Orogun01

Trying to rip the United States a new one, should we bring this to /b/? They have a track of chasing down animal abusers.

WoD, remember that you are talking to LoF

No revolution was ever started on a full stomach. Like my philosophy professor used to say "All wars are fought for economic reasons"

I just can't get into it, there is just something about the feel of a book on your hands.

It's not. I was trying to point out that secularism is by no means a product of one age in the history of western civilization. It's certainly true that many enlightenment ideas and values are adopted by today

Religion was still very central to everyday life at the time. But following the departure from the pure divine in the Renaissance, the enlightenment age continued the humanist wave. A lot of the intellectuals at the time weren't highly religious, science came and overcame religion. How is it that the time period which focused the western world on the values of freedom and independence, encouraged a ton of revolutions not be relevant to my point that the modern age was influenced by the ideals of that time? @Wals, just clarifying one of your points. You asked for more disscusion on the subject, so I was happy to comply. PS. it's okay if you brain it's a little mushy, it is still one of the smartest brains I know

Wals, you need to consider the differences in the situation in Egypt. They aren't as cut off from the rest of the worlds as a lot of the other predominately Muslim countries, as clearly evidenced by the amount of tweets that went into organizing the protests. I believe that culture and education factor in dispelling extremism.

And when exactly has such a moment happened elsewhere? Separation of church and state? The enlightenment age, sounds familiar?

Klaatu Verratta Necktie! Oh damn y....

Today I drew for 2 hours before class, drew for 4 hours in class and during the 2 hours it takes me to get back home. Now bathed and fresh I'm going to resume the drawing. **** art

Can you blame him?

oh? the russian edition didn't. only the CD-key required Ahhh, Russia and their disregard for DRM. Wonder why EA doesn't complaint to them? After all, a lot of Russian versions are used for the cracking process.

The first one did well enough to have a sequel and it had horrible DRM that crashed the game every hour.

No, I will rail against it because it's punitive and forces me to log to EA weekly, like talking to a parole officer.

I am of the firm opinion (so far that I have made a thesis of it) that every emotion or feeling has an evolutionary purpose in service to survival. If we are greedy it's because we have come to associate power, money and status with stability. Nature in its pure form could be most aptly described as temperament only, since every behavior is a reaction to a factor. Fact of the matter is that you can rationally argue for anything, the abolishment of currency it's nothing new. Just look at Hume's theories on the state of nature and the origin of property. Is a old debate which has resurfaced once with the rise of anarchism, the big question is how much value does this notion really has?

I have no problem with power coming from somewhere, but checks an balances works against itself. It was implemented on the premise that the people occupying the seats would be reasonable and qualified for governing, not always the case since they seem more interested in following with their party's agendas. You have gone over some of the extraordinary measures an individual would have to go to allay his concerns. It is the rare man who would go to such extremes, and even more rare that companies and the government would cooperate with them despite having reasonable concerns. The problem lays with the system when the few concerned aren't able to exert their rights and the organizations we have designed to maintain oversight fail at it. E.G: BP fiasco. We don't hear about these messes until they become tragedy, either because someone stands to win or because incompetence and at the end of the day we suffer the consequences with no chance to right them.

No. Again, nobody "rules", except for perhaps judges, in some cases, and more often than not at the behest of the people. The Prez can't just write any legislation (in fact, he can only sign things into law, the legislative power is Congress), he is constrained by the Constitution AND the judiciary which is, again on paper, supposed to be independent. I'm not sure exactly what you are complaining about. Is it about democracy as a concept? Maybe how the system works in practice? What? Because if it's the former, I'm always happy to discuss possible alternatives. And if it's the latter... shouldn't you be doing something about it like, I don't know, running for office yourself? As for the other points you made, I think your mind is made up on how corrupt politicians are and how little power they have in comparison to corporations. Not much to discuss there. I could ask for PROOF! but that never ends well. So meh. Power doesn't rest at any particular person's head but there is a ruling body, which in fact rules. The president can write up a bill and bring up to a congress member with whom he is friendly and introduce it. This is in fact a lot of what goes on in Washington, back room deals. I'm complaining not for a leak that will harm our government and their ability to operate, not all information should be free. But the fact is that a lot of information is and we don't have the means to operate on it. Let's rewind the clock back a bit, there were a lot of 9/11 conspiracy theory nuts who thought that it was inside job to give an excuse to go in for the oil. Let's say for argument sake that they could had been right; what would the average person could do before they reach the limits of their resources? We have given the power of oversight to organizations we can't trust, whilst the founding fathers believed in the idea of an open government to the people. With them having concerns and a voiced opinion on the white house.

Master race!

You sow the console you reap the butthurt. PC gaming master race!

ITT: Sex while driving.

Not personal gain, their political career. I can point a few fingers to companies that have screwed this country and remain immune, who have backed political candidates to pursue their interests. Since the presidents need money to run for the election its in their interest to accept, thus a lot of promises are made to the companies. Companies who also have a lot of clout on Washington. Major contributions are usually made by companies from the same sector, it's not their donations but their continued donations. Basically, they fund the presidential run in exchange of their interests on Washington. Yeah, funny thing about that; I need to be registered with a party in order to vote for their candidate for president. Meaning that I have to pick my poison and stick to it or refrain from voting. I don't think that the president should help only his homies over the bankers with the hats. I think he should help the majority who voted for him, which is most definitively not the bankers who funded him. So the means by which they rule us are the ruler? The President writes the legislation, the Senators approve it and they don't rule us how? Which brings us back to the beginning, our ruling body not only is very far from the influence of the public but unable to sort itself out. Is a problem when the safeguards work against us because of the people we elected being inept or self serving.

My problem with rational self interest in politicians is that they pursue their career before the needs of the people. While the two may be interrelated, it doesn't translate as such in execution. Fairly to say that whomever funds the race has bought the interest of the president or an assurance. Also the main fault with representative democracy is the differences in social strata. I doubt Obama is really one from the hood, who could understand and change their problems. When whoever is at the helm becomes more trouble for whom? The safeguards that prevent a president from becoming a tyrant can't be enacted by the public, in that manner you have a king who isn't as powerful as a king should be because he answers to his "court". Which in turn should answer to us, but they don't. If democracy happens is the result of humans being unfit to rule, then democracy by it's own cause its flawed. They do rule us, after all.

These people and their faulty cellphone detonators. sorry, what I meant to say was "good save"

I know that's a way that a lot of free MMO sustain themselves.

The problem that its permeating is that; to follow your analogy, your cup of tea it's being pushed over by your cup of coffee. It's not just about democratic behavior, is mostly about self interest, one of the great faults of representative democracy. The organizations, the senators and even the president have all their own goals that are sometimes at odds with each other or the public well being. With this vie for power and constant struggle the system cannot rightly operate, so the question remains of how do you make sure that your representatives are fair?