Rostere

This is the part I think is overrated. We would be just as well off with a Confucian heritage, say. In any case, any heritage is just the remains of a previous civilization. So you should not compare the Greco-Roman heritage with heritage from parts of the world which were not civilized at the time, but with comparable civilizations. At this point it becomes clear that there is nothing unique worth mentioning with the Greco-Roman heritage. There is only general civilization with some regional "flavour". Archaeology and anthropology used to be a hobby interest of mine. I also used to read copiously before I had better things to do. I have about 1 metre of books on ancient/classical civilizations. Most (I guess 70%) deal with the ME though, specifically Mesopotamia. Specifically dealing with Greeks and Romans I have a few works translated to English. I have Xenophon's "Anabasis" and "Germania" by Tacitus which are the ones I consider most important for my interests (because they are historical accounts of other civilizations). I also have a Classical Greek account on the Scythians which I can't seem to find at the moment. I have Platon's Dialogues and Suetonius' works and more - can't bother to look through all the books. I have also been to Rome and other archaeological sites in Italy to see Roman history first-hand. So I'm not a scholar on this subject, but I consider myself well versed in their politics, philosophy, society and culture, apart from the area of Greek drama, where I have only read the stories in an abridged format. I think there you hit a spot. Problem is that more muslims are in country - the less secular country it is. Just look at Endrogan Erdogan in Turkey to see the pattern Yep - that's the current state of Islam. Believe me, the religion will change - it's inevitable. What we must do is try our hardest to make Western culture accessible to the Muslim world. It's a bit similar to the McDonald's theory of international relations. We must try to create a global, secular world culture to minimize tensions between different religions and races. Peace and secularism will have won the day that Westerners read Rumi and Muslims watch Game of Thrones and listen to Iron Maiden or Lady Gaga.

I just need a job first What education do you have?

Codex hate for Bioware goes way longer back than that. I haven't played it, but from what I've read DA:I looks like a pretty awful game through and through. Anyway I've sworn to not buy any Bioware games since NWN came out. I find it hard to believe that many people who hang out at the Codex like DA:I but as you say, that thread is pretty indicting. TBH I think it is a subset of Codexers and that they should create a Biodrone/Beteshtard subforum so that the rest of us won't have to deal with them.

Would've been fun to meet new people, but I'm not part of the PoE kickstarter. You can still pay for the game here: http://buy.pillarsofeternity.com/ Those who do not care about sentimental notions of nation or culture won't be affected. Anyway I can assure you that I do not hate myself at all (in fact I love myself and believe that I am always right ), that is pure idiocy.

LOL, how many of our forum members have lived/live in Sweden, really? Seems like there is an awful lot of us. We should totally have a release party for PoE.

No, I'm not exaggerating. How much has Islamic terror hurt Western economies? Nothing. How many people has it killed? Less than toaster-induced incidents has (can't find the link now). Oh please, not the Greek/Roman heritage thing again. That's among the worst bull**** you ever get to hear. Secondly, the Islamic culture builds as much - or as little - on the Greco-Roman as ours does, at least in all ways that matter. And in any case the Greeks (Classical Greece - through the Mycenaeans) owe as much/little to previous/other Mediterranean civilizations as we do to them. Read Plato's Republic, the writings/thoughts of Aristotle or any of those old works yourself and draw your conclusions. Nothing much to be salvaged there - nothing which wouldn't have been gained otherwise, nothing which has truly guided Western civilization in a positive way during our golden age. Disclaimer here: Euclid was a pretty solid guy and is probably worth reading still today for secondary school students. Certainly the Romans/Greeks represent high civilization during their glory days, but it's a gross misunderstanding to claim that they were culturally distinct in a unique and superior way to other comparable cultures. I haven't seen any "modern and successful" Muslims clinging to old beliefs. None. Islam will change. When Muslims move to Europe they are throwing themselves on the spear of secularism. The most powerful and influential Muslims during the next 100 years (discounting political leaders) will all be secular European or American Muslims. The Islam that eventually maybe will dominate Europe is not the same as the one we see today. In any case, it's all a matter of population statistics. Poor and conservative people always get more children. The less conflicts we have in the ME, the more secular and modern their society will become and the less immigrants we will have in Europe. IMO the war in Iraq, Syria, instability in Somalia and French occupation of Algeria is behind a lot of Muslim immigration to Europe today. The key to solving both immigration and Islamic terror is simple: more stability and less wars in the ME and Africa. How can we build stability in these regions using non-violent means?

It will secularize, and then disappear, just like Christianity. I doubt I will still be alive to see it by then, if it happens. Throughout history the agressive religions have been the successful ones, and there's no religious doctrine more agressive than Islam that's for sure. The meaningless slaughter will continue until something is done. 99% of everyone who is killed by Muslim radicals are Muslims themselves. The West as a whole has suffered negligible (I'd almost say none at all) damage to to Islamic terrorism - ridiculously little compared to how much we read about it in the news. Islamic radicalism is essentially the Muslim world punching itself in the face. There are no Muslim countries capable of taking a fight to any of the major world powers anyhow. Sometimes people say that IS is a "threat" but that's frankly absurd. Christianity has historically been a more aggressive religion than Islam for the last 1000 years, but Christianity eventually secularized, giving birth to our civilization. Islam was pretty much the height of civilization from the 800s to the 1300s (discounting China). That is when Islam meant freedom for other religions and modern (at the time) values. The liberal and secular centre of the world. The only thing that's an advantage for Islam is their relatively high birth rate in civilized countries. This is in part due to the culture of immigrants and in part due to their low social standing. It will be interesting to see how it looks in 30 years. It will have lowered, the question is how much. If Islam is able to resist assimilation better than the birthrate lowers, we might see a future Islamic (but secular) Europe. Meanwhile, much of Western culture is focused on short-sighted egoism and not building families. That is not the hallmark of a culture that is fit to survive. At least in Sweden the assimilation rate is very high. The Kurds and other people who are "technically Muslim" are about as religious as I am, that is, not at all.

Very hard to say on the first question. I would like to see much more vetting of immigrants for undemocratic values (like the test for new American citizens, but without the idiotic history part), and more money for integration projects putting people into work. A good day's hard work is the best cure for any sort of shenanigans. The devil finds work for idle hands and all that. Otherwise I think it's pretty much OK. France has a LOT more Muslims than Sweden does - about double as much in percent I think. That's because they were an imperialist power, which held pieces of Muslim countries as their own and taught them French. White man's burden, y'know? The Muslims are only karma's messenger. No (although the level is not negligible). Measures of mass surveillance. There should be more "vetting" of who gets to move here and more police cooperation with mosques - both to prevent islamophobic violence and to detect radicals.

Hahahaha. Wait, what? Uh... This is actually interesting. Yes, the very high rape rate is clearly connected to feminism. In countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and so on you firstly have a different idea of what a rape is (a man cannot rape his wife, et.c.) and also the punishment is much harsher. You can see both that many things that would not count as rape there would in Sweden, and that people would not report being raped there. A man reporting being raped by another man would be unthinkable. Now you can think of Sweden as being on one extreme end of this spectrum, Saudi Arabia on the other, with European countries such as France, UK, Switzerland et.c. being somewhere in between Sweden and Saudi Arabia, some closer to a religious-superstitious society such as Saudi Arabia and others closer the liberal-secular society of Sweden. There is still a high degree of shame and other problems connected to rape in many countries. I think it is entirely due to feminism that in Sweden there is a very low rate of rapes occurring "in the dark" compared to other countries. Now many immigrants come here from entirely different cultures, and when they are subject to the high degree of sexualization of the public space that we unfortunately have in Sweden, they get ****ed up in the head. Meanwhile, the wives/relatives/acquaintances of these people have access to the modern justice system of Sweden and this might result in many rapes being reported. Also, please note that there are no official statistics on who commits rape in Sweden, so all of the above is merely speculation. Exaggerated, as is 99% of the stuff you read on the Internet. It will secularize, and then disappear, just like Christianity.

Obviously it's not true that there are no-go areas, but there are of course areas where they police must be more careful when they are there. Anyway, Sweden is the perfect country to get links like these from, because people get all worked up for every little problem. Of course that is a very good thing (or at least the sign of a very good thing). Now if the Swedish police would have talked abut these areas to American police or South African police I bet they would have just laughed it off as being no problem at all. I have walked through one of these areas (Husby) repeatedly at about 0300 dressed neatly and nothing has ever happened to me...

Yes, pretty much. I'll remain sceptical until I see the result...

What the **** are you talking about? The ancient Egyptians were as African as you can get. They spoke an Afro-Asiatic language which is distinct from the Semitic branch (which developed in the Middle East), which can be said to be wholly African in origin. The Carthaginians were Semites though, you are correct on that point. The highlands of Ethiopia is a site where you can find very ancient evidence of agriculture. It would be completely wrong to say that "civilization never developed there". And this is without delving into the civilizations which has existed at other points in time in Africa. Sure, they might have been a few hundred years behind, but it would be contradictory to not call it "civilization" since that would pretty much disqualify a great deal of other cultures I'm betting you define as "civilized". If you are interested in anthropology and the rise of civilizations I recommend the book "Guns, Germs and Steel". European civilization has only been prominent for about 400 years. The Romans and the Greeks had their time but it would be deeply unfair to say that they were clearly above the level of the Persians and the Chinese (for example). If things had turned out differently and the Chinese would have come to Europe instead of the other way around, they would also have described European medieval history as consisting of ridiculous and pointless tribal wars, religious superstition and so on. It is only because of our subconscious image of civilization that we regard living in a house of stone as inherently more civilized than living in a "hut" as you implicitly mean to say is so uncivilized.

I disagree with the conspiratorial outlook, but it seems clear from the video that the "execution" did not really occur. You shouldn't read to much into that - mainstream media in our current age of competing sources thrives on reinforcing our existing prejudices. Could they plausibly say that they thought the police officer was executed? Yes. Will they generate a lot of clicks for an article which shows that the murderers were despicable? Yes. It's all the unhealthy mix of sensationalism and aggressive group-think, just like we have seen before after similar attacks.

Nah, I think the anti-semitism smearing is more of an American thing. In Israel, what he said is pretty much the POV of the far-left. It's only in the US people would come up with the idea to label it "anti-semitism".

This is just bizarre. That is not anti-semitism...

I can say for sure that I like that people are working on these kinds of games at least. Me, I'm perfectly fine with the "normal" versions of BG1 and BG2, but maybe I should buy the EE versions just to put my money where my mouth is.

Two birds of a feather:

I've been waiting for this ever since I've seen their "enhanced" editions. Now the entire IE-fan community will see what an inept company Beamdog is when they're not riding on the old glory of BioWare. Their own content is 4th rate fan fiction crap. I wrote that kind of stuff when I was a teen fledgling Dungeon Master, ~25 years ago. Oh wait! Their game will bridge the gap between BG1 and BG2, so they will still be riding on the old glory of BioWare, using characters, storylines, places, monsters, items, everything. Because without that kind of backup, their games would be so bad that the RPGCodex would write a three-act opera about its badness. These people shouldn't be allowed to even touch the sacred ancient content of BioWare. (My RPG content rating system is, narrative-wise: 4th rate fan fiction crap; 3rd rate tie-in novel crap; 2nd rate bestseller crap; 1st rate actual literature crap) Yeah, we will see I guess. I'm pretty much undecided regarding the quality of Beamdog's own additions, but that's because I don't have any experience with them this far. I'm more interested in the trend. Right now, we have Wasteland 2, PoE, Torment:TToN, the list goes on with more indie titles. New IE game being made in 2015. What's going to happen next? Baldur's Gate 3 is pretty much just waiting to happen. It is unclear how I will feel about it since I decided to boycott any and all future FR products when 4th ed FR was released. I heard they fixed a lot of the stupid stuff though. Who knows.

Okay - so Beamdog has just stated that they will release a completely new Infinity Engine game. Read here. "We’ve mentioned before that Adventure Y will be an addition to the Baldur’s Gate line using the Infinity engine, bridging the gap between Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition and Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition." Just... Wow. This is happening in 2015. There might be hope for humanity after all.

It is clear that the people who committed this crime were Islamist terrorists. However, where did they get their equipment and training from? And did they plan this in collusion with someone else? On whose orders? To me those are the most important questions at the moment...

I have also seen the pictures of politicians being thrown in dumpsters and so on. But that does still not change any demographic realities, and thus not any political realities...

It's very doubtful that they do (and again I'm sure this entire thing is only looked upon as a headache by the highest political leadership), but I'm also pretty sure from what we've heard that there are people in military/intelligence positions who didn't get the memo that the Cold War ended, who would rather take a chance to hurt Russia just because than preserve the stability of the European region (which is the goal of the EU). Now the real game-changer here is the annexation of Crimea and the unrest in the East: suppose none of that had happened. We would have had the next election, and then maybe power would have swung back to the pro-Russia camp, instead of the pro-EU camp. If not in the next election, then the one after that. Pretty much the status quo except for some marginal gains in the field of anti-corruption if the public got what they wanted after deposing Yanukovich, perhaps. With Crimea gone and the East in turmoil, it is looking increasingly unlikely that Ukraine will ever again have pro-Russian leadership. The demographics simply do not support that. GG Putin, you got what you wanted. And that is WITHOUT counting in the huge hit to Russian popularity, especially in the Western parts of Ukraine. Again due to the change in demographics and how that affects the public discussion, the picture of Russia will be increasingly dominated by pictures such as this: rather than any positive nostalgia for the Soviet era. Again, I can't say anything other than that Putin brought this upon himself. He had as his ally a completely corrupt kleptocrat which was consequently deposed - and after this has happened, he initiates military action against Ukraine. It must have been a real honey-pot for an old insipid imperialist, I'll concede that.

To be honest, I think that the EU has very much a "wait and see" approach to Ukraine. The EU is very weary of Putin but otherwise does not have much at stake in Ukraine. Contrast this with the US where I believe some people in the security-intelligence apparatus (although not the current political leadership, like Obama) still see Russia as an inherent enemy and wants to do everything they can to kick them in the balls. The series of events that led to the toppling of Yanukovich and what followed immediately afterwards is way too destabilizing to be to the EU's liking. If you are critical of alleged EU overspending on military, I ask you (Hassat): Where would you rather live?

No, I have to admit I never played on the highest difficulty setting because that means to gather ALL the loot, and it gets tiring quickly to find a tiny little diamond ring on the floor of some random abandoned house in the middle of a undead infested ghost city, for hours. I've never been that hardcore. Nother thing I have to admit is I cant play those games anymore because I'm spoiled by modern day graphics. Those games are from 1998-2000 and as awesome as they may be, they make me bleed to death through my eyes. No way around that. If I had all the money in the world I'd demand some high end studio to remake Thief:The Dark Project, Thief:The Metal Age and Thief:Deadly Shadows with a new up to date engine and leave the rest. I would be in heaven. That's sad to hear, I never have any problems replaying old games. Then again, I don't play many new games to begin with, and absolutely not AAA titles.