School shootings are truly one of the most pointless things on earth. What I think when I hear about a shooting is, "If you really want to go f*ck up your life, go do it privately. Don't involve the rest of us". I mean, if someone really wants to suicide, I mean really - nothing on earth will dissuade them, (first I say get help and don't, of course), I say that they should keep it to themselves. I'm pretty sure that no victim of a school shooting wants to die.
Dear god, I hate it when parents are techno-illiterate. That guy had problems before he ever discovered the Internet, probably. The only thing the people online might have done to make it worse, is if he went to 4chan, or some spam board somewhere where the people may have mocked him. I mean, I basically live my life online - most of my friends I know from here, Youtube, or AstroEmpires. Am I gonna be a school shooter now? It all comes down to the mental build of the person, and the events of his life. I'm too cowardly to kill anyone without EXTREME provocation (them trying to kill me, for instance, and even then, as a last resort). This guy probably had some kind of mental instability, posibly insanity, possibly manic-depression, bipolar, who knows.
Yea, I sign most of the rep I give (only rarely do I forget), whether good or bad.
Not neccesarily. While some parents can care less about what their kid does, I'm pretty sure if they break several major laws and endanger the lives of others, they will care, if only to say "HOW THE F*CK COULD YOU BE SO F*CKING STUPID!!!!!!!eleventy1!".
I refuse to see in such general absolutes. The world could swing either way in the next few decades. And even if the Earth becomes uninhabitable, for whatever reason, nothing says we have to end with it. Humans are nothing if not survivors. I mean, with the climate shift hype, I have been told by my geoarchaeology professor (who has done research into this, as the topic comes up in class) that the safe money is not on "will it happen?", it's on "when will it happen?". Most scientists are saying now that the timeline of events is accurate (coastal flooding, drought, hurricanes, etc) is accurate, but the timescale is too small. We have more time than we thought, but not much more. And with the constant war, can you name an era in history that was completely peaceful? We have been fighting something since the dawn of time, whether it was for our survival as a young race, to dominance over Europe when we met the Neanderthals, to constant skirmishes and religious wars in the ancient historical past, to the Roman wars, to the Dark Ages, to all the more "modern" wars, we have always been a warrior race. World peace will only come when we have multiple worlds, and then, those worlds will fight. The world/universe will always be messed up. That's a given. What matters is what we can do to stop it from messing up any further.
The ones who actually start shooting usually do, but there are many who just get caught with them, or have them in their car and get caught. Those are the kids that'll be grounded from life till they're 70.
Sometimes, their parents will own guns, and no matter how good your lock is, anyone strong enough can get through and steal it. Not all the time, but I'm sure it's a major source of arms for these kids.
I personally don't want you to die for me. I'll do my own dying, thank you very much. You just live your own life. I'm happy how I am. Science provides me with all the answers I'll ever need. Hell, in the next few decades, I'm half-expecting to hear about the discovery of extra-solar life! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-450467/Found-20-light-years-away-New-Earth.html That has been a dream of mine for so long.... Anyways, I'm happy, no need to die for me.
If you (or anyone in general) do somehing that may net you jail time to ditch a class, you have bigger problems than your schoolwork and need mental help.
They believed that the Africans were sub-human, yes, but by the scientific techniques of the day, they had no way of knowing they weren't right. The post-Renaissance idea of medicine was to cut off an injured limb, or to bleed a patient with leeches. They had virtually no anatomical knowledge, and for a long time, that knowledge was considered, at the least, uncivilized and not fit for man to study.It wasn't ignorance in their eyes, which is how it must be measured. And African slavery was more... humane than European slavery. Typically, African slavery was not hereditary. You were not born a slave. Also, you could work your way out of slavery, or have a benevolent master grant you freedom, or you could be recaptured by your former tribe. Also, slaves in Africa were kept in MUCH better conditions, comparatively. They lived much like the other members of a community (albeit with less freedom), not shoved into a toolshed with 40 other slaves, chained and beaten.
Your point is good, but the premise is flawed. Slavery was NEVER ignorant. Europeans started exploring again after the Dark Ages, and one of the first place they went was Africa (as it was basically next door to them). Once there, they found a whole new culture of dark-skinned people who lived simple lives in mud-and-thatch huts (maybe some larger towns or cities - I'm not really up on my African history; I know more about the European side of it). They immediately, since their mission was to look for treasure and resources for a Europe devastated by war and rediscovering science, looked through these villages, quite violently, looking for gold. Where they found sources of it, they "conscripted" the local populace to mine it, since they didn't want to go back to Europe for it. The Africans proved to be so efficient, I guess, or so easy to control, that they expanded the process, putting them in fields, homes, factories, anything that required menial labor. For hundreds of years, then, slaves were traded like property around Europe and America. Slavery is a result of racism (European racism, see above post by me) and greed. They knew what the Africans were - different from them. That was all they needed.
I must admit that I am prejudiced, in a sense - against those who are ignorant or immature. Luckily, both of those pass in time. Besides, the most discriminatory I ever get is to tell them that they are ignorant/immature. It's kind of a... passive discrimination. On topic, though, I have no issue with other "races", because as an anthropology major, I know the origins and original purposes of race. Race was invented by post-Roman Europe to explain how they were better than everyone else they met. It was further subdivided by the individual nations so that anyone not in an individual nation was considered "inferior" to all others. In fact, at this time, the Muslims were possibly the most tolerant, racially, of anyone in the Old World. The Muslims would allow someone their religion, as long as they didn't overtly preach it, and conformed to all Muslim laws. The punishments for ignoring these conventions, though, were quite harsh, and usually involved painful death. The European race concept was first put into practice around the time of the Crusades, when it was determined by the Pope that the "heathens" in the Middle East had no right to the Holy Land (which, by the way, contains Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, Islam's 3 holiest sites), and commissioned the Crusades to take the Holy Land by force. Then, it was put into play again in Africa, where the Europeans took slaves and "educated and Christianized" the "primitive heathens" in the name of money. Over and over again, people use race to rationalize what they are already doing. I wonder how many Europeans said, at the start of African slavery, "Do we have the right to do this?", and the church just said "Yes, because black skin is primitive and we own them (by using some passage in the Bible which I don't remember)". Now, in our time, racism seems to be slowly dying. But, looking at world history and the antiquity of race in the world, I estimate that, roughly and only as an educated guess, that at least 125 years will have to pass between the abolition of race laws (here in America and most of the industrialized world, anyways) and the extinction of racism. Humanity has never liked to give up on an idea without a fight. Race is convenient, to some people: "He's black", "She's Asian", "He's a redneck (Guilty as charged on that one, but I use it as a joke with some of my friends)", etc. Humans love categories. we just need ones that aren't offensive. As has been said, the Internet removes the physical body from consideration when talking to people. I think that the Internet will prove to be a major force in the elimination of racism.
Ok, but the issue here is that some animals should not be brought into the US in the first place. None of what either of you said addressed that. Sure, OK Replicloud, just leave the animals alone. If we had done that, there would be no pet cats or dogs, and no cattle farms, no horses for human use, no meat animals of any kind, etc etc. However, some animals are, IMO, too dangerous to be brought into the country, specifically, animals that will either kill lots of people or animals that will disrupt the ecosystem. Sorry to seem snippy, but I do feel that those posts were too short to convey anything meaningful, and, I feel, you did not address the subject at all.
There are 6 billion people on the planet and the number is climbing. We are nearing the carrying capacity of Earth with our current technology, if we haven't passed it already. Now, if you start making people basically immortal, or even if you just double the human lifespan, the Earth will be in VERY serious trouble. Besides, the human public would never accept the fact that some (most likely the super-rich) people could be immortal. There would be riots in the streets, civil unrest, financial ruin, and anarchy reigning anywhere this practice would be implemented. I think it is theoretically possible to grow a new body exactly like your own (minus whatever traits you picked up in life - scars, weight, etc), but I highly doubt that anyone, even with unlimited funding would be able to transfer someone's consciousness like that. Hell, we don't even know where the consciousness of a person is! I think that cloning, with a few more advances in the technology, could be most effective in jump-starting existing endangered species. Think about it: We take a few animals, say... Chimpanzees, clone say... 15 specimens about 100 times each (1500 new animals) while jumbling up the genes and traits for each one (to avoid genetic diseases later through inbreeding), and voila! We now have 1500 new, distinct chimps to add to the wild population! The same process could be applied to any other endangered species, and theoretically, any species we could find DNA for - the Dodo. The Mammoth. Neanderthal Man (Homo neandertalensis)? Maybe, but not advisable. The giant sloth. Other, recently-extinct species (ones that we ourselves killed). All these could possibly be revived. Now THIS, I could see happening - an almost limitless store of past human existance that the humans of centuries later could draw from, as long as the devices to store us didn't fail.
I never said I believe and condone it... I just said I understand it, having heard all the stories early in life. I personally can find almost nothing I would be willing to die for, except for maybe the advancement of knowledge and science.
You are willing to sacrifice yourself for your religion. You believe that, by doing so, you are proving to God how faithful you are, and you will then be rewarded in Heaven. I do understand that, having a strong religious background myself. However, the fundamentalist Muslims beleive pretty much the same thing - if they sacrifice themselves for God (Allah), they will go automatically to Heaven and receive 72 virgins for all of eternity. I'm not asking you to give up your beliefs. All I'm asking is, if you want to convert people like me, have REAL facts to back up your faith, not blind words like "God said so". If you want me to believe there was a Flood, for example, show me some Flood-related evidence (And not that "seashells on a mountaintop" idea - that has been explained by REAL science - the upthrusting of mountains over millions of years in what was once a watery area due to plate tectonics). IF you want me to believe that God created us all at roughly the same time, show me, say, human and dinosaur bones in the same strata of rock. And, like it or not, that human footprint inside of a dino one has been disproved as a fake: http://www.badarchaeology.net/data/ooparts/paluxy.php
As long as we are intelligent beings, we will be competing for mates. Think about it, those hermaphroditic lizards - they still need 2 of them to reproduce. The only things that don't here on earth are bacteria and primitive algae. As long as it takes 2 of us to reproduce, and as long as we remain the beauty-conscious, style-conscious, conceited (no offense) culture we are (which will probably be forever, knowing my luck), we will compete for a second person to mate with. Oh, and, back on topic, pointless discussion is pointless. Men and women need each other, so who is superior really doesn't mean anything.
Beautiful as ever. I really do enjoy most of your work (I don't like some of the songs, but they are the extreme minority), and this is no exception. Especially 2:05-2:15. What did you use to get those cool little bars on the edges? Photoshop? Also, what resolution do you render in for the widescreen?
Hey, at least you won't have to do classwork. Grab a book and sit on the floor reading it.
I give + rep when A) someone makes an argument that I was about to make, or B) someone verbally (textually?) rips apart some flaw in an argument in a spectacular way. I give - rep when someone is being intolerant, ignorant, idiotic, thick-headed, or doesn't construct a good argument. Usually, I give maybe 1 or 2 rep either way per day. I don't give it that often. I know some people like to randomly rep people (I have recieved that occaisionally), but I don't. I ALWAYS have a reason. You either win spectacularly, or you fail spectacularly. Then, you get rep from me. Normal posts, good or bad, never get my rep.
