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Author Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O  (Read 13006907 times)

TD1

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152295 on: July 13, 2020, 03:28:24 am »

Pedantic ramblings
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Boredom soon follows
I was all behind the haiku thing until you got the syllable count wrong.

Shame on you, sir. Shame. On. You.
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wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152296 on: July 13, 2020, 03:33:39 am »

From my perspective, what's really going on is that Wells only got it HALF right.

People BELIEVE it is descending into Morlocks and Eloi, but it's in actually 2 groups of Morlocks, who want to eat each other, one of which wants to pretend they are Eloi, going so far as to dress up and speak in squeeky voices, and the other who bases their entire worldview around trying to eat the other, and "being victimized" by not being allowed to do so. (ESPECIALLY if a centrist points out that the group they are trying to eat is exactly the same thing that they are.)

If you want a tortured analogy that is.


Basically, this is the age of IDENTITY Politics:  The democratic bloc has produced a mythical identity that their group stands for truth, justice (and the american way, err.. No sorry.. bad joke), equality, and all that stuff-- while in actuality being just as big of shills for big industry and monied interests as their opponents.  Their opponents on the other hand, have produced a mythical identity that stands in contrast to this one, and openly embraces its vices publicly (instead of just 'secretly') and makes no attempt to deny it (see all the rhetoric with Citizens United when it happened, et al.) This identity revolves around the systematic destruction of the other, but both are really the same thing underneath-- Craven individuals who first and foremost care about personal power, staying in office, getting rich while doing it, and keeping up the appearances of their respective blocs.

Both sides actively drum up less extreme people into becoming extremists, caught up in the whirl of the superficial conflict, by insincere pandering and social manipulation;  Democrats fan the flames of twitter and facebook one way, Republicans the other.  On the left, you have echo chambers about how everyone wants to murder gays, people who insist that they are allergic to wifi, and things of that nature-- that people build their whole damn identity around-- (because that is what is currently politically popular right now)--, and on the right, you have staunch anti-science and religious grandstanding (Praise Jesus!-- etc), attestations of being victims for their religion ("persecution" of christians, et al.) racism as an identity, and things of that nature.

This identity politick nonsense has afflicted even the center, which tries impotently to remain "In between" both of those two, even though really cant be.  (since they are really the same thing, just in different clothes.)  This causes the center position to look even more laughable, because taking the center, for its centerness, is so obviously absurd nobody can get behind it.  (nevermind that this defacto DESCENDS from the two polar groups being even more absurd... That's not important, a person's group of choice caters to their opinions and naive identity building around superficial concepts.)

What has died, is actual earnestness in politics, and even in social discourse.  It is no longer about trying to make a better world for everyone; It is now about "BEATING THE OTHER", and "MAKING IT GOOD FOR *ME* AND *MINE!*." 

We need a lot less of that. We need a lot less of the identity politicking nonsense.  We need a lot more of the "Let's objectively evaluate policy to get the best possible outcome for the most possible people." approach.  But those people are treated either as "IT'S THE ELOI!! EAT THEM!", or "HOW DARE YOU DENY THE PLIGHT OF [demographic]!! HEARTLESS BASTARD! EAT HIM!"

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TD1

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152297 on: July 13, 2020, 03:37:21 am »

Quote
We need a lot less of the identity politicking nonsense.

Please God, for the love of sanity, make it so.
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MaxTheFox

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152298 on: July 13, 2020, 04:20:30 am »

Quote
We need a lot less of the identity politicking nonsense.

Please God, for the love of sanity, make it so.
Yes, so much this. I'm tired of people being offended at more and more things that aren't even offensive to any reasonable person, I'm tired of increasing radicalization to completely unreasonable levels, and I'm tired of SJW meddling in media.

Honestly, my final opinion is that unnecessary animal suffering should be avoided. No reason not to give them better conditions if you can do that without massive costs.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2020, 04:30:38 am by MaxTheFox »
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wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152299 on: July 13, 2020, 04:58:43 am »

My view is a little more complicated I guess.


Human activity has created a situation where total abstention of beef or dairy products, will result in a complete collapse of millions of acres of grassland habitat.  This is because the cattle grazing on those habitats are a surrogate for a keystone species that was foolishly eradicated (now only in small reserves in terms of range and population) in the 1800s, Bison.  To effectively eliminate beef from the diet, a massive breeding program to reintroduce bison, (and subsequent removal of all obstacles to free migration of the species, so that they can do their ecological function-- which means removal of highways, fences, and the like) which would be economically suicidal.

I view that what would actually happen, is that without the financial obstacle to exploitation, (and given the extreme costs of properly reintroducing the necessary keystone species to preserve it anyway), economic forces would actively conspire to systematically destroy those habitats in favor of the newly imposed demand curve cashcrops-- Soy, Rice, Potatoes, etc.

Beef is a whole trophic level removed from plants. The law of entropy applies. Beef will never be as efficient as a quality direct crop;  but that is only part of the reality. The other is as above-- the beef are useful both ecologically and economically, such that economic value can be safely extracted from preserved habitats, and creating economic incentive to preserve those habitats-- naturally and without government oversight.  That does not happen very often, and it should be protected, not demolished because of squeemishness over big brown cow eyes, and cuteness. (if you will pardon my bias there.)

If you want to *personally* abstain from beef for ethical reasons, by all means, do so. I have no problem with that. Just do not try to proselytize without giving consideration or thought in your rhetoric to what the outcome consequences of that proselytizing would do-- It would result in habitat destruction of hundreds of species, many unique to the area and found nowhere else.  I insist upon this, because failure to do so creates a hypocritical situation; The main thrust of the argument is to diminish animal suffering-- but the outcome is suffering on a geometrically larger scale.

Feedlotting is a perverse situation, however. It exists exclusively because of greed, and poor management decisions systemically in society.  It produces a large number of social bads, contributes mightily to many outstanding "could end the human race" circumstances, is needlessly cruel to the animals in question, etc.

Feedlotting should be what is abolished, not beef production.  The two are not synonymous. Feedlotting has emerged as a financial/economic "solution" to the problem of "Not enough grassland, but WAAAAAY MAD profits for beef, YO!"  That solution causes more problems than it solves-- It solves only one problem-- people want more beef. 

The position of satisfying that want is not supportable with science. Medical science shows that excessive beef consumption (especially the fatty beef that comes from corn feeding in a feed lot) contributes to a wide number of outstanding public health concerns, such as heart disease and antibiotic resistant bacteria. Ecological science shows how feedlotting damages water tables, causes soil erosion, and contributes more intensely to water supply mismanagement and rising greenhouse gas emissions.



The ideal solution, IMO, is for beef to exist in the market, produced exclusively through grass-feed operations.  This will result in a very high unit price for beef per pound (as it will directly compete with dairy for the same resources, which are finite), which will depress consumption (because people wont be able to afford it in excess), markedly reduce emission and water use consequences, and do this while simultaneously preserving the surrogate keystone species populations (cows) needed to sustain those habitats AND bolstering the economic opportunity costs needed to suppress the destruction of that habitat for some other cash crop (like soy, corn, rice, or potato.)

That is, was, and will remain my position on the matter.
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scriver

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152300 on: July 13, 2020, 05:02:37 am »

We just closed the Vegan thread to let this discussion fallow, guys
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wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152301 on: July 13, 2020, 05:13:01 am »

*shrug*

The thing that gets me riled up, (without fail), is being treated like I hold a position I do not actually hold, for the convenience of an opposing ideologue--  It's what contributed to my negative behavior in that thread.  (and also, when the topic of "casual sex" came up a week or so earlier in Ameripol.)

So, I guess my WTF, is "why do people keep doing that?"
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pisskop

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152302 on: July 13, 2020, 05:19:23 am »

you mean being turned into a strawman upsets you?
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wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152303 on: July 13, 2020, 05:21:47 am »

Essentially, yes.
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pisskop

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152304 on: July 13, 2020, 05:24:45 am »

enh, in many cases its not so much a strawman, but rather just talking over your points to use the discussion as an excuse to launch their own platform.
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NJW2000

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152305 on: July 13, 2020, 05:27:09 am »

Quote
We need a lot less of that. We need a lot less of the identity politicking nonsense.  We need a lot more of the "Let's objectively evaluate policy to get the best possible outcome for the most possible people." approach.  But those people are treated either as "IT'S THE ELOI!! EAT THEM!", or "HOW DARE YOU DENY THE PLIGHT OF [demographic]!! HEARTLESS BASTARD! EAT HIM!"

The "we need policy that does the maximum good for the maximum number people" idea is generally something people have when they're thirteen, and then subsequently realise that the world is a bit complex, and any policy is going to be dictated by some kind of ideology - hell, even deciding what's "good" for people is pretty hard. It's an important step in thinking about what the eventual aim of political progress could be though, so I'm glad to see someone making it.

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dragdeler

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152306 on: July 13, 2020, 05:30:55 am »

-
« Last Edit: November 21, 2020, 10:48:43 am by dragdeler »
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pisskop

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152307 on: July 13, 2020, 07:48:09 am »

1 was the one where you mutate into a monster due to a serum and murder half an island?  where it ends with you taking on a squad of other mutants that looked like ghouls?

and the bloom was so high you could start a fire on your tv?
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Reelya

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152308 on: July 13, 2020, 09:18:31 am »

That's a very inaccurate depiction of the plot, and has the order of events mixed up. You come to an island inhabited by mercs who work for a Dr Evil type. About halfway through the game the evil dudes lose control of their genetic mutants, and those over-run the island. Most of the people you haven't fought were killed off by the mutants already. So you spend a lot of time fighting across the wilderness first against the mercs and later against the mutants, and you need to focus on survival skills here, something the 2nd game doesn't really have. So that's something #1 has going for it: it's survival based, limited ammo, no "free refills" like the 2nd game and later. If you want a wilderness shooter with survival and ammo management that matters, you'd go the first game. It gets pretty difficult and it's slow going, so you need to use a mix of stealth and combat if you want any hope of survival. So think of it as a steal / survival shooter mix. Then right at the end you get tricked into injecting some mutagen. But that's a trick by literally the final boss on the island, and you get the antidote. So no, you don't "turn into a mutant" then murder everyone. That never happens.

Note that in Far Cry #2, while in the opening you see civilians, the civilians have basically ceased to exist by the time you actually have control of the character all the of civilians have mysteriously vanished. The ethics in that game are if anything, much worse, since you work for murderers and murder the people you work for as soon as a higher bidder comes along, along with pretty much everyone you meet when you're out and about, in an entire supposedly populated country rather than an evil scientist's island base.

Where #1 has it over #2 is because they don't try and mesh everything into one GTA-style open world, so the set pieces are architectural far more distinctive. It's a far less forgiving game too, so that could count either way depending on what type of game you want to play. In Far Cry 2, I worked out that if you got the jeep with the explosive cannon you could basically sit back and shell everything to death and if you were careful you could keep that jeep alive pretty much permanently. The game was far easier then. I'd jump in and replay Far Cry 1 on a harder difficulty before bothering with #2 again. #2 is just a sandbox.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2020, 09:31:47 am by Reelya »
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Mathel

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #152309 on: July 13, 2020, 09:29:13 am »

Sorry to rerail this politics and games discussion, but I just had a WTF.

Background: So our computer setup at home is a bit weird (for a family). We have a server and several personal computers. One of these PCs has a printer and is supposed to share it. This does not seem to work, so I tend to just upload the data to the server and then download and print it there. (FalseEdit: It did not work because I was selecting the wrong printer. Just found out.)

Anyway, somehow our server got disconnected (but still works), so I put my document on a flash drive, edited it as needed on my PC, and went to print it. But I found out that all the USB slots on the PC with printer are taken. So I returned to my PC and copied the data directly to my documents on the 'printer' PC.

Then it hit me. This should not have worked. I DO NOT EVEN HAVE THE SAME CREDENTIALS ON THESE COMPUTERS! I just hacked myself using only Windows. (FalseEdit: Then I went to write this, disovered I was selecting the wrong printer, and printed it directly from my PC.)

Edit: I just went and turned of file sharing on that PC.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2020, 09:35:13 am by Mathel »
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