This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
This is Pharyngula
First Asshole!
Oops…
Out-touched by a hundredth of a second.
Quintus: People should know when they’re conquered.
Maximus: Would you, Quintus? Would I?
Crap, does this mean that we are all going to have to don on leather miniskirts and play out some-what homo-erotic fanasties while at the same time saying that we are all menly men….
Unmoderated you say? Hmm….
Alright, here it goes: Biologists are smelly!
@3 No, I think you were correct.:p
UNMODERATED, you say….
That’s all I got.
Pillock.
*looks around
Well, the ambiance s a little sparse, but I see you’ve added drains and several hoses to make it easier to wash away the blood and other bodily fluids. Ah, and a nice big trap door leading to the dungeon. Very modern.
Looks good.
I find it interesting that PZ sets aside a place where anything goes on the same day Daniel over at Camels With Hammers defends his “no epithets” commenting policy.
Deep rifts, I tell ya! Deep.
Mike Jones!
In fairness, this place has already been here for a while. It’s just been redecorated. But the rifts are very deep, nonetheless.
radpumpkin @ 6
You are confusing them with fishermen. Old fishermen never die, they just smell that way.
Why do Monk feats suck so hard? You can’t do anything on your own at all. If there’s a fifth spot you might as well go Paladin or Bard. Or grab a Wizard/Sorcerer and just nuke the enemy.
This is a decidedly impolite and not moderated comment. That felt really good.
And the feats don’t scale. I get that’s an issue with most DnD feats but they’re no good in higher levels.
Ok, so the bonus damage from Fiery Fist is pretty cool.
*runs in*
FUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCKKK!!!!!
*runs out*
Everyone except me is a racist, sexist, homophobic or has poor fashion sense. They also smell funny.
Listen all! This is the truth of it. Fighting leads to killing, and killing gets to warring. And that was damn near the death of us all. Look at us now! Busted up, and everyone talking about hard rain! But we’ve learned, by the dust of them all… Pharyngula learned. Now, when commenters get to fighting, it happens here! And it finishes here! Two thousand people enter; Some semblance of a few of them leave.
Commenters and trolls, horde and prey… Dyin’ time’s here
@5
WOO men in leather skirts WOOOOOO!!!!
It’s like kilts, but kinky.
Troll: Thunderdome. How do I get in there?
PZ: That’s easy. Pick a fight!
I’m still calling it TZT in my bookmarks.
(so there)
THE STAR WARS PREQUELS WERE GREAT!
Yay, this is total anarchy!
NIPPLES!!!
(Gosh, that felt good.)
@radpumpkin
BLASPHEMY!
*throws storm trooper action figures*
Sugestion for background music.
Subculture explanation here.
Earshattering example here.
“Thunderdome”? But the graphic is from “Gladiator”! I’m confused now. (Not exactly new news.) But maybe [Thunderdome] is better than [Coliseum] (“Come on in, Xians!”).
Are you not entertained?
Rev:
Well, fuck me. I don’t think I could love you any harder than I do right now.
Also, because I feel we need a Gladiator quote:
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED??
(Seriously, how did Russel Crowe win an Oscar for that movie?)
Fuck all, ya’all. It’s Master Blaster!
maybe my favorite Stevie tune.
Who run Barter Town?
STAR TREK IV WAS THE BEST ONE!
@ Zeno
The Zombie Thunderdome?
@ carlie
You’re just being mean!
needs more pink
I’d just like to invite the entire Internet to Go Fuck a Lightsocket Vigorously.
radpumpkin @ 26;
Yup, that’s torn it. ‘Twil be blood on the thread now…
If we are referencing the prequels;
*Yoda*
“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering…”
*/Yoda*
That said, there are worse progressions. As an example, runaway success in one’s early career can lead to conceit. Conceit can lead to a lack of creativity. A lack of creativity (paired with greed) can lead – if you are really, really unlucky – to the creation of a character as annoying as Jar Jar bloody Binks…
Now all I can think about is Brownian in a gladiator outfit.
Oh my
The outpouring of spit and mucus during his blubbering scene was acting par excellence. If you weren’t moved, you must have a cold and stoney heart.
Carlie, #36–
This is the Thunderdome. You’re only supposed to propose controversial things. Comfortably universal truths are for the Lounge (an icky place, to be sure).
Hey! I just got through watching Gladiator, then checked my email only to find the title character featured in this post.
I don’t recall “Thunderdome” mentioned in the movie but I seem to recall it preceding Gladiator. Am I wrong or would a different image, from a different movie, have been more apropos?
Two men enter, none man leave!
Begin rant:
Why the fuck do some dudes ask me out without even fucking introducing themselves first?
Why the fuck would I want to give my phone number to someone who couldn’t even be arsed to say “Hi, my name’s Tim” before asking me out.
Do you live your entire world within the internet porn dreamland? What the fuck would make you think I’d be even slightly interested in going out with some dude who lacks even basic common decency?
here’s the thing, clueless derpwards of the world, you’re making it very very clear that all you want is a piece of ass. THere’s nothing wrong with that, per se. there is something wrong with randomly asking women who know NOTHING about you to “go out” when you haven’t even asked for her name. Because in that context “go out” clearly means “anonymously fuck”.
if we were currently standing in a sex club that would not be an out bounds thing.
When I’m standing at the take out counter waiting for my chicken salad, on the other hand . . .. you fill in the blank.
And, on the off chance that you were actually asking me if I wanted to go ou on a date with you, learn from this horribly block headed mistake: speak to the woman as if she – and you – were actual human beings first.
End rant.
Russell Crowe won an oscar for Gladiator?
That cannot be true.
Recently read on Cracked that they planned to make a sequel to Gladiator, which you’d think would be problematic since *spoiler alert* the main character dies. They hired rock star Nick Cave to find a “creative solution”. The planned sequel was #1 in their list of 6 Insane Sequels That Almost Ruined Classic Movies:
Apparently, the studio thought it was “too over the top”.
First appoximation:
Surely you mean Nick Cage. :p
AE:
Well, duh.
Ugh what why would Maximus want to go back to the land of the living? He got his revenge and now he gets to be with his beloved wife and kid. That was like his entire motivation in the movie.
I know it’s an example of terrible sequel-ness but UGH REALLY UGH!
@Julian
>Thinks the Paladin is actually any good
laughingcrusaders.jpg
In all seriousness, though, 3.5 is about a thousand times better if you ban the core classes. The Book of 9 Swords does all the melee characters better (Crusader is Paladin but good, Warblade is Fighter or Barbarian but good, Swordsage is Monk or Rogue but good), and if you also drop the Artificer, Archivist, Favored Soul, and Psion you’re left with fairly balanced casters.
You can also play Pathfinder, which, while not really doing jack or shit to reign in Caster Supremacy, at least generally gave melee classes enough options to actually be interesting and usually be playable.
Unmoderated? As if the comment signal-to-noise ratio wasn’t bad enough.
[Slinks in wearing chain-mail gown]
Is this where the Tina Turner looky-likeys are being held?
Well the zombie jesuses were OK, but this new look? … mmmmmmmmm buff blokes in (very little) leather … love what you’ve done with the place, PZ!
Josh, #52,
[Slinks in wearing person of diminutive stature]
Bugger. Wrong costume.
Louis
…edged with the heads of our enemies, on pikes.
And filled with viscera!
–
well, since it is now the Thunderdome: what are you lookin’ at, sugartits?
Cipher, if you see this I hope you might re-consider – you are one of the people who makes this place what it is.
Shit, wrong thread. But still true.
@Rev BDC:
I was gonna do a riff on that speech, too, but didn’t remember nearly that much of it. I don’t think I would have gotten much more than:
X trolls enter, 0 trolls leave.
Illuminata, you are saying “Guys, don’t do that.” We all know where that kind of fighting talk leads.
Illuminata, you have my encouragement to spill your drink on them, ‘accidentally’ step on their toes, shout your favourite discouraging epithet in their faces, ask them what gave them the idea that you’d be interested in anonymous jerks, and generally train them to behave better.
Also, I FUUCCKKIING HAAATE BIGOTS!
suzysalaksartok totally beat me to it.
Why is Russell Crowe wearing a blue towel?
Josh
re: slinky chainmail
pictures etc.
@Shplane
Oh Lord. When I finally got a hold of the Book of Nine Swords I almost did somersaults. The core classes are perfect! And you can do so much with them, especially the Sword Sage.
But then every DM I knew was like “Yeah… these guys are over powered. You can’t haz.”
And I was like “You allow epic spellcasters! They don’t seem overpowered to you?!”
So I had a sad… and created a Wizard/Sorcerer gestalt when he ran a game with them. I’ll show you unbalanced!
But he was like “Feats only apply to he class you pick them for…”
And I had another sad…
@Carlie
Trek IV was bar far the best of that series. Well done you.
Leather skirts and slinky chain mail are cool. Or hot. Or both. Can someone please open a window?
Okay, since the whole place is in turmoil, can anybody please tell me where to find the waiting line for Ghey Secks with Brownian™? I was doing pretty well, but it seems I’ll have to start all over again.
Now I haz a sad ;-((
So, what does it mean that I skipped the Lounge thread and went for “Thunderdome.” I think I am looking for some carnage. Sort of like wanting to look at a car accident scene.
No carnage yet. My voyeuristic self will have to check back later
Manu
The queueueue for both Brownian and Louis is EVERYWHERE!
You are still in it.
What the fuck does this even mean? Like, did he make you split your normal feats into Wizard/Sorceror piles, or was he saying that you couldn’t use your Wizard bonus feats for Sorceror spells or something else even less sensible? How would that even work in the first place? Does he actually think that would be a legitimate mitigating factor on a core book full caster? Why was he even running gestalt if he didn’t want you combining class abilities to make better characters? What is this I don’t even
But yeah, there’s this weird misconception that Book of 9 Swords is overpowered, when it just isn’t. The characters are all consistently good, and are better than pretty much every other pure melee class in the game, but that’s a good thing in Only Wizards Get Cool Things: The Game. Then again, maybe a bunch of them are the type of person who thinks that noncasters shouldn’t have any good abilities. In which case, fuck them.
I’m going to run a Crusader/Samurai (Sword Saint archetype) in this gestalt Pathfinder game that’s coming up, and I fully expect to be significantly less powerful than the Rogue/Sorceror in the long run, and probably less powerful than the Fighter/Magus once he starts to get his really silly abilities. But I’m still playing it, because the class is just fucking cool and fun to play. That’s what’s good about the Bo9S. The classes are actually fucking fun, unlike the normal melee classes which all boil down to “I move, then attack” then “I full attack” on their next turn. Fuck that, I want to punch people so hard that it heals my teammates and ignore status effects outright due to sheer badassery. I want to stab enemies in the eyes and jump twenty feet through the air to land on top of my enemies with my sword in their throat. I want to have actual options like a real character instead of “Full attack” or “Shitty combat maneuvers that are only good if you devote your entire character to them, and even then are only good in specific situations.”
@chigau
Phew! Now that’s a relieve. And if I manage to find the lackwitted brainfart that configured my mouse to close the active application when I ever so slightly touch the wrong button and have to re-type lenghty comments (not this one), I’m going to give that fucker a really hard time… Now who could get access to my password-protected computer that sits in my room where no one except me could physically access it… *wonders*
Manu
I bet it’s the same shit-head who keeps reconfiguring my keyboard!
ericpaulsen: You around?
Both. Wizard bonus feats applied only to wizard feats, and every 3 levels I had to decide if the feat applied to my wizard’s spell list or my sorcerer’s spell list.
Needless to say the Ranger/Scout didn’t have this same restriction.
Not really unreasonable but I still wanted to hit him so bad.
Word.
Hoooooly fuck, you guys. I’m gone for a week and and everything changes. I’m suffering a bit of culture shock right now.
*Wanders off dazedly to try to find out what the hell happened*
Don’t feel too bad, ingrid rebeccagault. Those of us who have been around are feeling the same way.
“ATLAS SHRUGGED” WAS GREAT, WITH HUMOR AND FLAWLESS LOGIC!
DAYTIME TELEVISION KICKS ASS!
(Background music by “Feindflug”)
*pulls out squid gun and sights down it*
Yes, keep talking about Ayn Rand. Do.
birgerjohansson:According to Facebook Timeline, I (oh, the shame!) used to think that way about Atlas Shrugged. Thought it was brilliant. Then I turned 15.
I blame my school for making us read Anthem. They make such a big deal about fucking Slaughterhouse Five corrupting the youth. Humph.
Janine: I’ve been lurking for at least a year and I still don’t get ALL the inside jokes. Well, time to go Attenbourough. I’ll just hide over here and watch the interactions of the unfettered Pharyngulus thunderdomus.
Did Ayn not know about spelling?
Is that name pronounced “an” or “eeyhhn”?
[/lingocentrism]
chigau: I think you pronounce it whatever way which makes her ideas sound palatable to you.
In my case, it’s alllllll aspirate, starting with a trailing ‘f’.
The worst is “The Fountainhead” because of all the rape.
Also let’s destroy art for some reason? God everyone in that book is an asshole. And we’re supposed to be rooting for the rapist protagonist. Because he doesn’t fucking like Greek columns. I mean wow who ever heard of humans decorating their buildings with things that are visually appealing but structurally unnecessary? And then she’s all waxing eloquent about fancy fucking clothes and it’s like oh okay so jewelry is fine but a little Greek frieze isn’t, because one is on a building or whatever? I don’t even know. Why is she writing about architecture? Gaudí should have set that book on fire and pissed it out right in front of her.
Also, RAPE. It’s bad, not good, Ayn. For fuck’s sake.
This’ll be here if ericpaulsen ever comes around.
You may have gotten a 10 meter headstart in the 100 meter dash, (you didn’t ask for it, or have any choice in the matter) but you’ll still lose if you end up wandering around the soccer field, or trip on a hurdle (why did they put hurdles in the 100 meter dash, who’s constructing this analogy?).
theophontes and chigau: I wonder if this is still ok…
A. R and theophontes
It’s nasty hot out there.
Don’t worry about that. The number on your ticket is still valid.
You did remember to buy a ticket, right?
“buy a ticket”
jeez
they’re for sale???
I’ve never seen the Mad Max Thunderdome film. Will this put me at a disadvantage here?
myeck:
Too early to say. You should probably do yourself a favor and rent it though. Just in case.
Sure, sure. It’s going to be The Who all over again thirty years from now.
Gold-foil condoms aren’t cheap.
gold-foil condoms…
is that like in Willy Wonka?
Did he buy a ticket?
Oh, you mean the movie.
Let’s see… How to pick a fight on Pharyngula?
Christopher Hitchens was completely fucking wrong about Humbert Humbert loving Delores Haze. And for such an exhaustively comprehensive review of the book, why didn’t he point how central Humbert’s constantly escalating fantasy was to the narrative?
balls. yeah i said it.
Um… I went looking, but I can’t figure out where the meltdown happened or what it was about. Can someone clue me in?
@84:
Well, they’re unreadable on mobile…
I know there’s little enough reason for others to want to read those asides, but still.
Kagato
I forgot about the mobile unreadable thing.
Most of it is just silly joking but I don’t want to keep secrets.
It smells like tinkle in here. And it needs more cowbell!
I’m going out on a limb here:
There is no god!
otrame –
Your comment reminds me of a song I know:
– James McMurtry, Safe Side from the album Candyland, 1992
But not at all THUNDERDOME-ish, if you hear the bubbly tune:
youtube video of the album version.
I’ve heard him play several times, with his band and solo, but I’ve never heard Safe Side live. Too bad.
@$84&85: TZT is dead and your stupid Politburo routine ought to be dead with it. As I tried to imply on the New Rules thread, the hiding of pseudo-sekrit messages via one of the mouse-over tags clearly violates the spirit, if not the letter, of teh ECO’s no-coding rule, expecially when made inconspicuous by tagging punctuation.
How about using the abbrev. and acronym tags for abbreviations and acronyms and quit trying to be cute? That’s my suggestion.
PZ got fed up with the ever-increasing burden of janitorial chores on this blog, decreed a remedy that he perceived would help part of it, got vigorously back-seat driven. Furniture and manure were flung about with abandon; the Dungeon suffered a hull breech, all prisoners were released, Zuul showed up in the pre-chosen form (Endless Bickering)
….dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria! We did Lord of the Flies until PZ, in his mercy, issued the New Roolz this morning.
There may well be a bit of artistic license in this synopsis.
–
Oh, yes; it was a lovely, uninhibited time for everyone, with many regulars fleeing the Scene of the Crime.
–
Obviously you commie pinko rat bastard baby eaters need a place to beat on each other with spiked clubs. I’d just like to say : fuck all of you, hard, with a razor-wired eagle-topped flagpole. But take the flag off it first because you scumbags don’t deserve to be allowed to come in contact with The Flag *tips hat in reverence*. You drool-sucking self gratifying poltroons need to shape up or ship out! Let me get you spineless tetrapod hating shitstains on my quarterdeck you worthless bags of rancid fatty meat!
Strong reply to follow.
Chas
Stop being such a whiny sucky-baby.
and TZT is no deader than TET.
and if you want to date the demise of TET, you should date it to the beginning of TZT.
Thbbft!
Chas:
FFS, since when is a name change the equivalent of death? Same things, different names.
DLC
I think you hurt my fee-fees, but I don’t know what is a “poltroon”.
@102 A little too much artistic license for me to handle, um, understand very much of (apart from the general outline: something happened somewhere that PZ got pissed of at which resulted in new rules and new thread titles and the Mollies down and then back up and at least one regular commenter (Cipher) leaving).
Wait, is this a real argument or are y’all just trying to break in the new digs?
Actually, I guess Chas is the only one who might be serious, but calling people communists is pretty over the top. Also when did hell break loose, all remnants of this event are gone as far as I can tell.
Khantron
damn.
You must be new here.
The “politburo” thing is a joking self-appellation.
No. I believe that being white and male (and an unknown quantity) in these forums is a dog whistle to everyone who ASSUMES White + Penis = Male Rights Asshole. You may have noticed that I don’t respond well to confrontation so I would rather be cast as the bomb throwing douchebag rather than concede any point to anyone looking to back me down.
Of course it exists and has been around since there was one person looking to, and could, subjugate another. It is so much a part of the fabric of society that it is assumed to be the norm. We are indoctrinated into it from the moment we suck air, but just because I can see it and feel it and know that it does benefit me whether I want it to or not I will not accept the blame for its existence just because of the circumstances of my birth. Want to tear it all down? GREAT! When do we start. Just don’t expect me to make friendship bracelets to combat animal cruelty and expect any results.
Never ONCE said it wasn’t important to me. Said it didn’t help me all that much. Said I was sick and tired of getting tagged with it. Never said it wasn’t important. I might have mentioned however that while it is a pervasive problem, even a cancer, thinking that getting all shit nasty with me cuz I’m a menz who can’t see how society treats me better than a young black man in Detroit say. If you think I can’t see it you’re kidding yourself but if you want to start placing blame how about my Grandfather? Or his Grandfather? Or Fucking Thogg the Mighty, king of the cavemen? I am a lesser demon at best in this tableaux, one who never asked for his role I might add.
What I want to know is why you think it is more important to everyone here but not to me? My only issue here is how quickly everyone jumps straight up your ass when you maybe don’t say exactly the right thing. Tonight was a whole lot of provoking Nerd of a Redhead and Happiestsadist (please don’t tell them I spelled their names right) after they decided to pour gas on the fire. Not my best moment ever. But I won’t take shit for shits sake, if you have me dead to rights then I deserve what I get but I won’t put up with it as a general rule. I spent my childhood dealing with bullies and I don’t take that shit now.
I don’t demand civility from anyone, but when people lead with disparaging remarks and snark I have a tendency to respond in kind. I wish I could vote for a Democratic party that was anywhere NEAR left of center. Unfortunately you are aware of what we have here in the states, the Reichwing and the Leftstag.
ericpaulsen, you keep insisting that someone (everyone?) here is blaming you for having privilege.
Citation needed.
Khantron:
Hahahahahahahaha. There are a lot of in-jokes going on.
SG:
I’ll note that in the Grievances thread, I explained to Eric that it was not a matter of accusation (as in accusing someone of having privilege), simply a matter of fact, as we all have privilege, to different degrees.
It didn’t go over well.
So if I understand correctly, I’m the out joke?
RickR:
NOM NOM NOM
Thanks for that visual.
I may not need to share that guy with Josh now…
strange gods before me, I wrote this for Hairhead because he does not seem to want to bust my balls, all he asked for is discourse. After the mass doinking I took in the last thread I think I’m going to keep this between him and me. I could go back and copy and paste the posts, especially from Nerd, accusing me of espousing an opinion that I did not in fact espouse and in doing so painted me as the vilest sort of privileged assmonkey, and if I was feeling really ambitious I would go back several months to the very first time I was accused but I promised Caine I would let it go and let it go I shall. I don’t want to play pincushion this time around so I will wait to hear from Hairhead and perhaps he will show me the error of my way. Just don’t go expecting miracles.
Khantron
No. You aren’t even in the equation.
Your assumption is faulty.
Yeah, that was barely even confrontation. It’s especially surprising considering you came in here throwing some really understandings of concepts. So faulty as to be indistinguishable from a MRA.
Well I guess I can cross you off the list for macaroni art against domestic violence. It could be any pasta really, but the industry standard is macaroni.
Once in a while they get a candidate in a safe district that’s pretty solidly liberal, but yeah, sucks to have to vote for a right winger no matter what.
Not even if I’m added to both sides :(.
@ A.R/chigau
Indeed. My vote is for the Politburo to continue to make this place a living hell for all the myriad myrmidon minions.
@ Chas
How about using the abbrev. and acronym tags for abbreviations and acronyms and quit trying to be cute? That’s my suggestion.
But tardigrades are ALWAYS cute!
@ strange gods before me ॐ
Cool nym!
I just really liked this. So I’m quoting it.
Caine, I saw that; it was bizarre. I don’t expect a better outcome, but, all the same, wish me luck.
+++++
eric,
You’ll have a better chance of that if you don’t make dubious claims. The thing about blaming you for having privilege — since it appears to be a false claim I do not see how it could be conducive to useful discourse.
Even if you could do that, it wouldn’t be a citation of the claim that someone is blaming you for having privilege. Even the vilest sort of privileged assmonkey isn’t capable of forcing society to not treat him with privilege.
I expect it would require no supernatural intervention for you to engage with what people are actually saying, instead of piling on non sequiturs.
[borkquote]
I actually expected more people to comment on the D&D discussion. Is the Pharyngulariat not as nerdy as I thought?
I played a bit of D&D but preferred Paranoia and Call of Cthulu. In a pinch I’d pull out the Traveller rules.
Crickets chirping. Jokes being shared.
It’s mighty quiet in here.
Pulls straw, puts end in mouth.
Yep…
Too quiet.
Adjusts kevlar vest to fit better with chainmail skirt and spiked knee-high black boots.
But seriously, is the poodle skirt over that too much?
SG:
I wish you luck, lots of it. I suppose it’s a good thing you like a challenge.
chigau (loyal NCO) @107 : Originally, a poltroon was any sort of abject or craven coward. More recently, the word has been used to describe someone who was all bluster and braggadocio but who chickened out horribly when push comes to shove.
ingrid rebeccagault :
-Another provocative “anthem” is the graphic novel “Midnighter: Anthem” where a gay lefty superhero decides to go back to his roots incognito.
He discovers the town of his childhood is now ruled by a paramilitary security company “Anthem” with powers to summarily execute anyone who shows signs of not conforming to the norms of patriotism. And, yes, the inhabitants volunteered to invite Anthem to guarantee their security (a dig at post-9/11 USA).
The conclusion has LOTS of gratitous violence, -this is a part of the “Authority” narrative universe and the lefty superheroes give the right-wing baddies as much punishment as any Rorschach-style right-wing vigilante metes out.
(in previous novels The Authority whacked two corrupt US presidents, one Chinese premier and possibly a hundred corporate bigwigs. They don’t believe in the “pussy liberal” stereotype)
.
And I love the part where the Midnighter’s adoptive daughter single-handedly brains one of Anthem’s masked vigilantes with a baseball bat.
Strange Gods:
EP, try the one thing you haven’t done date, inspite of folks questioning you. Say not only “THIS IS WHAT I BELIEVE”, but add “THIS IS THE EVIDENCE TO BACK UP MY BELIEF (LINK TO EVIDENCE)”. The latter half is what separates the truth tellers from the liars, bullshitters, and other MRA types who think their OPINION must be taken seriously if it isn’t evidence based.
Remember Christopher Hitchens, “that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence”. And your failure to provide evidence to back up your OPINION means your OPINION can and will be dismissed.
Wait… you call this Thunderdome and post a picture from Gladiator…
Using fundie logic I can now safely invalidate everything you have ever or will ever say. :)
Sorry, I said “fundie” and “logic” in the same sentence. I shall go and self-flagellate as a penance.
Chas: You are the grumpiest motherfucker on the internets. That ought to be worth a cookie or beer or something. I’d shoot you a case of Iron City if I could lay my hands on it.
yeah, I’m grumpy. I’ll take that beer though. And the cookie.
Want to know one thing that makes me grumpy? Stupid pointless tribal cliquey jokey bullshit. I can’t help it. yam what I yam.
if you think this is “angry fistshaking”, you don’t know what this is about, since you don’t even know what this is.
Also, your ageism is both noted and laughably incorrect. There are both older and younger posters here, and people who’ve been activists longer than you’ve been alive.
yeah. totally. changing certain spaces to eliminate exactly the microaggressions that research tells us make oppressed people ill is totes “PC bullshittery” and “masturbation”.
– – – –
there are several OM-recipients who are male and white (and straight), as well as many other respected male, white and straight commenters both new and old. You are objectively wrong.
so you’d rather defend an indefensible point because someone used a “bad” word?
do you think this is rational?
privileged people aren’t supposed to accept blame, they’re supposed to assume responsibility for dismantling it, since they’re in a better position to do so than those lacking that privilege. d’uh.
we’ve alrteady started. by creating safe(r) spaces that are free(r) of microaggressions, including slurs.
not blame; responsibility. or to put it in shittily translated lyrics: “it’s not your fault the world is the way it is; it’ll only be your fault if it stays that way”
hint for future arguments: ignore everything Nerd of Redhead and John Morales are saying. They’re kind of stuck in their own world and arguing with them leads nowhere, but they’re otherwise nice and harmless dudes (and btw, at least one of them is a straight white male).
OTOH, Happiestsadist was making relevant comments and dinging you for being ableist (and therefore being counterproductive in the effort to create safer spaces), and you just randomly threw insults.
you don’t respond in kind, since until this thread, you’ve not responded with substantive answers in addition to insults.
in that case I suggest e-mail conversations. Here, your comments are for everyone to respond to who feels like addressing them.
Ok,
I’ll start the fight.
I like D&D 4.0 system the best. Currently, I am playing the original system in my Monday night game and I play the 4.0 system in my own games on the weekend. The 3.5 books are banned in my circle of friends, so I haven’t really played that system.
Since I have played more online MMORPGs than table top gaming, the mechanics for the 4.0 system work better for me and it is easier for me to figure out the math. For my Monday night games, the rest of the group is very helpful in helping me figure out my rolls and damage, but I like the fact that 4.0 relies on spacial relationships and is best played on a map with miniatures. But I’m an engineer and I think in 3D so that might be a quirk of mine.
Oh, and the skills and power cards help ALOT.
Sparky
Your problem is not having played 3.5, really.
Third edition eliminated the need to use all sorts of archaic math to work out each roll (by cutting all the BS and just using d20 + modifier for initiative, to hit, etc) and doing away with THAC0 meaning AC actually made sense. Also, the need for page after page of tables for basic abilities were eliminated.
That said, third edition was rushed out without enough playtesting, and some parts (3E Psionic Handbook) seemed completely untested and broken beyond belief. This is why they produced 3.5, a system that was relatively stable, highly modular and customisable, as well as distributing the full game system free (The 3.0 and 3.5 System Reference Document was available from WOTC for free, which contained all rules text, and just lacked the flavor side of things. It was intended for 3rd party product development since the d20 system was open source and as long as they credited WOTC for making the system, anyone could use it for their product).
Then WOTC got greedy. I stopped playing a couple of years before they put out 4E and grabbed the books when they came out purely out of curiosity. I looked through the system and was utterly confused. That is NOT Dungeons & Dragons. The names of the classes and the fact you use dice are about the only thing tying it to the franchise.
It uses a new setting with no real flavour (gone is Greyhawk as basic setting, now you have Points of Light which is basically just “hey, make it up as you go kid, because we can’t be fucked working”) unless you invest in a Campaign Setting, and they even managed to screw THAT up, because Toril (Forgotten Realms) is pretty much unrecognisable because they decided to completely mess with it (they overlayed another plane onto it from memory, then… well.. dropped large portions of a continent into the underdark in a cataclysm that would make Blizzard blush)
The skills system is dumbed down horribly. They removed a lot of the skills that were of use for RP purposes (crafting, performance) and simplified the system so you never have to actually think about where you assign skill points, you just pick your trained skills at first level and watch them slowly tick up.
The powers system is horrific. They took most of the tactical subtlety from the game, shredded it, and tried to think up the dumbest things they could to to make up for it. I once saw a 3 foot halfling kick a wererat about 20 feet across the room using a random power bonus on his 1st level rogue power. Two weapon fighting was crippled and given only to Rangers (then in other books fighters and barbarians got dodgy versions) but still relied on having the right powers to get to do anything with the second weapon other than a small AC bonus via a feat.
Most of the good feats from 3/3.5e were eliminated when they decided to cripple the combat rules so they had to come up with an incredible number of absolutely terrible feats. I’ve got a D&D Insider account (I have a new D&D group who insists on 4E so I pay for D&DI to use the character builder and compendium) and when leveling characters even at around 6th level there’s simply no feats actually worth spending the feat on other than “oh, hey… another +1 to attack… yay”
They eliminated the spell system that had been in the game since 1st edition and blended it in with the powers system, which again comes back to destroying the flavour of the game. Most of the classic spells were completely altered to fit with the new system too (Magic Missile, Fireball, Lightning Bolt… the big three untouchables)
When 3e came out a lot of people complained about the focus on miniature-based combat in the system. But 3e had nothing on what they did to combat in 4th ed. Distances, for example, in 3E still used actual distances. One square on the map was 5’x5′. You have 30ft movement? Ok, that’s six squares in a straight line, or four on a diagonal. In fourth edition everything is measured purely in “Squares”. You have a movement of 6? Ok, you can move six squares in a straight line, or six in a diagonal because apparently if you turn slightly to the side you can move a lot further in the same amount of time. You’d probably go a lot better spatially with the 3rd edition system which lets you picture things better rather than having to work in an abstract that makes you feel like you’re playing snakes and ladders.
4E is basically, as you sort of suggested, WOTC attempt to make D&D feel like an MMORPG. It completely discarded what most players loved about the game in order to dumb it down for an audience that doesn’t know or doesn’t care how to RP properly. (c’mon, skill challenges? BS)
Thing with those power cards you like, is that in 3-3.5 you simply didn’t need them. Don’t want to remember what all your stuff does? Don’t play a spellcaster. Classes that focused on straight up combat, once you learned the basic combat rules you were set. The most complex stuff that you’d have to look up would be getting into a grapple or something like that. Everything else just becomes second nature and you can play how you think your character will act. (For example I had a nasty habit of fighting dirty with my characters, using leg-sweeps, disarm attacks or breaking the opponent’s weapon to put them at a disadvantage when I was playing my Fighter, and thanks to the Improved Trip feat I would often be able to knock an opponent off their feet, still have my normal attack on them, and then myself and my allies would get the Attack of Opportunity when they attempted to stand up to get back into the fight.)
wow that was a heck of a rant O.o
So this is the Thunderdome? I was promised bloodshed, gore, viscera, newbie’s heads on pikes and language so appalling Klingons would blush.
*Looks around*
All I see here is a bunch of Justin Bieber fans
yup. there’s definitely something wrong with you. At the very least, one should have the decency to use pathfinder. howver, pretty much every system I’ve played (with the exception of Shadowrun, because WTF?) is better than anything d20
this probably explains your perversion. it’s like those Americans who like the vaguely cotton-like substance they call bread over actual bread.
@CX316
I think you are probably correct about the 3.5 version. The trick will be to find someone who is willing to play that version with me.
@Jadehawk
Of course there is something wrong with me. You probably missed it on the disappearing thread, but I have had lots of current passed through my body on multiple occasions. Hence the Sparky moniker.
In my defense on playing online games more than tabletop, I grew up in the Ozarks so its not like there was anyone to play D&D with growing up. And in college, we played Cyberpunk and beyond the Supernatural. Which is why I turned to online gaming. I could play my game while stuck in various hotel rooms around the country with my friends I made online.
Oh, and I’m allergic to soy so I can’t eat the fluffy white stuff passing off as bread, I have to make my own. ;P
This piece of the Pharyngulariat plays a 1st/2nd ed. fusion. I’ve played Pathfinder (described by a friend of mine as, “I Just Can’t Believe It’s Not 3.5!!”), but didn’t much care for it. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it left me with a profound sense of meh.
–
Ah. I see what your problem is, right there.
Attempts to retrofit a computer game feel into an established tabletop game are blasphemous in every way. You must now be smothered in peas and fed to the Horses. (To be in-jokey and cliquey. Probably tribal, as well.)
–
@cicely
At least it’s not beets.
I really ought to sit down with Pathfinder and see what changes they made to the combat system. I noticed they messed around with the classes quite a bit for balance reasons so it’d be interesting to see what the so-called “balance fixes” for 3.5’s combat system were…
Meanwhile, I really enjoyed the Shadowrun system the few times I got to play the game. Vampire: The Masquerade however was a mess. My mind almost exploded looking at 5th Edition Call of Cthulhu, too.
It’s too bad Inquisitor never took off. Nothing like working out EVERYTHING with percentile dice to make for a fun game *cough*
Needs moar blud (or blokes in short leather skirts, if consenting such can be found).
It all depends on what you want from a game. I’ve played D&D 3.5 with traditional dungeon crawls and Eberron settings and if you enjoy leveling up characters and rolling for skills it’s pretty fun, but I’d say the main drawback is that there isn’t any inherent NEED to do any roleplaying so unless you get a group and DM that’s interested in building a good story, you just won’t really have one.
If you want something roleplay-heavy and really flexible on rules, I recommend PDQ. I came up with an idea for a game where everyone plays a Greek demigod (for added fun, you had to roll a die to see which godly parent you got, you didn’t get to pick, since you can’t pick your parents) and basically we went on adventure in ancient Greece and ended up saving a kingdom and stuff. I really enjoyed it because half of PDQ is trying to figure out how to apply your Qualities to all different situations, plus you get bonus points for the better you describe things. We played the same game setup later with a Savage Worlds mechanic and it was so not as fun. We also did a different sky pirate game with PDQ# Seven Skies setting and that was awesome, too.
The main challenge to PDQ is that the GM has to be very flexible, it’s nearly impossible to railroad your players into something the way you can in D&D, since you’re not limited by specific maneuvers but by how well you can imagine and describe something.
And 4e is boring.
ericpaulsen
(emphasis mine)
Based on the way you’ve used the word “privilege” in this thread I think you are misunderstanding its usual meaning. You shouldn’t think of it as a term of derision or resentment being used to blame you for who you were born as. We were awarded our privilege by society; it isn’t that we somehow cheated in order to obtain it. We are only being vile if we fail to address our own unfair advantages.
Here is a link which explains the concept better than I am likely to be able to*:
of dogs and lizards
*This link has been posted before on this site. I want to say this was done by Caine during elevatorgate, but I don’t remember for sure. I couldn’t find the link on the ftb site.
^^ and by “this site” I mean ether SB or FTB Pharyngula.
Prexactly! The way I figure it, if you don’t want to do any roleplaying, then you probably shouldn’t be playing a roleplaying game.
I’m not familiar with PDQ.
–
@cicely
I KNOW RIGHT?
PDQ is “Prose Descriptive Qualities” and it is free! You can download a PDF for it here http://www.atomicsockmonkey.com/freebies.asp
There’s other stuff on that page but just scroll down and it’s there.
Way I saw it, 3rd (and I guess 2nd) edition D&D had more incentive to RP than 4E has at least. You had non-combat non-adventure skills that lent themselves to things you could get up to during downtime.
Sure most people used their crafting skill on something like Bowyer/Fletching or smithing to make weapons, but personally I used to have Crafting (Cigar making) and every time we got to a town I stock up a couple of pounds of tobacco just so my badass dwarf could like up a victory smoke after a fight or, occasionally, put one out on one of the other characters.
@Alukonis:
I’ll have to check it out!
–
Ditto. And the original Star Wars RPG. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
But all RPG’s have mostly taken a back seat to MtG since the late 90’s.
You’d rather be a douchebag. Either you get what you want, or you’re not a douchebag. You really can’t lose!
You could stop being a douchebag. That would solve your issue, and since that’s the only one, we wouldn’t have to read any more of your nonsense.
Everybody wins! That’s my kind of Thunderdome.
In my groups, the DM (including me) will punish the group that doesn’t roleplay. And since everyone else I play with started out roleplaying anyway, it has never been an issue with our games.
One of the DMs makes everyone step away from the table while we do out of character talking or those things you are saying actually translates to actions in his game. Which is a pain when trying to work out a strategy sometimes.
But I so like working with the miniatures. For example, last night at the Original D&D game, our insanely large group was fighting across 3 flying ships and we all got confused as to who was on which ship and how many ballistas were still working, which one had the barrier spell up, where the prism spell was located and which ships were damaged.
Oh, and they had to keep explaining to me how I could keep not hitting the bad guys. With a ballista. “WTF? He can’t block that bolt with a shield! It’s a fucking ballista, that’s why!”
Sparky
Our D&D group’s latest discovery (just this last Saturday, in fact!) was that MapTools is made entirely out of Awesome. Our group is at the edge-of-unwieldy size, as far as expediting melees goes, and the mapping was really bogging us down as well—it helps when the map as it develops is right there on the TV screen in front of us, and the DM can catch mapping errors immediately, and use a pointer to show us exactly what he’s referring to.
–
15 dice. per bullet. with the ability to shoot up to 12 bullets per action round.
*haterage*
really? I liked Savage Worlds. We just finished a Deadlands game with that system.
I think part of the problem was that PDQ was adaptable to “superhero” mods, i.e. the demigod powers, but Savage Worlds really wasn’t designed for that. I think it was a system/setup clash more than anything.
Thunderdome
pffft
Anyone want a nice cup of herbal tea?
I can’t stand herbal tea. OOOOOOOOOOHHHH!!!!!!!! DEEP RIFTS!!!!!
All tea is herbal.
Jadehawk:
Genetic fallacy.
(You’re unsure whether Nerd is a straight white male? :) )
Morales is completely correct on this score.
Still.
A drop of tea would do lovely, dear. No milk please. Makes me gassy.
That all tea is herbal, is what I mean John is correct on. I don’t know from this other shit. Been industrious all day.
no, I’m unsure about you.
anyway, yes, it’s the genetic fallacy, since ignoring both of you would result in occasionally missing a useful, nice, or interesting comment.
However, whenever one of you gets stuck in their idiotic ruts, conversations/discussions with either of you become useless wastes of time, and thus ignoring you in difficult arguments is better for everyone’s bloodpressure and for actually discussing the issue rather than getting randomly pissed off at tangential shit.
Jadehawk, perhaps.
(I’m not the easiest person to ignore, but)
Since this could be considered derailing, I’ll do it here:
My post here clearly predicted how the entire rest of the Sam Harris thread would go, therefore I have clearly demonstrated my psychic powers and would like James Randi to give me my $!M now, please.
Bow before my awesome powers of the mind! *waggles fingers!*
Hurin, Midnight DJ on the Backwards Music Station thanks for the link. I’ll have a look.
To those who want to keep the fight going… maybe later. I have to go kick some old folks down the stairs and trip some gimps so I can get another punch in my Ageism / Ableism membership card. Plus I need to make a unicorn cry before morning comes so I can gather up the tears so I can make a potion of love and happiness to share with the world! Wait, was that fantasism? If so let me apologize to all the magical woodland folk who read this blog, I meant no offense.
you’re just not ever going to argue in good faith, are you eric.
My group tried Shadowrun for a while. That campaign died the Dead of One Thousand Fiats. Most unsatisfactory.
–
Sure I will. Hairhead seemed lucid and rational as did Hurin. Everyone else just wants me to be a good boy and eat a crap sandwich so they can dance around and feel morally superior.
You DO remember how this all started right? All I did was post a simple statement to an appropriate thread urging us to air our grievances pointing out that lately (within the last year or so) posting on this site is often met with hostility and attacks if you didn’t use the right verbiage or genuflect before the self appointed moderators. It was becomming an unpleasant site to visit because of the openly hostile tone. I think I compared it to HuffPo.
Now how was that simple statement met? With hostility and attacks on the poor widdle “tone troll” who was crying because he got his widdle feelings hurt. This didn’t start because I came on this site talking shit, It started because everybody wanted to make sport of the guy who had the audacity to say that maybe, just fucking maybe, this could be a more inclusive place if the rigid implementation of intimidation was blunted just a bit. You figured you could make me run away crying because I dared criticize the prevailing clique structure. Yeah, I’m such a meanie. But I didn’t fire the first shot here, I took PZ at his word that I could air a grievance and that HE would take or reject it on HIS terms – everyone who decided to pile on and poke the bear brought this whole episode to where it is now.
If you all want to give me shit then I guess maybe I will, I don’t know, derail a thread and punch a bunch of sacred cows to rile up the regulars? Why not? You all seem to want a fight. Isn’t that what you all wanted? Or did I miss the part where I posted a grievance without being attacked for it, PZ ignored and deleted it, and the world went on spinning as if nothing at all had happened?
Oh, and thanks for proving beyond a reasonable doubt that lurkers are better off not contributing to the conversation unless they are going to toe the party line. Great way to grow the brand.
Morales you have a real bug up your ass for Jadehawk don’t you?
Rev. BDC, nah.
ericpaulsen, you really want to partake, don’t you?
Wannabe meanie, I grant.
<snicker>
Such concern!
Kind of weak John but nice try. Poke harder.
Eric, you’re very boring, and your complaints are so absurdly vague that this is about the only reasonable thing I could say to you. If you want us to accept Jesus or invest in your marketing company, just get it over with.
ericpaulsen, no need to.
(I reckon you can last a while, yet)
Ba dum dum. I suppose when you don’t actually bother reading then yes, the point does elude you. I don’t think I could have been any clearer when I posted 174 but hell, you’re the almighty consciousness razor, I guess you would know better than me. But the boring comment – touche! Cut me right to the quick.
ericpaulsen, why do you imagine anyone would miss your point?
Lessee… this could be a nice inclusive place except for the people here, you’ve been dissed unfairly by speaking truth to the “clique structure”, and you could be a bigger meanie.
(In short, you’re concerned and feel hard done by for expressing such)
How can I explain to you why I think people might miss my point when you managed to miss my point. Since I don’t know where to begin with you, I won’t.
ericpaulsen, kind of weak but (almost) a nice try. Evade harder.
Was your point simply to whine and give a laundry list of vague accusations without so much as referring to a quote or a link, or did you expect us to do or say something in particular and what exactly would that be?
I would know better than you, because when you write something to someone else, it has to be clear to them, not just to yourself. And if I were almighty, it presumably wouldn’t be a problem because then I would be able to tell what the fuck you were whining about. But if you can’t do better than 174 or any of your other bullshit-filled comments, that’s not my problem.
I see EP is still concerned. About what, hard to say. After all, it gives no evidence, just whines, whinges, moans, groans, and general mopery. No clear and evidenced argument. Which is easy to do. Simply say “this is what I believe, and this (link to evidence) is the evidence to back up my assertion”….
There.
Was that so hard?
—–
“scared” cows.
huurh
What’s tripping you up razor? The multisyllabic words (sorry, the big words)? I know it’s English because it’s all they taught us in school and I know the concepts aren’t all that tough. Maybe John can hel… never mind.
Anyhow – Hurin, Midnight DJ on the Backwards Music Station, I read the post at the link you gave me and while it was a beautifully written parable I’m afraid there were no revelations in it. It says exactly (well, using a dog and a lizard to illustrate) what I figured it would, but while it is simple to point at me and say that I am the dog in this scenario that would presuppose that I had any more control over the thermostat than does the gecko. If I had that kind of control then you could in fact blame me for all the ills that befall the gecko when I decide to ignore her pleas, but I am only ‘of the dog’ not the dog entirely. If you think that because I am a white male that I have any control over the actions of ALL white males blithely turning down the temperature to the detriment of the gecko then I still must object. I am only one of many and will not passively accept that I ,and I alone, control the fate of any oppressed group. Even if you point at me any label me the representative of white male power, I as a single individual, have less of a chance of moving that thermostat dial than the gecko does. So just because I know a thing such as privilege exists, and have known it on some level since I was of an age where I could see the disparity around me, does not mean I have ever been able to do a thing about it.
I’ve talked to the rest of the dog, I’ve yelled at the dog, cursed the dog, and plead with the dog – but I. Do. Not. Control. The. Dog. And I get very tired of those who seem to think I do.
women would stop talking about male privilege
and queer folks would stop talking about straight privilege
and so on
Note that he didn’t say no one could respond to you if they found your grievance misleading or otherwise objectionable.
Note that he did clearly mark that thread, like this one, as “UNMODERATED” in danger-indicating red letters.
In my opinion you did fire the first shot, by being wrong on the internet.
Here they are again, these non sequiturs you keep piling on.
ericpaulsen, you keep insisting that someone (everyone?) here is blaming you for having privilege.
Citation needed.
You know strange, you have said some really dumb stuff to me over the course of this verbal hatefuck, but “I fired the first shot by being wrong”? I aired a grievance about the hostility on this site in the comment section and was pounced on immediately and with great hostility – and I was wrong? Want to try again?
Well, don’t bother. I’m off to bed and I doubt I’d believe your reply now. At least it was your opinion but if Nerd is to be believed, if you can’t back up your opinion scientifically then you are to be summarily dismissed. On that note Au revior.
Ok, so, not going to actually bother running through and quoting each of those D&D posts because I’m incredibly lazy, but:
RE: “Pathfinder balance fixes”
Don’t let people lie to you. Pathfinder didn’t do much in the way of balancing 3.5. Sure, it fixed a few of the really egregiously bad spells, and it made all the really shitty melee classes (Except, arguably, the Monk. But I can’t blame them there) actually interesting and playable without massive DM intervention. It still didn’t go far enough. The spells it fixed were a small fraction of the whole, the classes it made a little better still can’t even pretend to keep up with the Wizard or Cleric after level five or so.
The advantage of Pathfinder, as I said before, is that it’s fucking awesome. The new classes they add, for example, are amazing. Witches/Inquisitors/Alchemists are incredibly cool and flavorful, Gunslingers are badass, the Magus is possibly the most fun gish class I’ve ever seen, Cavaliers let you play an HONORABLE KNIGHT without also being a holy man, and the Summoner lets you have a custom pet monster. The core classes all have more options, and every class benefits from an extensive Archetype system that lets you trade out whole class features. Everything is more customizable and more interesting. Everything.
RE: 4th Edition
Disclosure: I have never played 4e, and am not all that interested in doing so. However, I have read rather extensively on it, and the only thing that’s really MMO-esque about it is its formatting. Like, the way the books are written makes it look a lot more like an MMO than it actually is. The classes all do pretty much the same things as 3.5 classes, just with a little more diversity for melee classes (Which is good) and a little less diversity for casters (Which is also good). As much as I love 3.5, 4e did fix a lot of its flaws. It’s just that I dislike playing with minis, and 4e has more effects that are hard to adjudicate without a board. I don’t like minis and boards, preferring pure RP with the occasional “Lay some dice down to show general relative location”, and I refuse to play with them just to get into 4e.
I also can’t say that I give a shit about the lack of a real setting. If you’re not playing in a custom setting, you’re doing it wrong.
Unless we’re talking about Eberron. Fuck yeah Eberron.
RE: Non-D&D Systems
I don’t get to play these as much as I’d like. Not even other d20 based ones (And I want to actually play Legend so bad like you have no idea). I do, however, have some experience with a few of them. I’ve played All Flesh Must Be Eaten a few times, which is a game about zombies that’s so simple it’s hard to dislike (d10 dicepools with no bullshit to muck it up). I’ve also played Little Fears a time or two, which is a game about children fighting closet monsters that has some of the most morbidly fascinating fluff I’ve ever seen.
I’ve also played Dark Heresy, which was awful. Fuck that game, I wanted to make a psychic space viking who beat dudes to death with his monomolecular axe, but I just kept getting my shit handed to me. I guess I’d like it more if I actually liked W40k as a setting, but honestly just no. I’m getting into the tabletop because I like Necrons, but really the setting is just bad. I’ve also read most of the (New) World of Darkness books despite never getting to actually play the game, and I’d really like to play in or run a Changeling or Geist game at some point. I’ve also read a lot of Cthulhutech, and wish the mechanics weren’t utter shit because Lovecraftian Cyberpunk is just the best genre.
RE: Roleplaying
I honestly don’t understand why anyone would play a tabletop RPG without actually roleplaying. You can get the same experience from Skyrim, except it requires less work on your part and has pretty pictures to look at. If that Crusader/Samurai gestalt character I was talking about earlier wasn’t SURTR THUNDERHAND, THE IRON BEAR, an aging ex-barbarian turned warrior of justice charged with finding and protecting the son of a dying nobleman with whom he was once comrades, there would be no point.
Also, ericpaulsen is dumb and I don’t like him.
No, eric, you made more specific complaints than “hostility”.
Specifically you claimed that you’ve been blamed for having privilege.
That’s what you’re wrong about.
(And that’s what you keep refusing to acknowledge, much less cite any evidence for.)
ericpaulsen:
New scenario: let’s say you are a driver. You see another driver hit a pedestrian! But just because you are a driver does not mean you have control over the actions of ALL drivers, therefore you don’t have to worry about the pedestrian bleeding to death in the street. After all what can you do? You certainly couldn’t, say, stop and help the pedestrian, or maybe, like, go to a town hall meeting and say “hey I’m a driver and I know we drivers all hate stopping but maybe we should put in a crosswalk here, perhaps?” Oh wait maybe you could! And maybe that is all people here are suggesting you do. Step one: empathize. Step two: figure out what you can do about it. Step three: the world is a better place. Does this make sense?
Wow, okay, LESS of a chance. So people in the privileged group are even more helpless to effect change than people in the underprivileged group? Wow this totally explains why mixed race marriage rights were affirmed by a Supreme Court made up all of people of color! OH WAIT.
And by the way, when you come in here talking about how you get attacked if you don’t “use the right verbiage” it really, REALLY sounds like what you mean is “people jump on me if I use a word that I totally use all the time in regular conversation, like bitch, and I don’t understand why all you crazy people are getting your panties in a bunch like little girls!” And if that’s NOT what you mean, please provide links to said not-right verbiage, because otherwise I’m going to stick with the “wahhhh people called me out on my privileged language waahhhh” scenario as the most probable.
@Shplane
Whatever, I played a barbarian in 3.5 and it was totally awesome.
Of course my DM helped me draw it up because what I really wanted to play was a Nac Mac Feegle, and we based it off a gnome template with an INT dump for strength, but, barbarian. And his main motivation was his quest for “special ship liniment.” AND HE WAS AWESOME THANK YOU.
The only drawback was that due to mechanics the headbutt wasn’t very effective unless I needed a blunt weapon.
But admittedly I haven’t played Pathfinder, I just feel a pressing need to defend 3.5 because of warm fuzzy eviscerating memories.
@Alukonis
Barbarians are fun and I like playing them. Like, they’re legitimately one of my favorite classes. They just don’t keep up with the casters, and stop being worth playing at all once you get out of the low levels unless you’re optimizing them to fuck, which only works if the guy playing the Wizard isn’t optimizing to fuck.
I just KNEW I should have closed the laptop and gone to bed…
Up until I got to the end of your post, where you turned into an asshole, I was intrigued by your post so I will make this the last thing I respond to tonight:
If you read the parable I read there is one dog and one lizard cohabiting in a house which is, for the purpose of the tale, their entire world. So now let’s take your scenario – where did the other drivers come from? Where would these other people come from who attend a town hall meeting? If your scenario was going to work then I would spot you a street, a car, a pedestrian, and a driver but once you start adding OTHER drivers and OTHER people you are changing the entire point of the parable, and it no longer works. Why do you think I said I was ‘of the dog’ instead of identifying as the dog? Because the dog represents the ENTIRE group who in turn represent the privilege. It has to since the gecko represents the particular group being oppressed. I CAN’T be the dog because if I am tasked with representing white male privilege then where would all of the other white males, also tasked with representing the white male privilege, be? They can’t be the gecko because she is already taken so they must ALSO be the dog. So in this one dog is a group of millions of white men, and I am only ONE of them.
In your scenario there are apparently MANY drivers and MANY other people including one pedestrian who I am assuming, and correct me if I am wrong, does not represent the entire oppressed community but only represents said pedestrian. In a world of mere individuals given the scenario you propose I would say that yes it makes sense, but only because you changed the rules and asked a different question. And if we are being honest here, the dog doesn’t have any concept that the cold is harming the gecko or even what cold is. I find it hard to believe that your proposed driver would have no concept that hitting a person with his car wouldn’t result in very real harm.
Well, nine justices (and really only five of them) were needed to set that precedent. Do you for a minute think the result would have been the same if every voting age adult had gotten to vote on it? Now you still want to tell me how I, one of maybe 150,000,000 +/- men, maybe 75,000,000 +/- of them white, have the awesome power to change everything wrong with the world all by my lonesome? Your unjustified sarcasm not withstanding, you missed the point of the parable.
As for the rest of your post, fuck off. I’m tired of fighting this fight tonight.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/4435/public-overestimates-us-black-hispanic-populations.aspx
http://andrewgelman.com/2005/06/misperception_o/
http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/content/57/3/332.abstract
http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/84/2/901.short
http://alpha.lasalle.edu/schools/sas/sscdept/content/faculty/gallagher/Miscounting_Race.pdf
ericpaulsen:
Internet warrior, you.
(A tired one now, needs beddy-byes)
Oops, my American privilege is showing! I based my numbers on the last US census, not the population of the entire earth. Oh well, add that to my list of high crimes.
Yeah john and you’re a vampire? Suck it then.
No, see, you didn’t.
That’s rather my point.
Huh. Were you one of those kids who, when the teacher corrected one of their errors, would respond “well, sorreee! I guess I’m just stupid! Jeez! You probably hate me, don’t you”?
ericpaulsen,
As for the rest of your post, fuck off. I’m tired of
fightinglosing this fight tonight.FIFY.
This I absolutely cannot forgive. Spellcasters aren’t the classes they used to be. They’re video game equivalents. (Which is to say, they’ve been ruined.) You don’t play a wizard or sorcerer (or even cleric) if all you’re thinking about is combat. The coolest spells are cool because of things entirely unrelated to combat.
Like Apocalypse From The Sky or half the Necromancy school. I don’t hate 4e (I played one game and it was pretty fun) but it’s… well it’s just not dnd. It’s Dragon Age 2 at best. There’s no room for characters to breath anymore. Here’s your class, this is what it does, deal with it.
Earlier someone mentioned how stale the move, attack, full attack role of fighters becomes. And they’re right, that does get stale. But there’s something just more satisfying, to me anyway, about that cool combo my Tempest with Rapid Blitz just pulled off. I don’t want that tied up to a powers system because it just doesn’t make sense. It’s not some super amazing feat that drains them of some sort of life essence. It’s a simple combination of movements that they’ve mastered over the last 15 fucking levels.
wtf are you-all talking about over here?
let me guess:
Free Will*?
The concept of Class** privilege?
Or is that like a Rule 34 thing?
*(is it ok if I call the lizard Will?)
**(taxonomic Class, get it?)
Still no evidence by EP, and its OPINION is still evidenceless bullshit. Welcome to science, EP, where you are a liar and bullshitter until proven otherwise with EVIDENCE.
ffs Nerd.
You’re simply wrong. This is NOT ‘science’.
It’s a fucking comment thread on a fucking blog.
As this is the [Thunderdome], I will express the following OPINION:
Your blustering boilerplate never contributes to the conversation. Not even a troll-stomping conversation. You should edit yourself. A lot.
No Chas, it isn’t science, but there are claims being made by EP that are never backed up with anything but whines, moans, and attitude. The lurkers need to be aware of EP’s duplicity. And your attitude needs a reality check. Suprise, I don’t consider your OPINION seriously.
Example of claim by EP: We blame him for being privileged. All it takes is a copypasta/blockquote with name being cited to show he is right. Too damn lazy/stupid to do so. Not all evidence need be scientific. But not backing up said statement means he isn’t arguing honestly.
to appreciate the Warhammer 40k setting you kinda have to be a massive storyline nerd like me. Whether it be the backstory of 40k (I’m reading through the Horus Heresy novels now. Love the fact that despite the shitty society in 40K, in 30K the Emperor basically mandated atheism until he, y’know, ‘died’), the backstory of Magic: The Gathering (at least back when it made sense before they started altering massive chunks of history every second set) or the storyline behind pretty much anything else I get into (comics, videogames, books, etc. Similar thing that makes me want to know more about history and astronomy… to know what’s happened before). This means, however, that I have interest in the printed settings of D&D and how they’re treated.
Greyhawk was Gygax’s own campaign. It’s most powerful being (that I know of) is Mordenkainen. Gygax’s Wizard from 1st Edition. This means something to me, and to have Greyhawk pretty much struck from the records with 4th Edition along with the destruction of Gygax’s spell system and dumping a large portion of the references to Mordenkainen, it just ceased to feel like D&D.
Then you had Forgotten Realms, where you had a few things that made the setting unique(ish). There was the Underdark, the massive hidden empire beneath the surface of the world. Well, that’s now completely open after the cave-ins. You had the city of Myth Drannor, the elvish equivalent of Sodom & Gomorrah. A city so decadent that hell itself rose up to claim it. A city that Elminster, the most powerful non-god being on the plane, went into and got his ass handed to him. Oh yeah, somewhere between third and fourth the Elves walked in and retook the whole place and it’s a completely safe peaceful city now.
And since when is Neverwinter it’s own campaign setting? It’s north Faerun! Fuck off the Neverwinter Campaign setting and bring back Kara Tur and the other parts of Toril that we don’t get to see (Kara Tur being the Asian-inspired far east, and I believe there was another continent that was Mesoamerican… that continent’s probably been eliminated by teleporting in the massive landmass that occured between 3rd and 4th)
*exhales* Anyways. On a previous point.. how the heck did you have 15 dice in your dice pool per shot in Shadowrun? Best I ever had was like 8, and I had extraordinary stats for a human…
Anyway. I can understand the love for Barbarians. They were awesome in 3rd edition, especially since it was basically an “Iron Man” difficulty setting for the game. Once you passed, I think, about 5th level, if you were in your Barbarian rage and got knocked down, you were dead outright just from losing the constitution points.
My nutty character, however, was a halfling fighter modeled after Sir Didymus from The Labyrinth. A fully armoured halfling knight with a lance riding on an oversized english sheepdog.
if this is you arguing in good faith, you’re subliterate. since I don’t actually think you can’t read what people are saying to you, and the explanations of what is actually expected of someone who posts here, I have to instead assume you’re arguing in bad faith.
ok, now you’re just making shit up, since what you actually came in complaining about how we’re trying to make you fel guilty for being white and having a penis. whining about words like “provilege”, for example.
you are, once again, making up stuff. you came in complaining about an incorrect understanding of the use of “privilege” and have continued whining about how people are trying to make you feel guilty for being white, despite multiple people correcting you on that point.
incorrect. since it has already been explained to you how this is incorrect, I have to assume that you’re either lying now, or can’t read for comprehension. which is it?
whining about things that aren’t true isn’t punching sacred cows, it’s punching imaginary ones.
no. what we want is a space free from microaggressions. And since PZ doesn’t do heavy moderation, the commenters have to do the job of keeping the place free of microaggressions.
I have no idea why you imagine you can post incorrect things and not get corrected.
you have influence on some white males, including yourself. those you have influence on it’s your responsibility to influence in a direction that leads to diminishing oppression. Assuming the interpretation you take in the quoted part is not just uncharitable, it’s not arguing in good faith, since there’s no reason whatsoever to assume that anyone here thinks you have control over the actions of all white males.
you do know that this is the same bullshit excuse that polluters use to not have to stop polluting, right?
this is of course bullshit, since the privileged always have more power to change society than those lacking privilege. it’s sort of inherent to the part where they’re the privileged ones.
this is either a lie or extreme ignorance of how social change is achieved. you were never able to tell a buddy to stop using “gay” as an insult, or convince them to stop using “jewed”/”gyped”? you were never in a situation to explain to someone that rape jokes are causing harm? you were never in a situation to explain privilege to someone? you were never in a situation where you could raise someone’s awareness of the oppressions other people face? I don’t believe it.
hehehe
In the parable as told by Daniel Dennett, the thermostat has free will.
Well, for 4.0 miniatures, we have taken to using gummy bears for the monsters, and you get to eat what you kill.
Of course, there is sometimes an issue with certain players charging all the way across the room to kill the one white gummy bear because that is their favorite flavor. But, using different colors for the different types of monsters is cool.
Sparky
see now that would make dungeon-crawls more entertaining.
Hey, I may be a newbie to table top gaming, but everyone I play with has been playing since the 70’s.
They know all the cool tricks. And when we play, they insist on role playing, so the fact you don’t have to role play in the newer versions is not an issue, because that is the only way they know to play.
Sparky
The non-D&D game I really long to play is the one based on Stross’ Laundry series.
–
This stuff right Here^.
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ericpaulsen:
I gave you a different analogy to try to get you to understand the point of “Step one: empathize. Step two: figure out what you can do about it. Step three: the world is a better place.”
But instead you just gave me this long screed about how my new analogy doesn’t match the dog/gecko situation, and this is all the thought you gave the new scenario:
Yes, the pedestrian represents pedestrians as a group, because the world does not have only one pedestrian in it. The way you interpreted it makes me think your thought process is: “Only one pedestrian got hit so we shouldn’t do anything about it. There is no need to work against SYSTEMIC privilege of drivers over pedestrians, because hey it’s really too bad that one pedestrian got hit but it was just one person.” Meanwhile all the other pedestrians that have to walk half a mile to get to a crosswalk to safely cross the road, and the pain in the ass that is? Don’t even notice ’em. (By the way I’m basing this analogy on an actual news story.)
So there is the privilege of ignoring the pedestrians forced to walk the long way, and the refusal to connect the dots and recognize patterns in recurring incidents. These are the privileges I was trying to point out with that analogy. I mean I even gave the benefit of easily recognized harm done to the pedestrian and you STILL can’t acknowledge that as one of the drivers not in danger of being run over you could still do something to help the pedestrians, even though you’re not in their position. Of course one of the flaws here is that you have moved around as a pedestrian before, so you have auto-empathy with a pedestrian because you’ve been one, which of course you can’t have with a minority group because you’ve never been, e.g., a black woman.
Also I like how you point out that you only needed five white men to change the precedent for interracial marriage, yet somehow you are still unable to do anything to dismantle privilege yourself. I guess you need four other guys? Five is the absolute minimum of white men required to address privilege?
You’re not arguing in good faith, you refuse to own up to any errors you’ve made that have been pointed out to you, and your main thesis of “everyone is mean to me and thinks I’m a bad person because I’m white and have a penis” remains unsupported by any evidence except your repeated assertion. Not one person in this thread has called you a bad person for being a white male. Not one person here has been mean to you because you’re a white male. People have been insulting to you because you keep whining about how unfair everyone is while arguing in bad faith and steadfastly refusing to admit to any error.
And this is Thunderdome, where there is no moderation, and you can sit on your high horse of “I refuse to argue with anyone who is snide at me while I constantly am snide to others” but doing so will only perpetuate my opinion of you as a whiny asshat. I don’t get the impression that you care what I think of you, though, so good day to you, sir, and I hope you step on a lego barefoot.
@Sparky
Obviously you have to make the white gummi bears the final boss, as a reward for defeating the hordes!
@Shplane
Our DM used to give spellcasters their own magic enemies, so they were constantly in a buff/debuff battle while my barbarian and the other fighters took out the minions.
But we got away with a lot of stuff, I rolled a bluff check to put bits of a defeated Dwarf zombie on as a costume so I could sneak close to the necromancer controlling all the other zombie dwarfs and attack him directly.
Of course then he TELEPORTED because CHEATER but it was a good idea, dammit!
4e casters still have non-combat spells in the form of rituals.
A lot of the problem with 3.5 was that casters did EVERYTHING outside of combat. Past a certain point, you don’t need a guy with skills, you need a caster with a few spells that can resolve any situation. Need the King to send his army to your aid? You could use a social Rogue, but just taking control of his mind would be easier. Need to get over the mountain? You could have the Fighter climb to the top and throw down a rope, but it’d be way easier to just have the Wizard cast one of his eight different spells that let you fly. Need to talk to the monster that speaks a rare language? Sure, you could have a linguist character, but it’s way easier to just cast Tongues. Broken sword? Mend is easier than finding a blacksmith. Underwater temple? Water Breathing is easier than having the gnome artificers build you a steampunk submarine.
For every problem, there is a spell. Clerics just know all of theirs, and Wizards CAN know all of theirs. While they might need to prepare, that’s either “Cast Rope Trick and wait for eight hours in my interdimensional pocket realm” or “Teleport to my custom plane with faster time and wait the equivalent of five minutes” depending on your level. Spells, as they exist in 3.5, utterly destroy any ability the DM has to challenge the players, and recursively enable themselves to do so.
Casters also dominate combat, of course, and you completely SHOULD pick Wizard/Sorceror/Cleric/Druid if you’re just thinking of combat. There is literally nothing a Fighter can do that a Wizard can’t do better. Want to kill something? Damage is vastly less efficient than Save or Die spells. Want to soak up damage? Summoned creatures are vastly better for it than other player characters. It’s like Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit: Casters are just better, all the time, forever, and trying to let your Barbarian have fun with his pointy metal stick will probably just get him killed. The only reason to pick a noncaster is for roleplaying, and even that’s a little iffy since your Conan equivalent just won’t be able to actually kill any wizards.
Toning down casters wasn’t a bad thing. Making casters work within the same rules as everyone else wasn’t a bad thing. Casters ruined 3.5 unless every single person playing agreed not to escalate the Wizard Cold War or honestly didn’t know how to play the game very well in the first place and didn’t accidentally decide to not be an Evoker. This doesn’t mean that 3.5 isn’t fun, because it is, but I shouldn’t have to tiptoe around my spell selections just to keep from ruining the game for everyone else. I shouldn’t have to hold my character back so that the rest of the party can have fun.
While I admit that 4e does place gameplay concerns ahead of fluff concerns, this isn’t what Daily/Encounter powers on martial characters are meant to represent. They give the player some measure of narrative control. What happens when a good roleplayer uses a Daily is “I can only use this attack if my opponent has let his guard down. I am deciding that he lets his guard down now.”
Not that some characters couldn’t literally have some sort of mystic combat force or just get tired or something. Even if you don’t like it, that’s an entirely valid narrative idea that appears in a lot of the fiction that D&D is meant to emulate.
I don’t really like 4e, personally. But I cannot at all fault it for what it did to fix the caster/noncaster disparity or for the Power system. Both were great ideas. Its flaws lie elsewhere, in its insistence on miniature use and shitty skill system and decision to make really goofy horseshit into core races and silly shit like Bear Lore.
Every edition of D&D is bad in its own unique, special way. Some of us are just better at looking past the flaws of one than another.
This only really worked because your caster friends either decided not to just take out the minions immediately, or because they weren’t aware of how good their class is to do so.
40k has its good moments, but in general just doesn’t really make any sense. The good points are buried in mountains and mountains of some of the most utterly misbegotten trash I have ever had the misfortune of experiencing.
Never really did like the MtG backstory. I like the individual settings a lot of the time (Ravnica is mai waifu), but the multiverse as a whole is a little too over the top for me to give a shit.
Gygax was a cool guy, but his self-insert Mary Sue and really poorly designed spell system are not part of what made him a cool guy. Just like I can like Richard Dawkins but still recognize that Dear Muslima was fucking stupid, I can like Gygax and realize that spells were bad and needed an overhaul.
I really, really dislike the Underdark. It’s just such a silly concept. That’s just a personal preference, though.
Man what is even WITH these D&D settings and their MARY SUE WIZARDS?
I don’t play it myself, but my understanding is that Shadowrun allows for some really utterly ridiculous dice pools. I remember watching some guys play in my LGS, and one of them literally rolled like thirty dice. No clue what he was doing, but yeah.
I mostly liked Barbarians because the fluff behind them is cool, and they’re simple to play but still reasonably effective when you don’t try to compare them to a caster.
Of course, most of my experience is with Pathfinder barbarians, which have a “Drink Booze To Rage Harder” archetype and all kinds of other ridiculously cool things. In pure 3.5, I’ve only ever played a Barbarian/Warblade gestalt that traded out some Barbarian levels for Frenzied Berserker, so I guess it would probably be less fun to play a pure Barbarian there.
I’ve never actually played a nutty character. I like my games more serious.
To each his own, though.
I do tend to base my characters slightly on characters from other media. That Barbarian/Warblade was based on Guts from Berserk, for example. Because Berserk is awesome mango.
I guess if I did have one silly character, it would be the one I made for Little Fears. He was based on Nouta from FLCL, complete with combat guitar and sexy older lady friend.
He ended up being a troubled youth that loves switchblades and smoking and hates authority, but damn it he started out silly.
We really need a troll.
I could get all butt hurt about you dissing my 4.0?
Sorry, best I can do at the moment.
Sparky
Shplane:
Maybe? They were always casting glitterdust on everything. These weren’t super high level campaigns, though, I think we were at like 12th level max? I know things get ridiculous once you’re up to epic level but our casters seemed to mostly be doing the healzorz or glitterdusting the shit out of things. Or there was one that dumped grease everywhere. And we had a bard that did sleep spell, but then got some firebombing stuff.
The thing is that the minions weren’t like 4e minions where you hit them once and they die, this was stuff like bugbear crusaders that kept healing things and using their delayed damage pools for bonuses, those bastards. But I feel like I don’t know enough about 3.5 to argue you on this, because my knowledge is really pretty sketchy. Most of my “research” is from http://www.d20srd.org because I don’t really have books.
more dungeons.
less dragons and wizards & shit.
I’ve got one in my shadowrun party. does that count?
Hotshoe @100
Hey that is one of my “lost songs”! Heard it on an NPR station years ago and wanted to find it. Another verse mentions San Antonio’s less salubrious neighborhoods. Thanks for helping me find who did it.
ericpaulsen,
it appears to me (and I cant be arsed to look thru all of the back threads) that you understand privilege, and don’t really want to exert it overtly, just that when you and others spout content that is objectionable HERE, you don’t want to be smacked down hard, you want us bitches to politely ignore it as we are forced to do everywhere else.
Noted
Hello. I’m back. I understand that this is where we now come to insult people and start fights? Yippee!
Anyone who likes basketball is a stupid jerk for whom I feel utter contempt.
Basketball is probably the crappiest game ever devised.
I always thought it was crap and ignored it but I’ve just watched some Olympic basketball involving the most highly paid sportsmen on the planet (USA v Someplaceorother) and I’m totally mystified as to why it is so popular. The only explanation seems to be that its fans are stupid jerks.
The Equipment :
The Ball – It’s a fucking huge, soft, beachball! Absolutely no danger involved, and how hard is it to catch? Most human 3 year olds with opposable thumbs have mastered that skill. No sticks, bats, clubs, feet, palms, heads, etc etc to make it difficult – you simply catch, and throw, the fucking thing with your hands. Wow! I stand in awe of your skill. You certainly deserve $50m per year.
The Net – It’s up in the fucking sky! (Unlike virtually every other game where the net starts at ground level). Duh! Didn’t the inventor realise that this inevitably means that it can only be played at the top level by the 0.2% of the population that are, like, really, really tall?
The Game:
No fucking contact! (Well, it was cobbled together by a clergyman who wanted a nice healthy activity for young men without any danger of them getting aroused by, god forbid, actually touching each other). So, what with the net being in the sky and no contact, the only way to stop the opposition scoring is waving your arms around a bit. Which means the that amount of scoring is ridiculous. One side gets the beach ball, trots about 5 steps (stupid small court) and scores. Almost always. Then they give the ball to the other team who go the other way and do the same thing. Almost always. The only time it’s marginally interesting is when someone fucking fails to score.
And people love it and think it’s really exciting, ffs.
And then, for the first time, I watched Handball (Iceland v Hungary, great game)- which is everything Basketball would love to be, but isn’t.
It’s faster, uses a far greater range of skills, scoring is more difficult (but there’s still a lot of it) and thus more interesting, lots of body contact as people charge into each other to put the shooter off, the ball is smaller, the court is bigger, and you don’t have to be well over >2m to fucking play it.
The only thing that would make me ever watch another game of basketball is if the net was up at 10m and they all played on stilts.
Oh yeah, and any of you that like basketball are stupid jerks. Did I say that?
basketball is fine to watch after the stanley cup finals because there is fuckall else to watch except pre-season baseball or pro rasslin
RTL, you’ve never seen Aussie Rules, have ya? :)
(You’ve never been hit in the face with a basketball, either — no-one who ever has would call it “soft”)
And they ain’t that easy to throw.
JM – I lived in OZ once upon a time. I’ve seen Aussie Rules. But I fail to see the relevance, unless you think I was saying that handball was the best game around, or that is is now my favourie game? That’s not what I said. I just said it was a similar game to, but much better than, basketball (not difficult).
re the “getting hit in the face” – it’s the least dangerous ball of any game I can think of. And, because of the size, it moves slower than any other. It’s not going to take your fucking eye out, or crack your skull, is it? Even a table tennis ball is more dangerous.
How we’ve dis[posed of those points, how about addressing all my other points about basketball? Or has watching too much dulled your mind, like all the other fans?
Okay I’ll bite, how is a table tennis ball more dangerous?
Also clearly hockey is the superior sport.
RTL, what points?
It’s a game with rules, at the elite level those who play it are awesome.
(Goes for any game)
—
PS re: “it’s the least dangerous ball of any game I can think of”
You’ve never seen ping-pong balls?
Alukonis, :)
Btw, I also watched a trailer for the forthcoming Paralympics, which included some wheelchair basketball. A miilion times better than the other sort. The whole height problem is negated by eveyone being at the same level, the tiny court virtually expanded by it being harder to get around in a wheelchair, and they have to maneuver the wheelchair around as well as catch and throw at the same time, and generally use a larger repetoire of skills. There’s just a lot more variety in the game, it’s not so tediously one dimentional. And they really charge into each other. Not a game for wusses.
In fact basketball and wheelchairs are a perfect match. It must be one of the best games to play in a chair. I’ll be watching the Paralympics basketball.
Ring Tailed Lemurian! Hi! *waves*
I mean, “Grrrr! How dare you!” *shaking fist*
Deep, dark secret—I’m not really “into” any of the popular sports. Basketball is but one of the “mehs” on my sports Lack of Hits Parade. Putting the players on stilts would give it a certain novel appeal.
–
As a wise man I once knew said: no matter what the skill is, when you see someone who is a true master doing it, it’s interesting and impressive to see.
(Could be shelling eggs or making pizzas — or it could be a game)
Jm – You’ve never had a wiff waff ball in the eye, obviously. Does a lot more damage than any basketball would ever do.
Aw, my guess was “because some people put them up their butts.”
Or “because they’re used in beer pong and alcohol poisoning is a real danger!”
RTL:
You’d rather be hit with a basketball than a ping-pong ball?
(My sport was squash — now there’s a game where eye protection is worthwhile!)
Tired of bailing that mufucka out.
Some on stilts. Others with hatchets.
JM – yes, of course seeing the best do anything is is great but basketball, more than any other game I can think of, restricts its intake to one physical type. In every other game there is a place for the short, the small, the wiry, even if it’s generally better to be big and strong. So you may be seeing the best basketball players, but the top necessarily comes from such a small pool that I don’t think it can compare with games where almost anyone can take part and get to the very top. A wider pool means a higher level at the top, no?
And anyway, it’s not just the freakish height you need to be that I’m moaning on about. The game has so little variety, which is a direct result of its design.
It seems very wrong to me that the highest paid sportsman on earth are all basketball players. If you must pay that sort of money give it to those in the many other games and sports where the skill factor, the range of skills needed, and the enjoyment derived from watching humans do something really difficult, are much greater.
I genuinely believe that many of the wheelchair players I saw are better athletes, playing a more interesting game. “Normal” basketball seems to me the most babyishly simple of all games around.
And yes, I’d rather be hit in the face, anywhere, by a basketball than hit in the eye with a table tennis ball.
Hi cicely – are we allowed to be nice and say hello here?
Jeepers! – 2:30 am – bedtime for Bonzo.
@Ring Tailed Lemurian
Ok, I do have to point out an error in your rant. I think everything is is pretty good though.
Spud Webb
Gah, links, how do they work *head desk*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spud_Webb
I think most thinking persons can agree that team handball, lacrosse, hockey (field and ice), and soccer/futbol/football are all superior sports to the basketball freakshow.
That said, there is one sport that combines the basic layout and strategy common to the sports named above with the most difficult (because energy-intensive) form of locomotion of which humans are capable. It is therefore the best game ever invented.
I refer to water polo.
but yeah, I still enjoy basketball too and my favorite players are people like Spud Webb, Steve Nash, and Pistol Pete Marovich. The non-freaks, essentially.
Chas, freakish skill is freakish. :)
Or as I call it, drown-fighting.
Tall.
RTL,
There’s a reason why weightlifting has categories determined by bodyweight.
—
PS G’nite.
(Hopefully, you’ll see this in your tomorrow)
Mw and Capt. Jonathan Archer.
w -> e
sorrw
Hey, SC.
I take it you’re aware of the recent changes here?
John Morales #239 I kmew you were an old fart but 2500 years old? Does zombie jebus know about this?
#245 hawgwash Ring Tail, if they had the 3 point rule when I was a 6ft 180lb bball player I would have made a ton in the nuba. I could hit 60% fom 3 steps anywhere inside the 1/2 line. Of course if Don Johnson’s event would have made the olympics, he (despite his claims) would have taken silver to my gold.
lacrosse needs to be exported to India and China, so we could watch a real sport instead of freakin golf
Rot8/-2.
***
?
Or possibly chainsaws. Oooh! Or nunchucks! No! Both!!!
–
Well, the label says “no-holds-barred unmoderated chaos”, which implies that if I wish to smother someone with marshmallows and hugs, I may. Of course, there may be some disproportionate response from the Studio Audience, but the label covers that, too.
;)
–
No dice.
–
SC, new rules; a phase shift.
(See the sidebar)
Um, perhaps too gnomic even for you, SC.
(Sidebar under Profile)
RTL:
I like basketball even though I’ve never played it. I ran the game clock for my school for eleven years, and for the last five years, I traveled to whatever school was hosting the tournament–after a timekeeping “scandal” caused the post to be voted on by the coaches each season.
My liking of the game is limited to middle school (ages 12-14), though. It’s fun to watch the kids learn the game. For the 7th grade teams, there’s no guarantee at the beginning of the season that there will be more than 3-4 baskets in an entire quarter. Most of the players are well under six feet, so the basket is high for them all, and quite often the smaller, more agile players are the stars. The lack of contact at that age is a plus. If I watch basketball at a higher level, the fun part changes to being able to explain a back court violation or call a foul before the announcers for some dude who expects me to be clueless.
That said, I certainly can’t disagree with you about handball. Does that diminish my jerkiness?
John, what are you getting at?
SC, what I’m getting at is that this thread is the last remaining vestige of the old free-for-all.
The rest of the place is now subject to specific rules, not just (but still) PZ’s whim; and the old TET is now the Lounge and a safe space.
I have issues with PZ’s “Rules of Charity” — not because I don’t care to adhere to them (it’s my predilection) but because they are not optional.
(But then, I like rules in general — it’s a challenge to be able to break them in spirit and not in letter)
As an anarchist, do I leave the country? :)
I was gonna post this in the lounge, but then, sniping at Dan Fincke seems ill-suited to an atmosphere of congeniality, so…
This post seems to me to be in obvious violation of Fincke’s no-insults, no-dehumanizing policy. I mean, telling someone that actually, there are situations where they just don’t have “the right” to feel a certain way, and characterizing a dehumanizing comment as “civil” is insulting and dehumanizing. Yet Dan has not taken any issue with it.
I have posted a response. I am curious to see what he will do.
SallyStrange, yes. I too am curious.
(I was tempted to respond, but I’ve been pushing it as it is; you’ve done better than I have in this case)
I’m glad I’m not the only one who sees that comment as exactly the sort of faux-civility that inspires justified anger and risks getting the person who responds to it, rather than the person who incites the anger, banned for violating the policy.
@Alukonis
Well, yes, it isn’t as bad at lower levels. I mean, someone who knows what they’re doing can invalidate all non-casting classes by level eight or so, but that takes a bit of work. It’s largely down to feat choice and knowing how to apply your spells.
It also sounds like your caster players were mostly using spells that are really good, but good because they enable the rest of the party instead of just winning outright. This is exactly what people playing casters should do, IMO. Buff/Debuff primary with other spells mostly being used to pick up things that the rest of your party is weak at is the most friendly way to play a caster while still being effective.
It’s also a little boring if you like wrecking shit, but oh well.
Are all comments at Fincke’s still in automoderation?
Fincke’s comments only auto-moderate in response to certain words. Insult words. The post I made in response to the one above went through instantly. It’s not clear which words exactly trigger it, but “stupid” is definitely on the list.
Oh. All my comments a few days ago were going into automoderation, but then I was discussing those words. I got the impression he was automoderating everything for a duration. (So I wondered if he’d manually released this offensive comment from moderation.)
ॐ, FWIW, I very much doubt I’m whitelisted, but I’ve yet to have a comment be moderated over there.
(Rules, I can follow)
PS ॐ, thanks for the memories (over at the Molly thread).
(And I stand by what I wrote there, then, especially about you)
Amusement: searching for libertarian “free will” instead of “libertarian free will” produces this frank admission that political libertarianism, to be morally justified, requires an impossible metaphysics.
Freewill: A Leibnitzian-Libertarian Solution, by Danny Frederick.
The purpose of all this, of course,
Ah, for the moral betterment of the working classes. Seriously written in 1992.
4e minions aren’t like that. At least they shouldn’t be.
They’re more or less on the same plane as 3.5 enemies with how irritating they can be to fight but the whole bloodied thing, combat advantage, ect just moves it along more dynamically. If you’re ever one-shoting anything that’s not an encounter you should be getting XP for.
lol
I do that a lot too. Abj and illusion schools are fun for trolling.
I argued with Fincke about this months ago. (Well, he said stupid things, I explained why they were wrong, and he ignored me.) It amazed me that he was telling me that his blog was a safe space for me, despite my explicitly saying it was not. It was extremely arrogant of him, and I haven’t bothered with his blog since.*
This is silly. “Minority” is a sociological term – it’s not based on numbers. And people like him are in fact globally outnumbered, so it’s his experiences that are unusual.
*There are worse blogs here. Hallquist’s, for one. He now has a ridiculous post up about Dawkins’ ridiculous post about Harris’ ridiculous post. The comments are good.
If anyone is looking to snine their fangs a bit and finding the competition here too agreeable, there’s an ugly discussion of why it’s important to break up gay marriages, even those that have already occurred (i.e. actually forcing divorce or annullment, not just preventing future marriages), going on at Leah Libressco’s blog. It could stand more poeple with sense contributing. Yes, I know a sensible person would just stop reading blogs on patheos, but they have a train wreck fascination for me.
classic
I was thinking recently how Fincke’s policy would exclude Cicero, Emma Goldman, and Thomas Paine.
***
By the way, John, sorry about my evasiveness last night. I wasn’t in the mood to talk about my reaction to the new rules (it’s not positive). I was in the mood to link to my blog.
:)
***
I’m quite annoyed by this latest Harris scuffle. His basic premises are bigoted and false. Islam has no unique relationship to violence, and there’s no essential Islamic ideology that inexorably draws all Muslims to suicide bombing or its support* or to violence generally. His characterization of the position of his critics is in the majority of cases inaccurate. He’s actually written that the people speaking most sensibly and with the greatest moral clarity about Muslims are, respectively, fascists and the Religious Right. He’s yet another dude making hackneyed, unsupported, harmful arguments and receiving attention and respect. And now more dudes have stepped in to defend him with more bad arguments, so it’ll continue.
*And I don’t know why he’s so fixated on suicide bombing. It’s a small percentage of political violence and a minor cause of death or injury, and in the group of forms of violence that includes “conventional” warfare with extensive harm to civilians and nonsuicidal terrorism, suicide bombing is possibly among the more morally defensible.
Ring Tailed Lemurian:
MAD Magazine once had an article about a suggested hotted-up version of baseball caled “Basebrawl”.
All players will be wearing body armor.
Each player get to bring along a bat, so if they are near a player from the opposite team that catches the ball, they can whack him before he throws it back.
The ball is actually a cannonball. This way, a simple line drive becomes a memorable event (illustration of players getting their fingers and hands torn off by a passing ball).
.
Other cool sports suggested by MAD was “Stock car minefield racing” and “Molten-lava surfing”
Huh? In this context, it is. I realize it’s confusing, but that’s the meaning of the term.
I know. That was one of a continuing series of snipes at the social sciences for their insistence on taking perfectly good words from the vernacular, redefining them as jargon, and then requiring anybody they happen to be talking to to recognize and adhere to the specialized redefinitions. I see it fucking up communication again and again and I know you’ve been annoyed at me in the past for pointing out the same thing.
Plus I got a kick out of the implied admission that sociology need have nothing to do with data.
[insert tongue-out smiley here]
You’re confused. Did it occur to you that I was making an argument rather than being a pedant?
Fincke said:
His experience is decidedly nonstandard and unusual. It is treated, though, as standard, the default, the norm. (My WASP heritage, for example, is not generally recognized as an ethnicity in the same sense as others.) That’s actually part of the dynamic of marginalization, and he participates himself when he presents the experiences of other collectivities as unusual and special as opposed to his own (those of “the rest of us”):
I believe this is what mythbri was trying to call attention to:
In response, Fincke tries to play on the nonsociological meaning of “minority” to justify what he’s said:
On many measures he’s talking about, he’s outnumbered; he’s in the minority and yet he writes as if it’s the opposite. What he’s done is present the experiences of less privileged people as unusual, in a context of telling them how he wants them to argue in order to be acceptable to him, and he doesn’t get out of it by playing with words.
No idea what you’re trying to say here. There was no such admission.
no, I had no clue of the context nor do I care about Fincke or anything he mioght have said in any way. I was merely making yet another snide drive-by because I was unable to ignore the single straightline that I quoted necessarily (in view of my ignorance of the context) out of context.
that line, I’ll remind you, was:
The crack about data-free ‘science’ was a humorous and facetious joke (a fact meant to be conveyed by the reference to a tongue-out smiley) that intentionally and facetiously misinterpreted that line. See? Get it?
aw, but now it’s not funny anymore thanks to you HUMORLESS SOCIAL SCIENTISTS.
IS it just me, or are philosophers almost universally shitty fucking assholes, using big words and calls for civility to obscure their innate fuckitude?
@Shplane
I was sorta interlacing two conversations together that last post so some of it was directed to someone else at the same time, sorry about that.
Anyways, the reason for all the Mary Sue characters in D&D settings is because those settings started out as home campaigns and the “mary sue” characters were simply the PCs of the main people behind them who were generally played to the point that they were ridiculously powerful and outdid everything else on the plane. Once they published the setting, those characters who had survived to that level were put in as major characters, as they would be in a situation where they’ve had that much to do with the realm. This is unlike the setting such as Ravenloft or Dragonlance where they had a pre-written lot of fluff that meant the stupid-powerful characters were… different. I dunno, there’s something different about Strahd, Soth and Raistlin compared to Mordenkainen, Elminster or Drizzt.
You call it humor. I call it another instantiation of the silencing structures of the BPG.
*Bourgeois Phallocentric Guffawcracy.
@Improbable Joe
I have developed a distinct dislike for philosophers. They keep trying to use “logic” to argue things that are entirely a matter of physics. When someone asks “How did the universe begin?”, do you really want to ask the guy who studied philosophy, or the guy who knows what he’s fucking talking about?
Improbable Joe: It’s just you.
CX316: How many philosophers are interested in answering questions about the origins of the universe? Most of them are much more interested in formulating questions about shit that is entirely mundane.
That was funny!
Along those lines, did you see this?
which follows up on, more relevantly, this?
A non-exhaustive list of philosophers who’re not shitty fucking assholes:
Michael Albert
Simone de Beauvoir
Ha-Joon Chang
Noam Chomsky
Thomas W Clark
Mike Ely
Gary Francione
Emma Goldman
Larry Hamelin
bell hooks
John Humbach
Anders Kaye
Rosa Luxemburg
Karl Marx
James B Miles
Huey Newton
Karl Polanyi
Tom Regan
Richard Rorty
Arundhati Roy
Jean-Paul Sartre
Vandana Shiva
Peter Singer
Ring Tailed Lemurian:
Hmmm, I’ll take a guess that you’re a soccer fan. ;)
————-
Chas:
Meh. Water polo is okay, considering participants actually do some throwing (can’t say the same for soccer). Though, the whole pool/water requirement makes it a bit inconvenient for the average person.
————–
I personally like baseball, but I can understand how people can hate it.
Tennis is also good. I’m just now trying to teach myself. Darn backhand. I need to get some lessons.
I like golf too, but too darned expensive.
Anyone play pool/billiards/snooker? True, cue sports aren’t actually “sports”, but they’re cool nonetheless. I have a 9-foot pool table in my bonus room. Wish I had the time to take it more seriously.
————-
CX316:
What about morality and ethics? Are those entirely matters of physics as well? Some would say so.
joey, it’s nice to see you’re still trolling.
I was afraid we’d given you the shake.
How’s the weather?
[Shakes his head, goes back to wondering if the assumption of normality is valid for this set of data.]
@julian
No, there are actual monsters in 4e called “minions” that have one hit point but still do basic damage, so if you hit them, they die. So the whole idea is that they die in one hit, but that means the DM can give you like a huge swarm of 20 goblins or something and it won’t be a TPK.
This is a real thing, I saw in on a Wizards of the Coast podcast intro to 4e. I suppose whether you want to give your players xp (assuming you’re running the game) is up to you.
As a player I always want a delicious xp sandwich, even if it’s for something like “insulted the mayor.” Heh.
strange gods:
weather is good. a bit too hot for my taste.
I hear that.
it is. of course it is. how is that even in question?
and there seems an odd assumption that the social sciences only deal with parts of the “everyday world” (forebrains aren’t part of the everyday world? what?) that everyone else already knows about (i.e. that no behaviors, phenomena, theories, etc. are discussed in the social sciences that aren’t already known well enough to already have an English* word for themselves.) and can talk about over coffee. Ridiculous.
um. they are. that’s hardly a radical proposition.
conclusion: crappy article.
– – – – – –
*that English part is especially funny. English was so poor in useful vocabulary a century ago already that most sociology students I know prefer reading French and German sociologists from way back then in the original if they can, to not have to deal with the clunky translations of the terms of art used in the English versions.
Bah. Maybe we should just go back to the practice of creating and importing German and French words for concepts for which there aren’t English terms. One would hope that would shut up the whiners who complain about poor, poor English vocabulary being abused by Social Scientists (well ok, maybe then French and German-speaking whiners would pop up. But there’s fewer of those, and I don’t have to deal with them on a regular basis, both on the internet and in meatspace.)
but then the jargon will be even more incomprehensible to laymen. can’t win this one either way, I guess :-p
OTOH, that paper is suffering from some serious thesaurus-poisoning. There’s a difference between jargon and abusing the thesaurus.
Nah. That would just foster ressentiment.
the rewrite is shitty too, though, since it efficiently erases all detail from the description.
I’d phrase it this way:
I refuse to accept that “hegemonic masculinities” is too jargony. And “thematic analysis” is an actual thing; you can’t just leave out your method out of your abstract :-/
dude, I fucking *heart* the stuffing outta you.
Also, I can’t fucking believe I fucked up editing my rewrite:
Linguists count as philosophers now? And also, you forgot Homer Simpson on that list, that great American philosopher.
also, really, when “aesthetics” is too jargony for you, I’d suggest remedial English, not whining about how other people write.
This is right up there with my geology professor red-marking my use of “via” and “circa”. I’m not writing for idiots, I expect understanding of simple words like that.
one of these days I’ll get the comma-abuse under control. promise. ;-)
Commas are fine. Just add in semicolons when appropriate, instead!
Back atcha, Jadehawk.
+++++
Some do — enjoy your GEB — but the degree to which linguistics gets philosophical is really beyond me.
Speaking only for myself, I was referring to his contributions to political philosophy.
+++++
Apropos of everything:
http://kasamaproject.org/2012/07/25/mao-zedong-combat-liberalism/
On vervets.
(Found here.)
*wimper*
Your broken digit hurting?
no, I’ve got painkillers for that*. My brain is hurting; I don’t think I can deal with vervets today, not even with criticisms of them.
– – – – –
*do metatarsals count as digital bones?
I’m just baiting Chas anyway, waiting for a particular reflex.
– – – – –
I dunno. But with a little creative surgery, I can make ’em count.
(Glad of the painkillers. To the degree misery loves company, my mirror neurons are firing for ya.)
Occasionally I write economic essays aimed at the intelligent layperson (that’s ya’ll). I make a point of not using jargon or, if I have to use it, I explain what the jargon means. Recently at another blog I used the phrase “rent seeking.” I had to write a paragraph explaining what these two words mean to an economist.
Every field of study, every vocation, every business, every specialty involves things and actions that nobody else uses or does. When I was sailing last weekend, we were going towards where the wind was coming from (to windward) and, because of the physics of sailing, we had to change direction (tack) quite frequently. As helmsman, I was controlling the tacks and when appropriate would call out “ready about…hard alee.” “Ready about” was a warning or preparatory call. When I said “hard alee” we all had specific actions to do to make the evolution go smoothly and successfully (otherwise we’d end up “in irons”).
Some non-social scientist complaining about jargon gets zero sympathy from me. What he’s really complaining about is that he doesn’t know the jargon and somehow that the social scientists’ fault.
The hilariousest part, is that as a layman, I understand what a social scientist means by the word “minority”.
I am not confused in he slightest.
I am not even an educated layman in regards to things socially scientific.
I have to google ressentiment every time though. It’s too close to what I would guess it to mean, without being what I would guess it to mean. And as far as interpreting my insurance policy, will, or credit card agreement…I’m just lost. Moreso than even the most abstruse social sciences paper.
“the slightest”
As you were.
(it’s my facacta iPad keyboard…experience tells me that I won’t master it)
It’s ambiguous even if you look it up. Nietzsche understands it as the creative inspiration for democracy and egalitarianism (and so he hates it), while others have considered it to be a defeatist fatalism. Dictionary.com has picked up the latter meaning.
IMO, it isn’t necessarily one or the other. You are being exploited. Now what are you going to do about it? “Anger is a gift” if you use it well.
I lean toward Nietzsche’s analysis of its pro-democratic effect in modernity, except that I love ressentiment rather than hate it. It is an appropriate first response to injustice in a world where luck swallows everything.
Besides, Nietzsche’s thing for aristocracy is nothing but sexual masochism mistaken for ethics:
Dear old Fred just needed a good spanking.
sgbm: miles behind you. I do think that I’m starting to get your joke at 304. If I do understand it properly, I think you’ve been clever ;)
Thanks always for things to read.
sgbm,
choamsky explained
http://www.theonion.com/articles/exhausted-noam-chomsky-just-going-to-try-and-enjoy,17404/
Slanted Science, did not know that, so how long did it take you to get you MS in Social Work?
wow. your criticism, so poignant it’ll crumble entire disciplines. SS, why the fuck are you here? you contribute nothing of value.
because of course there can only be one. Masculinity is like a fucking Highlander.
you’re such a tediously subliterate idiot, SS.
“OK, I’m wrong, but I’m sure I’m right.”
Did you learn that in Remedial Trolling, SS?
SlantedScience was still banned. Banhammer reapplied. Cleanup in progress.
oops. forgot about the goddamned auto-embedding.
AE, to be honest, if the joke works at multiple levels, this is just a happy coincidence. It’s making less sense to me the more I think about it.
+++++
broboxley, I’ve seen that before and it’s cute, but they didn’t capture his personality as well as they could have. Chomsky epitomizes calm when he’s talking about capitalist imperialism. The only thing I’ve ever seen him get visibly agitated about is Bolshevism and its successors, which he considers a betrayal of socialism.
+++++
Indeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism
Back up your claims. What is wooish or subjective about historical criticism per se?
sgbm bible studies, is that similar to the study of “huon of the horne” there is the story followed by the historical background of the alleged time/space. Looking at todays actions in syria, two thousand years from now will western scholars study the second coming of saladin in 2012?
Let me introduce you to my Russian friends, Kolmogorov & Smirnov.
wait: there are others, besides me?
hee hee
well, a ‘reflex’ is an automatic response to a sensory stimulus, and I assure you that I am not hard-wired to react to the mention of cercopithecids.
I stand by everything I have ever typed about that study, and in one sense I look forward to reading your link when I’m not quite so drunk. Maybe I’ll respond somehow.
I see where the source bills as “A forum for philosophers and other scholars to discuss academic work and current affairs with race and gender in mind” and yes, I approach with trepidation. Actually I’m warming up the eye-rolling muscles but I will read it.
I suspect the same.
aw jeez I just saw the other articles too.
I’ll check it out.
How I wish we referred to nonparametric as nonparanormal instead.
Yeah. I don’t know. It’s just sort of a thing herpetologists tend to have against social science jargon.
broboxley, the best answer I can give you is “um, maybe?”
+++++
Chas,
Meh. If you were going to give me the response I was hoping for, you’d probably have already done it. Oh well.
But I will accept this chuckle as a consolation prize.
+++++
AE, the link I gave is to Nietzsche at or near his absolute worst. If you’ve never read the guy, it’s a shocking immersion into fantastic racism that will leave you wondering how anyone today could fail to recognize him for a protofascist. A vague awareness of disgust as a moral emotion will be helpful — to understand how his disgust drives him toward conservatism, that is. I recommend it in the same way someone might recommend rotten.com.
But if you don’t have the time, or you get through it and aren’t sure what he means by ressentiment, I’ll be happy to give a much more boring summary.
Neitzsche, a self realized man who hates what he recognizes are his perceived thought processes and determines the fix for that is intervention in a pervasive way.
sgbm: all good. I’m nearly finished with a book, and I’ll need another. I have never read Nietzche, nor can I spell his name without checking. A lacuna I need to fill*. I’ll have nothing sensible to say about this for a while, so bear with.
I think I can bounce back and forth between the scholarly stuff and actual Nietzche text– might make this more….idk, …fun? Do you recommend The Genealogy of Morals as a starting place?
*or at least line the lacuna.
I have La Fin du Monde and I am not afraid to use it. Also, I am drinking beer. How are things?
I’d say for you, things are good.
I have to drive 40 miles for a FdM. Serious. Woe is me.
Oh, I rode my bike.
Yeah. Here’s the whole thing. It’s easy to read (not insufferable like Zarathustra), though I haven’t gotten around to part 3, on aesthetics, yet.
On Nietzsche as protofascist, here’s a much kinder treatment than I would give.
Here’s a much older translation, from 1921. Might be useful if ever Johnston’s translation doesn’t make sense.
sg: Alll three bookmarked. Many thanks.
Oh, for chrissakes, Andy The Nerd, stop whining. Nobody was “ableist” to Rogi, or “classist” for that matter. Rogi is whiny and not very bright, and, no, the latter observation isn’t “ableist,” no matter what SJ warriors claim.
You might want to try to learn how to argue for real, instead of by assertion. I realize that on Tumblr you can just yell SJ buzzwords and your “argument” is “won,” but Tumblr has become a joke for a reason.
What!? I thought I could finally be cool if I was on Tumblr :-(
SGBM:
http://saltycurrent.blogspot.com/2011/10/peter-singer-making-me-angry.html
Ok, is there anyone in here that isn’t all rage face about what douchebag TF did?
The mere idea that he could conceivably out Natalie, Zinna, Cuttlefish and the Prof is disgusting. And wrong on so many, many levels.
And he bragged about it! Has he always been this big if a douche or is this recent challenge to his white, cis, straight male privileged the trigger? I don’t know. I never watch You Tube so I don’t know if this is a recent thing or he has always been this big of a douche. Or was it that he was a douche we liked because he was pointing out things in people we disliked?
(sorry, but I just can’t stand the philosophy shit. Makes my brain hurt)
Sparky
Sparky, I’d never followed him on YouTube because I don’t do vblogs either. But word had gotten around about his rampant bigotry against Muslims, so when it was announced that he had been invited to FTB, I was surprised.
Now that he’s pulled this shit, lots of people are coming out of the woodwork on various posts to say that they’d been meaning to unsubscribe from his channel for ages, and this was the last straw.
I agree with you w/r/t philosophy. I also agree with SGBM that not every philosopher who ever lived was or is an asshole, but my exposure to philosophers on the internet has, overall, not been particularly positive. For every Crommunist there seem to be at least 10 Finckes. Also, there’s that blog about women in philosophy and the egregious discrimination and harassment they face, which is rather gobsmacking even for those of us who know that harassment and discrimination haven’t gone away at all.
Um, I just wanted to tell the regulars in some way to keep up the awesome work. I also didn’t want to clog up another thread as I hardly keep up with the comments to begin with, and including all my privileges would be so absolutely ignorant of hurting people that, well, I feel like I should have put “trigger warning” instead of “not trying to sockpuppet”. (In case someone checks my IP/username and it doesn’t match from an earlier thread I posted in.) Just had a few problems logging on.
Um, so, thank you, and good luck. I’ll go back to lurking now.
I am disgusted by Thunderfoot for all the right reasons, but also for making the blogosphere so much more boring today.
How dare you.
Yeah, I know. His book A Darwinian Left is also annoying as shit.
His value as a pop advocate for impartial consequentialism can hardly be overestimated, though. (I know of no other contemporary who is read outside of academic circles.)
And he’s wonderful for pushing the Overton window in the abortion debate.
Annoying as Fincke has been lately, I’d use Russell Blackford as the measurement for stupid fucking asshole internet philosopher.
Fuck I hate that guy.
I saw this, which dianne mentioned, and this is a fucking mess. I left a few responses over there, but there’s only so much faux-polite Catholic horseshit I can stomach.
strange gods before me:
Wonderful for questioning the immorality of “aborting” newborn infants?
For example here’s Hallquist, Dawkins and Mehta, whinging “but that’s what moral philosophers do!”
Well, then maybe they shouldn’t.
“{X}ers do {X}” is not a defense of the whole of {X}, nor of {X}ers themselves. They might as well be saying “you shouldn’t criticize the person whose job it is to waterboard
prisoners of war‘illegal’ combatants, because that’s just what torturers do. Torturers torture. Duh.”And then at the end Hallquist links to Russell fucking Blackford complaining that calling people racist stifles discussion.
So what? Not all possible discussions should become actual discussions.
We can defend free speech just fine without conflating it with some alleged freedom to feel welcome to defend racism without being called racist for it.
Discussion is stifled either way; somebody needs to point this out. If I’m not supposed to call somebody racist when I see them defending racism, then my speech is being stifled. If indeed my calling someone racist stifles their speech, then it’s impossible to avoid stifling someone’s speech; therefore the mere fact that someone’s speech is stifled is not sufficient to show that I’m doing something unacceptable. So, assuming not every discussion will go ideally, do we want to err on the side of encouraging racism, or err on the side of encouraging criticism of racism?
(As a unit of measurement, I propose that 10 Finckes be equal to 1 Blackford.)
TO THE THUNDERDOME:
Question: Is John Morales as clueless as I think he is at the end of this thread? Or am I simply just NOT OLD ENOUGH IN THE HORDE (or perhaps truly missing something)?
Deliberate provocation noted, but This. Is. THUNDERDOME. And I’m insomniac tonight. :P
Answers welcomed! WITH CHAINSAWS!
joey, when someone claims W(x), it’s stupid to ask why Q(x).
(You could attempt to make a case of why Q doesn’t imply W, had you any wit)
Also, failure to close tag noted. I welcome the chainsaws now. /cower
Hi John! Thought I might see you here :)
@SG
Just for reference, that is why I want you around despite you occasionally annoying people. Loved everything about that comment.
PatrickG, your repeated flounces have not gone unnoticed.
(Your credibility is low)
So, you imagine I was in breach of the rules?
(You’re wrong)
You imagine I’d not read the comment?
(You’re wrong)
You imagine anyone claimed that people disagreed with the specimen because they’d not read the comment?
(You’re wrong)
Ruh roh, I challenged John Morales to a Thunderdome battle regarding ThunderF00t related matters. After scrolling up, I have a feeling Antiochus is going to go BEAR ATTACK at any moment.
joey, this is the same discussion you’ve been trying to have for months, and you’ll note I still haven’t taken you up on it.
I’ve discussed the morality of infanticide with other people here several times. If someone else wants to discuss it, I will discuss it with them.
Personally, joey, I like you, despite the fact that you’re a godbot troll. I’d miss you if you got banned. But you don’t contribute any interesting ideas; hell, you barely even try to defend your own sublimely boring ideas.
I’m not taking your bait, because it isn’t shiny enough, and it doesn’t move. As long as you’re confined to TZT, you might as well just honestly be your godbotting self. I’m pretty sure you’d get more attention that way. Nobody takes your atheist disguise seriously.
Flounces? What flounces? I said I wanted to go to bed, I didn’t, I said I was insomniac, and that I was indulging my desire to engage in this conversation because I found it interesting.
Flounce THIS, motherfucker.
And yes, I’d argue you were in breach of the 3 post rule. It was a new post, you specifically argued that the poster was arguing in such bad faith you could violate that. Well, I think. It could have been one of the other people there. If that’s the bone of contention between us, we can put it to rest. :)
As to reading the comment… if you read my entire comment, and the post in question… yeah, I’m going to argue you didn’t read it.
You know, seriously, the whole Tf00t crap re: violation of privacy/potential criminal action woke a whole lot of people up. A lot of those people were in the “opposite” camp. I think we got one of those people posting on “this side”, and I state again that 90% of it was in agreement with our positions.
I found it slightly shocking that people dismissed him so fast. And y’know, maybe I’m wrong! Maybe I’m missing something! But you haven’t offered one. single. item. to convince me otherwise, other than claiming that because I’m new, I don’t have the right to contradict people.
Fuck. That. Noise.
And WTF is up with calling hir “a specimen”? Dehumanizing much?
Thanks, Ing! Glad to be of service. :)
PatrickG, battle?
<snicker>
Perhaps tell me more about this Horde in the membership of which you take pride, I’m in the mood for some amusement.
^_-
Lurk moar
Well, gee, I thought I comported myself well in the Sam Harris battle. I felt I earned a badge! After all, some stalwarts of the community participated in that battle with me.
But c’mon now, I’m not going to claim that because I stood valiantly once that I am immune to criticism and/or being wrong.
You? Not so much. Stop the snickering and respond to my points, or just fuck the fucking fuck off.
Are you seriously arguing that new people can’t earn their chops around here? I’m trying to do it right now, so how about refuting my arguments instead of just /snickering. You really do sound like ThunderF00t at this moment.
@ Ing:
If I missed a convention re: specimen, I’m more than happy to learn. John Morales appears to be full of shit, but I’m fairly receptive to learning standards here, so educate me and all that.
@ Ing:
For explanatory purposes, I’ve lurked here for 6 months. I came to the online atheism community at about that time (was referred by a post on Pandagon) and was very excited to find this. I literally didn’t know this existed, I watched, I observed, and with the Slur thread was finally motivated to comment.
If I’m ‘doing it wrong’, let me know what I’m missing out on here. I love the community here, and despite my jabs at John in this thread, I’ve found his comments in various places to be insightful and very pointed.
Completely dismissing me, though? Fuck that. I’ll fight for my right to be an obnoxious newbie. :)
@Patrick
You’re trying to force something too much.
@ Ing
Quite possibly. Provide examples.
PatrickG:
Here are two:
1) “I’ll respond to those in that interval tomorrow, because yeesh, it’s midnight and I really need to go to bed.”
2) “And now, I swear by FSM, I have shit to do tomorrow, so I’m off.”
Nah, I’ve yet to fuck a mother.
You’d argue it if you had a basis upon which to argue it, but you’re not sure you do?
(Very convincing!)
Your incoherence is amusing.
Yes, I get that you think in terms of camps and sides and of ‘us vs. them’.
(But I’m not like that)
And you imagined it was a baseless dismissal, therefore?
(Why did you imagine I characterised you as naive? ;) )
Before you accuse others of lack of comprehension, you should examine your own position; I noted a factually wrong assertion and its ineluctable implication of either meretriciousness or ignorance — the which you have not disputed.
(That is a pretty solid basis upon which to dismiss someone’s purported opinion)
I encourage you to employ a dictionary, if you don’t know to what the term refers.
@ Ing
I also want to make it clear how wonderfully liberating it is to find a community like this. I have never found a place where I can just be me. I always have to hide and pretend, cower and dissemble.
Isn’t that what Pharyngula is all about? Isn’t there even an “exultant new atheist” concept? Will you all stop fucking dismissing me because I’m new here?
@Patrick
I’m far older than my years and am desperately trying to find someone still enthusiastic about a community endearing. Apologies in advanced.
PatrickG: click.
PatrickG:
Well, I grant you’re a newbie, anyway. :)
Leaving aside you hardly need to fight for either, when are you gonna start being obnoxious?
@patrick
I like Pharyngula and all but advice is to keep low expectations of ‘teh community’.
@ Ing
Apologies in “advanced” accepted, if that’s what you meant. I’m not asking for my ideas to be treated any differently than anyone else, but I find this “oh you’re new here” shit just fucking intolerable.
John, if I recall correctly, you were involved in the Sam Harris thread. You saw me post there. And yet you won’t even extend me the principle of charity that you extend to other people. Fuck. You. You arrogant fucking gender-neutral-genital-reference.
You have yet to address a single major point from my post defending certain aspects of a post that someone who (mostly) agreed with us. If you’d engage my ideas instead of just randomly flaming me, maybe I wouldn’t consider you such a dipshit.
@ Ing
Oh, I have low expectations going into anything. But I’ll damn well fight for my right to be here.
Uh.
(Checks again to see that you’re talking to John Morales. Yep.)
The dude is a troll. He’s a long-standing, regular troll, and some people like him — I don’t even hate him at the moment — but he is a troll.
Now, about charity.
@ John
Btw, that was my best attempt at being “obnoxious”. I’m not very good at it, I grant, but hell, if you can’t vent in the Thunderdome, where can you vent?
Wasn’t meant personally, just trying to rise to the challenge.
Well, son of a … I said I was a newbie. :)
PatrickG:
Nobody has done that, you are the one who introduced the claim to being newbie, and you are the one appealing to supposed in-group status.
—
Your opinion is noted, if wrong.
(You get no less charity than anyone else)
If you could see my amused sneer when I read that, you’d soon stop it.
(What do you imagine I arrogate?)
There you go again: there is no “us”.
(Also, your failure to understand me is not my problem; I’ve already twice noted that crediting someone who is opining from ignorance or lying is not what I do)
Why should I lead you by the hand, O proud Horde member?
(Your discomfort amuses me)
@ John: At this point, I have nothing to say to you. You have yet to actually factually respond to my relevant postings. Another person here has identified you as a “valued troll”. Your inability to read leads me to believe you’re not acting in good faith.
So fuck off. I really don’t know what your motivations are, but at this point it’s clear you have no interest in any reasonable discourse.
If you want the Thunderdome, it’s yours. I have nothing to say to someone as deliberately malicious and dimwitted as you appear to be.
(I still extend the invitation to substantively respond to my post in the other forum. I’d love to show how Pharyngula is a rapacious beast by tearing you to bits, you dishonest hack.)
Ramen, brother.
And if there is, count me out.
Patrick:
If people were dismissing you, they wouldn’t bother to respond to your posts.
Protip: get over yourself. Quickly. Your righteous sense of persecution won’t get you anywhere.
Protip: you’re free to respond to anyone as gently as you like. If you don’t like the way other people are responding, use the method you think will work wonders! Who in the fuckety fuck is stopping you from doing so? Do not expect others to conform to your specific expectations. People here have a lot of experience, experience they use to judge the right response to a poster in question.
Protip: get the damn killfile script and use it if someone is going to bug you so much.
@ strange gods before me
One of the points was that the reaction to “Elevator Gate” was overblown. Still want out? Or, y’know, you could read my post before discounting my point.
Apologies if I’m snarky, I’ve been dealing with John, who refuses to even engage my arguments.
I’ll even offer you a link
killfile: http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/greasemonkey
Patrick:
Erm…
:falls over laughing:
You might want to try out Ing’s advice and lurk moar.
PatrickG:
1. Hasn’t stopped you though, has it?
2. When you acknowledge I was neither in breach of the rules (or at least make a case as to why you think I was) nor incorrect in my very first comment there, I might engage your subsequent claims which you predicate on that supposition.
3. Yes, the person who led many people to leave this place, produced much hostility and was at one point banned from what is now the lounge made that claim.
4. My inability to read, eh?
(Care to adduce a basis for such, or will it stand as merely your opinion?)
Ah, the “sour grapes” gambit.
(Thus dies your bluster and your feistiness by the mere pricking of your ego)
—
PS Welcome to the Thunderdome! :)
I have to say that for someone who is flirting so hard with his newbie-ness, to then go on and on about wanting to be treated like everyone else is slightly cringeworthy. So is repeating tedious TLDR comments with annotations.
Respect in this place isn’t given but earned, irrespective how long anyone has lurked or posted.
My “count me out” is a general statement about groups.
I don’t care about the particular argument at the moment. Assume my vague comments are veiled references to ancient grudges, and carry on about your business.
@ Caine:
Thanks for the tips. I’m still new, and I know I’m going to take time in adjusting to the standards of a new community. I know I don’t have that long to plead ignorance, but this style of communication is completely new to me.
That said, am I really coming across as a victim of “righteous persecution”? That’s not my intent, at all. If people are reading it that way, clearly I need to pay more attention to my rhetorical stylings. It’s a completely new forum to me.
Well, that would definitely explain some of the reactions I’ve gotten. But, I’ll just plead “newbie!”.
Which, apparently, completely disqualifies me from being able to comment, according to John.
That said, this is the ThunderDome, so FUCK OFF John Morales. :)
Ahem. Genetic fallacy, tu quoque, fahrvergnügen, takes one to know one. Thpppp!
PatrickG:
<snicker>
Care to attempt to quote me claiming that?
(Ironic, that you made the claim that I couldn’t read [for comprehension])
ॐ, nah, I was noting how PatrickG grants you credibility.
(Pretty clearly, because you sniping at me plays into his narrative, though he knows no more about you than about me; perhaps he might note that you don’t dispute my claims about you.
Nor did I insinuate you’re a troll, BTW)
That’s not a word I ever expected to see on Pharyngula.
@ John:
1) No, it hasn’t. I still believe you’re a subliterate troll who has yet to address any of my actual points.
2) I still stand by my assertion that you were unnecessarily harsh to a new poster in the other forum. So, yeah, violation of rules and all that. I wasn’t (originally) claiming privilege for me, I thought you were a total ass to a new person at Pharyngula. But whatever, that’s just opinion, so let’s move on.
3) Obviously the rule against previous threads doesn’t apply in the THUNDERDOME, but as a genuine newbie, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Literally, no idea.
4) Still going to stand by the fact that I went paragraph by paragraph through what the post objected to said, and you have yet to respond to a single comment from my post. Still. Even yet. From HERE TO ETERNITY, and all that. Again, it’s TD and all that, but y’know, this isn’t about ego, but just asking you to actually address my arguments. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. SHOW ME.
P.S. Fuck off. I’ll listen to people like Caine to learn appropriate conduct here (and undoubtedly violate those rules), because xe actually addresses legitimate concerns instead of acting like a dishonest hack. Btw, if you actually read my post, I accused you (and others) of acting like ThunderF00t, because you didn’t read the goddamn post.
@ John Morales:
Quick correction, you didn’t assert that I couldn’t comment, but you did say this:
You at least implied that I wasn’t eligible to join the Horde, with all its benefits. Like commenting.
So yeah, I apologize for the confusion. You just said I wasn’t welcome here, period.
Sure, but I’m just trying to save him the headache.* It should be apparent that I have zero interest in the substance of your discussion with him, nor do I care who’s right.
*Also I’m trying to spoil your fun! :)
On a lighthearted note, I’m trying to be all fierce and whatnot in the Thunderdome. Looking over my previous posts, I’m going to say I failed at doing that in the way I was trying to.
So yeah, there’s that. When tired, assuming a pose of righteous indignation can rapidly fade into … well, righteous indignation. No statement as to my “righteousness” is implied here. I’ll go with a “new to the thunderdome, new to being a total dick”.
But I’ll close with: John, learn to read. It might help your arguments. :)
@ Caine
I wouldn’t learn how to be a proper Horde member without some fumbling attempts. At this point I’ve got one foot in mouth, one can’t-believe-you’re-not-butter (from you, in the last Harris thread), and then this fiasco of an exchange.
Eh, one learns by doing, and I learned a lot today. :)
PatrickG, you amuse me, but I kinda like you.
(You’re like a puppy)
So…
1. Be honest, do you really believe me to be a “subliterate troll”? Really?
(To be charitable, I reckon you’re trying a rhetorical attack via bluster; if so, it is futile at best)
2. “So, yeah, violation of rules and all that.”
In your opinion. Care to make a case for such?
3. I refer you to my #397.
4. You’re not even wrong; and I’ve already told you I’m not about to lead you by the hand.
(Also, cf. #2; or: you first)
Whyever do you imagine I’d not done so? :)
I didn’t address other points, because I tend to be terse and considered it sufficient to note what I did note.
Of course I’d read the post. You are confusing your speculations with fact, which is… um, less than admirable.
@ John:
You amuse me too. Since you don’t take me at all seriously, I can just sort of mock you. :)
1) Of course not, you’re clearly literate. But, y’know, Thunderdome and all that. Isn’t this the place where we can say anything, no matter how ridiculous? :)
2) I know I have no credibility with you (and almost certainly others), but I did really feel that the “jumping on” action to the post I addressed was uncalled for. It certainly did not go by the charitable 3 post rule. I’ll admit I was a bit surprised that people stopped reading so quickly.
Really, my argument is simply that the poster appeared to be uneducated about the facts surrounding the debate, and that people should have noticed he was in basic agreement with a number of people and used it as an opportunity for education. YMMV. I made an argument, people appeared to reject it. So be it.
3) Newbies don’t know. We learn. We learn by doing. :) All I’m going to say on that.
4) Do you substantively disagree with my take on the post in question? I have yet to see you comment on that beyond a “he failed at initial facts, therefore I shall ignore everything beyond that”. If I’m wrong, link me something, maybe I missed it.
Anyway, I will state again that it is simply wonderful to be able to actually, y’know, talk about atheism in any space. Though I’d prefer being compared to a rambunctious panther than a puppy.
Oh, by the way, fuck you for that, you condescending non-propagating squid ejecta.
I read the whole thing the first time, PatrickG. I didn’t–and still don’t–like it. But if you did and wanted to respond to the post, you could have done so. (Can still do so; as Caine asks, who the fuckety fuck is stopping you?) You didn’t; you told others who had that they were doing it wrong. Once told to lead by example, you divided the post into sections and went into cheerleader mode.
That first section to which to said “Good start,” for example. It was an inverted “Yes, but….” To me, it was an ambiguous start, and the next sentence was an unambiguous failure to understand the facts. Bad combination.
The third sentence had you cheering that here was someone who could be brought over to “our side.” Did you not see the weasel-worded charge of hypocrisy armored with apathy explained by “Not my problem”?
Nothing positive in the rest of the novelette was at all new or substantive. It dragged Rebecca Watson into it. (Why? I don’t even…) It was massively condesplaining. The WWII history lesson/analogy was boring. Overall, I was reminded of the cartoon of the agnostic who had found a way to be superior to both sides.
Oh, as a highlight, I especially pshaw the implication of “don’t make the wimmins uncomfortable, dude, cuz you wanna get laid, doncha?” in the evo devo section.
Especially with the Forrest Gump-like, “That’s all I’ve got to say about that,” I think the dismissals were mild and non-NewRule-breaking.
PatrickG:
Uh-huh. What makes you imagine I don’t take you seriously?
(You sure you’re in a position to mock? ;) )
—
It’s mostly unmoderated, but you can say anything anywhere, and there are consequences here just as there are elsewhere.
(It’s still Pharyngula, so bullshit gets called out)
You might try to read what I wrote regarding your credibility; low ain’t none.
Also, it certainly did go by the rule, and I note that you still haven’t addressed my claim that the only possibilities given the factual wrongness of the assertion are either lying or ignorance — the latter of which represents the charity.
And yes, you were surprised — consider thaty perhaps that was because you assumed you knew better than those others who surprised you, though it is you who initially noted your relative inexperience here.
I’m charitable, not stupid.
And, for the third and last time, there was no need for me to address the remaining opinion from someone who is either lying or ignorant, but it sufficed to note that fact.
To condescend, I’d have to descend to your level; I have no need for such since I can make you realise where you stand by merely noting the obvious without needing to bluster or bullshit.
@athyco:
Thank you for responding to my post in the spirit of the Thunderdome. I’ll attempt to defend myself, and in the meantime expose myself to poisoned darts.
I’m a bit confused by this. My initial reaction was, what, shock that people came down so hard on it. In my opinion, it was someone who was condemning the behavior, had some very wrong points in there, but could potentially be a ‘convert’. Given the attention paid to this, I thought it was worth engaging the arguments and inviting comment. Others disagreed, and I learned from that (if nothing else, how to try to engage people in an online forum).
Now, I know I’m overplaying this card, but I really am a newbie to the online atheist community. I’ve tried to learn, but I know I’m ignorant of a lot of the history here. But I will definitely ask for a Principle of Charity here.
Look, you guys have been doing this for a while. I haven’t. A lot of the things you’ve been dealing with, I simply haven’t been dealing with. I haven’t been engaged online, I only learned about a lot of issues recently. In the post I responded to, I saw a lot of similarities to where I was not so recently.
For fuck’s sake, I’d only heard of Rebecca Watson six months ago. By being serendipitously directed to Pharyngula via Pandagon.
So all that influenced my response here:
You know what, it was a good start. Ambiguity aside, isn’t that what we’re looking for? A person made it very clear that he did not support TFoot’s actions. If that’s not a good start, I don’t know what was.
To quote again:
Why the fuck would you come down like a ton of bricks on that? Isn’t that a “good start”? I really don’t understand the issue here. We have somebody repudiating Tfoot and wanting to say more. Is that not a fucking GOOD START?
My next comment had to do with:
Not sure how to do quote-in-quotes in this forum, but fucking hell, is this inaccurate? Do you understand why I accuse people of not fucking reading? Did I imply that people were wrong to jump on him? I really don’t think I did.
I would argue that this is someone who basically agrees with positions held by me*, and people who have expressed similar views. I don’t agree with him completely, and he’s obviously hung up on a lot of stuff, but it was a welcome change from RW IS FAT.
*I’d say “us”, but I have been informed in no uncertain terms that I have no right to speak for the group. Fuck you, John. Also, you’re right, I don’t. :)
It’s in the original forum. I clearly stated he didn’t understand. I said a lot of people didn’t understand. I said we had a “(potentially) teachable moment”.
I did not cheer that this was someone who could be brought over. I specifically said that someone didn’t understand the issue, and that we could use this as a branching point for education.
Yeah, you know what? He was wrong about a lot of shit. I made that clear in my post. You didn’t bring any of that into this. I’d blockquote that, but I’m exhausted (see *)
And g’nite. :) ThunderDome is fun!
*I was going to do the rest of it, but I’m really done this time. I’ll come back tomorrow and respond to the responses, but I threatened to go to bed at somewhat after midnight and it’s now 2:36 :) Damn insomnia, always leads to a crash when you’re doing something interesting!
PaulG,
Ok, I just got done with the TF thread and I’m going to tell you why you annoyed the fuck out of me:
First, I read that boring ass shitramble of epic length the commenter in question ejaculated. It started off stupid then rambled on at length making points I’ve seen dozens of times. That most of what was said I agreed with after the initial stupidity is irrelevant.
None of it was new, or interesting, and it was a terrible and long read.
To put the cherry on top of the shit sundae, he ended by basically pointing out that this was just a long fucking lecture and, deuces mothafucka’s – I’m out.
It was a giant waste of time.
Then I had to see that boring ass shit again, but this time, it was broken up with you telling people what to respond to, to agree, point out, argue blah blah blah. You were literally telling everyone what to fucking do.
All the while talking about the rules and the horde and blah blah blah (I started skimming every time I saw your name. This is from a guy who read that 1600k word, boring ass treatise that other person wrote, so this should tell you something).
To me you came off as:
1. A hall monitor. Citing rules at everyone “by the book”. It was like being in a car going 68 in a 65 and repeatedly being told by a passenger that I’m “going over the speed limit, you know”. Thanks, officer, now shut the fuck up. If the cops want to give me a ticket for this egregious flaunting of the law, I’ll deal with it.
2. This kind of correlates to number one. I, and I’m pretty sure many others here are really, really anti-authoritarian. And I don’t just mean in ideology, I mean have a visceral response to someone barking fucking orders at them. The way you kept telling people what they should be fucking responding to, or how they should be reacting to people was grating as fuck.
Who the fuck are you? Stop telling me what to fucking do.
3. The whole “Horde” thing. And explaining to “us” how the commenter was really “on our side”, and the whole “‘we’ can assimilate him” vibe you were giving off. It’s creeping me the fuck out.
Yeah, pharyngula is a great place, closest thing to what I would consider “my kind of people” I know of, yeah… but this isn’t the fucking borg collective, and as far as I can tell people use the term Horde in a humorous way. A sort of tongue in cheek satire of the “group think” and “echo chamber” idiots.
So, yeah. This is just a general vibe I’m picking up from you, and of course is an opinion, so you can take it for what you will.
Meh, *PatrickG*.
I just opened up my bottle of whiskey, so I don’t even have that as an excuse.
Apologies.
tkreacher,
I have my bottle of whiskey open, and I agree with your assessment in your 409.
I kinda feel I was a bit mean to PatrickG, which is not a particularly pleasurable feeling. He clearly means well.
FWTW.
;)
Puppy kicker.
I’ll wait until he argues well, personally.
He has.
rorschach,
God dammit, whiskey.
Hopefully that isn’t too annoying to parse.
You’re not meant to inject it, you know.
…
I’m offending you think I’m an idiot.
I pour it into a Jello mix, freeze that it into cubes, force the cubes throw a strainer and snort it like normal people.
Asshole.
offended*, through*
/drunk
Jebus, man. I drink half a bottle of Jameson and still drive like Schumacher, whereas you seem to lose your literacy skills just looking at the stuff. Tried Coke Zero?
PatrickG #405
Uncalled for? The post started off with a couple of things I (and everyone else reading it) knew were wrong. It then meandered along, saying things I’d read many times before, became incoherent in places, and ended with ta-da, I’m outa here. It was extremely prolix, poorly written, and didn’t tell me anything new.
You may have found the spiel to be insightful and exciting, I found it tedious, interminable and boring. And the writing was not good.
I knew there was some reason not to visit Australia. Middle-aged emergency physicians are getting drunk and driving around trying to drum up business.
It has been pointed out to you before that ALL scientific disciplines do this. The examples offered in the past were from ecology and physics, IIRC.
You never dealt with that, nor answered the implied question as to why it becomes an issue for you ONLY with social sciences.
In other words, shut the fuck up about your dumbass, outdated, grudge-holding, illogical bullshit already.
rorschach,
Jebus, man. I drink half a bottle of Jameson and still drive like Schumacher, whereas you seem to lose your literacy skills just looking at the stuff. Tried Coke Zero?
me three.
I have to stay true to my lifelong Marxism.
(has it been long enough since I last used that one?)
*walks on by, whistling a Dylan tune*
Fuck, I haven’t laughed as much at a thread in months. PatrickG, you’re all right.
I ♥ Thunderdome.
Y’know, Patrick, if the poster in question is that saughoo or whatever person, they have a history here and it’s not a good one. That’s a particularly bad reason to jump on anyone.
Chas:
Do you mind if I join you?
SGBM wrote:
He’s certainly reached record high levels of pissant douchery on Twitter in recent months. But the big question is: is he now more odious than that snoozefest on legs, Jeremy Stangroom?
In response to StevoR, since he explicitly mentioned me (and I’m informed I shouldn’t reply in the Lounge):
You think I wasn’t aware of that?
Your responses to the potential outing of extremely at-risk individuals was to: (a) remind us that all humans make mistakes, just some make worse mistakes, and (b) tell us that it “stinks and sucks.”
As to (b), which I responded to, that is such an unbelievable minimization of the awfulness of this issue that it’s frankly kind of appalling you don’t see it. Spilling ketchup on your favorite shirt stinks. Potentially being outed, having your identity compromised — these are serious issues that should be taken seriously. No one needs you to lighten the mood.
As to (a), why the fuck did you think this needed to be said, or was appropriate to be said?
“Thunderf00t potentially compromised Natalie and Zinnia’s safety”
“We all make mistakes” – “We all have failings”
No, we don’t. Not like this. I’ve never fucking done that, I’d never fucking consider it. There is no need to make goddamn excuses.
We don’t need you to put things in a much “broader” perspective. And even if you didn’t mean to, your comment was dismissive of the real harm thunderf00t could cause. And I don’t understand why, in response to this kind of thing, the response you felt you had to make, INSTEAD of unequivocally condemning it, was to talk about human failability and millions of years and, oh, right,sorry people, also it does “stink.”
Wowbagger #430
If we assume that a Fincke is a deciBlackford, then, according to my precise calculations, a Stangroom is 6.67 Finckes or .667 Blackfords.
I prefer middle-aged over “retired and sailing for lack of other goals in life” any day, thank you.
not at all.
(here, have a hit offa this)
ok, different comment:
ooh, my trolling for the social-sciency has touched a nerve!
(Apologies if my glee seems unseemly.)
Many many things have been “pointed out to” me over the years by people on the internet, and believe it or don’t many of those things have been abject bullshit. Why, here’s one now!
You do RC. Do you RC the actual examples?
They were ‘community’ in ecology and stuff like ‘spin’ in physics.
That’s incorrect. If it’s worth it to you to hunt down the thread in question (it’s not to me) you’ll find that I addressed those very examples specifically. The gist (I’ll try to repeat myself here since you seem to have missed the earlier reply which you assert does not exist) was that I acknowledged that other sciences do indeed employ vernacular words as terms of art. And then I pointed out yet again that that’s not my complaint. (For example, look at the sentence you quoted. That’s just the first 2 of 3 clauses.)
[The guilty pleasure I occasionally take from mocking the social sciences, mostly in good fun, seriously, is stipulated. However, more to the point:]
BECAUSE, AGAIN, that’s where I have observed, many times, OL and in RL, the problem that I am actually whining about to be.
The problem is arrogantly unclear communication.
That third clause? The important one that you’re too busy circling the wagons to even notice? This one: “and then requiring anybody they happen to be talking to to recognize and adhere to the specialized redefinitions.”
OK? I don’t give a flying rat’s thunderf00t how sociologists and interdisciplinary-studiesists talk or read to each other in their journals, graduate classes, specialized blogs, or conferences. I am talking about discussions with the, well, untrained.
No biologist talking to some person in a bar, blog, or airplane would ever use the word ‘community’ without the adjective ‘ecological’ if that’s what s/he meant. Physics terms like ‘spin’, ‘bottom’, and ‘strange’ are, of course, intentionally whimsically arbitrary and besides most of them are adjecives; supply the appropriate noun and there can be no ambiguity. (You’ll note the appropriate nouns are not, like, ‘balls’ and ‘chunks’.)
And yet every freaking conversation on the internet (<- hyperbole for rhetorical effect) contains pointless arguments because people are employing fundamentally different definitions of words like 'gender', 'sex', 'race', 'privilege', 'minority', most recently 'slur', etc. It happens a lot. It annoys me. But now I try to be amused. Sometimes I comment when annoyed and/or amused. How 'bout you, Sally?
I hope this clarifies the issue.
yeah, learn to live with disappointment.
(y’know, I’ve asked you before not to issue commands to me; it only pisses me off. I’ll bet other people feel the same way. And it’s kind of a thing with you.)
Unless you are a topologist, in which case you can bring up the hairy ball theorem.
Dear neighbor who decided to do woodworking, particularly hammering, at 8 a.m., creating noise that woke me up despite my running a window A/C unit and a box fan:
Eat shit and die.
***
SGBM: Point taken re Singer.
Joey, if I can’t go back to sleep again shortly, I’m going to go make breakfast soon. How many aborted fetii would you like in your omelet? Do you want them cooked firm, or do you like them runny?
Flexes her fingers. Clears throat. Remembers this is Thunderdome…
Ah, Ms. Daisy Cutter, I believe the plural of fetus is fetuses. I have read that this is due to Latin rules and also that this is due to Greek.
Either way, Joey will have to take them scrambled and brown on the bottoms.
Chas:
Just what I need, even at this hour. Especially at this hour. Thanks.
Daisy:
I shared your sentiment yesterday, when someone decided to park a frigging wood chipper right outside my backyard and start running it around 7/8 a.m. Aaarrgh.
Meet the 2012 Republican VP candidate, white male fratboy Paul Ryan:
Isn’t that delightful? [sources @ ‘kipedia]
We need a running tally of Ryan doing or saying things that are inconsistant with Aquinus but are Randian. I can garuntee they will be bounty
Lyn: Thanks for the correction.
Caine: GAAAAH.
Fortunately we have t-storms coming in. Rainy Saturday afternoons are awesome sleep time, and I can sleep through low-pitched noise just fine.
Here they are:
the 2012 Republican presidential ticket
Bear attack? In caps? I assure you that I am as gentle as a wood duck. You must have me confused for some other commenter.
well, he’s a newb. Just ask him.
I prefer young, often drunk and still riding a bicycle around town.
Ralf?
Actually, that sound awesome.
When I retire, I plan to ride the rails and live in the wind.
@ All
That’s it, I’m done! All of you are intemperate and mean. Dare I say BULLIES?
Er, wait, what I actually mean to say is… oh well. I’ll try to pick up the pieces and move on. Give a moment.
…
Well, that was easy.
The only final comment I’ll make is this. As I said somewhere else, I’d just come from Matt Dillahunty’s rather epic video. One of the really pointed things was an accusation that Tf00t pulled a TL;DR. So y’know, maybe I got a lil jumpy when I saw multiple people saying “Logical error at 1, didn’t read the rest”. After that, a combination of bourbon and computer-induced insomnia made for some gunfire posting and some shit I’m kind of embarrassed to read. :)
Anyway, I had a lot of fun, and if others didn’t, well, fuck, it’s the Thunderdome. At least I amused Wowbagger. :)
—
Now, is it really Christmas in August? Romney really picked Ryan?
PatrickG #449:
Burying obvious mistakes in a mountain of words and then whining when the mountain is ignored is a favourite technique of theologians, ‘splainers, pseudosophers, libertarians, and in fact all measure of regressives.
It’s also a form of projection, since said regressives will attempt to play “gotcha” by treating superficial, minor, or even outright trumped-up errors as equal to the fundamental errors that allow a “tl;dr”-style dismissal.
One of these days I’ll retire, but it hasn’t happened yet.
@ Setar
No disagreement there.
I think this representation of it is the problem. I know I was one of the people who pointed that out (by the way, it was a *factual* error not a *logical* error) — I did read the rest of the post. Some of it I agreed with, some I found mildly objectionable, that particular claim was blatantly untrue. So I commented on that claim.
You seemed to think that *not commenting on the rest* automatically implies *didn’t read the rest* which is untrue. Then you accuse people of doing the same TL;DR that Thunderf00t did.
I think you can understand why that’s more than a bit off.
No one is under any obligation to respond to the entirety of every comment in a thread.
Chas, Richie Rich was actually nice, IIRC. That describes neither Mittens nor Ryan.
Patrick, we’re all FTBullies here. You can pick up your badge on Tuesday.
Also, should we be celebrating Mittens’ pick of Ryan? Sure, he’s a terrible person, but that’s all of the GOP these days. I can’t remember if I’ve seen him on video or not — are we talking Palin II: The Derpening?
Yeah, Richie was pretty cool.
But of course I wasn’t the first to make that comparison.
(I believe, though, that I was the first to cast Paul Ryan as Reggie. On account of he’s mean.)
I’m watching Creation of the Humanoids (1962) on IFC. If you’re a fan of bad flicks, this is a must see.
“you can still alter your course if it’s against your circuits”
“The order of flesh and blood”
“How do you apologize to someone for killing them?”
“We tried. But the shock of dying, and being resurrected as a robot, was too severe: they Re-Died.”
And the costumes! Someone was on acid. Maybe shrooms.
Why is there a part of me that wants to leave Phil Mason in a cage with David Futrelle for 24 hours?
Thunderdome
So, Paul Ryan is some monstrous Frankensteinian mashup of Thomas Aquinas and Ayn Rand, but with more bits of Aquinas than of Rand?
enough of this petty frukin bickering, all it is trying to move around in the pecking order,reign in your instincts troop and lets have some fun…
I propose;
1) Jesus was a hippie of the most pure sort.
2) Jesus was a communist.
3) Jesus would have utterly hated and denounced most if not all of the modern preachers, preist, rabbi, and imam.
4) Jesus wold be supportive of the LBGT movement.
5) Jesus will rain holy hell on the likes of the westboroug baptist cult.
nothing like taking the rules of a system and using them to create utter panic, chaos, and confusion amongst the adherents.
Happy Snafuing Ya’ll
oops sorry, forgot despair.
keresthanatos, you are now spamming* and godbotting. Click on the tab marked ‘dungeon’ on the top of the page and try to get a clue into that god pickled brain, okay?
Whatever fight you’re desperate to have, I doubt you’ll find it here, what with you being extremely weak tea. We’re used to better than you.
*Copy pasta-ing that sad, sad post to different threads.
what, you don’t use these arguments against the faithful on a daily basis cherry picking the verses out of the bible (which is inerante, ya know) to sow the seeds of doubt about the antics of their reglion???
keresthanatos, you presented nothing but unevidenced assertions, so they can all be *POOF*, dismissed without evidence according to http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens.
Here’s what you need to do for every assertion. State “this is what I believe, and this (link to evidence) is the evidence to back this up”. Just as I did by linking to quotes by Hitchens. Only then, will you have something realistic and worthwhile to talk about.
Keresthanatos:
You have any evidence for that?
sorry, still reading the link I was given, …Doubile bubble toil and trouble et. al. among yourselves…brb.
1) Jesus was a hippie of the most pure sort.
http://gnosticliberationfront.com/jesus_christ_was_a_dirty_hippy.htm
complete with several bible verses, looks like kjv.
2) 2) Jesus was a communist.
http://atheism.about.com/od/thebible/a/communism.htm
3) Jesus would have utterly hated and denounced most if not all of the modern preachers, preist, rabbi, and imam.
http://bible.cc/luke/11-43.htm
http://bible.cc/luke/20-46.htm
4) Jesus wold be supportive of the LBGT movement.
Harder to document, but seemed, according to the writings, to prefer the unwashed masses over the elite, the most despised were the tax collectors (not much has changed), prositutes, the sick and the poor.
5) Jesus will rain holy hell on the likes of the westboroug baptist cult.
Matthew 7:22
http://www.openbible.info/topics/hate
un-poof, maybe not up to high standards, but links to various places… now back to reading C. Hitchens a bit.
FFS jeebus would be spitting on little girls, cutting off thieves hands and lynching anyone who disagreed with him right alongside the westboro assclowns. Taking a a historical figure and anthrpolomorphing him into your worldview doesnt work any better than assuming a homo moderne male wouldnt fuck a neanderthal female given half a chance.
Jebus, fuckwit cites the book of mythology/fiction known as the bible for “evidence”. No book of mythology is evidence. Now, if you can prove the bible is inerrant, starting genesis, the flud, and exodus, showing with conclusive physical/scientific evidence it is right. Otherwise, it is allegorical tales and fiction, not reality. What a loser…
u r missing the point totally. just as the xians use the words to condem you, citing chapter and verse and most rabbidly page numbers, use their own “laws” to flummox them in their arguments. Afterall, they say it is the most rightess book ever writted, use the words of their supreme leader (the red ones) to point the finger back at them, if they tell you you are going to hell. Also if you really want to throw a wrentch into their gears, tell them that you know that you are hellbound, but can’t in good conscience watch them follow a different path that winds up on the same road.
Yes it is, for determining what might be the tenets of said mythology.
Where did keresthanatos indicate the Bible is inerrant?
Of course. And we can also discuss whether Harry Potter would be tolerant of gay people. (Canon only, no fanfic!)
Heh. It’s kind of a silly topic, but your reaction is miscalibrated.
Yawn, no evidence the babble is inerrant (factual), no evidence jebus existed, ergo trying to describe jebus using fiction is mental wanking at best. That is the problem. There is nothing solid to base an argument on. What other people think is irrelevant.
I’ve expressed my opinion and am done with this topic, as my interest is zero without solid and conclusive physical evidence the babble is inerrant. Enjoy your (fictional) literary discussion.
methinks some one really has a problem w/ rabid xians. I do too.
another fun aurgument to use with them is to posit that the only ethical thing to do with a freshly baptised xian is to strangle them immediately after emerging from the water, thereby ensuring that there is no chance of backsliding and rejecting gods gift. this ensures that that the maximum number of souls will go to heaven.
6) Jesus Built My Hotrod
Toodle pip!
You’d better cite a Bible verse for that claim!
+++++
keresthanatos, your ideas about effective argumentation are fundamentally flawed.
Since you spammed other threads, I feel like being cryptic with you.
A Single Exposure to the American Flag Shifts Support Toward Republicanism up to 8 Months Later
nerd, you are less fun than a catholic preist at a nudist colony.
bout the same reaction though.
such assumptions and bad reactions from a supposedly open, and beautiful mind.
strange gods befor me, and most cryptic you were, read study, only objection, small sample size. also derivate of work done in the late 1940’s. same conclusion. since I am a wee bit literal minded, and don’t parse conversation quite the same way as most people, smack me in the face with what you want to tell me.
Sorry about the post this morning to the rules thread, me being an idiot w/ many tabs open not paying attention. latter post ask PZ to remove the comment.
Think of it as an introduction to priming.
Yo, that’s not an objection.
Okay. This is all really stupid:
We have our reasons for our bickering, and we (each, as individuals) know what our (various, individual) goals are. There’s nothing wrong with saying “hey I want to talk about this, anybody want to talk about it with me?” But it’s absurdly presumptuous to suggest that you know what other people should be arguing about, and such talk is usually indicative of an unfounded sense of superiority. If you didn’t mean to come off that way, an apology would be appreciated (by me, if no one else).
Anyway.
Priming Christian religious concepts increases racial prejudice.
Can you guess where I’m going with this?
Thirty-six verses, if I wanted to be pedantic. ;)
keresthanatos: if jesus was alive today would the christians have to wear little suicide belts around their neck?
extra points if you know who I am paraphrasing without looking it up
Godbot says:
Ing says:
I lol.
I check the thread a half hour later and I lol again.
Reposted here in hope the idiot will move to the proper thread
Ing #482
dunno if the eejit is looking to see why people testify/prophesy/preach
the answer is the same as why people do comedy routines/political speechifying/mime
it meets their psychological needs
@broboxley
I’m not answering a question of his I’m questioning his motives.
Look for signs and portents
Oh, there’s got to be a reason
To believe
Ing 484, his motives are obvious, he is pulling his pud or taking the canoe thru the rapids with his oh so posting artistry in front of these plebian readers
@Broboxley
Like I said in the post I’m pretty sure what the motive is, I just want to hear the defense of it because it isn’t very flattering to zis character
strange gods:
I only started posting a few months ago, and I didn’t do any lurking prior to jumping in. So I’m simply unaware of your posting history regarding Singer, abortion, and infanticide.
(Heck, it took me a while to even realize that strange gods is the same person as ixchel, and it took me even longer to realize that ixchel is the same person as lipstick.)
So no, I have not been trying to goad you into any discussion regarding abortion. I honestly don’t know where you stand on the subject (or if you even care about the subject at all since we’ve never even talked about it), and I’m now genuinely curious where you stand since you said what you said about Singer.
You don’t have to rehash your views for me here. Maybe you can link me to some of these past discussions so I can figure it out myself.
I’m actually a bit confused about this, since I was confined to TZT…but TZT is no more. We’re now in Thunderdome, and with brand new rules. And my name isn’t list on the Purgatory list of users confined to Thunderdome.
Of course not, since I’ve never meant to seriously “disguise” myself as an atheist (it has been pretty obvious that I’m not). What I’ve done is simply argued for various positions given the fundamental premises (beliefs?) widely held by members here. Given these generally accepted premises (truth of physicalism, no gods, no souls, no afterlife, no absolute/objective morality), I stand by the soundness of all the conclusions/arguments that I’ve made here.
Joey why did you lie before about your motives and stances?
joey,
Oh not me in particular, sorry I wasn’t clearer. I mean you’ve been trying to have this conversation with someone — Ing first pointed this out, iirc — and I haven’t taken you up on it and I don’t intend to.
PZ may have forgotten about you. I would very very strongly advise you to not venture out into other threads though, because if he remembers he’ll probably ban you.
I suppose you could petition him for release.
Maybe I will later. I dunno, maybe you’ll have luck googling site:freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula for infanticide, Giubilini and/or Minerva.
It wasn’t immediately obvious; when I first addressed you on free will when you were arguing with KG about compatiblism, I took you for a sort of naive nihilist fatalist atheist.
It’s been weird, anyway.
Liar
Joey 488
okay, that’s fine but why are you here? Are you here to argue your beliefs hoping to change someones mind and bring them back to G_d? If so get to steppin, it just annoys the shit out of people. Are you here to understand secular issues from an secular background? Sounds good.
Abortion should be allowed until 52nd trimester but that’s just me.
Whatever other feelings I have towards 4e, I gotta say, it’s nice to have a clear functioning epic character progression.
So many fewer headaches.
Joey:
You are in error that these are premises; they are conclusions.
(My premises are threefold: a veridical reality, that such is not purely random, and that I have the ability to sense it; my epistemic stance is rational empiricism. From that, all else follows)
So watching Green Lantern fuck Harley Quinn is a lot less interesting sober.
Bummer…
@Julian
Wait…what?
Ing, good point. Obviously, should that occur, it is Harley Quinn who is fucking the Green Lantern. ;)
ps we pedants would refer to ‘coitus’.
@JM
Also just “Green Lantern” means nothing to me! it’s like saying “The constable”
Which GL damn it!? I’m betting Guy
Ing, haven’t there been female GLs?