Walsingham

I'm not denying that society helps set the perception of good and evil. In fact I'd suggest Imperial Japan is a better example than Nazi Germany because the Nazis were such a fleeting abberration in German culture. But I'd argue vehemently, if not expertly, that there is such a thing as abstract good and evil. A big fat dude who put his fist into the internal organs of everyone he saw would be pretty much universally regarded as evil. Trying to think of something off the top of my head.

What if you were staring at a plastic bag caught in an updraft because it was the most beautiful thing you'd ever seen?

I do see what you mean. You'd think it would be a big eater of time and effort. The only danger I can see, as they say, is that you could get straightjacketed by the quest designer.

Haven't we had this question a few times? Is it just me or are things disappearing from this bit of the forum?

I can't seem to find my original post. But essentially I suggested that one problem with counter-piracy measures is that they fail to engage the community very well. I suggested that it might make more sense for a studio with a strong fan base to sell shares or somesuch in each game. Each purchaser then has an interest in encouraging others to buy. ANYWAY.. *coughs* I noticed this new band, http://www.gabbyyoungandotheranimals.com/signup/ who have apparently done very well using a system of graded memberships in their new album. You can buy the album itself, OR you can pay a bit more and get a gig ticket thrown in. Go higher and you get special versions. Go even higher and you might get invited backstage or get special input and so on. I'm not saying it's a no-brainer. it's something you'd have to do with a great deal of thought and a big dose of cool. but if done right it could be awesome.

Gentlemen, it's already been established at great cost in splintered keyboards that Sand doesn't accept second or third order dynamics. He knows it. We know it. It's therefore utterly pointless trying to explain a second or third order reason for people being poor. Since it defies one of his basic assumptions. You can't argue with it.

Frankly, if raping someone to death makes my morality box tiny then I couldn't be happier to be in a tiny tiny box.

Or wedge himself in the ceiling of one of the corridors, like in that film. If I came in to find an intern asleep like that I'd hire the bastard.

*this post is so whiney it can only be read by dogs* *and dogs can't read*

I really think this Gabby Young character is one of the best things I've heard in years. http://www.gabbyyoungandotheranimals.com/ Look for her music video down the page.

I do think we have to take some blame as electorate. I mean can you imagine a company which hired people using the same criteria we use for hiring politicians? Smiling faced goons who whisper sweet nothings on subjects they have no training in?

I always find it fascinating how people react to having been poor. Sand here wants to force everyone else to go his way and get locked into a cycle of grinding work to survive. We were dirt poor when I was a kid - I mean proper eating scavenged fruit and donations in a freezing cottage (one reason I'm stumpy-legged) - and I want to make sure people don't have to do that.

Surface tumours are great odds for being beaten. I was just about to advise you what to eat, but I'm not sure you can eat anything!

How dare you? I don't live in London. EDIT: Actually I buy most of my clothes either second hand, or hand tailored. I'm not mad about it, but I regard my principle effort for third world progress being actually going out and getting shot for the buggers.

True to form I intend to be cheering for the blokes shooting natives. What can I say? It's in my blood.

No there's not. Good and evil are just semi-useful labels - nothing more and nothing less. A yakuza in Tokyo drug-kidnapped a young woman, tied her to a sink in his basement and raped her to death over the course of a year with his two mates. Yes there's such a thing as ****ing evil. You t***.

"Creative stagnation" could be New Labour's motto. Unfortunately, the other lot aren't looking much more promising at present. True. Does anyone else think we're kind of reaping teh whirlwind as far as our attitude to political carrers go. A good friend of mine decided to run as an MP a few years ago and it was like he'd caught cat AIDS so far as social occasions. Everyone started treating him like ****.

Wait, don't you remember that time you werea troll pole-dancer? I certainly can't forget it.

My grandfather knew a fellah who played R roullette in the war. He'd lost his marbles. So yeah I'd feel sorry for him. WTF, man? You never made any dumb decisions?

The more I think about it the angrier I get... Either global warming is a mahousive catstrophe, in which case we should ****ing well get our collective finger out and devote big slices of GDP to it, or it isn't anything in which case we shouldn't spend anything on it. Brown spending 1 billion is not enough to avert the catastrophe, but a big ****ing deal of money which could turn around Afghanistan or for that matter a whole British county. Yet again he positions us on the fence, and we get a fence post right up the...

Holy crap. If it makes you feel any better - and it should - large percentages of people beat cancer. Maybe not all of them, maybe not the majority, but some do. If you want to know anything I'm more than happy to lay down what I know from my mom's battle. Just PM me.

Gabby Young and other animals. I really like this anarchic jazz female vocals gubbins. It's got a strong driving rhythm that takes away the saccharine tendency. Have a listen.

You actually believe a (relatively small) pack of radical muslim terrorists pose a serious threat to our national security, even to the point of actually destabilizing the country? You're very mistaken there, bud. This is off topic, anyway. LoF, people seem to be conflating communism and socialism. Give a clear and well-defined explanation of both. Since you don't seem to be a slavering maniac I'll explain. Our entire system is predicated on high energy exchanges occurring at massive speed. Destabilising such a system doesn't just result in it losing energy and slowing down, it causes catastrophe. A plastic lightsaber isn't a threat in itself under normal circumstances, but jam it into the wheels of a tour de France rider and you've got bits of skinny bloke all up a tree.

I'm totally with you on the engineering thing Moose. I can't totally explain it, but no good can come from only being third order useful. By which I mean we don't make anything, or even make things from other things, but simply comment on the process. I suspect we'd also agree that there's a fundamental spiritual benefit in not being a useless t***.

You eedjits have completely zero concept of how complicated and fragile the modern world is, do you? Frankly, I have to say I'm pleased, because that's less ideologically deranged halfwits trying to wreck it using terror.