JFSOCC

I suppose I'm more passionate about this subject than anything else, because it's near and dear to me. It's also one of the few subjects I claim to know something about beyond mere opinion. We've discussed things before and I generally enjoy your posts even though it's mostly humour with a barb. But on this topic, you won't see me stay quiet. Ever.

I'll admit, I pick women characters in games because, hey, why not? If I have to look at my character the whole time, I'd rather have a good looking woman to look at than a gritty short bearded brown haired rugged man. Blegh. So I have a high enjoyment tolerance for naked armour. That said, there are other ways to make characters Aesthetically pleasing without making them look like dress-up dolls.

I saw an interview with JJ on daily show yesterday which did not inspire any confidence. He want sto cut out the philosophical underpinnings of Star Wars. That's pretty much the best thing about star wars. Not to mention I ****ing hate his tv show revolution. http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-may-13-2013/exclusive---j-j--abrams-extended-interview-pt--1

sure rape star wars even further.

You don't seem to understand what shale oil and gas mean. Shale is the source rock for oil. Before we could only get oil that seeped out of shale over millions of years and then got trapped in some other structure. Now we can actually go to the source and get it directly from there. There are vast, almost unlimited amounts of shale oil and gas all over the world. That is why the outdated curve you linked turned in the other direction, and US is now expected to be energy independent in just a few years, something I never thought would happen. As far as nuclear power I'm for it too, but unfortunately I just read an article I can't find anymore that says that nuclear energy is just way too expensive compared to the cheap natural gas, so the prospects for it are once again grim. Whatever happened to all those modular designs that were supposed to revolutionize it? As far as population growth, industrialized countries actually have a problem with shrinking population, not overpopulation. If anything Westerners should have more children, not fewer. More generally, you simply can not project in a straight line like that professor was doing. There are technological breakthroughs and cultural paradigm shifts which completely change the equations every few decades. I read this and heaved a big sigh. Alright, let's do this one by one, shall we? 1. Bull****. unlimited fuels would have crashed the oil prices, and yet they're higher than ever. 2. That slight uptick at the end of the curve is well within expectations, like the finding of a new well, but it won't stop the trend. If you'd watched the video (which I noticed yesterday I've posted twice in this thread) you'd have actually accounted for it 3. US energy independent in a few years? HAHAHAHA, so I guess those expensive wars in resource rich countries were for the actual reasons stated, right, bringing democracy (ignoring the many other oil-less dictatorships around the world)and findign weapons of mass destruction. Energy companies always promise the moon, otherwise they'd never get permission to drill in nature reserves and the like. Don't believe everything you hear. 4. Nuclear power is expensive, compared to gas, it's also much less polluting, even so, it's hardly the best solution. 5. Yes, western countries have population decline, the important exception is the United States, with it's nuclear family values, anti-abortion protests and religious nutcases has a birthrate which only with the economic crisis has fallen below it's shocking highs. But since we have about 3 times the population in the world that we did in the 50's of the last century, and because the world is not just the western world, your point is moot. Although it does say something against strict immigration policies, does it not!? 6. Technological breakthroughs can't be relied on, and can't be predicted. the Technologists as I like to call them, want to solve world hunger with bio-tech, bypassing that if we don't solve the underlying problem of growth, that it will just increase the amount of stress the world will get. The Green revolution was fantastic, but it also helped increase the world population exponentially.

But at least I won't have it anymore, muhahahaha!

You can educate. Yes, the Khmer Rouge tried that too. Seriously, you are well-intentioned (of that I have no doubt) but woefully misguided. The only way you will ever get these things to work is to make them profitable. Khmer rouge? Did you just Godwin this thread? Seriously enough with the hyperbole. Khmer rouge, by the way, was all about destroying intellectualism. They sent teachers and artists to prison gulags or killed them outright, I'd say that's rather the OPPOSITE of education. Get your facts straight.

You can educate, besides I happily "enforce" womens rights. My list is largely non-coercive.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/02/rhinos-mozambique-extinct_n_3200840.html?ir=Green

For all it's flaws DA:O had some interesting things worth looking at. I liked the "tactics" slots you could program your NPC AI in.

If something ends up being cut, they'll have to communicate to their backers what and why. I'm satisfied that this would happen.

Nuclear energy is relatively clean though, especially with new technologies. I'm not such a hippy that I'm against using nuclear, although the worlds reserves of radioactive fissile materials are also massively dwindling, not to mention the sources are largely in countries like Afghanistan.

What I think would be good: Admit we have a real problem Invest in renewable energy technology encourage family planning, don't try to have more than 2 children improve the position of women worldwide as educated women tend to have less children, and later Have strong and well enforced international regulation of fishing, especially of endangered fish stocks. As far as I'm concerned the Marine Stewardship Council could set the standards. Have strong and well enforced international regulation in forestry and farming: As little mono-culture as possible. And don't cut and burn wild lands to replace with intensive farming. As far as I'm concerned the Forest Stewardship Council could set the standards. As much as I hate to say it, because I love meat, we need to eat less meat. Even bringing it down to once or twice a week would have an impact. Prices of meat should go up, as they're currently sold for ridiculously low prices. We eat 37 billion chicken worldwide every year, about 5 per person per year. This leads to overcrowded chicken farms and avian diseases like Sars and Avian flu, but also all these chicken need feed, and the feed comes from farming intensively. this depletes soils and wastes farmland which could be used for feeding people. (who will destroy more wild lands to create more farmland to compensate) Don't eat fruit out of season, at least until we have changed our energy infrastructure. Don't drill in nature reserves. Nature reserves provide economical benefits like clean water and fresh air, and are also huge carbon storage sites Don't work ecologically frail, marginal lands. I won't ask people to be more energy efficient or use less, because let's face it, we all enjoy our creature comforts. But there are things we CAN do, and admitting we have a problem is the very first step. Furthermore it is my dream to see us reclaim the deserts in the world, which by now take up about 40% of the total land mass of the earth, and change them into grasslands or forests.

We don't have a one state world, but we do have a United Nations. We have international trade agreements. And we have a serious issue facing all of us. Did you know that the kingdom of the Seychelles has bought landmass in Somalia so that the people have somewhere to live while the ocean swallows their island archipelago? Rising sea levels (warmer seas) are already taking land. Ask them if they're panicking war-ists or people facing a real catastrophe.

Ahh smugness, heh. The alternative's not likely to protect him that much either, really. While I fundamentally disagree, let's say you're right; does that mean you should no nothing and stick your head in the sand?

What's your source on this?, doesn't sound right, you are talking about hydraulic fracturing? Actually gas prices are quite low right now, mostly because of fracking. Edit: Btw, the peak oil theory in your video has long been discredited, because it doesn't take shale oil into account. So you've found three new bottles, what time is it? "we got shale gas coming out of our ears!" True for the US, meanwhile nations like China with 2 billion people, and India, with 1.3 billion people, are rapidly developing. Which means all the more families wanting the same amenities the western world has: refrigerators, cars, airconditioning, computers. Do you want to say to those nations "**** you, you can't develop"? Because I imagine they'd laugh in your face. That's discounting the continent of Africa, or Brazil which is developing like crazy right now And they'll all require energy as well. And they'll all increase their pollution as well. Peak oil is not discredited. the US reached Peak oil in 1971. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/US_Crude_Oil_Production_versus_Hubbert_Curve.png It's just that because nations and companies tend to keep their record keeping opaque that we don't exactly know what can still be economically extracted. Shale gas is a stopgap measure, it will give a small spike of production for a short while, and at great expense to the environment, and after that, you're facing the same problems. It's much wiser to invest in renewables now.

Let me answer that as the rest of people here seems to have decided to do nothing first and then find justification. I simply can't afford to pay for them. the more we invest in renewables the cheaper it will become. it's expensive NOW, because it's small scale and as of yet relatively fringe. this is what government subsidies are supposed to be for. In Germany last year they managed to have a full third of their energy on their grid be "green". This did not lead to drastic pricing spikes.

Rofl, you don't even know what to whine about. If you're going to run and panicking at least have the good form to do it about things that probably will have an impact in your lifetime, like the impending collapse of the oceans ecosystems or the catastrophic losses of bee colonies. All these things are having an impact now, but you're right, the collapse of the oceans ecosystems, because we are overfishing, because coral reefs are bleaching because of global warming, reefs are a major producer of the earths oxygen, by the way. and the bees we are killing due to the use of pesticides and the amount of mono-culture we have out there, destroying entire habitats for large scale mono-agriculture. Thank you for helping me make my point. Besides I told you that I was only naming a smattering of the issues we're facing because of man made climate change, you are correct, there is a **** load more we are responsible for.

fixed

apathy is death But by all means, wallow in your ignorance, wear it like a shield. We'll see how well it shields you and your family.

So I guess all the extinctions we're having because of poaching, overfishing, habitat destruction are all fake. the desertification of large parts of the earth is just an illusion. glaciers which have been extant for millennia which have halved in size in the last 50 years are just a freak phenomenon no doubt. And the world population of humans hasn't dramatically tripled in the last 50 years, increasing the number of consumers of fossil fuel. (for refrigeration, for transport, for fertilisation, for packaging, for electricity, for heating homes or air-conditioning) "I don't believe in global warming" disqualifies you as an intelligent human being, it's real, there is scientific consensus on it, and we're causing it. It's measurable and study after study adds to the body of evidence. We shouldn't be having this discussion. and the fact that so many of the forumites are still in the climate deniers camp scares me. I sincerely hope some of you are just trolling, because otherwise I can only say that you are colossal idiots. Especially you gfted1. I can't believe that attitude of "not my problem, it won't affect me" First of all, it will, because climate change is NOW, not in the future. You are being affected now by extreme weather like Katrina, like the frosty spring the US has been having for the last few years. like the drought which destroyed the corn harvest last year, like the massive wildfires every year in the US (like in California) like the drought Russia suffered in 2011 which ruined 70% of the wheat harvest. I name a few but really the list goes on and on. And these things affect society. scarcity like you get from failed harvests increases poverty, which is an indirect cause of things like the Arab Spring. Food riots are already happening in the world, but yes, these things don;t affect everyone on earth so they're easily ignored "far from my bed" Climate change is already adversely affecting you. As for the topic of shale gas: It's only worthwhile to extract shale gas while fuel prices are high, because it's a terribly energy inefficient process, it takes a barrel to get 2 barrels, and that's just early on, after a while it becomes harder. on top of that shale deposit yields are fundamentally impossible to predict, making the article shown completely pointless. So aside from the environmental concerns, it's not a wise investment for your long term economy. I think there is a video which everyone could enjoy, regardless of what side of the debate you are on, and I think it's very interesting. It's a lecture by a mathematician named Albert Bartlett, you may have heard of him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umFnrvcS6AQ If you think it's long: try it for a few minutes, I'm sure you'll keep watching. But you guys have your heads stuck up your collective asses so far because you don't WANT it to be true. Denying it is easier than doing something about it. Now if that isn't the ultimate appeal to ignorance I don't know what is. Of course Tsuga C. is in the climate deniers camp, he's a forester, right? his job security is based on it being able to continue forever and ever and ever. Which might be in question if climate change is real. I can understand that this makes you uncomfortable. But that doesn't stop it from being true. You guys honest to god make me so angry, because you are the problem. You are the ones who keep society from acting. You all share in the responsibility for this planet's future (including you Gftd1) and you're behaving most shamefully. I find it very upsetting to keep being confronted with this level of ignorance, because it's killing our world. And I mean that without hyperbole. Ask yourself two questions: What kind planet would I like to live on? What's your problem with renewables? I believe ethical persons asks themselves the uncomfortable questions as well as the more pleasant and esoteric ones. 1. We are ****ing it up, we have ****ed it up, and we're continuing too **** it up 2. We don;t actually know if the consequences are reversible, but certainly it's unlikely you'll see extinct animals return, don't you agree? 3. The world took 21 million years to recover it's level of biodiversity after the last great extinction event. in 100 million years our planet will be too hot to survive on (because of the expanding sun) Do you think in that time another intelligent species will evolve capable of interstellar travel? or are you fine with consigning life on earth to its inevitable doom.

I pledged for the stronghold it better not be "just a better player house"

I guess it's time to do some community promotion: these are the monsters we conjured up! Use them!

Asian dragons are pretty awesome too.