ego gone wild)

through my faith and discipline i am quite aware of my ego and have suppressed it to the point where it no longer manipulates my thinking nor my emotions.
so i have no urge nor a desire to be perceived as "correct" because to me that is irrelevant.
(though i do prefer to be "corrected" if i misstate something).
i do not experience jealousy,nor envy.
but i do experience pride.
i do not allow anothers limited perception of me based on their own subjective reasoning influence how i feel about who i am.
i am open and honest because my faith is that we are all connected with the divine and to lie,steal or cheat you is to be doing to myself also.
i do not judge anothers faith or lack of it because that is THEIR path and the only time i ever feel the need to intercede is when it flows into my domain and affects me in some way.

even as i write these words,which to me seem pretty articulate and clear,i know that you will understand them based solely on..well..your understanding.
i do not say that as a slight but rather a statement.
trying to convey complex thought patterns by way of text can be so..limiting.

everything i do or say i do so with spirit in mind.
sometimes i fail..sometimes i succeed.
i am human.
with a spirit! ziiiiing!
anyways..
i really do enjoy our conversations.
you are a pleasure my friend.
namaste.
(look that word up btw..its a great word)