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Thinking back on it now, it was pretty hilarious in an absurd way back when they first released it and the FP was bugged. Revan would give you his grand speech... and then he would proceed to chop up the whole cast, PC included, all by himself, and there was nothing you could do to stop him. I can almost imagine Hall Hood going "thought you could beat up the golden boy did you? Well, not in THIS game chump!". Of course, I doubt people back then would have agreed it was in any way funny...

Again, I am sorry if you can't follow the consequences, implications, or even the context of what you are saying. "Acting on what you think is right", while at first glance may sound like great life advice to make motivational Facebook pics with, is actually useless as far as any real world application is concerned, and in the scope of this discussion, is especially insidious because it suggests that people can be separated in two categories: those who merely think, and those who also act (in which conveniently, of course, you fall). I already explained to you why I reached these conclusions, but worry not, I am happy to try again: (1) is a natural implication of any sort of advice. I've never heard anyone giving out advice that is openly inteded to cause the recipient to fail or quit. Until now, I guess? (3) is your fault, actually. You were replying to a post of someone else's that was talking about how someone's psychological response can drive them to consider suicide due to not believing they can do anything else. Your reply said that "thinking" about it was incorrect and they should do it. I left (2) for last, because it's the crux and requires the most explaining. As illustrated by the chart posted aluminiumtrioxid and my own comments (though I didn't actually post any statistics), the problem isn't that most people don't do anything about it, it's that they actually fail at some point, because they lack the necessary tools to reach their goals and stay there. So at that point, some people have already tried, failed (often several times), and are driven to grief, self-hatred, hopelessness, etc. If they continue to act on what they believe, they must kill themselves. This was a hypothetic case brought up by TrueNeutral, but it's what you replied to. Try and keep up, will you? And by the way, the tactic you are accusing me of is called strawmanning. It's not used to cover holes in one's argument, but to discredit an opponent by misrepresenting their stance into one that is easier to attack. That's not quite what I'm doing — I'm simply taking the "reasoning" to its logical conclusion. That you didn't consider where your arguments lead before running your mouth isn't my problem. You have had several opportunities to clarify what exactly you meant, but you haven't actually done so, settling merely for complaining repeatedly that you are being misrepresented. What exactly were you trying to suggest? Do you even know? You missed the point. It's not that you can't talk about how you follow your own advice because you are James Bond. It's that you cannot possibly follow your own advice because it's unrealistic; it's not advice. It's feel-good mumbo jumbo designed to feed your übermensch fantasies. On second thought however, I may have been wrong. Hypocrite is he who chooses not to follow his own advice when applicable. I think the proper term for someone who heartily hands out and believes in advice that cannot be followed is... insane. That's great, but this thread isn't about you not considering suicide if you fail — it's about overweight people. You made the discussion into hopeless overweight people with deep self-esteem issues that can drive them to consider suicide because that is what you were replying to. Now, and to complete the analogy, if you repeatedly fail and are driven to considering suicide, will you kill yourself? Do you believe that is rational? Fail at what? Making a fool of myself? I have the method down, thanks. But if I need any pointers, I'll be sure to ask. (you may have missed the part where I AM ACTUALLY CONTESTING YOUR INSANE SUGGESTION THAT PEOPLE KILL THEMSELVES WHEN THEY FAIL, that is, the last three pages. No, I will not kill myself.) http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2009.172809 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14504119 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2008.00473.x/abstract;jsessionid=E86FA7D40CB082380B705FE737A92F02.f01t01 Yes, that you aren't an expert is abundantly clear at this point. I dug that up in literally five minutes. Just Google "obesity comorbidity" and start reading up. I don't need to prove that overweight people don't have all the relevant information because that's the default state for everyone, including overweight people, unless they have devoted significant resources and time into this matter, just like everyone's default state is not knowing how to fly an airliner or what beta decay is. Ah, yes. The famous "rational suicide". Even if we accept such a thing as possible, it's outside of the scope of this discussion, because the right to die is brought up in cases of terminal illness, extreme pain, brain death, tetraplegia, that sort of thing. Obesity doesn't fit these criteria. "bluh bluh bluh but if someone chooses to die you must let them" — from an ethical pov, I agree. From a practical one, it's never that simple. I'm sorry, do I need to provide formal proof of each rebuttal to your non-arguments? It is you who needs to prove that death is a solution to any problem. PROTIP: You can't. Death is a non-solution because it removes the subject from the sentence "I have a problem". The problem isn't addressed at all, it simply no longer applies because the subject has ceased to exist. When faced with an irresoluble problem that simply cannot be allowed to continue, removing the subject may be the last resort, but only if all other possible solutions have been attempted previously. This is the equivalent of you telling someone with eyesight problems to keep their eyes closed. Seriously, don't quit your day job. Brace yourself now. I am going to introduce you to a revolutionary concept that will surely blow you away. Behold! (shamelessly stolen from Google Images. Sue me) Imagine that each figure in that image receives help from the one to their right. They are both giving... and receiving... at the same time! Incredible, I know. But it gets better, I've spoken to a shrink that admitted to needing help from other shrink. OMG shrinkception! Sadly the problem is that they may not realize that they need help. They may not want to accept it even if they need it for myriad reasons. Case in point, I'm 31 and only recently have received a preliminary ADD diagnosis, and it was only through blind luck. Didn't I ever think I might need help? Was I trying to tough it out? What? Heh.

Well, you didn't completely read it wrong, but in the case of overweight people, it's more a matter of people not being aware of the different options available to them, and a lack of understanding of the consequences of their common habits and lifestyles. Under these circumstances, it is simply not possible to make informed decisions, i.e. person X really can't know what's good for themselves because they don't have some basic facts down. Again, this is from my personal experience working in the fitness industry. Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, yadda, yadda. The cognitive impairment part of the comment was more directed at "letting people choose for themselves", which is, again, something I'm very much for. So while relevant to your comment in a general sense, may not apply in this particular context. That said, I'm told that extremely obese people have serious confidence and self-control issues, as well as an installed feeling of hopelessness that may very well interfere with their decision-making processes. Not to mention people who are obese because food is a coping mechanism for something else, etc. I really can't speak about that because I've never worked with someone like that, though.

Are you sure? Apparently some people disagree: I'm sorry that you can't seem to deal with the implications of your "solutions". As I explained, you cannot be certain of how many people took the "correct" approach and failed, and are then left in a situation where trying again seems pointless and all they can do is think about it (even if only because being fat carries a stigma that cannot be avoided). The only possible way to follow your "advice" perfectly is to never fail at anything. Understand this: knowing what the solution of a problem seems to be and having the tools required to implement that solution are very different things. In your manichaean correct/incorrect fantasy, you are ignoring the implementation process completely, as people should continue to try and do what is "correct" according to you ad infinitum until they succeed (or kill themselves). A popular definition of madness (misattributed to Einstein) is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. And, by the way, selectively tagging what other people say as "ludicrous" to avoid discussing it is called hand-waving. It's painfully obvious when you do it to those who can recognize the tactic and raises suspicions that you are covering a hole in your argument. Oh, but it does, when their statements are of a moralizing nature, i.e. "this is the correct way to do X", which is what you did. Patronizing is bad enough in and of itself, but when it's done by someone who lacks complete moral superiority because they can't follow their own advice to the letter (among other things because the advice is unrealistic), it's hypocrisy. Good. What will you do if you fail to get elected and cannot change this disfunctional society into something you consider functional? You will then have failed and the alternative is, by your own logic, to kill yourself, rather than sit back and perhaps reflect on what may have gone wrong. Perhaps the solution you thought was correct isn't quite so, or maybe you lack the tools to implement said solution. Personally, and considering your expressed views in this and other threads about killing, suicide, and what is "correct", I hope you crash and burn spectacularly. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart. Hugs and kisses. PS. I thank you for your advice, but I am very fond my right to make a fool of myself online and in person, and exercise it regularly. Get off your high horse. And that's a perspective I'm 100% behind, provided two requisites are met. To wit, that the subject in question has his cognitive abilities absolutely unimpaired and that he is aware of all available alternatives and can choose between them freely. Unfortunately, with overweight people, this usually isn't the case, from my experience at least. When the alternative is suicide, almost anything is better. If only because you cannot rectify and try different things after committing suicide, and you can always kill yourself later if literally everything else has failed. People consider suicide when they see no way out of the situation they are in. That doesn't always mean there is no way out, and in this particular context there very much is a way out that is attainable for just about anyone with adequate guidance and support.

I may have been too hasty, if so, I apologize. Perhaps you can prove my assumptions wrong about your coherence by explaining how you always act the way you think, and how you never fail at any endeavors. The italiziced part is critical because past failures count against your ability to try again and they also particularly invalidate your previous claims in this thread (you don't know how many people are thinking about how they should do something about their excess weight after having failed several times in the past). So pray tell, How many social advocacy issues are you actively involved with (and have succeeded at) to fix this dysfunctional society? How good are your personal marks at the sports of your choice? How much have you contributed to expanding the boundaries of human knowledge? Because if you can't say or you haven't, then you aren't really doing what you should be doing according to your own statements, and you are just "thinking without acting". You can trust me when I say I'm really not full of it (I just went), and I wouldn't exactly call myself an expert, but safety rule #1 is to have at least a basic medical examination before starting any exercise regime, regardless of intensity, if you weren't exercising before. After that, finding someone who can give you the basic ability/mobility tests such as these would be highly recommendable as well. Sedentarism wrecks your body and you can exercise without noticing any problems for months or years until *crack*.

The problem I see with this outlook is that you aren't applying it to yourself. Either you are a perfect achiever who unfailingly sets for himself and accomplishes the right goals all the time no matter how titanic the task ahead, or you are just another internets windbag with ample amounts of hypocrisy filling in for empathy and experience dealing with actual, flesh and blood people. The classic closet social Darwinist. Which one is it?

No need to wonder, that's what God 4chan gave us the "2/10 would not bang" meme for.

Yep, that seems sensible. It's the way I try to conduct myself as well. Unfortunately I've found that it all comes down to what I believe is appropriate/inoffensive/necessary, and there is no way around that because thankfully I cannot read minds and adjust my speech or posts to a reaction that hasn't occurred yet. It is an inevitable imposition. I act this way out of a personal choice or belief, but I'm not sure that simply trying not to offend or considering that the offense is warranted makes me blameless when (if) it happens. This is where PC or culturally imposed avoidance of some ideas or topics can "help". By stifling free speech regarding certain sensitive topics, offense is avoided (duh) in all cases. Thing is, I'm not sure all debates about these particular topics are useful, and PC is simply filling the gap left by prudence, a virtue in decline nowadays, as the risk of getting your ass kicked is no longer omnipresent in discussions. In these cases, we are well served by PC as no usefulness exists that can be balanced vs potential (certain?) offense. Yes, yes... who can say if there is something to be gained from discussing a topic before the discussion can begin? Yes, I'm very superficially familiar with the ideas you mention (thanks for the recommendation though, I'll check it out). I was more referring to the specific remark you made about racism as an emergent property of cultural inertia, as that resonates with my own ideas but I'm not aware of any obvious connections to cognitive science.

The actual article is behind a registration wall, so unless somebody takes one for the team and posts the whole thing, there is no way to tell exactly what the researchers found, much less draw any practical conclusions from it. That being said, Changing what you eat (or more strictly learning to eat) and taking up a training regime that is tailored to you by a qualified professional will lead to a more healthy body composition. There is abundant research that consistently shows that a caloric deficit will lead to weight loss, some of which is freely available. Sure, there may be the odd case that remains obese no matter what, but black swans arent statistically significant. Bummer if you happen to be one, though. Maintaining a "healthy" body composition is much harder. Behavioral modification is certainly a neglected aspect in the fitness part of the equation (the other one being medical advice), and from what I've read, statistics show that not only self-reported success rates are very low, but also that rebounding back to bad habits and as a result to excess weight is more common than the alternative (!). There is very little teamwork going on between medical and fitness professionals (except maybe at the pro sports level, but that's neither here nor there), and even when there is, seldom do they have the skills needed to provide the subject with the tools to maintain the gains they have made in the long run. And considering how much money there is involved in treating the problem as opposed to solving it, I doubt this paradigm will change. Regardless, the headline is clearly misleading. "Diet and exercise" are a cure for obesity, provided the patient can stick to the treatment. It's interesting that in the article intro, it says "These adaptations might be potent enough to undermine the long-term effectiveness of lifestyle modification in most individuals with obesity, particularly in an environment that promotes energy overconsumption." That's not diet and exercise that are at fault then, now are they? (hint: when it says "environment" it's not referring to a heat transfer in a thermodynamic sense) In my opinion common sense is simply another term for low level logical thinking skills - which is a built-in skill. Interesting theory. Is that mathematical logic you are referring to? Formal (Aristotelian) logic? Computational logic perhaps? Because most people can do none of those without training and, in fact, it happens to be fairly counterintuitive. Formal logic developed as a tool to identify and correct fallacies i.e. "informal" logic errors. Much like mathematics, it doesn't come naturally to the population at large.

What? Say it ain't so! edit: I just logged in and tried to download HoI3 and AP. It didn't prompt me to install Steam. Is this for new releases, new purchases, or...?

That sounds like a cop-out to me. Not being offensive vs not being needlessly offensive? In which cases do you need to be offensive? Necessity in this context is as nebulously defined as the very non rules you mention. Where do you draw the line? Smoking or non-smoking seat? Whole grain or white bread? Kantian or Hobbesian ethics?! Does being devoid of any offensive intent absolve you of the responsibility for the offense that you know your remarks may cause? I agree that there is no right not to be offended. The most popular solution is to "grow a thicker skin". Not that this applies specifically to you, mind. Unfortunately, suggesting that others grow a thicker skin is about as useful as telling a drowning man to swim harder. And more than a bit hypocritical unless the one making the suggestion is literally incapable of being offended. Were that we could all be perfectly detached and level headed in our interactions. Through empathy (and possibly extraordinary interpersonal skill and courage) it may be possible* to arrive at an outcome that is beneficial for all involved. It's a way to do away with the need for self-censorship, not a path to reinforce it. Regardless, everyone avoids some topics. Nobody is a perfectly frank, assertive, stone cold bearer of truth, internets posturing notwithstanding, because the price of clinging to and defending The Truth 24/7 can be too high. We are wired to value comfort and safety over The Truth. PC is just that tendency made into a meme. You say PC has a chilling effect on free speech. This is automatically assumed to be bad (again, not necessarily by yourself, as you acknowledge that PC can be useful in principle). It can only be necessarily bad however if absolute free speech is considered good. I... don't know about that. Sorry if I offended you, but I thought it was necessary! *though you may well end up sleeping on the couch. IANAP

Which of them is best for beginners? I always were really interested in Paradox games, but I always sucked at these type of games. And because of Steam, I never bothered to try them either. P'dox have their own digital distribution outlet, Gamersgate. It's really lightweight (doesn't install anything but the game) and drm-free unless otherwise specified. I bought most of my P'dox games there... and Alpha Protocol. Get the one whose historical setting appeals the most to you, play through the tutorials, and read the wiki. Start with a small or medium country to get yourself familiarized with the mechanics, then move on to a major. Get ready to sink some serious hours into it. My favorite is Victoria, hands down. And I could never really get into EU:Rome. Too slow.

May I suggest you dial back on the condescension (my feelings are being hurt by your insinuations that I'm ignorant and uneducated )? A more fruitful discussion would be had if, even if you are unwilling/unable to produce a complete dissertation expanding on your very interesting comments about structural racism, at least you gave a few references to literature, articles or even specific authors to start with, for those of us keen on learning more about how that actually works.

No. Police authority is rooted on and exists to preserve the monopoly on violence. This includes, but is not limited to, deadly force. Therefore, any commands issued by an agent of law enforcement carry implicit a threat of escalating force, up to deadly force. If you fail to put your hands on the wheel when ordered to, you will not be (immediately) shot in most cases. They will force you to comply with their commands by other, increasingly more violent means. If you keep on resisting, including physically standing up to their own use of force to enforce your compliance, probability of you being shot approaches 1. It should be obvious how this is fundamentally different from a teacher telling some kid to shut it or your boss telling you to come to his office.

My bad. You won't find anything searching for "58", because the actual quote is "in 42% of police-suspect encounters, no force was used", on page 300. Note that 58% includes a 37% of instances of verbal force. You may also want to read how a suspect is defined in the study. Any interaction resulting in the use of force automatically labels the subject a suspect, heh. If you want to get an idea about what constitutes an "interaction" for the purposes of the BJS data, scroll down, click on "Public-Police Contact Survey" and read one of the questionnaires. I recommend the 2008 one as the 2011 is a bit cluttered. Item 6 of the 2008 questionnaire specifically allows the subject to explain if they were threatened with force, or if actual physical force was used against them. I'm sorry, I mixed up the definitions — the other study I linked uses a "continuum of force" where force is divided into verbal commands (which carry an implicit threat of force), threats which are explicit, and actual physical force ranging from firm grip and pain compliance techniques all the way to strikes with external mechanisms. Note that data gathered covers only the last 12 months, and at any rate, only the last interaction in that period. If I'd completed my education I could tell you precisely how this skews numbers, but sadly, I never did. I'm guessing that, as a teacher, any threat implicit in your verbal coercion attempts amount to "comply or you will get detention", at worst. When dealing with law enforcement, the implicit threat is "comply or you may be KILLED". Not quite the same thing... I hope.

Right. How many interactions does the average person have with non-prescription painkillers throughout their life? How many interactions with cops? Sure, odds of dying in a car crash or a work-related accident may be much higher in absolute terms, but it just so happens that people drive to and from work every day. Whether a reported 1.4% of police-citizen interactions where force is involved (including verbal coercion) is too much is up for debate. At any rate, data is difficult to find and draw conclusions from, because in another study, the rate of interactions involving force was 58%, when instead of citizens in general, only police-suspect interactions are considered. I don't know of any meta-analyses that investigate the matter. Resisting, disrespecting or otherwise antagonizing cops seems to increase the odds that they will use force against you by a significant margin (~6 times more likely, from one report). That does not mean cops are thugs, or at least, data doesn't seem to support that assessment. At least, until we define what is a thug and how often does a thug resort to force in interactions with citizens.

Yep, because after they "see what it's like" they can go back and tell their pals all about it. Then they will understand it's barbaric and pointless and stop doing it, right? Does it bother you that human beings brutalize and kill each other, or only when they do it to someone you consider one of the "good guys"? Good thing they are devoted to "learning".

Mass Effect was Lawful Good - Rude Good so it doesn't really fit this discussion. Not many games do: you save the world regardless, just sometimes you're a jerk about it. Unless the 'Control' ending of ME3 secretly involved Shepard using the Reapers as his personal army to conquer the universe, I suppose. I do understand the perspective of your friend though, sometimes playing a jerk is actually harder than playing evil. Evil people presumably still have friends, things, places that they care about, yet in many games, it's expected that you be a jerk to everyone and not give a damn about anything, treat your party members badly, etcetera. This is nonsensical, but all too common a problem: the 'evil' option is really nothing more than Stupid Evil (or indeed Chaotic Stupid, or the elusive True Stupid). Still, the gentlemanly bandit archetype is a well-established trope so there's plenty of scope to play like that if a game allows it. Sometimes it's flat out impossible due to lazy scripting, e.g. magical karma systems where people automatically know what you do and react as such. No witnesses is no witnesses, dammit. Appropriately enough, one of my favourite Oglaf quotes (from "Abyss"): "Good and evil are relative, but being a **** cannot be allowed." One has to wonder why games are designed like that. It's a bit of narcissism on the players' part, I think. Roleplaying an evil bastard or the alternative should be its own reward, but it'd be unacceptable if the game world mostly dgaf about THE HERO's inclinations and past deeds, no matter how small, and there was no internal moral tracker. This way, petty evil actions become necessary in order to rack up enough points to be recognized as GOOD/EVIL by the world or boost the OOC metrics (because who wants to be a mediocre evil doer, anyway?). Personally I hate games that warn you about "karma lost!" and "influence gained!" because that invariably leads to me metagaming and deviating from the archetype I've created for my character. It came up recently in another thread that somebody was replaying ME2 and hated the morality system — I know I did. In fact, one of the worst decisions regarding NG+ was that your P/R gauge was reset to zero, which left you in a worse place than when importing a ME1 character. I just gave myself a ton of R/P points and went on to actually have fun roleplaying. The way SRR:Dragonfall handles it works much better for me. There is no good/evil in labels, actions simply have consequences. You *know* if what you've done is evil, but characters don't tremble in fear because you don't radiate an overwhelming aura of evil that the prince of darkness himself would be jealous of. And yet you may find that what seemed like the right thing to do at the time wasn't quite so further down the road, superficially exploring the difference between a deontological and a utilitarian approach to ethics. It's a more subtle way of doing things, and it conditions roleplaying and gameplay less. Good and evil are social constructs and society as a whole isn't big on letting openly evil people run around doing their thing. Those who are successful at being evil invariably hide it behind a façade of respectability, or normality at the very least. In addition, a good/evil divide isn't really reflective of what happens in the real world, where legitimacy and legality are often much more important than moral good or evil, but this is simply overlooked in games, or confused. One can be a law-abiding citizen and be seriously evil, because the moral compass of the society they live in is totally messed up. Unless games shift focus from being EPIC!!!1 to exploring actual character motivations, interactions and development, we will never have depictions of good and evil that aren't caricaturesque. Would something like Crime and Punishment even work in this medium?

Good to know, thanks. I'll have to check it out, when I have time. Playing in anything less than full realism feels like choosing easy mode, though. My manhood feels threatened.

OZ, the game. Could be interesting actually. Lots of "factions" of different morals and goals, narrative and reactivity heavy, controversial topics, lots of potential for different skills and stats beyond just combat. I'd pledge a few bucks for that. A prison or just general underworld/crime RPG would be a breath of fresh air for sure, and it has potential. I'm not sure it'd work in practice though — I love AP to bits but it wasn't as well received as I'd have liked.

That looks fantastic. I'm sort of jelly of people who can put in the hours to learn those sims. Last one I played is IL-2 and just learning to take off and land in full realism was... hell, I don't think I even learned that properly.

Look, I know that as an Euro, I can go "sit and spin*". But... We used to have something similar over here. It was routinely abused to execute "fleeing" prisoners, political undesirables, union members, etc. How the hell is that even supervised? Doesn't that kinda go against due process and presumption of innocence? I don't even... *just tried it. Nothing happened. I must be doing someting wrong. Post a tutorial video perhaps? Sorry to hear that. You have my sincere respect. The work of teachers is as important as it is underrated. A sad state of affairs.

"I never said that I will do anything else than shoot"... but you did, in the previous paragraph, and in not one but two posts before. Shooting at someone until they no longer immediately threaten you is not the same as killing or permanently incapacitating. And the lesson I recounted regarding firearms training was meant to make me consider the full scope of the possible consequences of pulling a gun, not just the likely or even necessary consequences. Treating the former as the latter is inteded to give pause to someone who bears arms if and when the impulse to draw one arises. Killing someone is kind of a big deal, y'know? Big enough that even the possibility should be considered carefully. My stand is exactly as Woldan explained. If I see myself in a situation where myself or someone else is threatened with deadly force* and I carry a gun (which I don't), I pull it and shoot until the immediate threat passes, not until the attacker is dead. Despite what you may have been led to believe, people tend to go down *before* they die, when fired at. Other than that... I think it's time for me to come clean. You have finally unmasked me. Woldan is indeed an alt of mine, and I'm part of a conspiracy of knife-carrying forum users out to get you. Please don't kill us! I mean... me. *in my particular jurisdiction, force employed in self-defense must be "proportional" to the threat, so simply being in danger of being injured doesn't justify retaliating with deadly force. I could not, for instance, lawfully repel an aggression from Woldan, if he were charging at me unarmed, with a firearm, because even though he completely outweighs me and could probably break my neck if he wished (would that count as suicide, I wonder), it's not a very likely outcome. It's a very ambiguous rule which is neither here nor there because this thread is about 'Murica. But you asked.... What?