BruceVC

I know this is no surprise but I agree 100 % with Bryy, there are some topics around social justice that really aren't funny or shouldn't be considered humorous. Jokes about topics like rape and domestic abuse I fail to see how anyone can find them in anyway remotely funny What humour does around these topics is detract from the seriousness of the subject, I'm not saying that just because people laugh at rape jokes that makes then supportive of rape but it doesn't help with the societal problem of addressing the problem at every level

Backhanded compliments aren't really compliments, no matter how true. I hear you but I have also been accused of making " backhanded" comments about people when my intention was to give them a real compliment. The reality is some people have a history and perception around there posting style and most people take time to accept or recognize a change. So sometimes there is nothing malicious or sarcastic about a comment its just that you can't ignore the past behaviour of a member but you want to be supportive of a particular point they have made. I think this is reasonable ? End of the day you can't blame people for having a perception of you if you have done nothing to change that perception

Guys here is a interesting review of this unusual game, if anything it makes me more keen to want to purchase it. So good one Jim Sterling who I normally don't particularly like http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/11243-Betrayer-Review-In-Dying-Color.2

Well if she thinks jokes that are obviously going to offend and hurt peoples feelings are funny then she doesn't deserve to be taken seriously. This is about the perception that you create for yourself Also Bester sorry to say this but I find your comment "She knows what proper humor is and that's a rare quality in a woman" condescending as you seem to be suggesting that unless a women is dismissive of social justice issues in attempt to be funny then she doesn't understand what a sense of humour is

I thought it was a teasing friendly remark; I must work on my PR. Volo, he was paying you a compliment. And you may think " I don't see it as a compliment" but your posting style in the past has made many people not take what you say seriously. So don't get offended when people make supportive comments of your posts, they are not trolling. They are just surprised

By your own account it very nearly turned a legal conflict into one where people got shot. Cow grazing is not worth killing anybody over. There were beatings, taserings, intimidation, questionable arrests, snipers and armed agents around the Bundy Ranch. Then the armed citizens arrive and everyone becomes a little more respectful of each other. And they did it without brandishing those weapons, just making it known they had them. I am surprised by the government reaction to tell the truth. Usually when they are hell bent of seizing your property and freedom no matter the pretext their policy is to shoot everyone in sight indiscriminately. Ruby Ridge comes to mind where the penalty of missing a court date is summary executions of the entire family. Cows are not worth killing for. But defending freedom and property is. And it would be worth dying for if it came to that. Today those folks in Nevada drew a line in the sand and dared the BLM to step over it and God Bless them for doing it. The BLM declined and God bless them for that. But the confrontation is coming at some point. It's been building for years. To quote Thomas Jefferson "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground". But not without a fight. GD didn't you predict this ? When we start seeing the Federal government coming to take the homes and farms of good tax paying and god fearing Americans? This could be the beginning of the great and inexorable move by the Federal government to absorb or neutralize anything that doesn't conform to its socialist policies. And I'm worried...you, Steph and Tommy could be next But I think Walsie also has a point, because what could have been the outcome? What if one of the militia's had decided to provoke the Feds, its quite possible. One of the federal authorities gets shot by an extremist in order to deliberately to cause a conflict. There would have been multiple casualties but end of the day the Feds would have won because obviously they have more manpower and access to better weaponry. This happened in South Africa 2 years ago during a violent strike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marikana_miners%27_strike So having access to all these weapons isn't necessarily a good thing as it can raise the confidence and temperature of a situation

That would be very cool, there are so many good suggestions that have been mentioned in this thread and others. I would like to see access or interaction to a D&D type Underdark realm and meeting races that dwell in those realms. Maybe parts of the dungeon are occupied by these races a living level of the dungeon, the entire level is a sentient creature either summoned by Old Nua or created by him through some arcane experiment

The only thing you've 'proved' is how ignorant and full of yourself you are. Yet again. You are quite good at offering us all proof of this quite often. Oh, and congrats again on being a subject of your government, thinking it is your government who provides the quality of life to the folks under it's rule. You are such a good serf. Such a good subject. Your superior comrades, king, or queen are no doubt happy to have you as such a loyal subordinate. Really, if you think there's a scale that can quantify what is the best culture you're either naive, ignorant, full of yourself, stupid, some combination of, or all of the above. Here's probably the best scale I can think of out there in regards to what is the best nation to live in: The suicide rate by nation. As obviously if it's such a great place to live for everyone, no one would kill themselves. In no way would I say that even the above is any kind of great indicator of what is the best culture. Though it's certainly more relevant I'd say that the links you provided. And in regards to those links. By one of them I live in the #1 culture, and while there are few other places on earth I'd consider living in, I wouldn't say my culture's way is the best way (especially in 2014 USA). Of the supposed top ten nations on that list, exactly half of them I would move the hell out of as fast as possible as their governments are way too fascist or communist for me. Of your other list, the top 4, absolutely no way would I want to live there, for the same reason. Sweden? Australia? Nice places to visit sure, great people, I have friends in both places.. but their laws and government are way too oppressive, corrupt, and inept. Unless of course you are a happy good loyal subordinate serf who bathes in socialism and the 'glory' (*cough* *choke* *gag**vomit*) of their queen. Seriously. What's good for one person is not good for another. One man's trash is another man's treasure. #@*( anyone who would forcibly impose their way of life on anyone else, especially if they do it under the false auspices of 'we're doing it for your own good'. There's a special place in hell reserved for such folks. Morning Vals How are you doing today ? So despite the fact that I can give another 6 or 7 links that discuss various indexes that represent what countries have the best quality of life you think the best way to measure this should be based on how few people commit suicide Seriously dude you make me laugh....try to listen to what you are saying. Suicide is normally caused by depression, depression is a chemical imbalance and your quality of life for a depressed person can make no difference around a decision to end there life And yes I believe in governments and paying taxes. I believe governments have a responsibility to provide certain basic services and we need to support them by not breaking the law and paying your rates and taxes. So if this makes me a serf then I guess I am one. But I don't mind being a serf because I think I live a really good lifestyle

I had never heard of them before, they look cute. I wonder if they can be eaten and what they taste like?

Either you haven't had enough sex in your life or you've got some kind of creepy synesthesia if you think the offal of human groinal regions and sweat smells like spring flowers. The potential joke based on the fact that flowers are fundamentally sexual organs is lost when you've actually been in a room reeking of human copulation. Do you spend loads of time in rooms that reek of human copulation...you seem quite knowledgeable

Its funny but I never saw his posts like that. I thought he was always logical and reasonable with his comments. He also made some of the most informed and convincing points around issues of social justice. So I miss his input

When did anyone say that Western culture is perfect and doesn't need to improve on any aspect of its culture? I said that governments in Western countries give there citizens the best quality of life and I proved it by posting several links. I made this point because I wanted to settle the debate " what makes Western society better than say Russian or other societies". If you have another way of measuring happiness levels across countries please post it. But I refuse to say, just because its politically correct, that the quality of life in places like Russia or China for the average citizen is the same as most Western countries. This may sound arrogant but its not intended to be, its just the reality of governments in the modern world and how they manage there countries Also the issue with RT is that it is an international news channel. Its suppose to present the news to world and not just there local population. That's why the objectivity is important

I miss him as well, he said he was taking a break from the Obsidian forums

OK, what was in the past that's better than Western civilization? Also if the indexes are flawed because they are based on Western qualities of a good life then maybe you can share what other variables are important. The links I posted discuss scores like purchasing power, safety, healthcare and pollution levels. And I'm sure those are universal values that every culture and country aspires to?

Ah.. more of your Your ignorance rises to a special level BruceVC. I'll give you this, of all the people I've ever run across on a forum anywhere, your indignant armor to reality is the thickest. In media you'd be akin to Piers Morgan, hubris, haughty holier than thou attitude, and all. Pretty much no matter what anyone ever writes your viewpoint is near impervious. And to address your first quotebox above, you really just show how much you let other people do your thinking for you. I'll leave the 9/11 issue at this for you as it's a good litmus test in regards to actual knowledge of the event. Until you (or anyone else who swallows whole and faithful the official conspiracy theory on 9/11) can write at least a couple of paragraphs about the significance of Building Seven during that event, citing actual facts about it, and why it is significant on the number of levels that it is, especially in relation to the official narrative, you truly have not done your homework and allowed others to do your thinking for you. Its funny you mention Piers Morgan, I really admire him and loved his show. He was shutdown by the right wing and the NRA in the USA, a pity because he made loads of sense. But to be fair to America you can't have an outsider lecturing morality and whats socially acceptable. So his time was limited, I realize that now And Vals remember, I won't give up on you..I'll keep trying to get you to see the reality of how the world really operates

I agree, Fox and RT are on the same level IMO. And its a very low level for the objectivity of news

How did I know Sarex was going to agree to that You and I have had this discussion before and we both know we won't convince each other, so this is a good case of a " Lets agree to disagree"

You've raised some good points but I think you are misunderstanding and misrepresenting what feminism means. I am feminist and all it means is that you believe that women have equal rights to men and I am opposed to cases where those rights aren't equal. Some of the examples you gave have more to do with the objectification of women or sexual inappropriate comments Feminism doesn't mean you hate men or think men are rapists. If that has been your experience you weren't dealing with feminists but people who clearly were discriminating against men.

Well I'm working now at a customer and we have an issue with Firewall ports that aren't open. So we may have to reschedule the work for later in the week, oh well these things happen

So this is really the problem as you see it Volo? Men are stereotyped in games and there are games that are designed only for women and this is sexist?

And it's really rather tiresome seeing Mor reflexively press the 'must be Russian' button whenever someone disagrees with him. Even asterisking oby ain't Russian. As for bias western media are as bad as RT, they're just (somewhat) better at hiding it and use more subtle techniques like false balance (interview Tartars on a 1:1 basis with others to provide 'balance', even if they're 1/8 of the population, cherry pick to get psychotic sounding interviewees with opposing views), acritical restating of governmentally supplied 'facts' (Iraq can hit London in 45 minutes; John Kerry says there's no real separatism in Crimea so there isn't whatever prior referendum and actions show), allowing the presentation of poorly researched facts (Tartars were a majority prior to Stalin's deportation, still occasionally stated as fact; transparent ballot boxes = travesty, despite them being used in France and India and shown on the same news sources without comment) and just plain selective reporting and weasel words (our side= activists; their side = separatists/ rioters; we intervene, Putin invades; we have governments, they have regimes etc etc). The last especially is straight from 1984, might as well actually be saying Putin regime doubleplusungood, our government doubleplusgood. Most westerners think our media is better due to simple confirmation bias- they say what people want to hear, confirm our obvious superiority and hence are, obviously, correct. But five minutes research shows what a load of slanted garbage we're actually being presented with. And if I can do that for free they, with all their resources, should be able to do it on a professional level, but they don't. They're capable of it, they just don't want to. You can't seriously believe that RT and other Western news channels portray the news in the same way? But I want to discuss a more interesting point. What's wrong with thinking that Western culture is superior? Lets not use the word superior, it sounds arrogant. Lets say that Western culture gives its citizens the highest quality of life. http://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp http://www.businessinsider.com/top-countries-on-oecd-better-life-index-2013-5?op=1 Do you dispute these links? The Cold War is over, Western ideology has won. Lets not ignore the fact that despite some of the issues in Western culture we offer our citizens the best and most favourable options for a happy and prosperous lifestyle

That's how many people see the situation Whereas how I see their argument is "Games made for male audience should cater more to women" Instead of asking more games targeted at them. Partly I believe the problem is that there isn't an idea of what a woman's game is. IMO cause feminist seem incapable of enjoying anything, which if they could they wouldn't be feminists in the first place. But why do you think many games cater for a male audience, I agree with this by the way. It doesn't make it right but its the reality. Do you remember that article Alan (I miss Alan, I wonder when he is going to come back) posted a while ago how Sony and other large software companies intentionally targeted the male fan base from the 1980's. So now we have situation where we need to be more inclusive around gaming design in some cases as there is a skewed perception around what consumers want. Do you think this would help around the objectification of women in games?

That's how many people see the situation

What type of work were you doing and what was the reason you resigned if you don't mind sharing?

Malc do you and others honestly actually watch CNN International? Not CNN USA. There is a difference I do, there are numerous talk shows and documentaries that give an objective view on global news. Every night there are shows like Global Exchange which is broadcast from Abu Dhabi and basically only discusses the BRICS countries and the Middle East. Then there is the absolutely superlative Fareed Zakaria who has interviews with some of the most interesting people in the world and is not pro or anti American, he discusses the relevant news and you get many different perspectives. I can give many more examples but I think you get my point So I don't get this unfair characterization of CNN as biased, because they are present much more objectivity than myopic views on events in the world