http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_...ty_Act_of_1924

There have been many heinous atrocities committed within the U.S. for many years but few merit unique notoriety. For decades, people presumably with poor intellect or individuals and even families were forcibly sterilized. Social Darwinism has been prevalent for ages scapegoating people with no defense.

Every time I hear someone sheepishly follow authority I am sickened. Milgram's experiments have turned out to an accurate depictation of the way humans have been inculcated by malevolent and vacuous culture worldwide.

Some people anticipate a brighter future and others fear for the next generation. Nobody gives a fuck about opinion.

Gee guys, entertainment sure is wonderful. Let me go get my 36oz. gold chain and rejoice in pursuit of the next 57 oz.

Any other misanthropic articles to share?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/he...c6c&ei=5087%0A

I understand the increased risks of geriatric surgery and certainly understand why some patients would rather not undertake intrusive care or surgeries when there is very little to gain.

What I have a problem with is the culture of "respect" that's growing around this type of thing. What scares me is the fast-spreading idea that the elderly should be left alone to die naturally. With "honor" and "dignity".

I absolutely believe people should have a right to choose in this matter. I absolutely believe that a person should be able to choose to not undergo any life-saving measures.

But what protections are in place against abuse? Against peer pressure, both by families and doctors? Against insurance companies refusing to pay if "slow medicine" becomes the socially-accepted standard?

It scares me because I see this happening far too easily. Nobody wants to seem like a selfish asshole. They'll make a decision like this because they think it's what their kids want. Or what their doctors want. Or what they think they're supposed to want.

People's thoughts are too easily molded by others. Rigid safeguards must be put in place.

As for me, I have no problem appearing selfish. Should my life be at risk I'd want every possible course of action taken to save it. Even if it meant becoming a head in a jar.

Only in a brain-death situation would I want to be put down. Anything less is simply unacceptable to me.

So long as I have conscious thoughts I'll want to live.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/wo...=1&oref=slogin

I'm sure some of you have already heard about this before but how could nobody have found out until now? If I was imprisoned would I just take it and not try to free myself? Did she? We see movies/stories of people like Hannibal Lecter but honestly this man is far worse imo. I doubt the mother had no knowledge of what was going on, especially since she seemed so carefree as to the story of her daughter venturing off to join some "cult."

I too disagree in capital punishment but if I was the daughter I would've went on an Oldboy-esque rampage if my own father did that to me. This isn't really shocking seeing as what humans have done to each other for millennia. I feel vile and sickened just reading this story.

A while ago I posted this. Below is an op-ed to the WSJ that basically blasts it as crap art.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1209...ml?mod=Letters

I fully agree with the WSJ article. I also still think everything I did when I wrote the previous post.

It's an interesting project. It's not art, however. (Well, I'll grant the creative writing part of her project can be considered art. The act--should she carry it out--would not be)

I'm really fucking sick of people throwing the word 'art' around like a trendy banana sucking a lollipop, wearing a fedora and black shades, grinning like it's better than you.

You can't just call something 'art' and have it be such any more than I can call an apple a dildo. If you're trying to say that 'art' is simply a term we use to define a certain type of thing then I completely agree with you. But all words are like that. I can twist any noun into the same pretzel mess art is in.

It's completely pointless to do so, however. A word is only useful so long as it's, you know, useful. If you stretch the word too far it will shatter and fragment and become such pitiful entities as "modern art" or "classical art". Because it's not the fucking word that matters, but the thing. And as long as humans exist we'll continue to use--or fabricate--words to describe these things. Nobody wants to stand in a fucking village saying "Smurf, smurf the smurfing smurf by smurf!"

Something can have value without being "art". This is, in my mind, a large part of the problem. For some reason we can't bring ourselves to assign value to things that serve no function if they aren't art. Which is retarded. If someone wants to pierce their tongue with a shard of dirty glass, suspend themselves in the air and bleed down on series of umbrellas then fine. Great. If they have a reason that makes me think I'll certainly say it has value.

But why should that be considered art?

I'm sure someone, somewhere will read this and think, "Oh, you're just being picky about what you want to consider art. Stop being so narrow-minded."

My answer? Of course I am. That's my entire point. Words have arbitrary definitions that we can assign at will. There's literally no limit to what we can define art as. Pretty soon source code becomes art. A dog pissing in snow becomes art. A man packaging up his feces and selling them in cans becomes art. A dog dying in a corner becomes art.

If I can stretch the definition wide enough I can say everything is art. And if everything is art, then art is everything. Thus, everything is everything.

The word loses all meaning.

So no. This isn't art. Not because it has no value. Not because it isn't creative. Not because it shouldn't be treated with respect.

But it's not fucking art. It's a different beast entirely. Like art, it's a form of expression. It's valuable. It's just not art.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/24/va.tech.niu/index.html

I could ramble off a number of quotes, including the famous "If guns are outlawed then only outlaws will have guns." But I won't (well, other than that one). We've all heard them.

Those in favor of making guns illegal would simply rather blame an inanimate object rather than the person using the weapon. It's easier that way. We don't need to address the social problems behind rampages like this. We can just blame guns.

And we'll cite statistics about lower murder rates in countries that ban guns. Of course, we'll conveniently ignore statistics about nations with guns who still have less crime.

We'll pleasure ourselves with correlation and simply assume causation--it's easier that way.

We'll do all this to avoid blaming ourselves. We'd rather blame a weapon rather than trying to understand how our society manages to produce individuals who want to become mass murders.

We'd rather believe that if guns were illegal, criminals wouldn't be able to get guns.

We'd rather believe that if guns were illegal, our society would stop producing killers.

Because the land before guns was one of gum drops and fairy tales, where nobody killed anyone. Where calm and peace reigned, maternally looked after by green faeries.

It's easier that way.

I'm grinning fairly evilly when I read this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0...y_n_97194.html

OK, so it's just a creative fiction project that (much like War of the Worlds) has been taken seriously by far too many people.

The ambiguity and controversy that this brings up, however, is impressive. Reading comments on Digg suggest even adamant pro-choice people are against this.

The reason for this explains why abortion is still a controversial subject after all this time. We still can't collectively decide what life is. And no, it's not as simple as you think.

You say life begins at conception--but why isn't the egg itself "alive"? Because a fertilized egg comes from two genetic donors? What if I grafted skin from my neighbor's foot onto my arm? Would it then be wrong for me to let the grafted skin grow for a week, then kill it and throw it out?

It's ambiguous. And no matter how much we think we're for or against abortion we never really sit down and critically think about things like this.

Which explains why I was grinning while reading it. I love being forced to think.

My own conclusion is that what she wrote about doing is not wrong. Disgusting, maybe--and certainly cause for psychiatric evaluation should someone actually want to do it. But not wrong. Liberty over one's own body must be defended. Without this fundamental right you get crap like the war on drugs (among other things).

I don't know when life begins No, that's not true. I know when life begins. I don't know when life matters. Certainly my skin cells aren't deserving of protection. Certainly not a zygote. Certainly not a fetus less than a few weeks old.

You simply can't punish people who do things you disagree with if they're not hurting someone. You can't pass judgment like that just because you're disgusted.

This is gold. Pure gold.

And why inmates should be treated with humanity and dignity.

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/2669008/

Society must be protected from criminals, of course. We must never lose sight of the fact that nobody is born evil, however. No one is born desiring to become a criminal. That so many people end up incarcerated is an ugly stain on our social fabric.

Laugh all you want, but it's impressive what they got right:

o The importance of computers
o Shopping on-line
o Credit cards
o Direct Deposit
o On-line education
o On-line trip planning

They failed to predict the Internet, of course, which I believe will go down in history as the single most important human achievement (to date). Yes, more than movable type. Yes, more than antibiotics.

Things they completely missed the mark on due to sensationalism-inspired stupidity:

o The idea that entire city structures would change to include domes and central planning. Even though the basic idea of a city hasn't changed in a thousand years, entire metropolises would be torn down and rebuilt over the span of 40 years. Yeah. Right. Fucking retards.

o The idea that computers would control cars. We're still several generations away from people accepting this today, even though the technology to do it is probably within our grasp. Thing is, a single death related to a computer mistake would be more feared by people than a thousand drunk driver deaths.

o Extrapolating the historic trend of transportation ease forward. The world keeps getting smaller, true, and to writers in 1968 they could only extrapolate the trend of faster, cheaper transportation. Instead we see more people using airlines than forty years ago, but certainly not intercontinental rockets. And yet the world has gotten smaller, due to information exchange. What the authors failed to predict was a shift from physical presence to an acceptance of virtual meeting places, conference calls, etc.

o Space travel. Small-minded people typically viewed space as yet another frontier to conquer. Space is a bit different than an undiscovered island or even Antartica, though, ain't it? Add to the fact that there just isn't much gain to be realized from having humans in space, other than an economy of space tourism (which is finally starting to appear). It will be slow in coming. The adventuring part of me is determined to reach at least orbit in my lifetime. It's something I'd pay almost anything to do. The rational part of me realizes that humans have little business being there.

Anyway, fun to read. Want my predictions for 2048?

o People will still drive cars. Many will still be gasoline-based, but at least half will be electric.

o Nuclear power will experience a brief resurgence, however will be rendered mute by more efficient energy use and generation. No single source of power will prevail, but a combination of solar, tidal, wind, nuclear, etc will provide sufficient cleaner alternatives (at least in the first world).

o Computers will be integrated into nearly everything and communicate with each other in ad-hoc networks.

o While advanced nano-tech will still be a ways off, primitave nano-tech will be ubiquitous. Clothing dyes, paint and simple plastic structures will be able to change colors and shapes. Initial medical treatments using the tech will be available.

o Threat of large-scale world war will be practically null due to a level of economic interdependency never before seen. Most economic debates will revolve around world economy as a whole.

o People will travel less, telecommute more.

o Most people will still reject implants.

o Life expectancy will not increase drastically from what it is today.

o There will be an archival crisis in which data stored on digital medium begins to get lost.

o Everything important will be on-line.

o The Internet will fracture into at least 3 separate independent networks.

Those are mine, anyway ;)

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/...tories/21.html


I have no pity. None.

I'm not a callous person, but seriously--WHAT THE FUCK.

I understand how easy it is to get in trouble with credit. I realize we don't teach fiscal responsibility. And I surely have sympathy for people with large amounts of debt who accept responsibility and learn from the experience.

I don't respect these fucking retards. You have bills you can't pay--so what do you do? Put it on a credit card?! Brilliant move. And I assume this couple canceled EVERYTHING but rent, electricity and the most basic food needs. Right? Right??

Oh, they continued to support their failing business with credit? And tried to keep their standard of living high? Lulz.

I'm really fucking sick of people's woe-is-me economic stories. For every one legit case of someone being screwed over by a lack of regulation, health care, unemployment or whatever there's a hundred idiot assholes who believe they should be taken care of by others.

Only people who take responsibility for their problems and accept their portion of the blame deserve sympathy.

We gave out some credits in the last debate; I'll be more generous this time. I think this thread was interesting and active. So let's try it again ;)

This week: Assisted Suicide

Click this link for absolute horror: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599...90-401,00.html

OK. So in all actuality I'm in favor of doctor-assisted suicide should a person honestly want it. My guess is that almost everyone here would agree with that, so I'm going to argue against assisted suicide.

My main points will be:

1) Condoning assisted suicide devalues life.
2) Once doctors are able to end a life at someone's choice, it's not far off to end a life due to resource limitations / etc.
3) Once the public is desensitized to doctor-assisted suicide, forcing it on one's relatives / criminals / etc would be easier to accept.
4) People who want to commit suicide can do it on their own without a doctor's help.

Feel free to pick one or all of these points to respond to. Again, evidence and statistics are nice but what we really want here is some persuasive debate.

Intro:

Welcome to the first DeadGod Debate! Many of you (myself included, of course) are fairly opinionated on a variety of subjects and capable of expressing yourself clearly. I'd like to take advantage of this and get some interesting, involved debate going ;)

There's only one rule: No personal attacks.

Other than this feel free to lie, cheat, manipulate, troll, etc to persuade your point. Victory is getting in the last say ;) You don't have to argue the side you personally believe in if you don't want to.

There will be a bounty of 500 credits for excellent arguments. There will be similar (but smaller) bounties for short humorous replies (we like sarcasm).

It's probably best to keep things short in the beginning, stating your points and minimal evidence / persuasion. As the thread grows we can get more and more in-depth.

Now, on to the opening arguments ;)

Global Warming

In this debate I will be taking the view that global warming is a myth. My specific claims are below.

1) The current warming trend is a natural occurrence and not caused by man.
2) Environmentalists routinely exaggerate claims to spread fear.
3) International treaties to curb greenhouse gases are BAD.
4) Reducing consumption will have a net harmful effect on humans.

If you want to disagree, choose a point to disagree with and provide a brief explanation why.

http://www.cato.org/view_ddispatch.p...ate=20080211#3

It's inevitable that the US will follow in the UK's footsteps and become a surveillance state where nearly all our public activity is recorded. And yes, soon facial recognition software and other similar algorithms will relieve humans the job of sorting through all the garbage.

I don't like it either but it's inevitable. There's too many practical excuses idiots can use to justify it.

No, they won't deter crime. Yes they will erode privacy. No, it wont be the end of the world.

I think over the next century or so we're going to enter a world without much privacy. It's a terrifying thought, but to the kids who grow up in it I don't think it will seem like a big deal. There are certainly advantages to a transparently-open society. Certainly there is the risk of overwhelming groupthink and the destruction of individual freedoms but this isn't the only scenario.

The transparency works both ways. The proliferation of video recordings has caused problems for some people, no doubt. The Star Wars kid and various elephant-sized humans probably aren't too fond of the mocking they receive on YouTube.

Then again, how many police abuse cases have been brought to light via the same means?

A transparent society without privacy is terrifying because it requires faith and trust in your fellow man. We all have our moments of public stupidity and perversion.

Will it lead to a new era of Puritan morality police? Or will it lead to a greater understanding of our nature and an ultimately more permissive and compassionate society?

It's difficult to trust the masses who I mockingly refer to as sheeple beying over shiny things. Despite this, I remain optimistic about the future.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/he...gewanted=print

You know, I always advocate people should be free to choose to end their life if they want. I mean, it's their life, after all. I think counseling should be mandatory, of course--but anyone should be able to choose. Whether they have an incurable disease or have just been sentenced to to life in prison without chance of parole. It's their life. They should have ultimate authority over it.

That said, I simply cannot envision any circumstance in which I would want my own death hastened--as long as I was conscious. (Living without realistic possibility consciousness can't really called a human life, can it?)

If I'm conscious I can still think. I can still experience. I can still grow. I simply can't imagine wanting to stop this.

Granted, I'm not in these people's positions and probably can't imagine the hell of constant pain or feeling helpless. But understanding my personality and tenacity I just can't imagine ever wanting to let go.

My own feelings on this matter obviously tarnish my view on how other people feel. Since I would never opt for assisted suicide I have a very difficult time understanding how others could. I wonder if they're depressed and could be treated. Or if more effort should be given to relieving their pain. I try not to but sometimes I cast a moral judgment on them.

Rationally I think it should be allowed. Emotionally the thought leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

God I love these guys. They've done more to advance gay rights than most gay activists could ever dream of. I still wonder if they're geniuses at manipulating public opinion to be pro-gay, or if they really are just a cult of homophobic idiots.

So I've been waiting for this game for what feels like 3 years now and I hear it will actually be in stores between march and may of 2008. I'm not sure how exciting it is to me anymore, and it's flaws are starting to show more and more, but anyhow: Noteworthy trailers below (most outdated).



http://youtube.com/watch?v=T8dvMDFOFnA&feature=related
35 min demo (2006)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jpM1CsO0S0I&feature=related
character creation (2006)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=d7hsp7XQHKs&feature=related
outlook of multiplayer (2006)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=d75qNOlFjaY
roughly all the phases (2007)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vgZwMFVOXDY
Will Wright showing off (2007)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ONd2jppdOcI&feature=related
2007 trailer


It's a very tempting game. Really love the concept. I'm not sure what's changed in the past 2 years, but hopefully it's something for the better.

<3

I started playing this last Friday, then stopped over the weekend to do the AV grind in World of Warcraft. I couldn't take any more of that yesterday afternoon so started playing Jericho again, finishing it around 3am.

This very well could be my favorite single-player FPS to date.

It's amusing to read reviews of this game. Hexus' review in particular made me almost laugh out loud. Their complaints?

Controls aren't complex enough and ammo is too plentiful.

Wait, what? Are they honestly suggesting that they'd rather have clumsy controls and play the oh-noes-I'm-out-of-ammo-again game?

Look, I'll say this once, and only once: Making a game wherein the player never has enough ammo does not make it more "difficult"--it makes it more "frustrating". Fuck, what is this--1999?

Seriously, even if it does have some console artifacts (yes, it is a port) this is one of the funnest games I've ever played.

There's so many great things about its gameplay that break the trend of standard FPS games.

1) You get all your weapons at the beginning. Yay! OK, I understand the reasons for the traditional "Oh hai! Since you're here why don't you use this New Uber Shotgun instead! It's sitting under the stairs over there" meme. I never liked it, but I understood it. It's refreshing here to get all your weapons up-front. And you still have a sense in progression since you gain access to the various powers over time.

2) There's no health kits and ammo boxes laying around. Because we all enjoy hunting for ammo in secret areas, right? Because being forced to ration your ammo is fun, right? And it's not like you have infinite ammo. It's that it's restored to you (slowly) over time once you get the ability and (quickly) at each checkpoint.

3) Speaking of which, the checkpoints are event-based, not location-based. Which is really quite nice. Man I hated screwing up a checkpoint by going somewhere I shouldn't.

4) Not only are there no health kits, there's no health! If you take too much damage too quickly you die. If not, you live. That's great for people like me who would re-load just because they ended a battle with 90% health instead of 100%. It's a much better design than the standard hitpoint system.

5) The fact that your team fights with you is great. You can revive dead party members, so some fights can become purely support oriented, as you race around reviving fallen comrades rather than actually fighting. When you're separated from your team (or at least most of them) you tend to feel very vulnerable.


Of course there are some bad things about the game, mostly involving the fact that it's a console port. The limited graphics render range, for example, or the fact that the game makes heavy use of invisible walls to prevent you from walking off cliffs or going where you're not supposed to.

Really, the main disappointment for this game is that it wasn't long enough to support its vast depth. The gameplay could have gone so much deeper if only there were more content. Hopefully there will be an expansion or two which builds on the system already built.

Again, I can't speak highly enough of this game. It's definitely worth playing.

http://www.news.com/Playboy-strips-d...3-5857572.html
This is the first time I'm aware of that a non-pornographic video game has been advertised by using pornography. In playboy no less. Classy.

( for uncensored, WARNING: NOT WORK SAFE)

I for one support this idea of advertising. I think that despite hurt game sales we need to create a moat between adult video games and child-safe video games.

I think that video game developers can work more freely when not burdened by assholes like Jack Thomson and all the parents who don't parent, and I think having adult video games accomplishes this and things like pornographic advertising might make parents stop bitching and instead start parenting (i.e. keeping their kids away).

I'm not talking about having pornography in-game, by any means.

I just like the idea of not needing to censor your work to make it more crowd-pleasing.

You know, sometimes I'm not sure if gay people should be advocating their right to get married or abolishing the entire idea of marriage.



Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, there's a thousand and five marriage jokes. Yeah, plenty of them have the husband as the root of the jokes.

It still seems like a sexist, pointless institution.

From a personal point of view I want gay marriage for one simple reason--financial benefits. Tax breaks, I'd be able to get a Roth IRA, etc etc. But other than these selfish reasons I don't actually see what good marriage does.

And don't say, "It's for the children." An institution far, far better than marriage could be created that people entered into upon birth. Such a thing would be far better for kids than marriages, divorces and remarriages.

Historically it seems to me that marriage was primarily concerned with property. Not just the view of women as property, but of actual property.

Of course, the institution will never be overturned. So I guess the best choice is to push for equal rights. I just want my friggin' tax break.