yo, how is referring to lady bits as mussels sexist?

And my god this speech is a lot of repetition.

Oh god, this is SO true. First game was tedious and repetitive, played the second one at a mates thinking "this couldn't be as bad as the first time"... and it was.

@shinyblurry


We seem to be getting into a lot of repetition in this thread, so rather than going line by line, I'm going to attempt my points and reactions to yours with fewer quotes, hopefully hitting the important themes. I don't want to minimize anything you've said, so if I skip anything you feel is a separate issue and is cogent, feel free to draw my attention back to it specifically, but check first and see if you can't answer that same point with something I've already said in here.

Before any quotes, I'll give my own overarching point: Life without a higher purpose may be ultimately meaningless (I'll get more into what sense I mean), and that makes life more difficult than if there were ultimate meaning, but that has no bearing whatsoever on the truth value of the existence of Yahweh. You cannot derive Yahweh's existence (or any deity or pantheon) from your claim that life is easier that way. [Edit: Turns out I never actually get to that conclusion in my comments below, so you might as well address it here, but after you've read the rest.]

My overarching point is to demonstrate the cognitive dissonance inherent in your position ... if this world is not under the sovereign control of God, it is doomed to destruction ... You live as a Christian does, judging what is good and evil … these are just chemical reactions in your brain … why be a slave to chemicals?… you have no rational justification for … saying your sense of right and wrong is any better than the psychopath, or that yours should be preferred.

There's no cognitive dissonance in my mind –at least, not about doing the right thing. I acknowledge a life without God has no ultimate purpose, and that in the grand scheme of things, the Earth is going to be swallowed by the Sun in a few billion years and nearly all traces of humanity will disappear with it, and at that time, nothing anybody has ever done will matter because there will be nobody left for whom it can matter. With that in mind, it does seem odd that despite realizing this, I would still care about doing the right thing.

But the fact is that somehow, in the context of my own little 80-year microblip in the lifespan of our planet, I do care. I just do. I have nothing more than a pet theory about why I care. I care, and I care a lot. I suppose I'm somewhat curious as to why I care, but it's not of primary importance for me to know. I just do, and it's pleasing to notice that just about everyone else around me does too. The only question for me is how to follow this desire of mine to be good given my circumstances.

And why should I reject being a slave to chemicals? The chemicals MAKE ME FEEL GOOD, remember? Should I purposefully do things that make me feel bad? Why on Earth would I even consider it? Ridiculous.

I reject the description that I live my life "as a Christian does", as if Christians invented or have some original claim being good. All humans, regardless of faith or lack thereof, believe in the value of humans (or, any societies that don't value humans go extinct very quickly). We all generally shun murder and violence, foster mutual care, enjoy one another's company, feel protective, have a soft spot for babies and so forth, and have been doing all of this as a species since before Christianity began.

So I would turn it around and say instead that it's Christians who go about their lives living like normal humans, but thinking they're being good because their religion tells them to.

I can claim that I have a stronger sense of what's right and wrong than the psychopath simply because they are defined as lacking that sense (or, perhaps non-psychopaths are defined as people having that sense). And you're right that I do not claim that my way of determining which actions are appropriate is inherently superior to the psychopath's. As it happens, my way of determining morality puts me among the overwhelming majority, and so it's relatively easy for me to mitigate the negative impacts of people like that by identifying and avoiding them. I don't say that my way should be preferred to the pshychopath's; I just notice that it is, and I'm grateful for that, and for the fact that psychopathy is not a choice.

You're drowning in a sea of relativism, where a justifies b and b justifies c and c justifies d, and this goes into an infinite regress.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Can you give an example of a justification to infinite regression that would cause some kind of problem unique to non-thesitic morality?

People worship because they're made to worship … 1 Romans says that God has made Himself evident to people in the things He has made. So, rather than people worshiping because they wanted to avoid meaninglessness, they worship because it the most natural thing for them to do which matches their experience.

I don't accept that it's any more natural to worship Yahweh than some other deity or pantheon or idol, and I can't imagine how you could justify such a position without referring to dogma. Ask a Muslim. He'll tell you with the same conviction that Allah is the natural way and show you his own dogma. 100 years ago, a Japanese would have told you it was natural to worship the Emperor, and today he'd say it's natural to worship ancestors. My point is that any worship will satisfy our natural urge to worship, which is why almost all people worship something, and the object of worship you're brought up around is the one you're most likely to be comfortable with worshipping, naturally.

People don't naturally conclude life is meaningless; they know from their experience that it is very meaningful. They are taught it is meaningless through philosophy and the ennui that comes from modern life. You will never find a population of natural atheists anywhere on the planet.

The problem —and one that I fell into myself— is the conflation of two senses of the word "meaningless". For example, I can say without conflict that the planet and humanity is doomed and so forth, so our actions are ultimately meaningless, AND that interacting with people gives meaning to my life. Now, in the first sense, I mean there's no teleological purpose to my life. In the second sense, I mean certain people and things in my life give fulfillment/bliss. If by "natural atheist" you mean people who have no supernatural practices including ancestor worship or anything, then yes, you're right, I don't believe such a society exists. To me, this points to the universal human tendency to worship something—anything, and to feel better about life when we do so. Slaves to chemical reactions in their brains, as far as I'm concerned.

I can speak on depression because I used to be depressed. I know what it is like, and having come out of it, I am qualified to speak on what I can clearly see as being the number one issue; hopelessness.

Your anecdotal evidence about depression doesn't make you an authority on *the single cause* of depression. Some depressives follow your pattern, and others don't. I don't. When I'm depressed, my feeling isn't hopelessness. In fact, these days, I'm feeling rather hopeless, but I'm not depressed.

If someone feels it right to hurt and steal from you, who are you to tell them that they ought not to do that?

I would never say that someone "ought not to do" anything on objective moral grounds. If I ever said something like that (I wouldn't use the words "ought" or "should"), it would be on the understanding that this person either knows the local laws and is violating them, or more likely shares a moral foundation with me, is acting against it. Either way, that person, upon consideration, would probably prefer not to be doing that mean thing, and is only doing it to satisfy some other need of theirs that they consider higher than their need to do the right thing by me. (This isn't to justify the bad act, but to show you how I think about bad acts and the people who do them. In other words, I don't believe people get encouraged by Satan or anything to do bad things.)

[me:]There’s nobody who’s going to judge my soul when I’m dead, so in that sense, once I’m dead, it won’t matter to me in the least what I do now once I’m dead because I’ll be dead.

[you:]You say this with certainly but I think you have to recognize that this is your hope. I wonder where this hope comes from? Since you've never been dead before to see what happens, what makes you so sure about it? Could this information about life after death exist in the 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 percent of things that you don't know?

It's not my hope. I believe that dead is dead. Much simpler than your belief. Much more likely too. You're implying that I'm following some faulty reasoning about the afterlife. Among the things I don't know are an *infinite number of possibilities* of what could happen in the afterlife, one of which is your bible story. My best guess is nothing. Since nobody's ever come back from the dead to talk about it (Did nobody interview Lazarus? What a great opportunity missed!), nobody knows, so there's no reason to speculate about it ever. Your book says whatever it says, and I don't care because to me it's fairy tales. I'd have to be an idiot to live my life differently because of a book I didn't first believe in. Just like you'd be an idiot to live like a non-believer if you believe so much in Yahweh.

I would also ask how you think the brain understands the complex moral scenarios we find ourselves in and rewards or doesn't reward accordingly? Doesn't that seem fairly implausible to you?

It's quite plausible. I'm no biologist, but I'm sure there's a branch of evolutionary biology that deals with social feelings. My own pet theory is that these feelings are comparable to the ones that control the behaviour of all communal forms of life, like ants and zebras and red-winged blackbirds. It's evolution, either way, IMO.

What makes someone a bad person?

In the absolute sense, religious faith, only, can bring that kind of judgement as a meaningful label.

In the relative sense where I would colloquially refer to someone as "a bad person" (my prime minister, Stephen Harper is an example), I mean someone who has shown they are sufficiently disruptive to other people's happiness due to acting too much in their own self-interest that they're best removed from influence and then avoided. But I would only use that term as a shorthand among people who knew that I don't moralize absolutely.

Do you think this could have something to do with the fact that the bible says you should do things you don't want to do, or that you should stop doing things you don't want to stop doing?

An interesting question, but no. I don't believe it because everything I see points all religion being a human invention.

Your atheism leaves you in the position of not being able to tell me that something like child rape is absolutely wrong. In your world, there is no such thing, and if everyone thought it was right, it would be.

Your hypothetical is an appeal to the ridiculous. It simply is a fact that just about everyone —including child rapists, I'm guessing— believes that child rape is wrong for the simple reason that it severely hurts children. If it increases a person's suffering, then it's wrong. I can think of nothing simpler. Your hypothetical is like one where a passage in the bible prescribed child rape. Would it be OK then? Does the bible that say that rape is wrong? Does it say you cannot marry a child?

[me:]Yahweh’s morality is nowhere near as simple as a secular morality. Where in those two commandments of Jesus does it say that using condoms or allowing same-sex couples to marry is wrong? In fact, saving lives, preventing unwanted pregnancies and allowing all loving couples to get married are ways to love your neighbour, and they’re exactly what I would want my neighbour to do or advocate for on my behalf.

[you:]God wrote His commandments on our hearts, which is the reason your feelings tell you what is right and wrong.

And elsewhere…

[me:]First, you’re talking in circles. If Harris’ model of morality is arbitrary, then so is Jesus’ model of “do unto others…” because they amount to pretty much the same thing, and what one person wants his neighbours to do may not be the same as someone else’s, etc. At some level, we’re going to have to determine for ourselves what’s right and what’s not.

[you:]We have the freedom to obey or disobey God. The one thing God will never do is make you obey Him. In that sense, you have to determine whether you will do what is good or evil.

In both cases, you didn't address my point. 1) I'm stating that Yahweh's laws are far, far more complex than secular morality. You countered that Yahweh's laws were as simple as Jesus' two rules. I showed that was wrong with my AIDS in Africa example (condoms saving lives). You can address that, or you can agree that Yahweh's laws are more complex that Harris' model of secular morality. 2) I also pointed out that Jesus gave us a moral model that requires the individual to determine for themselves based on fixed criteria what's good and what's not. "… as you would have your neighbour do unto you…" implicitly requires the individual to compare their actions with what they themselves would want someone else to do to them. That means relying on their own understanding. This contradicts your other statements that we shouldn't rely on our own understanding. You see? To follow Jesus' second law, you must rely on your own understanding.

[me:]Third, do you picture a world where everyone suddenly agrees that torturing babies is OK? Do you really believe that without religion people have absolutely no internal direction whatsoever, and will accept torturing of babies as acceptable? I don’t. So, no, Harris’ moral system does not allow for the possibility of torturing babies.

[you:]This is really an argument from incredulity. I'm sure no one pictured an entire society could be convinced that killing millions of jews is a good thing, but it happened.

So your answer is yes? You think that without religion, society may decide torturing babies is good because it decided that killing Jews was good?

It's a bad comparison anyway. Genocide happens all the time, even in religious societies (by the 1939 census, 94% of Germans were Christian, FWIW). You can't compare this with an entire society suddenly deciding that torturing children is morally correct. If I ever heard of such a baby-torturing society existed, I'd immediately assume it was in accordance with their religious belief, rather than just what they all decided was OK, wouldn't you?

[me:]If you think I’m being ridiculous, what do you think is more likely: that a society somewhere will suddenly realize that they feel just fine about torturing babies, or that a society somewhere will get the idea that it’s their god’s will that they torture babies? Human instinct is much more consistent than the will of any gods ever recorded.

[you:]What about all of Pagan societies throughout the ages that sacrificed their children to demons?

You're making my point for me. Paganism is religion. Non-believers would never justify a habit of killing their own children.

The fact is, in a meaningless Universe you simply can't prove anything without God. You actually have no basis for logic, rationality, morality, uniformity in nature, but you live as if you do. If I ask you how you know your reasoning is valid, you will reply "by using my reasoning".

You're slipping back into solipsism. We agreed not to go there. I'm not going to answer any of those things.

It wasn't clearly explained or animated.

Below are some of the powers of 3. Then I subtracted 17 from that number repeatedly (same as subtracting a multiple of 17) until the result was lower than 17. This result (in bold)is the final answer we're looking for. Notice that in the first 16 results, all the numbers from 1-16 are there with no repetitions. If you continue to higher powers, this exact pattern of results repeats forever (note that the three results from 3^17, 3^18 and 3^19 are the same as 3^1, 3^2 and 3^3). This relationship is the definition of "primitive root". So 3 is a primitive root of 17. After that, I think the video got a bit easier.

3^1=3 3-(0*17)=3
3^2=9 9-(0*17)=9
3^3=27 27-17=10
3^4=81 81-(4*17)=13
3^5=243 243-(14*17)=5
3^6=729 729-(42*17)=15
3^7=2187 2187-(128*17)=11
3^8=6561 6561-(385*17)=16
3^9=19683 19683-(1157*17)=14
3^10=59049 59049-(3473*17)=8
3^11=177147 177147-(10420*17)=7
3^12=531441 531441-(31261*17)=4
3^13=1594323 1594323-(93783*17)=12
3^14=4782969 4782969-(281351*17)=2
3^15=14348907 14348907-(844053*17)=6
3^16=43046721 43046721-(2532160*17)=1

3^17=129140163 129140163-(7596480*17)=3
3^18=387420489 387420489-(22789440*17)=9
3^19=1162261467 1162261467-(68368321*17)=10
.
.
.

>> ^raverman:

Somewhere around the 3:00 mark, my definition of easily explained starts to differ...

I'm assuming you're not being sarcastic, and giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're not trolling. You really believe Romney wants to negotiate? Romney? That's not what he does. Obama's the negotiator. I don't think his message is "buried." He's coming for the middle class' money, but he can't say that out loud. Here's the actual independent numbers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfJTI3N1vOs

It's not that we just want OURS (we do, but that's not the problem). What's happening here is that no matter how Romney cuts the pie, at best, the rich will get huge whopping tax breaks, and the middle class will see a tax increase. This isn't about OURS and entitlement. This is about mice voting in the cats.>> ^bareboards2:

I gotta say... I am starting to see Rmoney's point, after all this repetition.
One of the problems in our society is that we all want OURS. We want the other guy to pay, or the other guy to have their "entitlements" cut. But if it is US paying, or US having our "entitlements" cut, we get all buttsore.
There is a lot of chatter about the tax system needing to be overhauled. That is really what Rmoney is saying -- let's overhaul the tax system, and let's do it together through negotiation.
But dang, his message is so buried in Wonk Speak.

I gotta say... I am starting to see Rmoney's point, after all this repetition.

One of the problems in our society is that we all want OURS. We want the other guy to pay, or the other guy to have their "entitlements" cut. But if it is US paying, or US having our "entitlements" cut, we get all buttsore.

There is a lot of chatter about the tax system needing to be overhauled. That is really what Rmoney is saying -- let's overhaul the tax system, and let's do it together through negotiation.

But dang, his message is so buried in Wonk Speak.

Off topic -- is anyone else getting annoyed at the young ethnic faces that Rmoney is trotting out for these interviews? Not a single angry old white guy in sight... It smacks of not-very-good manipulation. And especially on Fox News -- that kind of diversity isn't going to help him.

>> ^kymbos:

Spoiler alert
Am I the only one who is just a tad let down by this season? Breaking Bad is the best TV since Deadwood in my opinion, but previous series have had me constantly on the edge of my seat. This one, I'm just kind of watching play out. I mean, season 4 - come on. That was gripping.
The last two episodes where Walter just becomes the kingpin and makes piles of money just left me a little empty...


I'm impressed that they like to be different. Working for Fring and the eventual high stakes is actually the kind of plot which they could have ended the entire show with the implication that White takes over, completing his ascent (or descent if you like).

If they didn't take chances they would still be stuck in that RV and we might never have had a Fring.

Season [edit] 5 [/edit] was impressive because it was about getting back into the saddle and the writers engineering the plot developments logically from what went before. I've always loved that about the show and the way they still get to focus on these characters and also extract great acting performances. Jonathan Banks was outstanding. And Dean Norris' awkward face when Walter visited his office was priceless.

As for pure gripping tension I think Dead Freight delivered in spades.

I know what you mean by "empty". I suspect this is how Walter feels after all his accomplishments, most of which seem to be about staying below DEA radar. Could they have moved him to a new location and allow him to develop into a Fring-style respected businessman with a dark secret? But then that would be close to repetition.

>> ^bobknight33:

In the sense that Evolution is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.
>> ^PostalBlowfish:
In the sense that Creationism is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.



I can tell from the repetition that you like me.

Sticking our head in a hole in the ground like that is also charming.

Reality has a well known liberal bias.

Very well done Info-graphic.


One of the reasons that wasn't discussed in the video is that athletes are now faster and stronger than earlier decades mainly due to sponsorships. These sponsorships serve as an income for the athlete and allows training to be their only job. Non-stop repetition for 3 years and 10 Months shows.

What the music lacked to complete the parody would be some repetitive banging motif designed to worm it's way into your head and annoy the hell out of your brain.

" In America, it has been, for so long now, the belief that guns designed to kill people indifferently and in great numbers can be widely available and not have it end with people being killed, indifferently and in great numbers. The argument has gotten dully repetitive: How does one argue with someone convinced that the routine massacre of our children is the price we must pay for our freedom to have guns, or rather to have guns that make us feel free?"
-Adam Gopnik (New Yorker)

this is fucking AWESOME!!!

Episode 1 (Monday May 28th) 0:22 Changes 0:27 Sound & Vision 0:44Cygnet Committee 0:56 Aladdin Sane 1:04 Watch That Man 1:03 Scary Monsters Episode 2 (Tuesday May 29th) 1:14 Fantastic Voyage 1:22 Kooks1:28 Be My Wife 1:33 The Prettiest Star 1:38 Subterraneans Episode 3 (Wednesday May 30th) 1:42 Sweet Thing 1:49 Starman 2:14 Speed Of Life2:22 Unwashed & Somewhat Slightly Dazed 3:02 Future Legend Episode 4 (Thursday May 31st) 3:07 Fame 3:18 What In The World 3:30 Station To Station Episode 5 (Monday June 4th) 3:38 Wild Is The Wind 3:44 Heroes 3:53 Golden Years 3:57 Fascination 4:55 An Occasional Dream 5:03 All The Young Dudes Episode 6 (Tuesday June 5th) 5:15 Ziggy Stardust 5:26 The Width Of A Circle 5:40 Young Americans Episode 7 (Wednesday June 6th) 6:06 The Jean Genie 6:11 Rebel, Rebel 6:24 Moss Garden 6:31 Fashion Episode 8 (Thursday June 7th) 6:45 Up The Hill Backwards 7:10 Big Brother 7:35 When The Wind Blows
Episode 9 (Monday June 11th) 7:50 Drive in Saturday 7:57 After All 8:04Somebody Up There Likes Me 8:27 Oh! You Pretty Things Episode 10 (Tuesday June 12th) 8:46 Hang Onto Yourself 8:57 It's No Game 9:01 Boys Keep Swinging 9:18 Pin Ups Episode 11 (Wednesday June 13th) 9:27 Life On Mars 9:34 Repetition 9:42 The Man Who Sold the World 9:54 Eight Line Poem 10:34 Space Oddity Episode 12 (Thursday June 14th) 10:46 Across The Universe 10:59 Diamond Dogs 11:19 Cracked Actor




This was pretty much my experience playing the game. Throughout the game you'll be observing incremental changes of data, make small adjustments, and continue the simulation. This would have been great for a real life computer programmer who can sit long hours in front of the computer without much visual stimulation and be able to observe text based data for hours on end. For others, it is a complete nightmare.

I've tried to love paradox, I really did. I played all three Europa Universalis series, Victoria and the Crusader Kings. They're all equally repetitive and data focused. I thought I was stupid for not being able to enjoy the game. But I later found out that it's not about me being stupid. It was just a matter of preference.

Paradox fans argue that Hearts of Iron is suppose to be an 'action-based' series and that people who want more action should play that instead. LOL That's a load of bollocks lol lol lol Calling Hearts of Iron an 'action-based' game is like an African villager calling Cheetah the fastest thing in the world, not having seen airplanes or trains or cars in his or her life. The game is equally slow, except instead of 'build textile' buttons, you get 'build tanks' buttons.

That's gotta be the most repetitive song ever recorded.

Not playing it how Blizzard intended for it to be played is exactly why there is such an uproar over the game in the first place. Everyone wants to have their way with their Blizzard game and Blizzard ain't complying. Yeah the DRM sucks but there isn't all that much different in Diablo 3 than any other recent Blizz title. It's a scheme. Anyone who has played any of their games since War3 knows that the games are multi-tiered so what at first seems like a simple, boring, repetitive game ends up being finely tuned & crafted in the end. By ACT III on Nightmare mode it becomes apparent and if one doesn't get that far into the game then they really shouldn't be giving it a review because they should just know better from the get-go.

It's got some of the best multiplayer aspects that I've had in recent memory, running relentlessly across vast floors trying to avoid pools of Hell, or encountering impossible zombie mobs moving 50% faster than normal. It's a lot of fun. Blizzard is a different company than they were back in the day, I don't like it as nearly as much as the first Diablo, for sure... but it's still fantastic. It's still Blizzard. Great mechanics - for what it is - better art direction than most games, great sound and the absolute insanity of it on the more difficult modes where it really comes together. Yeah there are a lot of things that piss me off about D3...

I must admit it seems to me like Blizz didn't give it their all on this one... maybe so they can make sure people go back to their cash cow
The levels are barely random, what the ^%$# is up with the lag? There is too much loot like Yahtzee said, the normal mode IS too easy, nightmare & normal are light/day... don't waste our time. The art direction is great... but not as great as I'd expect from Blizz, muddy textures, accesses the hard-drive too frequently, some of those "cut-scenes" are whack, on Hell mode the random encounters are more difficult than the main quests, no in game auction house? Why the hell is that loot popup menu always there? The story is dumb as fuck. But, regardless that is what the Diablo series is - not much innovation here except in chaos and mechanics and that is good enough for me. We can't compare every Blizz game to WoW... and that is exactly why D3 is great, it's like WoW-ultralite meets Left For Dead, nothing wrong with that.