Meshugger

^Of course not. But that is not the issue. The issue is the control of information masked as a technological one.

It needs more pictures of the incompetent referees. The russian team won fair and square though.

What most people in the EU want is a free internal market with no need for a passport to travel from one country to the next. A simple common constitution which states what rights the citizen have and a european court that upholds it, coupled with a parliament that passes the laws. A nightwatcher's commonwealth more or less. Everything from taxes to elderly care and national defense would be up to the individual states. Sadly, almost every major politician from the major parties seems to think otherwise.

In Finland, they pretty much gained support for bailing out foreign banks and other european countries.

Why do you think Bruce on why the anti-EU delegates got so many votes and what should be done? I am really curious. Personally, I think that it has to do with no one really being against the EU as an idea, but rather on how it has become. And since the established parties are just going to do the same old, who are you left to vote for?

More info: http://time.com/101418/fcc-fast-lane-net-neutrality/

I know of a non-lethal way to undermine and finally cause Boko Haram to implode. - Use drones to distribute Porn leaflets. Everywhere. - Highjack their communication channels and replace everything with Wrestling and 80's rock - Enjoy the show #Western_Rules #WWE #PornHub

For some reason, it tastes better when grilled on a charcoal grill. But maybe it is just the same thing as with the "LPs are superior to CDs"-argument: there's little to no difference.

Talk about being silly for silly's sake. Grownups trying to put grownup issues in children's games. As a kid, what did you care?

Dark Souls on the PS3. Goddamn my fingers hurt.

If a certain political idea or movement need to have 'safe place' to flourish, it really means that it needs a quiet oasis where it can go into extinction in peace.

Just as God intended.

Original magisters? Whu? The ones that created the very Darkspawn? Was that cut from the orignal campaign in DA2?

My god, thanks for the laughs //EDIT: Nonek, you better behave, mistah!. Someone's who is fighting for the justice for feelings might accidently start generalising you and your fellow country-men. Better shut down the Internet.

I would love to see how they make that work, because anyone familiar with working on multinational sites at the same can tell that it is anything near easy.

hmmm. hate to do this, but seems necessary. your reasoning were used quite frequently as an excuse to prolong the disparate treatment o' blacks and asians and other minority groups in this country. one o' the most brilliant men o' the 20th century were a fella named william shockley. without him we wouldn't have computers and most modern electronic devices. he were a big believer in the innate qualities o' races, and he had loads o' data to back up his beliefs. gave up on physics during his later life and instead focused on eugenics. am really wishing he woulda' lived a bit longer-- maybe he woulda' admitted some errors. 'course he didn't have the advantage o' seeing how 21st century black immigrants from the caribbean and elsewhere who is voluntarily coming to the US in significant numbers, is testing similar to asians, and is usually beating the snot outta native whites. innate qualities were used for a long time to discriminate 'gainst women in fields such as law and medicine. we finally gots women attending law schools and med schools in numbers that approach their relative population percentages, so after the good old boys finally die off in 20 or 30 years, we will probable finally see women getting treated equal in those fields. nevertheless, is disappointing that today women lawyers and doctors is still typical paid less then men doing same jobs. the largely bs innate quality stuff actual works in favor o' women lawyers rather than against. we want a person with better communication skills. our testosterone levels is not something we has ever included on a resume, and truth-to-tell, the "I AM A FIERCE HUNTER, ARGH!" kinda thing is the last quality we want from an advocate. those innate quality studies frequent suggest that women not only have better communication skills, but also better negotiating ability. sooooo... yeah, every few years some clown tries to force equality where it don't belong. like it or not, the average woman doesn't have the same upper body strength as men. pretending otherwise is foolish. we recall reviewing tapes of prospective fireman candidates. it were frequent comical. is not sexist to want a fireman who can swing an ax properly or carry an adult male smoke inhalation victim outta a building without having to resort to dragging them by the ankles. has nothing to do with sexism. if a woman is capable o' doing the job o' a fireman, she shouldn't be discriminated 'gainst. but giving fireman jobs to women who simply cannot do the work is asinine. regardless, whenever we hear innate qualities being bandied about as a reason to explain disparate treatment o' women, we recall it has been used for a long time to validate other kinds o' discrimination... and that even the most brilliant o' men were stoopid enough to use such arguments. HA! Good Fun! ps am a big robert e. howard fan our self, but ursula k. le guin deserves her due as well. http://www.pacifict.com/ron/Mills.html Wasn't all of his research refuted by Thomas Sowell and alike years ago? As in Jews having lower than avarage national US IQ's before and during the WWII, same with Japanese just after WWII, only to increase to become much greater than the national avarage within a generation? His point was that the human capital itself is was creates great societies, meaning values like craftmanship, trade, interest in learning is what creates wealth, and in such, IQ levels increase incredibly. My conjecture to this is that the more human capital increased with "positive" values, all the -isms will disappear by themselves.

The Man from Earth. Wow....I....wow.

But back to topic. I still do not get on how you want to tackle this problem, because almost every western country has, by law, anti-discrimatory measures in place. Being accused of being sexist/racist/whatnot is a stigma that no one wants, except for the racists and sexist because they do not care to begin with. //EDIT: I would go as far to say that free speech doesn't even exist, except for in the US, because of this. What's left really?

I actually agree for once.

But...but i thought that race and gender was a social construct...

Speaking of Slavic and "Slavic" features, according to my grandfather who fought in the winter war, there was nothing more terrifying than Kyrgyzians. Big slavic faces, but with asian eyes, and hair like a russian bear. Their eyebrows made Breznhev envious.

Gromnir is a professor?!

Nah. They face less discrimination, certainly. But as to who faces "derogatory" and "dehumanizing" treatment? How can you even being to quantify that? "Specific forms" is my real point there. I'm not contesting for a single second that everyone in the world can be the target of terrible things done by other people. But how many forms of derogatory and dehumanizing treatment have specifically targeted the straight white male? Compared to, say, black people, or gay men? That's what I'm getting at. Or people with glasses, or people with funny accents, or people with braces, or social outcasts, or people who smell, or people. Nothing beats you down as life itself does. And will keep on hitting you unless you allow yourself to be beaten. IT's not about the beating itself, it's about how mych beating you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning at life is done, not blaming everyone and everything. Yeah, i've watched Rocky the other day, but damn was he right.

That would be pretty much the definition of bias and prejudice when those "ideas and values" are based on skintone or gender or sexuality or any other superficial irrelevant trait or set of traits. (As I've mentioned before, the reasoning can be seen but that doesn't mean it's not faulty.) "Privilege" is more the concept that certain groups are inherently advantaged in terms of societal prejudices and systemic bias. (That doesn't mean that members of those groups cannot be disadvantaged in other ways, most commonly economically. The standard way of describing it is: In the majority of instances, all other things being equal, someone of the privileged group/s will fare better in the same situation than someone of a disadvantaged group.) [For most areas of the West, such disadvantaged groups include: non-white people, individuals that are LGBTQIA, women, and those that are disabled. A short but by no means comprehensive list.] I wouldn't think anyone could reasonably argue that prejudice and bias don't exist, or are not things which most people perpetrate without being aware of, nor that socioeconomic and political/legal systems tend to be apply in a rather unequal manner. I think that anyone can tell people are different from each and tend to band together for different reasons, superficial or no. But is it even a bad thing? You cannot force people to love each other, it has to come evolve from each individual, and neither can it be reason with, since love, well, isn't not that reasonable to begin with. I am not asking for isolation or to live through the eyes of fear, i am simply asking for freedom of association. Do you wish to undermine it? And how can you expect to deconstruct power-structures without seriously hindering it? Just curious. Well, yes. It is a bad thing when it leads to oppressive and abusive behaviours or unjust discrimination. (Just discrimination would be, say, giving medicine only to people that are sick. Or only imprisoning criminals. Etc.) As I mentioned though, people do tend to fall into grouping behaviours just because it's part of human nature. (We tend to want to belong and we like sharing similarities with people and having our existing notions reinforced.) [sometimes that can be dangerous. It's good to have a balance, provided people don't go off the deep end when it comes to conflict.] {There can be a tendency for people to draw lines in the sand and then take polar opposite stances when they wouldn't have done so if they hadn't done the "Us vs Them" thing in the first place.} The issue is only when it goes badly or it's for.. less than savoury reasons. So yes, I do believe people should think more critically and maintain self-awareness and try to ensure they are actually being as reasonable a person as possible and not lapsing into any 'traps' of faulty rationale. Hmm. See, this is where my personal and ethical views can diverge. Personally, I wouldn't mind isolating/ostracising/exiling the more extreme sort of bigots. I tend to consider them beyond redemption, because very little will convince someone that was raised from birth to believe xyz things and has their peer group and authority figures reinforcing those views and has no personal motivation (other than possibly a sense of ethical rightfulness?) to actually change their behaviour. That said, I do believe that those that are simply naive/ignorant are more than capable of learning and adapting. (Wilful ignorance is something that repeatedly confuses and irks me. I really don't understand why someone would completely ignore an opportunity to learn another perspective, even if they then disregard it after consideration.) So yes, I would say that my favoured solution for dismantling overarching structures is altering them at the basic component level. (Legislating change.. doesn't always work. It can help, but there needs to be pressure/revolution from a 'critical mass' forcing change on a social/community/individual level.) Freedom of association though... On the one hand, associating with the KKK does at least let one know which people are bigoted backwards racist cabbages. On the other, it would be nice if such groups were excised like the metaphorical cancers they are. (Again, I'm not sure whether mandating/enforcing their breakup would actually do anything other than force them underground. It can do one of two things: make it clear such views are no longer remotely acceptable and hasten progress or form a resilient 'hidden' movement that could be arguably more dangerous than having them in the open.) There are flaws in the legal/political/economic systems stemming from the social faults, and they should absolutely be reformed. However I'm not sure whether heavy-handed brute-forcing of legal/political measures as far as the social faults themselves are the best solution. (I'd lean towards no, but in terms of things like abolishing slavery and prohibiting discrimination against minorities.. the laws existing does certainly help.) ... in summary, I think the answer is "yes" I do wish to undermine certain types of associations. Just not in particularly foolish and tyrannical ways. You see little room for redemption and you wish to excise those who do not fit your utopia? You have taken the first steps to the dark side with those thoughts, my child. Oh psh. I never said that, given the opportunity, I would actually implement such things. (That would indeed be a very dark path.) Did clarify that was a personal view not in line with my ethics (because it's the arguably "simple" solution). Really I'd rather people just.. not be bigoted so-&-so's towards each other on such ridiculous grounds. (Like, if you're gonna take issue with someone then target their behaviour rather than whatever other nonsense people have problems with.) Or you can easily become a christian, turn the other cheek and forgive them. Then you do not have to fall into the rabbit hole of having to separate your opinions from ethics.

Aah, Et tu Brute.