Well - it has to be said... The reason that European defense budgets are so low is because the US's is so high. Europe ceded its defense to the United States after WW2. It is what allows places like France spend a pittance on defense and everything else on social spending like 'not-so-free' health care. Of course the good ol' boys in the system play games for profit. Golly gee whiz Sgt. Carter!

But if the US scaled back its defense to only 4% of the budget what would the reaction be? There would be whining like you've NEVER heard before from our buddies across the pond. Budgets dedicated to social spending would be forced to change. I doubt they want that gravy train to pull in to the station. It is what allows Europe to spend billions more on socialist programs and placate the people. Plus they get to stare down thier noses at the US and act all sanctimonius. For them, US defense spending is win/win.

I absolutely adore Dragon Age: Origins. Still found this funny, and he's got a few good points, but it doesn't take away from my infatuation with this game (...and everything else Bioware does...).

You live in Anaheim? Used to live in mexifornia myself. Tell me, at what point will you look around at all the destruction wrought by failed liberal policies (confiscatory taxes, fleeing businesses, greedy bullying unions, out-of-control spending & state bankruptcy, illegal aliens draining the system and lawlessly gaining territory) and realize the cause of it all is: failed liberal policies?

Has nothing to do with your intentions or personal desires but rather, the RESULTS of that which you support and oppose.

SRSLY, are you going to blame the nightmare on Schwarzendoofus the RINO and not those taxocrat majority politicians running the show (and everything else into the ground)?

>> ^blankfist:
Also, the Canadians around the reservations tend to treat the Native Americans as lesser beings. My gf, who is American and part white and black and East Indian and everything else under the sun (but mostly Native American), experienced the Canadian racism first hand. Most of the local white vendors would be extremely rude to her because they assumed she was from the local tribe.


Which province? If it's Quebec, you have to remember that they treat everybody like that. Furthermore, Quebeccers aren't Canadian, they're French-Canadian. The second part doesn't really apply at street level. I'm in British Columbia, but none of us claim to be British (those who aren't born in Britain, that is).

I'm a white guy, but I have enough Cherokee in me to be classified as Native American if the tribes would accept me. Which they won't. My girlfriend is mostly Native American, and her tribe won't even recognize her.

But, I look really white. Cracker white. Drywall white. I can tan like the dickens, but then it just turns back to pale honkey white as fast as the day is short.

The life on reservations is no picnic. My gf's nephews and her sister-in-law live on a Canadian reservation, and it's abject poverty. It's not that they don't have money, it's that they tend to value education as a lower priority and alcoholism and drug abuse is rampant. Theft is huge up there, too. None of her nephews can have nice things without them being stolen. Also, with the alcoholism and drug use there's a decent amount of violence. Also, the Canadians around the reservations tend to treat the Native Americans as lesser beings. My gf, who is American and part white and black and East Indian and everything else under the sun (but mostly Native American), experienced the Canadian racism first hand. Most of the local white vendors would be extremely rude to her because they assumed she was from the local tribe.

Now comes the part where I put my Libertarian hat on and sound like a complete racist. I disagree with reparations or any special funding given to the Native Americans by tax dollars. Hey, at least I'm consistent. The reason I believe this is because none of the people paying into the taxes are responsible for running the Natives off their land. It would make as much sense as us holding the entire Democratic party responsible for paying reparations because their party founder signed the Indian Removal Act which lead to the Trail of Tears (fact!). NetRunner had nothing to do with his party's racist founder, so it wouldn't be fair to blame NetRunner, right?

In order to make amends the people directly victimized and the people directly responsible for victimizing them would need to be held accountable. But, they're all dead. Now, let the comment downvotes begin.

Imagine how hard it was for Fox News to make this mass of dips look like people.

I expect they learned how to do it from CNN, MSNBC, CBS, & ABC by witnessing how they whitewashed out all the kooks from the Iraq War protests. I remember all too well how the news media was all fired up to make Cindy Sheehan look like a normal person. But it was awfully hard when every time she opened her big mouth she proved conclusively that she was absolutely, 100%, fling-her-own-poo, batcrap insane.

As to people voting for him now leaving. They need to wake up and realize the mans not a god. He wasn't gonna change the country into butterflies and rainbows with a snap of his fingers and an Alakazam.

Uh - Obama is plummeting in the polls with independants, moderates, and other 'normal' voters NOT because he isn't acting fast enough. The reason Obama has lost main street is because he was elected by people who THOUGH he was going to be a restrained, moderate, non-partisan president. But his first 9 months have shown Obama to be pretty dang close to exactly what the 'kook right' said he was... A tax & spend, big government, socialist leaning radical. That's not what America wants.

They don't want his stupid carbon tax scheme. They don't want his stupid nationalization of car companies, financial companies, and everything else he wants to take over to 'keep us safe'. They don't want his stupid attempt to re-make the AFL-CIO. They don't want his stupid plan to socialize the health care industry. Every time Obama opens his mouth he proposes yet another big government, radically leftist federal boondoggle. Obama has increased our deficit by over a trillion dollars, and he still wants to implement even MORE massive government spending. The people have had it, and that's what this protest was about.

If Obama wants to go down in history as the most popular president of all time, then he needs to scrap Cap & Trade, scrap Obamacare, scrap his union garbage, and stop trying to push big government. If he would just do that and balance the budget & pay down the deficit then he'd be popular. But he doesn't want to DO that because he's a prisoner of his leftist radical philosophy.

Lower taxes. Smaller government. Balanced budget. That's what the people want. Obama is focusing on all the wrong crap and he's paying for it in the polls.

see, I was a vegan for eight years. one of the actual strict vegans not just someone who calls themselves one. Then one day I woke up to how the world works. I am very glad this video is on here so people can see in fact what the mass meat industry is like. You actually get a taste of what you are a part of, and this is good. Because one of the main reasons I turned vegan was I was sheltered from the realities pretty well of what meat was how it was produced and everything else ( stupid as that sounds) but one day just as quick as it went it started an eight year ideology in my mind. all because the information was not talked about. shitty parents just wanting to have an easier job.

[redacted]

>> ^deathcow:
Occam's razor says this is fake -- the most logical obvious simple explanation is that they carefully staged all the seating in this classroom for a perfect camera angle, chose actors perfect for each role, had the teacher make several uninterrupted camera takes of this length, and carefully digitally motion sync'd the eraser and everything else with the moving camera angle.


Then why not have the beginning part be shorter or at least give us more of the aftermath? Or is my sarcasm detector off here?

Occam's razor says this is fake -- the most logical obvious simple explanation is that they carefully staged all the seating in this classroom for a perfect camera angle, chose actors perfect for each role, had the teacher make several uninterrupted camera takes of this length, and carefully digitally motion sync'd the eraser and everything else with the moving camera angle.

Im American thought the video was hilarious. I like British people but only have acquaintance with one but she lives here in America. Id have to say seems like both sides were offended and rightfully so. Pointing out somebody's short comings is easy we all fucking have them. Hell I dont like the fat American comments well because Im a fat American. But then Im groomed to be I live in a state where all the homes are miles from the grocery store and everything else. The sun is always heating the shit out of everything here you walk outside to your car in the middle of December and you have to change your shirt from all the sweat. As far as nutrition goes I guess my mother was too damned in a hurry from driving three hours in traffic to get home at 8 to feed her three kids. So in those conditions how could I be otherwise.

If you don't understand why Obama is not going forward with investigations and prosecutions, you are missing the fact that a number of high ranking Democrats were complicit in Bush's atrocities. Obama cannot move forward with both parties against him. It is tragic, but if he pushed for prosecutions he would be destroyed from both sides of the aisle, and everything else he wants to accomplish in the next four years would be lost.

I'm not saying it's a good reason, I'm just saying that's probably what is happening.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't. "Fortress America" did the world a whole lot of good in the 1920s and 1930s, didn't it? The problem is that the entire world wants America's 'stuff'. They want the food, the money, the weapons, the expertese, and everything else so they beg for it. If America withheld everything, they'd be condemned. We share it, and we get condemned by the people that don't want us giving stuff to the people 'they' don't like. There is no good solution. Wah wah wah.

>> ^thepinky:
A suicidal person who has deemed her life unworthy of living. Is it our place to decide whether her life is worth protecting? What are we protecting? Life? The quality of life?

There are a couple other forces at play here. First is the religious argument; Christians consider suicide to be a mortal sin. Second is that humans generally have a very strong instinct for self-preservation, and if someone is truly willing and able to commit suicide, then something is seriously wrong. Identifying and dealing with the problem may prevent the perceived need for suicide, and in the process, you've saved a life. Third, as I mentioned earlier, death is irreversible. As such, suicide is necessarily someone's final act, and everything else should be done first.

So when we try to prevent someone from committing suicide, we're protecting their own life, protecting the robustness of our species in a small way, and may be trying to protect their mind or quality of life depending on the circumstances.

>> ^thepinky:
The death penalty is a tricky subject. Some think it is unethical because it is not a perfect system. If even one innocent life is destroyed, the death penalty is wrong. But the guilty person might have rotted in jail for the rest of her life, anyway, and that is unethical as well. We would not abolish prisons because sometimes an inmate is innocent. The death penalty has been proved to improve the quality of life for the friends and family of the victim.

I'd like to see the research which proves that killing a criminal improves the quality of life for those he has victimized, because I don't believe it. I also question your assertion that a guilty person spending their life in jail is unethical; they have committed a crime and are living at a diminished quality of life for a specific period of time as their punishment.

Sorry for the wall of text, but it's split up - just three individual rebuttals(mostly). Three posts in one maybe? 1 is about potential life, 2 is our screwed up scale and the attacks made utilising the opponent's uncertainty and 3 is the broken terminology being used to implicitly argue.

If just one person is better off for reading just one of these points I'll be happy

Ok, some argument flaws to point out which I see have seen largely unaddressed so far:

1. Argument for potential life (I think thepinky used this one, as well as others). Left alone in its unique environment x will become y; z will not. This is pure inaction bias. The absence of taking action is an action itself. When making a choice, either doing something or not bestows the exact same responsibility given a neutral context. In real social situations, there are other actors which may have brought about a situation, etc, so it's a bit more complex there.

Basically, leaving a fertilised egg in place and removing it are both positive actions. You cannot say that there is potential life because of "what would have happened". This is also countered by pretty much any cell in the body being able to become an individual human being. From skin cells you scratch off to millions of sperm to eggs, they are all potential human beings. This is usually "countered" by saying it is innate potential, not just potential. That is the no true scottsman fallacy. It also stems from inaction bias.

What are the consequences? Whatever scale you use to rate or determine if something counts as a person you must apply it objectively to both the fertilised egg and everything else. Just prepare for cognitive dissonance, however, since when rating a fertilised egg's level of consciousness or personhood generally a sperm of unfertilised egg is pretty much rates exactly the same.

2. Which leads us to point two. The scale we try to make to classify varying levels of devlopment is completely messed up. This would be a scientific problem if only science were actually in the position to answer our questions to a degree of confidence. Nobody knows what constitutes consciousness or the nature of it. At the moment our most informed observations say that brains are conscious. We don't know how, why, if consciousness is anything but an illusion, if it is specific to brains (or things like brains), if it is physical, the nature of existence and so on!

The passive argument "Look at all these unasnwered questions in your reasoning! If you're more wrong, we're more right." is silly. It just makes that argument more "wrong"; your own retains however much wrongness it had!

Also, the absence of unanswered questions does not make a good argument. Wanna see me answer all questions in existence? God did it. There! No, you build a model and apply it to reality. The better it fits, the better the model. I heard things brought up like why do dogs and pigs not have more rights than human fetuses then? Good question. Our scale is messed up, but we at a species are trying. We can hope to eventually have these things sorted, if at all physically possible for us.

3. Being hung up on the term "human life" or similar. Arguing in a biological sense about whether a fertilised egg (or sperm, or egg) is "human" or not, is classed as part of the human species or other definition.

The problem is people stop at that definition. For example, "From a fertilised egg to birth to death it is always a human being, for such and such sound reasoning, therefor they have the interests of a person." In the case of being a human as in part of this species, you have to remember species is a distinction for purely usefulness purposes in biology. It is arbitrary and meant as a tool - it has no bearing to the actual debate at hand.

My point being, many of the terms used around here have no basis in the context of the argument. One person is talking about a human life in the strict biological sense as basis for personhood and the other is using a description more along the lines of sentient, conscious, able to feel, etc. Be careful around the terms human, life, etc.

That's it for what I can remember for now

So, despite everything we don't know, the best we can go on at the moment says a fertilised egg is nothing special, that a fly's brain is over 100,000 neurons, so what of that 50-cell blostocyst mentioned so much? The best we can determine is it's a gradual scale from no consciousness to more. Drawing lines is horribly messy but observation of reality at least says if it has no neurons it is no more different than any other clump of matter or cells or anything. So far. What happens if we try to draw the line closer, when we try and determine at which point it becomes "conscious enough"? Fierce debate. That is good, but right now debating whether a fertilised egg is anything special is drawing attention away from the important area.