Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;4816840/10

This zero brought to you by Araby.

Indeed.  

Take away the Japanese, the Koreans, and the Chinese, and the last 50 years of technology disappears.

Take away the Indians, and half the science and maths and tech students currently disappear.

Take away Arabia in the Middle Ages, and we don't even HAVE science and maths.

The present situation in the Middle East with the rise of Wahhabism and other radical, fundamentalists Muslims isn't sad because they're somehow inferior, its sad because they were once, and still are in some places, a Mecca not just for religion, but for science, mathematics, literature, art.

We white people spend a good percentage of the last 2000 years being too busy taking turns oppressing each other, killing each other, and dying of plagues to really advance much of anything societally.  Oh sure, we had Greece and Rome, but after that, we spent hundreds of years destroying ourselves before we finally pulled our heads out of our ass.

White people ain't any better than anyone else when it comes to advancement, taken on historical balance.

Quote from: B.T.;481678That is because you have been systematically manipulated by the managerial state into perceiving reality as offensive.

Using their space-nazi hypno-rays and anti-creationism subliminal messages I suppose.

QuoteNot really you stupid racist fuck. The reality you refer to is confined to what glows of your computer screen in the basement of your mother's house while you type with one hand. Let be me very clear. Every thread you start, every thread you participate in, I'll be there to remind everyone that you are a stupid racist fuck. I'll scan threads which I have absolutely no interest in just to see if you posted and if I find one, I remind people that you are a stupid racist fuck.

I don't know who you are.  I don't know why you're screaming at me.  But what I do know is that you are very, very buttmad.

QuoteUsing their space-nazi hypno-rays and anti-creationism subliminal messages I suppose.

Nah, the managerial state is far subtler than that.

Notice that the rightwing cocksmocks and leftwing cocksmocks all post under pseudonyms. Posting under something resembling your real name, as you do if you're not a cowardly pussy, tends to make you moderate your expressed opinions somewhat. Your opinions might be extreme, but they at least won't be fucking batshit crazy.

You're so brave.  :rolleyes:

Fallacy of false dichotomy. Just because I'm not a coward doesn't make me brave.

It is not brave to have your own name by your words.

But it is cowardly not to.

I was being a smartass, not making a logical argument.

I may get back to John but jibbajibba's recent post and the replies are related to what I'm driving at. It doesn't matter if something is "evil" because it might or might not have free will; it's "good" to do what's necessary to prevent harm by things that are "noxious". But "noxious" is contextual. You shoot a wild animal in the middle of the village if you have to; you leave them alone if they're out in the forest. If you want to move into the forest yourself, then you'll be responsible for creating the conditions that lead to conflict with the animals.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;481692Notice that the rightwing cocksmocks and leftwing cocksmocks all post under pseudonyms. Posting under something resembling your real name, as you do if you're not a cowardly pussy, tends to make you moderate your expressed opinions somewhat. Your opinions might be extreme, but they at least won't be fucking batshit crazy.

I've seen you bring this up before, Kyle.  Do you have an issue with everyone who uses pseudonyms in forums, or is this a "not all rectangles are squares" thing, whereby you're merely pointing out a pattern that assclowns, in particular, tend to use pseudonyms?

Quote from: J Arcane;481687We white people spend a good percentage of the last 2000 years being too busy taking turns oppressing each other, killing each other, and dying of plagues to really advance much of anything societally.

The part that really amazes me about this whole argument is that a race doesn't do things.  Individuals do.  And what a lot of racists try to do is claim greatness by virtue of race even though there is nothing great and often quite a bit pathetic about them individually.  It's like Paris Hilton playing off the Hilton name and money.  If your only claim to any value on this planet is your race, that's pretty sad.

You've got it, VectorSigma.

All online cocksmocks use pseudonyms. Not all people using pseudonyms are cocksmocks.

I mean, just look at guys like Doc Rotwang. An excellent and useful poster, when he's around. On the other hand, he is not exactly secretive, if you asked him his real name he'd probably tell you.

Speaking just of forums, here - David Icke's open with his identity, but he's still a fruit loop.

Quote from: jibbajibba;481679Reminds me of my earlier post when I pointed out Dr Who's reluctance to commit geocide and kill the Daleks even though it would prevent billions of innocent deaths.

I've asked how the Daleks and Time Lords are faring in the current Doctor Who timeline.  I'm seriously interested in your take on that.

Quote from: jibbajibba;481679I find the argument that you need irredeemily evil races so the paladins can charge around killing stuff without having to worry about morality really quite strange by the way. If you want to run round killing stuff with no moral compunction there are literally hundreds of options. Surely the POINT of playing a paladin is that you are trying to uphold your morality in the face of various temptations and the temptation to wreak furious vengeance is just one of those and in fact in a game where greed, lust, and the rest are very intangible surely the reluctance to give in to that desire, the only one that is actually palpable to the Player as well as the PC (in as much as the player wanting to roll some dice and lay down some law and order is much more real than the PC being tempted by a comely female or a heafty bribe) is kind of a key to the class....

The Paladin in my D&D game fell because of an illicit romance and even though he'd been told which species were inherently Evil in the setting, he still took great care to test alignment auras and verify who was redeemable and who wouldn't, looking for even the slightest possibility of redemption.

I think that what the player was looking for when asking for killable bad guys was an occasional break from that stress.  The people I've role-played with the most play their characters as if they were real people and do this either by thinking in character or closely identifying with their character and because of that, it's easy for a game where the PCs are under a lot of stress to get unpleasantly intense if there is no relief from it during the game.

I know of enough genuinely horrible people who use their real names in real life and still don't have any problem being horrible cocksmocks to suggest your premise has far deeper flaws than a handful of exceptions.  Let alone the ones I know or know of online.

There are whole websites devoted to cataloging the horrible things that people will do openly on Facebook without any apparent qualms about it.  

Including, incidentally to the thread, genocidal racism.  Go read up on some of the shit people posted after the Japan earthquake.  If that doesn't disabuse you of the notion that a real name and online cocksmockery cannot come hand in hand, then it's clear your position has less to do with evidence and more to do with your own personal ego issues.

Quote from: J Arcane;481703I know of enough genuinely horrible people who use their real names in real life and still don't have any problem being horrible cocksmocks to suggest your premise has far deeper flaws than a handful of exceptions.  Let alone the ones I know or know of online.

There are whole websites devoted to cataloging the horrible things that people will do openly on Facebook without any apparent qualms about it.  

Including, incidentally to the thread, genocidal racism.  Go read up on some of the shit people posted after the Japan earthquake.  If that doesn't disabuse you of the notion that a real name and online cocksmockery cannot come hand in hand, then it's clear your position has less to do with evidence and more to do with your own personal ego issues.

I think what Kyle is saying is anonymity gives an otherwise polite person cover to behave in a way they normally wouldn't. Personally I think there may be something to people being much less inhibited online, and even more less inhibited if they know others don't know their identity. But I also see the value in keeping your identity secret. I mean it is rare, but someone could take a flame war too far and show up at a person's house (if they had enough info on them---and a name+location is a good start).

Quote from: John Morrow;481276Well, I've asked what the alternative is for inherently and irredeemably Evil orcs and don't think I got an answer to that (maybe I missed it). Should they be put into internment camps? Reservations? Drive them away and make them someone else's problem? Should the people who coexist with them have to tolerate the occasional random slaughter because the authorities will only act against them once they are guilty of an actual crime? What's the "good" solution here and how much misery does that pass along to either the monsters themselves or those that they will inevitably hurt or kill?

John, there's more to Good than murdering the wicked. Paladins can't spend all their time slaying orcs, they also have to make time for the other good things in life. At a certain point a  Paladin may decide that it's time to put aside the +5 sword of greater orc bane.
 
Paladins would fight Evil orcs, (or an army True Neutral druids and True Neutral bears) but after winning they'd take a break to relax and have fun Paladin style: kneeling in prayer on a cold stone floor, scowling at perky people, and mumbling holy texts.
 
Paladins would stop short of genociding the orc threat and not feel bad about it in the same way that modern doctors try (and fail) to erradicate certain diseases. Oh sure, they'd feel great if they killed that horrible organism for good, but as long as there's not an epidemic in here-and-now-ville they can and should enjoy the relative peace and safety they've won for themselves and their worlds.
 
But what about the psychopaths?
From what I understand, some psychopaths do bad things. But other psychopaths do good things even though they don't have good feelings and empathy while doing them. I don't care. I'm not the thought police. As long as they do good and not evil, I don't care what their thoughts are. But if they're doing good deeds for evil ends then they're guilty just like anyone else.
 
But what about the evil orcs?
If they're as evil as you say, they should burn in hell for all eternity. But I don't have the foreknowledge to predict if an evil person would have done something unpredictable if I had not killed them, so I try to err on the side of caution and kill as few as is absolutely nessisary. Hypotheticaly, I'd kill evil orcs and True Neutral human Druids in self defense, defense of my family and neighbors, and (if I was a king or something) to protect my subjects.