Introducing the new Apple iPerson complete with multi touch and volume control, doesn’t it feel good to touch, doesn’t it feel good to touch, doesn’t it feel good to touch.

My world is so digital, I have forgotten what that feels like.
It used to be hard to connect when friends formed cliques, but now it’s even more difficult to connect now that clicks form friends.

But who am I to judge…

I face Facebook more than books face me hoping to book face to faces, I update my status 420 space to prove Im still breathing; failure.
To do this daily means my whole web wide world would forget that I exist. But with 3000 friends online only 5 I can count in real life, why wouldn’t I spend more time in the world where there are more people that LIKE me. Wouldn’t you?

Here it doesn’t matter if I am an amateur person, as long as I have a pro-file, my smile is 50% genuine and 50% genuine-HD, you will need blu-rays to read the whites of my teeth, but im not that focused.

Ten tabs open, hoping, my problems can be resolved with a 1600 x 1700 revolution, this is a problem with this evolution, doubled over, we used to sit in tree tops, till we swung down and stand up right, then someone slipped a disc, now we’re doubled over at desktops.

From the Garden of Eden, to the branches of Macintosh, Apple picking has always come at a great cost.
iPod, iMac, iPhone, iChat, I can do all of these things without making iContact.

We used to sprint to pick and store Blackberries, now we run to the Sprint store to pick Blackberrys, it’s scary.
I can’t hear the sound of mother nature speaking, over all that Tweeting, and along with it is our ability to feel as it’s fleeting.

You would think these headphone jacks inject in the flesh the way we connect, the disconnect, power ON. So we are powerless, they got us love drugged. Like e-pills, so we e-trade, e-mail, e-motion like e-commerce because now money can buy love, for 9.95 a month – click!

To proceed to checkout – click! To X out where our hearts once were – click!
I’ve uploaded this hug, I hope she gets it – click!
I’m making love to wife, I hope she’s logged in – click!
I’m holding my daughter over a Skype conference call while shes crying in the crib in the next room – click!

So when my phone goes off in my hip, I touch and I touch and I touch, because in a world where there are voices that are only read and laughter is never heard or I’m so desperate to feel that I hope the technologic in reverse the universes so the screen can touch me back, and maybe it will, when our technology is advance enough to make us human again.

whomever made this video is powerless, probably will be logging into his welfare account online with a government fingerprint scanner soon

I completely disagree with his definition of what terrorists are. Look at what Israel are doing to the Palestinians:

They've built enormous fences around hundreds of thousands of them, often separating them or isolating the people there from other villages. Arrests, delays and degradation at these checkpoints is commonplace, and this is often just so they can go to work, or visit friends. During special events such as Jewish holidays, the West Bank can be under military closure for more than a week.
http://mideastposts.com/2011/05/02/humiliation-and-degradation-easter-at-qalandiya/

The Israeli's then illegally settle or continue to expand on what is often privately owned Palestinian land.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/world/middleeast/21land.html?hp&ex=1164171600&en=2e03da87b76e6581&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Then they burn their olive trees, desecrate their mosque's, beat their children and kill adult civilians.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/204101.html

What can the Palestinians do to fight back? Well pretty much nothing due to the fact Israel receives billions of dollars in military supplies and funding each year from the US Government. The UN criticizes Israel's actions and International law states that expansion of many of the settlements is illegal, however the Palestinians are literally powerless.

Many Palestinians over the years, including women, have decided to blow themselves up in public, often killing many people, children included - these people therefore are labelled terrorists. So I have to ask, which of the actions I've described that the Israeli's/US are involved in against the Palestinians would be considered as moving them more towards a type 1 civilization?

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

He was a senile, clueless, puppet president who advanced some of the most damaging and costly policy in US history, he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, he introduced free market economic reforms that have ravaged our economy, middle class and labor sector, he cravenly targeted the weakest and most powerless people in the country, and he sold weapons to Iran and drugs in inner cities to fund death squads in South America.....
...but, he sure new how to deliver a joke.
Blasphemy.

He was a senile, clueless, puppet president who advanced some of the most damaging and costly policy in US history, he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, he introduced free market economic reforms that have ravaged our economy, middle class and labor sector, he cravenly targeted the weakest and most powerless people in the country, and he sold weapons to Iran and drugs in inner cities to fund death squads in South America.....

...but, he sure new how to deliver a joke.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Props. A well composed joke.

Yep his writers were pretty good...can't let him go off on his own because he was known for saying some really insane things.

The first video features a white woman in a crowd of white people. She singles out a lone black woman and then proceeds to bully and berate her. She makes it clear that these attacks are done in the name of her country and the white race, which is a cruel way to insinuate that she has the approval of the rest of her countrymen and fellow white people on that tram.

>>> That's a pretty bold assumption on your part. You believe she thought the orwellian serfs would back her up somehow? She is surrounded by Black people on that train--including one that could choke her or cut her throat from behind--and for good measure, there's a woman wearing a burqa in the background. It is more likely she had some mental disability, putting her kid in danger.

Thankfully someone stepped in and called this woman's bluff, which served to change the tenor of this exchange from a tense game of intimidation to a lone racist babbling nut.

The guy in the second video BEGINS his exchange as a lone racists babbling nut. He is a single black man in a crowd of white people.

He shouts out terrible things that he obviously has no intention or ability to carry out. No one takes him seriously. There is no bullying and no tension. People are laughing at him.

>>> Watch it again. There are other Black people on the train. And the nut's targets are not laughing. At all.

>>> Once again, you're making assumptions of questionable merit. First, you can't tell the level of someone's combat experience merely by sight, and if he's truly crazy he'll be immensely strong. Second, he's holding a glass bottle. He could've just as easily struck the woman to his left, with or without breaking the bottle first.

>>> Trying to summon up stormfront as a scary demon is laughable. Compare their ranks, which I assume aren't close to a few thousand, to the budgets and memberships of the NAACP, ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center.

You may believe you're "calling me out" and that's fine, you have every right to speak up. Individuals and group behaviors we can debate all day. However, the elephant in the room, with his buttocks spread across both videos, is the fact the French nutball was not condemned--by anyone--for his antics and there were no police looking for him after the fact.

You can be against intolerance or indifferent to it, but not selectively intolerant.












>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Let me break this down.
The first video features a white woman in a crowd of white people. She singles out a lone black woman and then proceeds to bully and berate her. She makes it clear that these attacks are done in the name of her country and the white race, which is a cruel way to insinuate that she has the approval of the rest of her countrymen and fellow white people on that tram. Thankfully someone stepped in and called this woman's bluff, which served to change the tenor of this exchange from a tense game of intimidation to a lone racist babbling nut.
The guy in the second video BEGINS his exchange as a lone racists babbling nut. He is a single black man in a crowd of white people. He shouts out terrible things that he obviously has no intention or ability to carry out. No one takes him seriously. There is no bullying and no tension. People are laughing at him.
Context matters. If I say 'I'm going to kill you' in a dark alley with a gun pointed to your head, it means something very different than if I say it after you accidentally spill coffee on my new shirt.
The above video has been bouncing around the hate cesspools of the internet - like Stormfront - in an attempt to show parity between these two very different events; parity between an empowered bully and a powerless fool.
Now you could have framed this as 'hey look at this crazy drunk racist guy, what an idiot' and you would have had no problems, but that's not how you chose to frame it, and as a result, this post didn't go that well for you. I'd rather not have to call you out like this. It's obviously upsetting to you. But when racial issues that resonate with the Stormfront crowd also resonate with you, you might have problems. Sort yourself out.

Let me break this down.

The first video features a white woman in a crowd of white people. She singles out a lone black woman and then proceeds to bully and berate her. She makes it clear that these attacks are done in the name of her country and the white race, which is a cruel way to insinuate that she has the approval of the rest of her countrymen and fellow white people on that tram. Thankfully someone stepped in and called this woman's bluff, which served to change the tenor of this exchange from a tense game of intimidation to a lone racist babbling nut.

The guy in the second video BEGINS his exchange as a lone racists babbling nut. He is a single black man in a crowd of white people. He shouts out terrible things that he obviously has no intention or ability to carry out. No one takes him seriously. There is no bullying and no tension. People are laughing at him.

Context matters. If I say 'I'm going to kill you' in a dark alley with a gun pointed to your head, it means something very different than if I say it after you accidentally spill coffee on my new shirt.

The above video has been bouncing around the hate cesspools of the internet - like Stormfront - in an attempt to show parity between these two very different events; parity between an empowered bully and a powerless fool.

Now you could have framed this as 'hey look at this crazy drunk racist guy, what an idiot' and you would have had no problems, but that's not how you chose to frame it, and as a result, this post didn't go that well for you. I'd rather not have to call you out like this. It's obviously upsetting to you. But when racial issues that resonate with the Stormfront crowd also resonate with you, you might have problems. Sort yourself out.

By "closest at hand", I didn't mean that you grabbed it right away. While you did spend years coming to Jesus, it's no coincidence that you did, IMO. You say that among religions, you were particularly prejudiced against Christianity for it's implausibility. This doesn't surprise since it was the one you were most familiar with, and so the one you had seen the most problems with, until you investigated the other ones, and found them even worse. As you have noted several times yourself, growing up in the West, you were also strongly prejudiced towards Christianity, since a large part of our cultural ethos and moral code stems directly from it, even for us atheists. So, if you were going to discover that one religion was the true one, it would almost certainly be a strain of Christianity as it's the one that fits your own culture's moral code the best. If you'd chosen Voodoo instead, then your careful search of religions would be something worth pointing to as evidence.

I was prejudiced against Christianity because I didn't believe Jesus was a real person. I had never actually seriously investigated it, and I was also remarkably ignorant of what Christianity was all about, to the point that it might strain credulity. So no, it wasn't due to familiarity, because there wasn't any. I was just naturally inclined to reject it because of that doubt about Jesus.

At the point at which I accepted it, I had already rejected religion altogether. I was no more inclined to accept Christianity than I was Voodoo or Scientology. I had my own view of God and I viewed any imposition on that view as being artificial and manmade. The *only* reason I accepted Christianity as being true, as being who God is, is because of special revelation. That is, that God had let me know certain things about His nature and plan before I investigated it, which the bible later uniquely confirmed. My experience as a Christian has also been confirming it to this day.

These definitions, especially the ones about Satan are really self-serving. You declare that you have the truth, and part of that truth is that anyone who disagrees with you is possessed by the devil, which of course your dissenters will deny. But you can counter that easily because your religion has also defined satanic possession as something you don't notice. Tight as a drum, and these definitions from nowhere but the religion's own book.

My view is not only based on the bible but also upon my experience. I first became aware of demon possession before I became a Christian. I had met several people who were possessed by spirits in the New Age/Occult movement. At the time, I didn't know it was harmful, so I would interact with them and they would tell me (lies) about the spiritual realm. I thought it was very fascinating but I found out later they were all liars and very evil. It was only when I became a Christian that I realized they were demons.

I don't think everyone who doesn't know Jesus is possessed. If not possessed, though, heavily influenced. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin, and does the will of the devil, whether they know it or not. The illusion is complex and intricate, traversing the centers of intellect, emotion, memory, and perception, and interweaving them; it is a complete world that you would never wake up from if it wasn't for Gods intervention. The devil is a better programmer than the machines in the Matrix.

Actually, it was a very different feeling from that. I didn't feel I was the target of any conspiracy. I had stumbled into one --my group of friends-- but I was ignorant of the conspiracy before I had my experience. After I had it, I realized that they were all part of something bigger than me that I could never understand, and that I was actually in their way, that my presence in their group was really cramping their style a lot, slowing things down, forcing them to get things done surreptitiously. I realized they weren't going to directly remove me for now, but I didn't know how long their patience would last. So I removed myself, and hoped they'd leave me alone. In hindsight, they were horrible friends to begin with, so it was no loss for me. Losing those friends was a very good move for me.

Whatever they were involved in, it sounds like it wasn't any good. I can get a sense for what you're saying, but without further detail it is hard to relate to it.

Again, you're claiming you are right, and everything untrue comes from Satan, and if I have any logical reason to doubt your story, you can give yourself permission to ignore my logic by saying it is from Satan and that's why it has the power to show the Truth is wrong. So, any Christian who believes a logical argument that conflicts with the dogma is, by definition, being fooled by Satan, and has a duty to doubt their own mind. Even better than the last one for mind control. It does away utterly with reliance on any faculty of the mind, except when their use results in dogmatic thoughts. Genius. Serious props to whoever came up with that. That's smart.

God is the one who said "Let us reason together". I accept that you have sincere reasons for believing what you do and rejecting my claims. If you gave me a logical argument which was superior to my understanding, I wouldn't throw it away as a Satanic lie. I would investigate it and attempt to reconcile it with my beliefs. If it showed my beliefs to be false, and there was no plausible refutation (or revelation), I would change my mind. The way that someone becomes deceived is not by logical arguments, it's by sin. They deceive themselves. You don't have to worry much about deception if you are staying in the will of God.

Like, if you say you believe God exists, I say fine. If you say you know God exists, I say prove it's not your imagination. If you say evolution is wrong, ordinarily I wouldn't care what you believe, except that if you're on school board and decide to replace it with Creationism or Intelligent Design in the science curriculum, then I have to object because that causes harm to children who are going to think that they are real science, and on equal footing with/compatible with/superior to evolution.

Have you ever seriously investigated the theory of evolution? Specifically, macro evolution. It isn't science. Observational science is based on data that you can test or observe. Macro evolution has never been observed, nor is there any evidence for it. Micro evolution on the other hand is scientific fact. There are definitely variations within kinds. There is no evidence, however, of one species changing into another species. If you haven't ever seriously investigated this, you are going to be shocked at how weak the evidence actually is.

evolution is unproved and unprovable. we believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.

sir arthur keith
forward to origin of the species 100th anniversay 1959

You may be right. I may be right. I think it's more likely that I'm right, but that's neither here nor there. How do you know you're not seeing things that aren't there? My experience proves the human mind is capable of doing so and sustaining it. The bible could have been written by several such people. Maybe in that time and place, people who ranted about strange unconnected things were considered to be prophets, and once plugged into the God story, they went to town. I'm not saying it's true, just a possible theory.

There isn't anything I can say which will conclusively prove it to you. The reason being, because my testimony is reliant upon my judgement to validate it, and you don't trust my judgement. You are automatically predisposed to doubt everything I have to say, especially regarding supernatural claims. So asking me to prove it when you aren't going to believe anything I say about it is kind of silly. All I can say is that I have been around delusional people, and the mentally ill, very closely involved in fact, and I know what that looks like. I am as sharp as I ever have been, clear headed, open minded, and internally consistant. You may disagree with my views, but do you sense I am mentally unstable, paranoid, or unable to reason?

Also, the prophets in the bible weren't ranting about strange, unconnected things. The bible has an internal consistancy which is unparalled, even miraculous, considering that it was written by 40 different authors over a period of 1500 years in three different languages.

If I was "in it" and deceiving myself then, I was in something and deceiving myself before. My beliefs about all supernatural things remain unchanged by my experience, that's to say, I still don't believe they exist.

I didn't either, so I understand your skepticism. Until you see for yourself that material reality is just a veil, you will never believe it. But when you do see it, it will change *everything*.

First, not claiming to have created anything doesn't mean he didn't do it, or that he did [edit] claim it and the records were lost. Two, hold the phone -- this rules out Christianity. Genesis states the world was created in six days a few thousand years ago, or something. You can argue that this is metaphorical (why?), but surely you can't say that world being flat, or the sun rotating around the Earth is a metaphor. These are things God would know and have no reason to misrepresent. Since it's God's word, everyone would just believe it. And why not? It makes just as much sense that the Earth is round and revolves around its axis.

There is no reason to include Gods who made no claim to create the Universe, which is most of them. If their claims are lost in antiquity, we can assume that such gods are powerless to keep such documents available. What we should expect to find, if God has revealed Himself, is an active presence in the world with many believers. This narrows it down to a few choices.

I don't argue that this is metaphorical, I agrue that it is literal. I believe in a young age for the Earth, and a literal six day creation.

[On re-reading the preceding argument and the context you made the claim, it is a stupid see-saw argument, so I'm taking it back.] Consider also there are tens of thousands of different strains of Christianity with conflicting ideas of the correct way to interpret the Bible and conduct ourselves. Can gays marry? Can women serve mass? Can priests marry? Can non-virgins marry? And so on. Only one of these sects can be right, and again, probably none of them are.

The disagreements are largely superficial. Nearly all the denominations agree on the fundementals, which is that salvation is through the Lord Jesus Christ alone. There are true Christians in every denomination. The true church is the body of Christ, of which every believer is a member. In that sense, there is one church. We can also look at the early church for the model of what Christianity is supposed to look like. The number of denominations doesn't speak to its truth.

2. The method itself doesn't take into account why the religion has spread. The answer isn't in how true it is, but in the genius of the edicts it contains. For example, it says that Christians are obliged to go convert other people, and doing so will save their eternal souls from damnation. Anyone who is a Christian is therefore compelled to contribute to this uniquely Christian process. I can't count the number of times I've been invited to attend church or talk about God with a missionary. That's why Christianity is all over the world, whereas no other religion has that spread. Also, there are all sorts of compelling reasons for people to adopt Christianity. One is that Christians bring free hospitals and schools. This gives non-truth-based incentives to join. The sum of this argument is that Christianity has the best marketing, so would be expected to have the largest numbers. The better question is why Islam still has half the % of converts that Christianity does, even though it has no marketing system at all, and really a very poor public image internationally.

Yet, this doesn't take into account how the church began, which was when there was absolutely no benefit to being a Christian. In fact, it could often be a death sentence. The early church was heavily persecuted, especially at the outset, and it stayed that way for hundreds of years. It was difficult to spread Christianity when you were constantly living in fear for your life. So, the church had quite an improbable beginning, and almost certainly should have been stamped out. Why do you suppose so many people were willing to go to their deaths for it? It couldn't be because they heard a good sermon. How about the disciples, who were direct witnesses to the truth of the resurrection? Would they die for something they knew to be a lie, when they could have recanted at any time?

3. This kinda follows from #1, but I want to make it explicit, as this, IMHO, is one of the strongest arguments I've ever come up with. I've never presented it nor seen it presented to a believer, so I'm keen for your reaction. It goes something like this: If God is perfect, then everything he does must be perfect. If the bible is his word, then it should be instantly apparent to anybody with language faculties that it's all absolutely true, what it means, and how to extrapolate further truths from it. But that's not what happens. Christians argue and fight over the correct interpretation of the bible, and others argue with Christians over whether it's God's word at all based on the many, many things that appear inconsistent to non-Christians. In this regard, it's obvious that it's not perfect, and therefore not the word of God. If it's not the word of God, then the whole religion based on it is bunk.

The issue there is the free will choices of the people involved. God created a perfect world, but man chose evil and ruined it. Gods word is perfect, but not everyone is willing to accept it, and those that do will often pick and choose the parts they like due to their own unrighteousness. We all have the same teacher, the Holy Spirit, but not everyone listens to Him, and that is the reason for the disagreements.

I didn't say people needed it. I said having a religion in a scary universe with other people with needs and desires that conflict with your own makes life a lot easier and more comfortable. Religion, in general, is probably the greatest social organizing force ever conceived of, and that's why religions are so attractive and conservatively followed in places with less beneficial social organization (i.e., places without democracy), and lower critical thinking skills (i.e. places with relatively poor education).

People come to Christianity for all sorts of reasons, but the number one reason is because of Jesus Christ. There is no such thing as Christianity without Him. I became a Christianity for none of the reasons you have mentioned, in fact I seem to defy all of the stereotypes. I will also say that being a Christianity is lot harder than not. Following the precepts that Christ gave us is living contrary to the ways humans naturally behave, and to the desires of the flesh. As far as education goes, Christianity has a rich intellectual tradition, and people from all walks of life call themselves followers of Christ. You're also ignoring the places where Christianity makes life a lot more difficult for people:



In contrast, in times and places where people on a large scale are well off and have a tradition of critical thinking, the benefits of having a religion as the system of governance are less apparent, and the flaws in this system come out. It becomes more common for such nations to question the authority of the church, and so separate religion from governance. The West has done so, and is leading the world. Turkey is the only officially secular Muslim nation in the world and has clearly put itself in a field apart from the rest, all because it unburdened itself of religious governance when an imposed basic social organization structure was no longer required.

Then how might you explain the United States, where 70 percent of people here call themselves Christian, 90 percent believe in some kind of God, and almost 50 percent believe in a literal six day creation?

You're right, and you may not know how right you are. Modern scientific investigation, as away of life, comes almost entirely from the Christian tradition. It once was in the culture of Christianity to investigate and try to understand the universe in every detail. The thought was that understanding the universe better was to approach understanding of God's true nature -- a logical conclusion since it was accepted that God created the universe, and understanding the nature of something is to reveal the nature of its creator (and due to our natural curiosity, learning things makes us feel better). The sciences had several branches. Natural science was the branch dealing with the non-transcendent aspects of the universe. The transcendent ones were left to theologists and philosophers, who were also considered scientists, as they had to rigorously and logically prove things as well, but without objective evidence. This was fine, and everyone thought knowledge of the world was advancing as it should until natural science, by its own procedures, started discovering natural facts that seemed inconsistent with the Bible.

This isn't entirely true. For instance, Uniforitarian Geology was largely accepted, not on the basis of facts, but on deliberate lies that Charles Lyell told in his book, such as the erosion rate of Niagra Falls. Evolution was largely accepted not because of facts but because the public was swayed by the "missing links" piltdown man and nebraska man, both of which later turned out to be frauds.

That's when people who wanted truth had to decide what their truth consisted of: either God and canon, or observable objective facts. Natural science was cleaved off from the church and took the name "science" with it. Since then, religion and science have both done their part giving people the comfort of knowledge. People who find the most comfort in knowledge that is immutable and all-encompassing prefer religion. People who find the most comfort in knowledge that is verifiable and useful prefer science.

The dichotomy you offer here is amusing; Christianity is both verifiable and useful. I'll quote the bible:

Mark 8:36

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

>> ^messenger:

>> ^CreamK:

These people need to to stay on course. Nonviolent protests against a violent oppression works, it just is going to be very tough on individuals. Think Gandhi, he libreated a whole country and shed no blood. But protesters need to obey the law, even when it is going to hurt.
The police once again was powerless, giving contradictive orders and finally started to create chaos. That way they can manipulate the crowds to breaking the law and then arrest you. The only thing keeping deaths out of this is the use of cameras, otherwise they would've beaten them from the start. But all it takes is one martyr and this will blow over very quickly. Then comes national guard, the army and martial laws.


I was with you until the two sentences at the end.
I would agree with this change.

"But all it takes is one martyr and this will blow up very quickly. Then comes national guard, the army and martial laws and the Occupy Movement will expand exponentially."

These people need to to stay on course. Nonviolent protests against a violent oppression works, it just is going to be very tough on individuals. Think Gandhi, he libreated a whole country and shed no blood. But protesters need to obey the law, even when it is going to hurt.

The police once again was powerless, giving contradictive orders and finally started to create chaos. That way they can manipulate the crowds to breaking the law and then arrest you. The only thing keeping deaths out of this is the use of cameras, otherwise they would've beaten them from the start. But all it takes is one martyr and this will blow over very quickly. Then comes national guard, the army and martial laws.

Unfortunately she's doing her job, It's just for the wrong people.

Oh, and the irony of her statement about the public getting 10 or so billion dollars out of the bailout, well.... guess who paid for the bailout? Right, the public, so that means the public didn't make any money at all from the bailout, they just lost slightly less than the full amount (if her statement is true) in addition to the ten million or so jobs lost since the last unemployment peak around 2004.

Having said that, arguing over a few billion is just semantics at this point, the bigger issue is the corporate money in politics, the immoral wars, the unchecked destruction of the environment and food supply and the powerlessness of the average person in the larger political climate.

One of the most important changes that needs to happen now (in relation to this topic) is for the average person to start looking for real content in news programming, rather than watching it to be entertained by a handsome/pretty looking anchor with bells and whistles scrolling across the screen.

^Not cool. I don't like that. Powerless to do a damn thing about it, except register my protest. @Yogi. I protest.

[edit] And I hope this doesn't derail the whole comment stream. This Grayson/O'Rourke dust up is interesting, there are things to be said about the video. I hope this doesn't turn into a squabble match about the word "faggot." I'm backing out of this right now. I said my say. I don't like what yogi said. I only register my protest so that if some casual VS visitor sees yogi's comment, they don't think that everyone on the Sift is okay with the casual bigotry. This is the way I have figured out how to deal with asshat comments without getting accused of censorship. I have achieved my objective. I'm done with this conversation.

Tax is not the point here. Sure taxing the rich assumes redistribution - but we all know any money that goes into the govt at this point vaporizes into national debt. The poor won't see a cent.

It's ambulance at the bottom of the cliff anyway - The point is the graph.

The hole in the system is:

- Consumers can control the market by which products / services they purchase
- But they can't control how profits are distributed internally. The ceo's - all on each other's boards - reward each other with a fatter and fatter cut of the pie.

Outside corporations the market is a democracy. But INSIDE corporations the class structure is a clear oligarchy with no checks or balances and a totally powerless workforce.

The inequality of distribution of wealth has to be fixed INSIDE the corporations remuneration for effort. It cannot be fixed by funneling money back through the government machinery.

1a. The ravages of globalization are the result of a lack of effective regulation. We can’t regulate the world, but we can end the international trade agreements that pit our labor against 3rd world slaves. We can create public sector jobs to take up the slack for the failings of the market. We can tariff the fuck out of countries (looking at you China) that pollute the environment and lower the value of labor. It’s not a matter of skilled vs. unskilled jobs. Unemployment is hitting the working class and working poor alike. Much of the current disparity is between people with similar levels of education.

1b. Huge double standard here. You recognize private contributions to society as things of value, but you are blind to the benefits the public sector provides you every waking (or sleeping) moment of your life. Whatever satisfaction you provide your consumers pales in comparison to the security, infrastructure, safety standards, constitutional rights, court system, labor protections and other benefits that have allowed you the opportunity to live, work and thrive in this society. You take these things for granted because you’ve never known a life without them. Spoiled libertarian brat (is there any other kind).

2. I believe there is a lot of truth to this.

3. Obviously this is important to you, but I’m not getting the significance of the article you linked to or it’s political or scientific ramifications? Some scientists are skeptical about a controversial hypothesis. Are they holding up the creation of a master race of brilliant chess playing super-Jews? I’ve got enough to read at the moment. Give me the cliff notes version.

I don’t want to live in a society of slaves and masters. I don’t want to live under absolute socialist equality either. A hybrid system that strikes a compromise between the benefits of socialism and capitalism, run with the oversight and transparency of a working democracy would be best.

The market should be free to do it’s thing just so long as it does not become harmful to society (and itself). When the market fails to create jobs, the public sector should step in. When markets pollute or exploit, the public sector should step in. The public sector should also handle services that are too important to gamble away in the private sector like health care, social security and education.

It really comes done to whether or not you believe that humans have a moral obligation to care for one another. I do absolutely. I don’t want to be anyone's slave or master. I don’t want to be a millionaire. I’d just like to live in a country that doesn't punish the meek and powerless for being meek and powerless.

Don't tell blankfist, but you are a much better debater than he. Good chatting with you, Chilaxe.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Very creative! Here's what you need to know about BHO.
He's a child of privilege posing as a downtrodden victim who somehow climbed out of America's drowning pool of "racism".
Every president ever has existed under an altered image. George Washington didn't really cut down a cherry tree.
He isn't terribly bright but he knows what he's doing. He was nominated to assuage idiots' "White Guilt." He is an affirmative-action president with no real political credentials.
Right, people who aren't very bright become professors of constitutional law at Harvard all the time.
He's got a grudge against America, American Exceptionalism and free market capitalism. What the "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright believes, BARACK believes.
I have a grudge against Exceptionalism and free market capitalism, but still love America with all my heart. Do you still beat your wife?
He's likely a closet atheist, but for now obviously can't admit it.
There he goes proving his intelligence again. Bush wasn't a Texan either.
He has had no achievements to speak of since taking office, unless--UNLESS--you understand what his true motives are: turn America into just another forgettable Euro-dump with no identity. Suddenly it makes sense!
Does getting Osama count? Before you say that it's the Seals that got him, remember that Obama came under heavy fire for thinking we should reach into Pakistan.
"BULLPLOP QM! Barack wants JOBS for Americans!" As long as he embraces Keynesian rubbish, it won't happen. And he can't turn back now.
You don't know that his strategy won't work, this problem was a long time in the making. And it will be a long time getting out. (I've seen Morganthau quote)
The libmedia works for BHO as if they were being paid directly from the White House. They hide his gaffes, downplay his goof-ups and hide the results of his schemes.
I can't argue with this one. I stopped watching the news a long, long time ago.
America is worse off now than when this jug-eared socialist was elected.
Again, no one... no one... could have stopped the giant snowball yet.
I'm not a liberal (anymore) so I can't match wits wit the brilliant geniuses here, but the results of the BHO Fraudsidency speak for themselves. Every day.
I don't know why I feel the need to defend this president. Especially considering that I think all politicians are completely full of shit. I guess I was just way more comfortable with him than any of our other options. Do we really believe that he's anything but a powerless figurehead anyway?

Also, as far as the video is concerned, the problems we face are way more complicated than "working harder" and "getting more". A complex system composed of billions of individuals cannot be boiled down to a few simple rules. And the rules we have will constantly have to change as people adapt to the new system anyway. All kindergartners are taught that one plus one equals two. It takes a lifetime to even visualize what it truly takes to have a functioning society.