Cantousent

A working definition of a pacifist -- the third party who decides which of the belligerents will win the war. :Eldar's ribbing Steve in a good natured way grin: I don't completely agree with the idea of penalizing a civ for using shell fish, but Reveilled is on to something. Some religious folks are going to be offended by the religions and how the design team handled tham anyhow. As long as the developers are even handed, I don't see a problem with a varied design.

With meta around, who needs me? His reports are the exact sort that I anticipated for this thread. I'm rendered obsolete by meta. I think I'll get started on someone really fun... Kor Qel Droma is next. I hope folks keep posting reports in this thread. As sad as it is, I truly enjoy them. Different reviewers can cover the same subject, so don't feel that a particular subject is off limits because they have suffered a review already. I say this because I fully intend to review both Mothman and Child before too long.

The subject of this report is Calax ____ Standardized Attributes ranging from 0 to 5: Intelligence: 3 Didactic (Good): 2 Didactic (Bad): 0 Annoyance: 1 Chutzpah: 2 Wits: 3 Charisma: 3 Will: 3 Eloquence: 3 Kindness: 3 ____ Assessment of reviewer

That's a typo, not a misspelling. Typos are beneath my defense. :Eldar's sniffing while turning up his nose and generally looking dismissive icon: Plus, I'm really lazy about checking my spelling when I post stuff. Next on my list is Calax.

I disagree with you in the long haul, WITHTEETH, because I believe those factors outside factors that surround us at birth and follow us through life provide our perspective. That perspective is an insidious tryant, controlling us in ways we cannot even begin to fully understand. On the other hand, I believe we have free will. I'm of the "God gave us free will" variety. I agree with you without reservation on a couple of points. First of all, we must act and live as if we have free will, otherwise society can't function. Plus, I agree that it is unhealthy to believe we are completely powerless over our lives. Even if I didn't believe in my own free will, which I do, I would still understand that the mechancics of determinism, no matter the flavor, are too detatched for me to use them as a guideline for living my life. Someone might as well say, "there are secret thought police who put thoughts in your head to make you do certain things at certain times." Sure, someone might believe in such thought police, but since I cannot detect the police, and since I must live my life, I will have to put worries of thought police aside. ...Or should I say, I hope the thought police put such worries aside. What am I besides my thoughts and feelings in the first place? Second of all, I truly appreciate the Dostoevsky reference. He's one of my favorite authors. He really dealt with this issue at length over the course of his writings. Crime and Punishment is perhaps my favorite novel. It deals with the idea of choice and theory. One line strikes me for some reason. Porfiry tells Raskolnikov, regarding Raskolnikov's options for flight, "No, you won't run away. A peasant would run away, a fashionable dissenter would run away, the flunkey of another man's thought, for you've only to show him the end of your little finger and he'll be ready to believe in anything for the rest of his life."

You know, free will isn't the same as power over ourselves. Free will is only a specific type of power, and it is limited. We cannot change ourselves from human to spider, let's say, and then back again. The whole determinism debate, which is actually more of a premise that attacks religion these days, is another matter. Determinism denies any free will as every decision, no matter how whimsical, can be explained either as the result of some factor outside of the person making the decision or as the result of some innate quality. In neither case does the person making the "decision" have free will. I disagree with this notion, but it's out there. My point is that there are many points of view on this issue and it behooves us to see this as something more than a religious v science debate. This is more of a religion, science, spiritualist, and everyone else added to the mix free for all. Whether we have free will or not, we do not have true power over ourselves. At the very least, we don't have full power over ourselves. If we're to take "power" to mean "free will," then I'll agree to that. It's a working definition. It still doesn't address scientific, philosophical, and religious determinism, but that's okay.

The subject of this report is LadyCrimson ____ Standardized Attributes ranging from 0 to 5: Intelligence: 4 Didactic (Good): 3 Didactic (Bad): 1 Annoyance: 0 Chutzpah: 0 Wits: 4 Charisma: 4 Will: 1 Eloquence: 3 Kindness: 3 ____ Assessment of reviewer

Slightly off-topic (like 2-3 degrees)... For us less eloquent non-native English speakers, what does that mean ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, I use didactic to mean simply "instructive" or "educational." For instance, right now I am giving you a little "lecture" on how I use the word in the report. Didactic as a term is neutral, but it can be either positive or negative. Lady Crimson cited "fussy." That would be an example of a bad connotation. "Condescending" might be another. On the other hand, someone telling you something interesting or pertinent is good. So, I have two scores. It's virtually impossible, under my scheme, to score a high good without getting at least some score under the bad column. On the other hand, it's perfectly possible to get a bad score without a good one. Most folks who lecture, an example you find in this post, will have a relatively high score in both. Scoring higher in the good column rather than the bad column is what really matters. Apparently, I have a net Didactic (bad) score. hahaha Okay, Lady, it's time.

Congrats and welcome back to the madhouse.

Get a room. I don't want folks doing each other in this thread.

Don't mess up my rant by stating the obvious, meta. Dammit.

It's only clever until someone sticks a shiv between his ribs. Then it will be a tragedy and all your favorite lawyers will be hunting again and a lot of you will be ranting and crying like school girls. See, I'm getting my ranting out of the way now!

Sorry, SP, but your credibility is shot on this issue. I anticipated about a million reports like these a long time ago. Some of them are undoubtedly genuine, but many of them are going to be internet attacks by anti-xbox/anti-ms crazies. I anticipate the exact same treatment for PS2 and Revolution, although not as much for the Revolution maybe. I mean, come-on, there are folks buying same day xbox360s for the sole purpose of destroying them in front of the crowd? We are actually very lucky no-one has been killed for doing this. ...And, as much as I think it would be poetic justice for the punk loser, I'd rather not see anyone get hurt in all this mess. As yet, the only thing I have decided is that I will not get any console until well into next year. I won't be forced to avoid the temptation of beating the holy crud out of some fool because he wants to prove his stupidity in front of a large group of angry consumers.

That is awesome (w00t) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Actually, that sounds awesome because you weren't in line. Of course, you'll scream bloody murder when this fool ends up getting killed because he decides to act like his jack-ass self in front of the wrong person at the wrong time. Well, you won't scream bloody murder, because you people revel in this stupid crap, but you'll scream bloody murder when it spawns a whole new movement against computer games and consoles. Wasting your money for the sole purpose of being a jerk doesn't make you clever. It makes you stupid. /angry Eldar rant.

I've always meant everything I've written in a TOMBS report... just not always all the time. My reports are honest, but brutal? Naw. By the Way, Lady Crimson, you're my next report. As an aside, Mus?, you'd best not second guess your report. If you do, I might be brutal in your next one.

I'm not advocating the position that we are "pathetic." The only thing I suggest is that we do not have true power over ourselves. We clearly have some power over ourselves, but even that might be illusory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_determinism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_determinism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_determinism Of course, even if we don't have free will, society can't function if we deny it. On the other hand, it is determined that we have free will, whether we have it or not. So, whether you are Christian or Atheist, ultimately we don't have true power over ourselves. In either case, we have only that power granted to us by God or fate.

Child, meet Darkside. Darkside, meet Child.

English simply has more words. A lot more words. The language is word heavy. If I weren't so tired, I'd come up with a haiku or some such to bring the point home.

Hmmm, I got the name from Tolkien. Still, I like the Eldar because they're pretty much elves anyhow. Like a lot of games, I'd love to play, but there's no real opportunity around here.

That's because free will is another logical dilemma. God grants free will. Man does not have free will of his own, but rather he is the recipeint of free will from God. Because of this, God still retains utlimate power to the individual. As a religious person, you have free will to the extent that you can accept God's grace. I'm Catholic, so I don't believe works are meaningles, but works themselves are inspired by God and performed by humanity. Ultimately, God still retains all rights to works and grace. How many of you have heard of pre-determination? Not the old religious kind, but the new movement? :Eldar's looking at metadigital expectantly because he figures meta has and knows some links icon: Science is well on the way to denying free will at all. We are prisoners to our nature, it seems. To the extent that we cannot escape our humanity, we have no true power over ourselves. It is the details of our humanity that we exercise our free will. So, we really do need to define our use of the terms. It will probably allow for a better argument in the long run. After all, why waste time arguing over the broad points when we can get down to the stuff that starts all the wars... the fine points.

The subject of this report is julianw ___ Standardized Attributes: Intelligence: 4 Didactic (Good): 5 Didactic (Bad): 3 Annoyance: 1 Chutzpah: 2 Wits: 4 Charisma: 3 Will: 3 Eloquence: 4 Kindness: 5 ____ Assessment of reviewer

I say you kill all the economists. That will teach them to increase the inflation rate! Hey, I'll be up for a multi-player game. I can host a TeamSpeak or Ventrilo server so's folks can voice chat while they play. We can play free for all, teams, or human teams against comptuer players.

Perhaps we would do well to define some of these terms before we argue over them.

What do you know, I like the Eldar. I also like high elves. I also rather enjoyed Mordheim. Great game.

Good Lord, I don't think I've ever recieved a higher score! Well, you did the switch and bait for my intelligence, curse you! :Eldar's giggling like a schoolgirl icon: Okay, julianw is next. Bwahah--- What's that? Oh, hey, I need to move my car. I'm double parked. I'll be back.