213374U

Here are the odds line: Krezack 10:1, Pop 4:1, Deadly Nightshade 30:1, taks 10000:1, Walsingham 200:1, Kaftan 15:1, Guard Dog 10000:1, Laozi 80:1 Krookie 75:1, Rostere 100:1, Monte Carlo 90:1, Not an alt just a fool 2:1 You don't think it could be another of Eldar's alts? My money's on Wals, anyway.

Meaning what? That you give up? Because, you see, when people with cystic fibrosis can live to adulthood (with the associated reproductive chance this entails), as can people with Duchennne muscular distrophy, I don't know what to say to convince you. Short of massive congenital problems, it's rather uncommon to find a genetic disease that will always prevent the sufferer from passing it down. This is largely attributable to the advances of science. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, thanks for portraying me as a nazi eugenist. My day ain't complete until someone does. To answer your question, yeah. I find stupidity to be a bit of a turn-off, most of the time. But if the girl is hot enough to be worth the effort of enduring a few hours of inane chatter, chances are I'd hit it all the same. Even though my standards aren't exactly high, I have my limits too. However, it's highly debatable whether "stupidity" is an inheritable genetic trait, though. Deformity, I don't know. Depends on what's deformed, I suppose. Hemophilia doesn't exactly deform people, anyway.

Ouch. Well, then I guess that after this whole exchange, we haven't progressed much. We don't even have a common ground on basic elements of the topic such as "propaganda" and "hate". I mean, I hate our current prez, but for a wide variety of reasons, I don't think I'd pull the trigger - even assuming I had the balls to do so. Well, since you brought it up, where do I begin?

Yeah, I don't pay much attention to terror trials and you don't pay much attention to the posts you're replying to. We all have our failings, I suppose. You can smile to your heart's content, but you simply cannot deny the link between poverty and violence. The Hutu-Tutsi conflict? Nah, couldn't be. Somalia? Nope, not that one either. Afghanistan? Not likely. Of course, that's not to say that ALL violence MUST stem from poverty, as the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia show. But that's not what I said, is it? You said in some other thread that you had learned about straw men in these boards, so I can only assume you are being intellectually dishonest when you set that one up. At any rate, I said it's a combination of poverty and ignorance. The second part, you conveniently ignored. But you bring to the spotlight another interesting aspect: social inadequacy. Yeah, those guys can be pretty dangerous... but then again, school shooters are in most cases social misfits, and in their case, many things are blamed - video games chief among them. So, do we ban video games too, Wals? I said "nobody in their right mind" - that's where these people fit. And all you can come up with as a counterexample are a few terror trials. If only that was ALL the violence.

Wow, krez. You are in computer science, aren't you? I would assume that computer scientists are supposed to have a decent grasp of basic calculus. All he has shown is that, after choosing the coefficients carefully, a convergent sequence [(2/5)^n] is *drumroll*... convergent. Further, he also concluded that a divergent sequence [(8/5)^n] is... ZOMG! divergent! His whole argument hinges on the coefficients he made up, for which he offered no justification whatsoever. That's not very rigorous. Difficult to understand? Nope. Difficult to prove? Absolutely. Remember that it's one of the fundamental premises he bases the whole "analysis" on. Go ahead, if it's so evident, show us yourself.

rofl

Nice. You have used fairly arbitrary proportions in your "reproductive chance", and you are assuming that there are inheritable traits nowadays that both impede and encourage reproduction in human beings. You are also assuming that an A parent will have an A child and so on. It's cool to simplify things for the sake of an explanation, but when you're trying to make theoretical predictions, it just doesn't cut it. Not saying that your conclusion is wrong per se, just that the premises are wrong as they intend to represent mankind at present. Care to try again?

Did you take tax deductions into consideration?

Larry Laffer.

It was one of the few truly "WTF?" moments I've experienced in gaming. And not in a good way. And by cool, you mean hot. Amirite? I'm trying to keep an open mind with this game, but ****. They sure aren't making it easy.

Aliens are not human.

No. The precursor to extremist violence is a mixture of ignorance and poverty. How come that we generally frown upon these hate groups here in the West? How can it be that we have no Hamas or Khmer Rouge around? Why is it that it's always the moderates that make up the majorities in developed countries? Nobody in their right mind wants to go on a killing spree if they have more to lose than they stand to gain - regardless of the quality of the propaganda they are being showered with. Even if I were to accept your reasoning that writing a hateful speech (again, what IS hate?) is the same as building a bomb, you are starting to fall into your own traps. I'm going to turn your argument around: you feel it's right to eliminate propaganda, but you have assimilated satirical works that can be construed as "hate speech" to, in your own words, scientific research. So, if you want to suppress one, don't you have to suppress the other as well? After all, chemistry "is the precursor" to building bombs, too. You are right, freedom can't bring back the dead or crippled, but neither can repression. And while you may have witnessed first-hand the effects of hate running rampant, I think we all know how states that seek to place security above things like free speech end up.

And you know this... from your extensive experience with deformed mutants kept alive by technology? Or are you one yourself, perhaps? How would you know?

Putting people in death camps IS illegitimate... as it's against any number of laws both local and international. But that's an act, not an idea. The idea is "all black people must die". If suppression is the first (and best) way of dealing with that sort of crap in a society that prides itself in its "freedom"... well, I can only shake my head in shame. Being wrong in any context, by itself, cannot be a crime. Acting on those wrong beliefs or ideas may be. Yeah, ok. What's hate? What is conducive to hate? If hate is a byproduct of simply exposing facts, is that propaganda and must be eliminated as well? And most importantly, who are we going to trust with the responsibility of safeguarding our intellectual hygiene? Easier said than done man, and the potential for abuse is far in excess of the advantages it may bring.

You are just bitter because she beat up your dad.

And that, folks, is a textbook application of our patented "How to discredit anyone, anywhere, anytime"® method! Just follow these easy steps: 1. Buzzword 2. Mischaracterization 3. ???? 4. PROFIT!!!

You really can't live without LoF, can you?

Okay, explain to me how that relates to the discussion we're having, because you have managed to lose me. Seriously, I don't think we're arguing the same thing. You are trying to establish a connection between "targeting illegitimate weapon sales is perfectly fair" and "therefore targeting illegitimate ideas should be too, since they are a necessary component in hate-induced violence". I'm saying that that is a sophism, as there are no illegitimate ideas. Only wrong ideas. The a difference between the two is deeper than semantics - it rules out any state interdiction. Unless being wrong is a crime? You are grasping at straws, and you know it. You don't eliminate the oxygen in the air everywhere to prevent fire and explosions. You do so in certain, very specific circumstances. Just like you don't allow political displays in a certain few cases (such as the military). You are arguing against propaganda (a certain rationale) across the board... the equivalent of banning oxygen. What I want to know is what is your threshold for "targeting propaganda"? Be as specific as you can, please. And tell me how'd we go about dealing with it, as well.

How do you "target" rationales, hmm? Weapons, you can ban, jail those who sell them, whatever. It's pretty simple. Ideas, on the other hand are a much more difficult component to root out, and it's extremely easy to go overboard. Propaganda is often based on outright falsehood, but not always. The difference between hateful propaganda and inflammatory political discourse is a matter of pov, in many cases. And who are going to appoint to tell which pov is the right one? Or do we rely on "consensus"? Bah. Once the fire is on, it may be a good idea to choke it out. But it's a pretty stupid idea to try and eliminate the oxygen in the air to prevent fires.

Okay, I admit I know jack about CSA flags, but the article does mention the "Stars and Bars" flag. And according to Wiki, the Stars and Bars is the flag you posted - not St. Andrew's Cross or whatever. edit: I'm an idiot. I hadn't checked the link, just read the excerpt you postred.

Heh, that's not what I meant. I was thinking of people with severe genetic diseases and/or reproductive impairments having children by any means possible, and children with life-threatening congenital problems that would otherwise be inviable being kept alive through artificial means. They used to drop "bad" infants down a cliff back in Sparta, and we've gone to the extreme opposite. And don't even get me started on women that become pregnant at 50 thanks to fertility treatments. I meant it has become a "right" in the sense that people seem to have a sense of entitlement with consumption products and welfare policies. Ask any teenager these days, they'd rather DIE than have their phones taken from them. We have, for all intents and purposes, killed natural selection. On an individual level at least. Yeah, but why would anyone want to sire a relatively large offspring? I'm not even talking Genghis Khan-level here, but seriously, 10+ children? There aren't any advantages to having that many children today.

He's so dreamy!

Be careful who you say that around... it's now considered a "right" to have babies. As for the "good" mutations propagating down the line and becoming dominant... I doubt it's significant even when they afford huge advantages, as you comment. Not with condoms. And on the other hand, I used to be a sperm donor. Can you believe it? Little old me. I don't even want to think how many children I must have "fathered" by now. Poor bastards.

A clever way of putting it. Without propaganda, there can be no hate-induced violence. However, propaganda itself is not violence (and therefore cannot be considered part) - and the jump from one to another is neither automatic nor trivial. It is, in fact, the circumstances that allow for propaganda to be widespread and believable, coupled with ignorance, that lead to violence. For a similarly equivocating effect I could just as easily say that air is as much a part of an arsonist's arsenal as gas.

So you could be a rules lawyer?