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No, that makes them teachers to their padawans, not Masters. Addressing and referring to a Knight as "master" is apparently nothing more than a sign of respect, not an actual consideration of formal rank.
Surely you don't think that everyone that is addressed as "sir" actually holds a nobiliary title, do you?
But yeah. From the perspective of the movies exclusively, it's an ambiguous subject. Like many, many others...
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No. Any Jedi with at least the rank of Knight could take a Padawan, and doing so didn't automatically promote her to Master. Obi-Wan attained the rank during the Clone Wars (linky), not immediately after taking Anakin as his pupil. That was the "special dispensation" in his case.Wrong. Upon attaining the rank of jedi knight, not master, Obi-Wan could take a padawan, if he chose to. However, only potentials trained in the order are usually eligible. The council's dispensation lay in them letting him take Anakin, even though he was judged too old to join the order, not in allowing Obi-Wan to take a padawan. When Yoda mentions Qui-Gon's defiance of the council, he speaks about his choice to take Anakin against the wishes of the council, not about Qui-Gon training a padawan at all, which they clearly accepted.
No. They were Masters because that was their rank (no info available on how they attained it, AFAIK). And the term is only ambiguous if you consider only the movies. There's a boatload of content on the Jedi Order in the EU...And they were masters because they trained padawans.Yes, jedi master are established in the order, but the term is ambiguous.
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You still elude answering how exactly imprisonment can lead to Bad Things, in a more substantial and regular basis than crossing the street or taking your car to go to work.Because it is a very simplistic argument that since it is forumulated in a not very strict manner can easily lead to things that wasn't intended by the original argument and which will be potentially very unpleasant.
My bad. I assumed you meant that the potentially undesirable events down the slope was mistreatment. So, basically you say that imprisonment is bad enough by itself.I actually don't think I ever wrote mistreatment. Instead I wrote that imprisonment is inhumane/immoral and that could be seen as a slippery slope but really isn't. It isn't because as I wrote in my last post I don't think that rehabilitation should be done with criminals running around in the open and being able to commit crimes, instead rehabilitation is an answer to the question that most people only answers with imprisonment and death penalty. As such the inhumane/immoral part must come to mean something along the lines of possibility but should be avoided if it doesn't create increased human suffering by avoiding it.LOL.
You don't like imprisonment, but to cover your back, you say inmates in rehab shouldn't be allowed to run around freely. Yes, a most realistic approach, indeed.
Not to mention, you are also disregarding the current statistics on the efficiency of rehab. Which is kinda, dysmal.
What does that have to do with it? So, since it's already expensive, let's spend even more with no guarantees of return?That's a funny argument considering how much money is already spent on prisons. I can only answer it with the fact that a succesfull rehabiliation should lead to the person becoming a boon to society instead of a detriment and unless the person is physically broken to such a degree that he can't even commit crimes, it seems to me that it will always lead to a better economical situation than prisons which are really just a black hole for money.How about, have them work for a living?
Again, the mental disease scapegoat. Being mentally ill, save in cases of extreme demency, does not kill one's perception of good and evil. As I said, those people are responsible for keeping their urges in check and seeking help if need be. Not doing so is a criminal negligence.They are adults, but most legal systems take mental dieseases and insanity into account if relevant. The state is indeed everyones babysitter since it started having a monopoly on non-defensive violence, I do agree that the state in general should try no9t to babysit, but there are cases where there is little choice.
Weren't you the one saying that it's not a matter of "greater good"?Law is there for the good of society and not just the ones that are capable of living by its rules. I applaud your bravery in trying to enforce your view of law upon me, but must disagree.If by "good" you mean efficiency (as much as possible) and stability, then yes. And that's exactly what the maintenance of the status quo is all about.
Otherwise, it's just wishful thinking.
"If other options are open", being the problem here. How do you ensure that a sexual offender can't cause harm to anyone, ever again?The current penal system is inhuman because it is a human right in my point of view for any human to not be detained if other options are open. This is because I wouldn't want to be detained if other options were open and I view anything that I wouldn't want to be subjected to as a human right. I'm a bit perplexed at your asking for alternatives as I have done little except flaunt my support for an alternative.And sure, it's everyone's right not to be imprisoned. But when it comes to the rights of a child rapist clashing with those of his victims, the victims' take precedence.
Or, we can all go live in the gingerbread house at the end of lollipop lane in the land of chocolate...
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DX had some awesome tracks. I remember firing up the game and using the playlist cheat just to listen to some of them...
TIE Fighter, despite being MIDI-powered had a seamless dynamic music system that enhanced atmosphere by about, 10000%, or so.
The original C&C (and to a lesser extent RA1) also comes to mind. Mr Klepacki knows his stuff. Hell March FTW!
I don't have any VG music in my player, but I have
as my mobile phone alarm tune... :ninja10: -
How is that a slippery slope? Do you even know what that is? I'm not saying that protecting the majority necessarily implies mistreating sex offenders. But, as things are right now, and from a realistic approach, the only solution is imprisonment. I haven't seen you come up with something better, either.Helooooooo slippery slope.In fact, your implying that imprisonment -> mistreatment *is* a rather gleaming example of a slippery slope.
What about those that *don't* want rehabilitated? Sure, they all want out on parole, but how many of them really want to change?I should also mention that people who are being rehabilitated should obviously be restricted, I'm just very annoyed by people who talk of imprisonment as an answer to anything.My belief is just that any society which is presumptious enough to take on the job that is law and order, should also try to do so in the most humane way possible, and not falling for silly "greater good", revenge or even arguments to imhumanity, towards the people that is is concerned.
It's not a matter of "greater good", either. Misrepresenting the stances of others isn't going to make your discourse any stronger. The deal is, resources are limited. And I'd much rather have my taxes be spent on roads, dams, or nuclear power plants, than in rehabilitating sex offenders. You are purposefully ignoring the crucial fact that most child rapists are adults, and that entails taking responsibility for one's actions. The state isn't anyone's babysitter.
You see, law isn't as much a means of delivering justice or attaining the high moral ground as it is a tool for maintaining the status quo. Whatever lies are invented to disguise this fact serve only to help people sleep better at night.
I see you throwing this "humane" word around quite a bit, but without any concretion. Would you mind elaborating on how the current penal system isn't "humane" enough, and why? Feasible alternatives?Edit: Also, I do realize that rehabilitation isn't a switch and we can't perfectly rehabilitate everyone yet, but we can only become better if we start caring for it and move towards systems that are humane first and foremost. -
No. Jedi Master is a well defined rank in the Jedi Order, attained by means of training a student past the rank of Padawan, or by passing a tougher version of the Knighthood trials. Sometimes by special dispensation from the Jedi Council, as in Obi-Wan's case. It is in fact better defined than Jedi "weapons" master, that is more an unofficial designation for the more martial-focused Jedi than anything.Not sure if Cin Drallig counts. It depends on what you mean by "jedi master", which is a highly ambiguous term in that it can mean three things:1. A prestige class, as seen in TSL.
2. Any jedi who has taken a padawan, but may or may not be on the council. E.g., Qui-Gon.
3. Any member of the Jedi High Council, whether they have a padawan or not. E.g., Atris.
Now, I don't count option 1, since it only exists in game terms. Besides, judging from the description, Cin Drallig seems more like a "jedi weapon master" anyway.
But the description says very clearly that he was not on the Jedi High Council, so he would not count as a master in the sense that Mace Windu, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Ki-Adi Mundi, Plo Koon, Saesee Tiin or Kit Fisto do.
Council members were appointed by already existing councilpersons based on unspecified reasons, probably orthodoxy. Qui-Gon was a Jedi Master, as was Dooku before he quit. Neither were in the council.
I don't see how being in the council is relevant when it comes to Anakin's Jedi (master) victims. The Council held the political power of the Order... its members needn't be the best with a lightsaber.But I do believe when people talk about Anakin killing a master, they're talking about members of the jedi high council, in which case Cin Drallig would not count. -
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Agree.3) I put it to you that our efforts would be better applied to effectively handling known habitual violent offenders of all kinds. If we fail to do that then all this talk of exacting terrible revenge is more or less an attempt to assuage our own guilt for standing idly by!Preventive measures > punitive measures.
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So how's Power Armor development going?
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[quote name='H
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I agree that you can't strip humanity. But I also believe that certain acts prove that some people aren't better than dogs (no offense intended GD, ) and therefore warrant no better treatment. No one is stripping them of humanity, they are rejecting it themselves.I'm always against death penalty for the reason Gorgon alluded to in his recent post, I believe humanity isn't something that can be stripped away and as such the killing of humans is always immoral.Also, anyone know whether pedophilia is a mental disease? No matter what, such laws should always distinguish between the likely motivation behind the rape, is the subject an insane sadist or a pedophile? Can either of them be treated?
As you guys may be able to read, I'm very pro-rehabilitation as both imprisonent and execution is inhumane.
The mental disease excuse is the easy way out, but I simply don't buy it. Unless one's grip on reality has been completely lost (raving madmen, not quite your usual sex offender), it's that person's responsibility to keep their urges in check and seek help. Or not. But they should pay for it, or it's chaos.
For good or ill, the state is to protect the majority first, and the minority second. In this case, the minority are sex offenders. It might not be "humane" to imprison them for life, but the welfare and protection of the majority take precedence.
Bottom line, don't go around molesting children and you should be ok.
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Eh, so? It is canon nevertheless. And if you are talking about movie canon, be specific. That may save you the need of going off on a rant, foaming at the mouth, when you are corrected.Only EU-canon or C-canon as it is called, smartassWhen I'm talking about canon I usually mean G-canon
And lay off the hostility, kid. Internet tough guys are boring.
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He killed quite a few Jedi *Masters* and Knights.You mean wiping out some jedi kids? Thats all he did. And maybe some minor jedi, padawans, and Mace Windu's arm. Besides that nothing. Unless we're talking post-III & pre-IV era which I know nothing about.
You are aware that there are different levels of canon, right?Canonically sith were destroyed for once and for all in RotJ.Which makes that Legacy or whatever books even more lame than they are. Stupid dumb****s screwing the storyline badly.
Also, all officially licensed SW works must first receive the approval of LFL, which is the ultimate authority on canon, not you.
Regardless of your opinion, Legacy is canon...
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Perhaps you expect them to have the depth of book characters.They were all good ideas, and they all had bits of dialogue you can look at again and again, but I don't know. I think it's because I just don't like the Star Wars setting that much, maybe.Think about it, most BG2 NPCs don't really have any deep backstory to speak of, save for the romanceable ones. Clogging the game with deep, convoluted NPC backstories can be distracting from the main plot. They are there just for flavor. It is the PC's story, after all.
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Aliens.
Game over.
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TIE Fighter (iMuse > u)
Deus ****ing Ex
BG2/ToB - This one has an incredibly prolific mod community, great stuff out there
Fallout 2
Fallout TACTICS - if only you could play this baby co-op...
NWN2/MotB
KotOR2
UFO/TFTD
JK2/JA - piss-poor swordplay system, but fun MP action
Starfleet Command 2 - dynamic music + tactical space combat = win
I play many of those on a regular basis, too.
Honourable mentions for the PES series, Civ, and Rome:TW. I want my life back, dammit!
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That is a misrepresentation and a caricature. Several other different stances that are often categorised as agnosticism (but differ fundamentally from what agnosticism is commonly understood as, such as ignosticism and skepticism) also exist, and are, in many ways, more internally consistent and less based on contradictions and arbitrary assumptions than (a)theism.In contrast, an agnostic is somebody who doesn't want to be called an atheist because it upsets his religious friends. It's also possible, but rare, that they are agnostic because they really do have a semi-strong belief in the possibility of a god. If they don't really believe in the possibility of god, but won't rule it out with certainty, that's more an atheist stance.Please don't try to oversimplify things.
God from a philosophical perspective, and the sociopolitical construct called religion aren't the same thing. I was just pointing out how "faith" is defined in the Christian dogma, and how that dogma might affect the mindset of people that hold orthodoxy above reason. The Bible is *not* the work of "God", as it's been verified to have been authored, translated and edited by different people at different times. This alone (but not exclusively) is enough to question the value of its theological contents.It's interesting because for the last couple of years I've been quite heavily involved in my local church, but gallivanting around unsure how I really feel towards the actual 'faith' bit of the equation. The rest of the religion I can see myself getting into, but this is a kicker. The general logic from people I talk to seems to be that yeah, because there's a divine intervention involved, it's not a question of me going "Hrm, I guess I'll believe", 'decide to believe' and find myself certainly faithful. We humans don't work like that. The big question is whether the certainty that comes, for many people, from a cathartic event, is actually the complete internalisation of the religious discourse (which others would variously describe as brainwashing or Pascal's logic (Pensees I)), or really Godly intervention. Hard to know, which is why I'm burning my arse on the fence.Now, trying to analyse dogmatic postulates from a non-dogmatic stance is a futile exercise. Can one achieve true faith without divine intervention? Not from a dogmatic standpoint, that much is pretty clear. From a non-dogmatic standpoint, there's no answer because any reasoning you build can't integrate irrational (dogmatic) premises if it intends to remain consistent and reach a valid conclusion. There's simply not enough to work with.
Theology is the ultimate mind game. If it could be clarified (solved?) by means of empirical reasoning, being a holy man would have never been a living. It was built around logical loopholes... you gotta admit, it's quite crafty.The key point is that the 'miracle' Moses performs by the power of God, is actually performed by the Egyptian magicians too, apparently. Completely ignoring whether arboreal metamorphosis is scientifically possible, and the rather weak follow-up that "Aaron's one can eat theirs", the Bible doesn't even claim a monopoly on miraculous manifestations for God. It would be pretty damn flimsy ground to claim that God exists because he does things we can't explain, anyway, for me. So if science improves and one day nanobots can imitate this metamorphosis, or we can find synthetic material to make a bush that doesn't burn/etc, are we God, or does that disprove God? I don't think it makes sense to think we have proof of God in that. The question then becomes, what purpose do these miracles serve? And what has to happen for someone to get that 'dead-cert' faith about God? If it really is the divine spark, what are we supposed to do before that?The common answer is "keep trying and God will open the door" or something, but what you have to be careful of is simply training yourself to faith. Pascal was right; get someone to kneel, get someone to go through the ritualistic motions, and eventually, you will instil faith in him; or rather, you will find he has internalised it so much that he believes he has faith, when he may not. A quandary.
Meta, where are you
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According to Christian doctrine, yes. It requires of a degree of divine intervention to attain (Divine Grace). And regarding how could you tell, well. If you have to ask, you are already doomed.Unfortunately, Faith is, by definition, a God-inspired certainty that God exists. Certainty, not belief.Are you implying that more than a belief that one has internalised unto himself, faith has a specific divine element that makes it clearly distinguishable from other kinds of beliefs? If so, how would you tell?
No, really. Theoretically you would just know.
I'm not making this up, btw. Look it up if you have to.
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I would convert to that religion.
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Main difference being that in Sion's case, nothing prevented him from killing himself. Sion wanted to die but didn't have the guts to do it.So it is ok to want dead in conditions I mentioned above but NOT in Sion's case?
Is this of any relevance to the discussion or you just were looking for an excuse to throw around the words "stupid" and "ignorant"?And mere idea of pain being something perfectly quantative is stupid and ignorant.
No. It was a learned skill (according to Kreia), not something stemming from inherent strength of will, as evidenced by the fact that his will is weak enough to be weakened by mere words to a point where he gives up on life.Fact he kept going on and on when anyone should've collapsed long time ago speaks for itself - guy was madman or avatar of hatred, take your pick, but by no means emo.
The imaginary part of my statement was in reference to the stereotype of emo. Sion's life was the result of his choices. He could have killed himself easy enough, but chose to live as an angst-driven pain guru instead.Did YOU play the game? There's nothing imaginary in Sion's pain.But whatever. I'm starting to feel real silly for discussing whether or not Sion is emo, so this is the last I'm going to say about it. I'm not particularly proud of the derailment, either.
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What, the guy that is sustained by pure hatred alone? The same one whose only goal is to inflict pain on others because pain is all he feels and understands? The one Sith Lord that is convinced to quit living by appealing to his own festering insecurities?And where exactly did you pull THIS one out? From within the game I meanDid you even *play* the game?
I'm not sure how you reached the conclusion that leading a life full of imaginary suffering (by choice, no less) is the same as being a prisoner in one's own body due to multiple sclerosis or terminal cancer. That is distasteful, disrespectful, and dangerously fallacious.And gee, all those old people under horrible pain from their illnesses wanting euthnanasia are SO emoBut yeah, when everything else fails, dump the rolleyes emoticon. There's no defense against that.
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As opposed to Sweden and Finland, as you claimed.And what two countries are above Australia? That's right, Norway and Iceland
I'm not disputing any of that. HDI is an overall indicator, though. Just a heads-up for you to check your facts before going postal with the flamethrower.Finland and Sweden aren't far back either.Then there's bunch of other things such as how equality fares etc. lists on which esp. Sweden ranks at the top - Finland too from time to time. Not to mention we finns have best (and free) education system in the world according to PISA
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Oh, okay. I guess his living in a permanent state of self-loathing and anguish (not to mention the fact that he actually *wants* the PC to convince him to die), doesn't qualify as "emo" enough for you.
I've really grown to hate the way some people post before thinking.
Thank you, come again.
The Peoples View On the "Gray Jedi" class of Neutral
in Star Wars: General Discussion
Posted
EPIC fail.
Oh, and your regard of the quality of the EU is of no consequence. Canon is canon, and different levels of canon are only relevant when there are conflicting sources. This is not the case so what we know about ranks in the Jedi Order from the EU is all there is to it.