Orogun01

Sure, but it needs to stay in the realm of philosophy and not try to pass itself off as science (although I would say that there is some flaws in the philosophy as well). Well it can't pass as a science since its mostly dismissed by every academia, which are not even willing to accept it as a thesis. This is still a religious idea; but I find the blatant disregard of scientist who choose to pursue it a little more than biased. As it was done when Darwin's ideas where on the defending side, I bring up the term agnostic; a position that Darwin himself took. You can't prove or disprove the existence of a Supreme being, in the same way that every proof that exist supporting evolution could be thrown out by a skeleton out of place and time. Aside from math there is no exact science, so I truly don't understand why are people so smug about their own ignorance.

No, they pretty much labeled those as "pervert" pillows. The same way that they have those "pervert" dolls, frankly if he was buying them for his daughters it would be creepy x2; since it's Japan. PS: exchange all the instances of pervert with Japanese and you will get my meaning.

What you say is true, and is one of the reasons why conquest is one of my preferred motivations for war. On the other hand I believe that the motivations for every war are economical and not diversity amongst cultures. Even if the human motivations where another they tie in with the economy. P.S. I cannot look the other way on this comment. We shall duel at dawn tomorrow, and seeing as we both read the same book: one of us will show up late and the other early. Or in the most likely case no one shows up at all. But seriously, I do find it more useful since is easy to apply to personal endeavors than The Art of War.

Well, Sun Tzu did write about human nature. Considering that people have been using his advice in one form or another for around two millenia now, you have to say he probably had a fairly decent grasp on human nature. Hell, he's the one that said the best general is the one who doesn't need to resort to force and solves the problem before armies have to start moving. That is only one side of human nature, IMO what he had a grasp on was the psychology of warfare. He stresses the seriousness of it, with a minimalist approach that tried to avoid conflict altogether. My point is that while "conflict reveals much about one's character" is the intent and the approach to this revelations that define one's true nature. @Walsh: that specific anecdote is one of my favorite from him. If you like the Art of War you should try The Book of Five Rings, it delves more into personal combat than into strategy but is a good read.

Sorry I make it a point to not take advise on human nature from the guy that wrote the book on war. Oh, and if good is a human product and bad it's counterpart then they are both products. That's why ethics are so sketchy

The textures one feels a little clunky, and it doesn't fix the models: vague lifeless eyes

Fallout 3 had something that I felt lacking in this game: character progression. With so many cool monsters that have abilities the game would had benefited from it; or it would had been more akin to my tastes. Also aside from the main story the sidequests feel lacking, most of them are gather and deliver. On the good side, I love the Diabloesque inventory and weapons tiers.

That's okay, this is kind of becoming the "once a day" post thread.

Not quite my belief but close. I believe that there is a range of normalcy and civic behavior and that it covers all relatively well adjusted people. Some of them non violent offenders even, and like you said you need to be TRAINED for everything. So there must be some form of conditioning yourself for murder, even if someone were to commit the act they don't tend to develop a dependence or taste for killing. I would count the rare cases as an extreme side of the spectrum and say that if removed from an environment which promotes violent behavior they will be able to successfully rehabilitate. BTW, good manners aren't a requisite for good will or intentions. A poor chap might not now how to properly behave but he can still do good actions and be good willed in his own way. Lack of proper education is not a cause, it adds to the problem but is not the main cause.

Been playing it for a while now. Apparently no russian gun shoots straight; except for the bad's guys. Overall is like Fallout but Russian and uglier and without character progression; but the guns are nice.

You are complaining about bugs on an Obsidian forum. The irony!

I know, Fallout had some great DLC and not just some cheap items.

I do love how they say that the charges are the equivalent to what a guy would spend on drinks at a bar and are shameless enough to say that the intent is to talk to girl instead of getting them drunk

Why would I pay a girl to talk to me when I'm gaming when I have a good family nagging me about responsibility and me being a bum. I need that money for therapy instead BTW, is there any confirmation on whether you can play "those" japanese games with them

IMO, they should all adopt the Bethesda model. They have the best DLC out there.

You know the saying, so bad that is good.

That exactly was his explanation - you don't need them. I suspect the real reason for not including them is some sort of inter-company bureucracy. So even though you bought them with real money, you can't port them to the expansions? Methinks that BW is going a little off their rocker. We should had seen Sonic as a warning sign of their descent to madness.

A network of sorts already exists, or at least the potential for one. Amongst low income communities there are ex-con individuals that serve as advisors and try to help those trying to leave that life, but without any form of organization or the government to back them their efforts to return rate remains low. The pieces are already there, the only thing needed is someone to take the step forward and connect the dots, uniting them under one group dedicated to a more general rehabilitation process and not just within the niche to which each ex-con used to belong to. The public has no need to know of this; if at first this remains a small project and produces favorable results it can then be brought to the mainstream. The major problems I foresee is that most of these individuals are targets for anyone trying to make their bones and putting them under the same roof may be a bad idea, also because of American law it will be a slow crusade to approve this; even with good results.

I can't find any numbers that actually show how many poor people we have - but I would be surprised if we weren't in the top 10 of countries with equally distributed wealth. Especially given our tax rates that go from 20-70% based on annual income. So I imagine we have a very homogeneous society mainly consisting of few poor and few very rich. Going to jail has an affect, but it really depends on the situation and what you did. In my experience, it's mostly the big companies that refuse to hire someone with a criminal background. But if you've done time because of financial crimes then you'll have a hard time getting a job, we don't like people who steal. It's important to understand though that we don't place such a huge emphasis on family values (in public) as you do - if a politician is caught cheating on his wife then people lose a little respect for him, but he won't lose his job - if he's caught stealing or gets a DUI however.. So if people have done crimes that have nothing to do with their competence in a given job, then we are more forgiving - and very harsh if they have. The reason why I asked is precisely the level of prejudice against any wrongdoer that exist on the States, rehabilitation is nothing without a support net which most criminals can't find outside. Maybe they should implement a system where the reformed criminals turned social workers try not only to prevent crime by public speaking in front of youth, but also try to offer a way out for the criminals that grow tired of that kind of living. Opinions? Be careful, those kind of comments might make you catch fire BTW, I truly truly Hate the new post system Can't find what was the last post and have to scroll down after seeing them. I better stop now before I turn green.

How long you think it will take to veto it? 100,000 gamers are probably out crying for blood right now.

I do see your point; I guess that as a humanist I tend to overestimate the value of choice. Because I believe that the choices that aren't made are still choices taken. Well, the chap's nurture could outset his nature and balance his personality. I would argue that those petty criminals that joined the army have some measure of humanity that many within the system lack. Perhaps is the whole ideology that gangs have attached to crime and the necessity of viciousness to maintain status. I would also say that the discipline instilled on them by the Army may had made them better men, although that is not always the case and many gangs exist within the military or the reverse; which is worse, military trained men going into gangs. Even though what you say is true, the exception still exist where the world of violence may in turn make bottom up criminals violent. But I sorta feel that we are missing the point among this discussion, reformation was the main subject. I will challenge your model, since bottom up and top down have no real bearing on reformation and it's the character of the individual that determines this. I say this because examples of top down criminals that are not violent by nature and therefore face easier reformation come to mind. Greed is motivation rather than a factor in determining how it is attained, there have been and are many intelligent criminals that become successful without resorting to violence or keeping it to a minimum.

I'm going to disagree strongly with you here, you are completely ignoring personal responsibility. A lot of people live in need and not all of them turn criminal, simply because they did not choose it. What's worse you make it sound as if criminal are hopeless cases because they are uneducated or have a physical deficiency. I would have to ask you, what kind of crimes are you talking about? I'm going to guess based on your post that you are referring to gangs. I guess i'm just reminder of the two kinds of gangbangers: the ones that join out of necessity, greed, or naivety and eventually get out or become less involved, and the ones that love the "game" and want to go down guns blazing. I will make the distinction between "fishes" and "sharks" here. There is a lot of aspects to prison culture, most "sharks" offenders find their niche on one of the prisons gangs. Is this element that allows for the trading of information and the development of connections (they know a guy that knows a guy kind of thing) While the "fishes" may suffer the most, they tend to want to close that chapter of their lives and move on. Two systems would not work because is the serious offenders that benefit from prison to further their criminal careers.

It's the Blues Brothers

Wow, he's basically saying 'The story doesn't seem to make any sense, so I'll overanalyze and come up with something 10 times better than Squaresoft's plot'. And dammit, he delivers. Maybe someone needs to start the FFVIII thread. Figuring it out can't be harder than the Da Vinci code.

I'll try to figure it before the doctors realize i'm not in my cell