Bay 12 Games Forum

Condolences. Empty word, mostly, but it's all I can offer. Stay moving until the shock lessens, mourn, and then see what step three is.

Porn and masculinity (from a male perspective)

Is... the book any good? Intro and stuff doesn't really say much other than 'hey, went out and asked some folks on the ground.' Is link post thumbs up or thumbs down?

As for the apple thing... blegh. I maintain again it's going to suck switching over to linux, as I'm not very code minded, but the other OS companies have officially gone evil, so what the hell other choice is there? Real trick is going to be finding third party hardware manufacturers that don't buy from that fox-whatever but still has hardware I can actually afford

Yes, I'm aware of the white man's burden parallel, but... no. Just... no. It's called teaching, providing technological know-how, materials where it's needed. Bringing the rest of the world up to parity instead of sitting here exploiting them. Not colonization and exploitation. Mankind's (obviously theoretical/unpracticed, but it's in most of the books!) moral obligation to mankind, to see suffering reduced when possible. You're legally culpable in the states if you just sit there and watch when a person is being tortured or murdered. There's a moral parallel there.

Or do you actually think just... letting what's happening in places like China happen is a good thing? That not providing the tools and knowledge base to modernize agricultural practices is a moral action? That "benign neglect" is the right way to go?*

I'm not invoking white man's burden. I'm not saying, "Hey, you have to end up exactly like us." I'm saying, "HEY! We've fucked up doing what you're doing before. Let us show you how to avoid our screwups!" And then helping them get the point they can at least punch a little in the big leagues. We can help people skip a few steps on the industrialization ladder, steps that caused us a whole hell of a lot of problems. We can also help the reach the point they're not completely defenseless and exploitable by more industrialized countries.

Because if they can afford to do that in on a material level, economic and technological parity is something I have trouble seeing as a bad thing for our species. We have some really frakking cool toys and knowledge of how to use them without causing quite so many problems as using them used to cause. I'm saying, yanno', share the ruddy toys with the kids down the street. To a larger extent than we are already, anyway.

Full information exchange and infrastructure/tool aid when it'd help. Suck up the short term cost and don't just hand out money; give materials and possibly short term specialists. Work to help people be more able to help themselves.

* Though that's completely ignoring that our actual actions as-is is both not neglect and only partially benign. But hell, I basically said that I can see that, can see saying benign neglect is the way to go. It just doesn't feel right to me. There's something off on the moral aspect of that.

Quote from: SalmonGod on January 27, 2012, 12:17:43 am

U.S. drops 27 places in Reporters Without Borders international press freedom index following Occupy crackdowns.

actually fixed

... what's wrong with comic sans, anyway? Font is font, so long as it's readable.

Doit. Feast on rice, beans, and meat for the next fortnight.

I feel immensely sad because it feels like everything is falling apart despite my best efforts and against its own interests. You'd rather destroy yourself and your friends/band than let me fix it...?

Do remember that whole 'let me fix it' thing is what prefaces a lot of abusive relationships. Considering your line of work, I'd imagine you run into that a lot Not saying the interaction between you two is abusive, mind, just noting the parallel. It's just a very dangerous line of thought to take when dealing with other humans, no matter how well intentioned. Especially for the one trying to fix things

You've made the offer, done what you can. You can't actually stop someone from ruining themselves and the people around them if they don't want to stop. You try to engender that desire if you can, but if that fails... better to contain the fallout as well as possible than try to stop a ship already sunk

In more mundane sadness, I'm about to go to sleep. Is about eight o'clock at night, which wouldn't be so bad if I slept a full eight hours, but the last half dozen or so times I've tried this I woke up between eleven and midnight, which honestly kinda' sucks, because it leaves me either going to sleep again at like six or seven (and sleeping 'till around noon) or completely frakking wrecked around and past midday. I hate needing to sleep, so much.

Science. Fuck yeah!

Where... where does that link even go? Facebook? Here? The facebook... redirect thing, or... whatever that was. Didn't work for me, bleh.

That said. Pretty impressive. Between stuff like that and cybereyes we might have blindness beat by the time I die