Nick_i_am

Says Captain grammar.

I too am happy trousered.

That's why they're called civil, it's all cups of tea and scones.

She was a Major in SG1

They've learned to use computers too.

*huggles*

Sounds like it could be just what the country needs in terms of social and economic if he can actually sort the economy. I've heard people diss Clinton for the same 'vanilla' tendancies, but he did strenghen the dollar. Can't comment on the millitary stuff since my views on that are so skewed, being a brit, and we'll have to see how stick tactics work out. I can't say i'm keen on the theory of missle defences though, since MAD seems to work, but ultimately if 'they' develop them first then 'we're' in the ****, so yeah. Generally i'd find myself leaning more towards to democratic party, as per my socalist tendancies (which have far more basis in a country the size of the UK), but Hillary is haha, and i'm worried that Obama, while charasmatic, won't actually do much good in the long term. On the flip side, i'm equally worried about cowboy republican presidents who want to turn the whole world into Texas, so on your short summery it sounds like this would be the candidate i'd be most interested in. Thanks for the heads up.

I havn't really been following this so far, but it looks like the Die Hard guy is pretty much the republicans choice. What kind of leader are we looking at here? I see that he's a vietnam vet and seems less conservative than Bush but as a republican what's your opinion of him?

Can suprise sex ever be ironic?

Yeah, that's the one, those who moan about it are pretty much just wimps who don't like being in a freeform world with constant time pressue.

Hades, I

Oh yeah, totally, the problem is that on one hand you're saying that humans are still, essentally, pray to their base insticts, which I agree with. But on the other you're saying that those base instincts are worse than those of other creatures, which is somthing I don't agree with. We're cursed with a degree of intelligence which gives us more insight into how to enact those instincts, but the basic survival mechanisms are essentally the same. Killing for a trivial reason is still killing for a reason and can still be traced back to those same mechanisms in the same way that great apes have been recorded developing cronic anti-social behavior disorders. Going back to the chimps, a group of them murdered this 'socal outcast' then proceded to beat his body and hang him from a tree. Sure, they're our closest relatives, but people underestimate just how close that is.

haha, nobody is going to argue that.

No, I understood perfectly and while on one level you're right, on another, you're talking crap as per my examples, and that's even ignoring the fact that it's impossible to test how animals would react when placed under modern social pressures. Dolphin and Duck males will both form into rape gangs and hunt down any nearby females while a Gorrilla that has just become head of his set will actively murder the offspring of the previous leader. There are very few examples of humans doing naughty things that arn't mirrored somewhere in the animal kingdom, it's just that we do all of them, which accounts for much of our success as a species.

Well, James Earl Jones alone destroys the entire contents of this poll, so the point is sort of moot.

Walsy, it's quite probable that I love you.

Who the crap gives away free Nukes? And carful with the word 'belonged'. America 'belonged' to the Sioux et al.

So saying 'as if' to america suppling insergants with weapons is kinda funny when they've already done it. Same goes with the CIA training of Bin Ladin, it's all very well saying that the US shouldn't have meddled in old conflicts but this situation extends far further than the american invasion of Iraq or the jewish occupation of Israil.

You know that the stinger missles used by insergents in Iraq mostly have 'made in the USA' written on them since you guys shipped a bunch over when Russia invaded Afganistan, right?

The point he's making is that Halo2 didn't know what the hell it was trying to do with its story arc and featured sub-par level design (not that that's anything unique for a Halo game).

Wait, blame Bush for what?

Yeah, there have been a spate of studies looking at the corrolation between violence and media and there havn't really been any conclusive results. Far more significant seems to be the societies own trend towards pro-social behavior where 'clan' based cultures such those that are traditional in Japanese and Hindu cultures produce 'lower levels' of violent behavior and higher cooperative tendancies than those in more individualistic based cultues, such as we get in modern western society. In both the above 'clan' cultures the role of the family is very important in its members lives, acting as a hub and extended social support network to a far greater degree than the average 'westerner' would probably be used to. Anyone who's seen 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' has had a glance at how this form of family unit works, and on one hand this seems to, as stated above, produce lower levels of violent behavior due (possibly) to the focus on acting as part of an extended 'unit' from an early age, but on the other hand it also seems to stunt competitiveness and willingness to act independantly. Both of these are seen as positive traits by western societies which makes it somthing of a lose-lose situation for people living in these backgrounds but not living in a society of like-minded individuals.

Indeed, though the idea was that it's hard for a society to embrace a boon on the level of such a low crime rate without there also being a large sacrifice. Much of this could probably be helped by advances in technology, but those same advances are what keeps the population going up, leading to overcrowding and a reduction in said satisfaction, as well as an increase in 'wildcards'. I think trying to give a formula to human behavior (even on the society level) may be possible when every factor is considered, but it still feels like trying to play a game of pool in a storm at sea.

Having said that, take a look at the Japanese. Very very low crime rate as the result of a highly orginised and motivated society that still places a lot of focus on both individual and family integrity. In Osaka (one of the largest Japanese cities) last year, incidents of car related theft (including smash and run for items in the car) was no where near triple digits, somewhere between 20 and 30 case. And yet, on the flip side you're also looking at a highly repressed society whos populous has real problems expressing themselves at large. There's a reason why 80% of the worlds weird **** comes from Japan, and a reason why, when checking local Japanese news, almost all of the murders reported are 'fetish' killings (that is to say, killings with a perverse motivation rather than one of greed or passion ect). A quick glance at their stats for education should be enough to make most first-world countaries blush, and yet their suicide rate also sets them apart, while when you compare to other countaries with very high quality education (like Finland for example) you find that while there's a problem, it's nothing on the scale found in Japan, for memory.

On a side-note, animals have been murdering each other for as long as they've existed. Just look at mating battles for example, deer might just clash antlers, but walruses are easily capable of killing a love rival. More so, our closest relative, chimps, have been recorded commiting murder in a social context, we're talking a mass lynching against a male who fell out with the packs leader. This is even before we get onto things like the seemingly irrational behavior of cirtain sets of Orcas that catch seals then throw them into the air for hours, seemingly for fun. Humans might be bad, but suggesting that we're the only ones who are just because we're the only ones who've invented atomics is a pile of crap. On the other hand, pockets of humanity have been civilized as far back as 4000 years and further, depending on how you deffine civilized. Frankly, many of those were more civilized than many modern cultures. The arab lands were host to the worlds seat of culture back when england and america was still full of mudhuts filled with people who thought that bodypainting was the height of fashion.