Slashdot Mirror
Czech Nationwide Census Shows Jump In Jedi Knights
First time accepted submitter il_genio writes "The Czech Statistical Office (SÚ) unveiled the first results of its regular 10-year census on Thursday. While almost half the population, 4.8 million, shied away from answering the voluntary religious question, a surprising strong showing was given by those Czechs who described themselves as Knights of the Jedi and believers in 'the Force' as depicted in the Star Wars films. Overall, 15,070 Czechs identified themselves as Knights of the Jedi with the biggest proportion of adherents in the capital, Prague, with 3,977 followers or 0.31 percent of the population."
then that would make George Lucas THE Prophet in said religion.
"Special effects are just a tool, a means of telling a story. People have a tendency to confuse them as an end to themselves. A Special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing."
But an even greater number of respondents (1.2 percent) chose "Cowboy Neal United Reform Convention, Scientist".
i read somewhere that the number of people in the UK who declared themselves as Jedi Knights exceeds the number of people who declared themselves to be Sikhs. however, for some reason, Jediism - http://churchofjediism.org/ - isn't recognised as a religion in the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jediism#Reaction - wonderful. a jedi knight gets thrown out of a job centre for not removing his hoodie. and a new law in 2010 *excludes* members of the Church of Jediism in the UK from protection against racial discrimination and hatred. wonderful.
Sounds like something twitter or facebook triggered. All it would take is one tweet to get this sort of thing started when census was underway.
That 15000 people thought of the same answer (I'm guessing it wasn't a check box on the form), it would have to have been croud-sourced at some level, and any random high school kid could have started it.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
50% of the population didn't want to report their religion because they are secretly Sith.
If they can call themselves Jedi Knights shouldn't the be able to like Force Pull there car out of their parking space and over their heads to another parking space?
I would be more inclined to take them seriously if they called themselves Force Adepts or Force Sensitive rather than Knights.
The MyTh - I am a figment of the Imagination - [Im Probably even not here]
For the longest time, I admired Brazil, among other countries, for forcing people to vote.
Because one of the reasons sometimes the suckiest politicians get elected is because people don't vote. Remember how close the 2000 election was between Gore and Bush? Did you vote?! We would not have invaded Iraq in 2003 if something like 0.002% of useless turds actually got off their asses in 2000 and spent 15 minutes at a polling station instead of at a video game console. No: the Democrats are not the same as the Republicans. Gore would not have invaded Iraq. That's why your vote COUNTS. (Now we will hear some assholes argue why Gore would have invaded Iraq, rather than concede the simple and obvious point that your vote matters.)
You get the government you deserve, and if you don't vote, then your government shows as much interest in you as you do in it when it comes time to actually PARTICIPATE in the formation of your own fucking government. People died so that your leader is chosen by you. People are dying today to get that right in other countries. And some people could care less. Some pathetic losers would rather play video games.
But then I realized, when this Jedi story was discussed awhile back, from an Australian census I believe, that some people just don't take life seriously. And you can't force them to.
That, if forced to vote, you'd see Bullwinkle and Kodos and Senator Palpatine winning thousands of votes.
You can't force people to care.
So, while I still admire Brazil and other countries for forcing people to acknowledge they should participate in their democracy, because it is such a gift, I don't push the issue anymore. Now, all I do is, when I hear someone complain about politics, I ask them "did you vote?" And if they go "no," I simply walk away and that person is simply dead to me forever more and I have zero respect for them. For being such a complacent hypocritical empty tool.
There are some things in life which are actually important and not funny. YOur religion? Jedi? OK, that's funny. But voting? Vote, damnit, it's not a joke. Thousands may die because you couldn't be bothered and some sycophant of the oil industry got in a position to fulfill Neocon masturbatory fantasies, nevermind your own country's domestic ruling agenda.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Some of us don't vote because we consider it politically irresponsible to make a choice that we don't believe in. If I dislike (or like) all candidates in an election equally, not voting is a (even the) proper choice. The point: before you brush people off for "not participating" in government, make sure they really are being lazy rather than consciously abstaining.
You can put Jediism (or whatever the proper noun is) on military id tags. I've seen more than a few soldiers with it written on their tags.
I don't know about the Jedi Knights, but the two weeks I was there, I got pussy that was in the 9-10 range every single day. Never cost me more than $100, either.
Why don't you have a seat over there?
They do, they just use a lightsabre.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
There's a word for people like that.
"Happy".
You are welcome on my lawn.
That, if forced to vote, you'd see Bullwinkle and Kodos and Senator Palpatine winning thousands of votes.
As an Australian who has worked at polling booths counting votes, I can say that the number of informal ballots (that is, ballots that don't indicate a valid choice, such as your examples above, or people who just shove the form in the box without voting at all) is a small minority. Even then, it is useful - the most recent federal election had a record number of informal votes, indicative of a populace who was deeply apathetic about both primary party candidates. The apathy was borne out by other evidence as well - we ended up with a minority government for the first time in my lifetime, due to the extreme swing away from both primary parties.
As to your statement about Gore and Bush, if Bush had stated his intentions of invading Iraq when he was elected, he probably wouldn't have been. That's the primary problem with our elected politicians - once elected, none of their voters have any guarantee of what they will do, and they aren't held to any promises they said they would. We're essentially voting them into a position of supreme authority blind.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
every choice you ever make in your entire life, on every single topic, from the most personal, to the most small, to the most cosmic, to the most mundane, to the most crucial, is a compromise
you will, forever more, in your entire life, and as long as human beings with free will exist in democratic societies, only get a choice of candidates that only approximates your values, anyone's values. you get a choice: vaguely grey area candidate this, or vaguely grey area candidate that. no better than that. welcome to reality
that you don't get to vote exactly for your ideal hero as your candidate, who matches your values 100%, therefore, you're not going to vote: that only tells me you are a fool
what you just said earns you, from me, instantaneous disrespect and disgust
because, in essence, what you are saying is that you are too good for us. you will not sully your "principles" to submit to an ugly process that might mean you have to recognize that life has compromises. no: fuck you, you are cluelessly idealistic. there's nothing wrong with being an idealist. but there's something wrong with being so idealistic that recognizing basic facts of political reality is an insult to your cognition
you don't have principles. you have high minded impossible standards that life will never live up to. and rather than live with the basic truth of the ugliness of the world, such as it is, and help to make it better by participating in it, you'd rather hide in your ivory tower and pretend you know better than us. no, you know less than us, because you believe your abstention makes you superior. it makes you inferior, for failing to recognize that your participation is the only way any of your ideals get realized. you tweak your ego at the expense of actually mattering to the world. you are a narcissist, preserving the ego at the expense of participating in your society, there is nothing "conscientious" about your behavior, that's just how you rationalize your complacency to yourself (since it is flattering to your ego, you narcissist)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Consciously abstaining is the stupidest fucking thing imaginable. Vote for a third party, if you must, but better yet, vote for the less bad candidate. And vote in primaries, so you get better choices. People DIED because of Bush being elected. Thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands worldwide. Trillions of dollars were wasted. It was a complete, unmitigated disaster, and it was one that was obviously coming. That was several years ago... and the Republicans got your message loud and clear. They learned their lesson: that if they make things awful enough, you'll just give up and let them take whatever they want. Great job!
Some pathetic losers would rather play video games.
Fuck yeah!
from an Australian census I believe, that some people just don't take life seriously
It was question 12 from the 2006 Australian census:
"Do you take life too seriously?
a) Yes
b) Jedi"
Vote, damnit, it's not a joke
That depends on your choice of candidates and the way the voting system is configured. Australia has a 2 party voting system, corruptly arranged electorates, an unbelievable history of disingenuous leadership, one sided media and an incredibly stable party devotion voting system. For example, at the last 3 federal elections my electorate was one of the closest in the country .. just a month ago, the entire town where I lived was moved into another electorate. Now the electoral map looks like someone has stuck a knife right down the middle! Why? This was the town which kept swinging the elections away from the incumbent party! Now it's safe and my vote doesn't count anymore.
Democracy? I've tasted it, but this most certainly isn't it. And if you think those
Neocon
s are representing you, wake up!
Every time there's a census in Australia, putting "Jedi" as your religion is suggested as a fun way to mess with the system
I must admit that at first thought, this seemed like a cool idea to me, but I remember reading an analysis pointing out that it isn't such a great idea. If you're not religious, the best answer you can put is "Not religious" (atheist, agnostic, naturalist etc are filed under this by the census system)
Every non-religious person who puts "Jedi" as their religion is one extra statistic who is counted as being a religious when attempting to justify policies like compulsory religious instruction in government schools
Even then, it is useful - the most recent federal election had a record number of informal votes, indicative of a populace who was deeply apathetic about both primary party candidates.
So, did that change anything in the way the politicians behave? I don't think so, since those votes don't have any negative impact on them.
mod parent up
if you don't participate in your democratic society, you are helping the side you like least win
those with ideology you dislike depend upon you to not participate. they understand how you think, and all they have to do is act ugly enough, and you just cede to them power
so there's nothing principled or conscientious about you abstaining. it's just stupid and self-defeating
show that you care enough to try to matter. that's more important than a "conscience" that thinks standing around idly while evil happens is any sort of conscience
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I show up at the polls for every election, not just the big ones. I always vote for the person I want, and never against the person I don't want. If I don't think either is qualified to do the job or will screw it up I vote for neither. This is still a vote in my book as I'm making the decision to not support either candidate. For some reason the higher up the political spectrum the position is the less likely I am to actually cast a vote. I simply can't justify voting for the lesser of two evils, either way your still voting for evil.
--- When you start with the conclusion that you want, then throw out any facts that don't agree, is it true?
As to your statement about Gore and Bush, if Bush had stated his intentions of invading Iraq when he was elected
The US Congress declared war on Iraq, not Bush. The President of the United States does not have the power nor the authority to declare a war, which is why Obama broke the law when he had our military bomb Libya without cause, provocation or a declaration of war.
except that every election, past, present, and future, in any democratic society possible, is a choice between two evils
because politics is nothing more than a process of compromise. and every compromise can, and is, described as a form of evil
so your entire point is completely moot. you are always voting for the lesser of two evils, forever, for anyone, for any society
to not make peace with that realization just means you do not understand the nature of life
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Money. The Jedi don't have it.
Only because you are an unbeliever.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Congress made no declaration of war. Didn't happen. They passed The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 because they were too corrupt and cowardly to resist a President who lied through his teeth to take us to war without reason. So yeah, Congress let him do it, but Bush did it. How did you let that detail slip by you?
There is a huge hype over Star Wars the Old Republic which will be released next week as probably the biggest MMO in history!
A lot of people like myself who have lost interest in Star Wars are showing a strong interest again.
http://saveie6.com/
Do you ever read Doonsbury?
It's author, Berke Breathed, was a student at the U of Texas back in the early 1980s. He had a cartoon called Academia Waltz in the school paper.
In it, there was a character named "Hank the Hallucination."
Well. Hank was handily elected president of the student body without even running for it.
At least it proved to me that the votes were legitimate and not part of a conspiracy by the elites...
Sorry, but you're living in a fantasy.
If voting could actually alter anything at all, then there would be other systems of control in place to compensate. As it stands, voting makes no difference. Heck, notwithstanding propaganda which fools all the retarded people, combined with *massive* vote fraud to control the rest, combined with Israel using every type of psychological leverage available from simple, "You won't have a job if you go against the grain" to the charming, "We have photos of you fucking child prostitutes" to control things at the candidate level, -ignoring all of that-, as well as the CIA dirty-tricks portion of the equation, (the black world owns virtually everything and it certainly isn't going to roll over just because some people happen to believe in the fantasy of democratic elections or de-balled occupy movements)...
If we ignore ALL of that, did you notice what happened last election? Why, we got any color we wanted, so long as it was black. Yay democracy.
And nothing changed. Nothing was supposed to. We're still a warring nation with secret prisons all over the globe, where the banks are allowed to run roughshod over the populace, dismantling Europe one nation at a time. But that's not even the bottom line. Those are just the details. The bottom line is that the plutocrats are in control, as they have been since money was first invented.
And if you think they are going to relinquish that control through a ballot box, then you're sleeping. Maybe at one time this was possible, but that was quite some time ago now.
We are well into the end game, so if you don't have your psyche in order, you'd better fix that pronto. The curtains are falling fast. Don't dawdle at the ballot box.
The US Congress declared war on Iraq, not Bush. The President of the United States does not have the power nor the authority to declare a war, which is why Obama broke the law when he had our military bomb Libya without cause, provocation or a declaration of war.
Congress hasn't declared war on anyone since World War II. Congress did authorize the use of military force in Iraq in 2002 based on what Bush thought to be appropriate.
In Australia they where talking about it on the radio before our recent census.
null
Not directly but it contributed to the massive swing away from both parties resulting in a minority government, likewise people voting for minority parties made a difference and the greens now hold the balance of power in the senate whilst the independents hold it in the house of reps. So yes I would say it did.
null
Australia doesn't have a two party system at the moment, in case you hadn't noticed the greens have the balance of power in the senate and the independents do in the house of reps. That's 3 parties with a significant say in government (Liberals/Nationals, Labour and the greens) + the independents
null
voting makes a difference, because i live in a democracy, asshole. and if my society ever stops being a democracy, it will be because the majority of people think like you
i'm sorry for whatever personal psychological problems you have where you believe you have no control over your life. but don't project your personal failings onto my reality. life is what you make of it, and if you choose to make of your life the life of a slave, don't make that lame of choice of yours hurt my life. i am a free man. but you, the way you think: you have a slave's mentality. those who do malicous things in this world DEPEND upon cattle like you to think the way you do about how reality works. but i won't let your resignation to accept whatever bullshit they try to feed you also mean that i have to take that bullshit to
the most frustrating thing, for people like me, free men, is to be dragged down by people like you with a slave's mentality. read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
this wikipedia entry describes how you think:
again, i'm sorry for your psychological problems. but stop projecting your personal failures onto my politics. you have control in your society, whether or not you believe it. i don't believe i have control in my society. i know i do. because i am a free man
try to figure out where your life went wrong and how you might find the courage to try to matter again. if you can't do that, then shut up and fuck off, because you are nothing more than a useless self-chosen slave at this point in your life, and your mentality is toxic to democracy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Well, if there's got to be religion, at least Jedi Knights adhere to one that doesn't involve cutting up the genitalia of boys and girls."
" Shabbath 19:2
They may perform on the Sabbath all things that are needful for circumcision: excision, tearing, sucking [the wound], and putting thereon a bandage and cumin. If this had not been pounded up on the eve of the Sabbath a man may chew it with his teeth and then apply it.
The Mishnah
Translated by Herbert Danby
Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1933. pp. 116-117."
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Sounds like something twitter or facebook triggered. All it would take is one tweet to get this sort of thing started when census was underway.
That 15000 people thought of the same answer (I'm guessing it wasn't a check box on the form), it would have to have been croud-sourced at some level, and any random high school kid could have started it.
The same goes for all other major religions, in their first 20-30 years (often longer).
Read about it. czech, bohemian geographies have always been geographies of forward thinking and revolution.
Read radical news here
Consciously abstaining is the stupidest fucking thing imaginable. Vote for a third party, if you must, but better yet, vote for the less bad candidate. And vote in primaries, so you get better choices. People DIED because of Bush being elected. Thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands worldwide. Trillions of dollars were wasted. It was a complete, unmitigated disaster, and it was one that was obviously coming. That was several years ago... and the Republicans got your message loud and clear. They learned their lesson: that if they make things awful enough, you'll just give up and let them take whatever they want. Great job!
LOL.
In case you haven't heard all the Obama hate, apparently he hasn't made anything better. Or so I'm told by angry Americans.
I'm Australian, not American so I'd bet the truth is infinitely stranger.
I'm Australian as I said and we have compulsory voting. I'm looking at an A$120 fine for just not turning up. It's the most retarded electoral idea ever, as the OP said in this thread, you cant force people to care. You can only force them to do "something", chances are it wont be something good. A lot of Australians just tick boxes at random or worse yet in order (ballot order is randomly drawn) but you dont want someone like One Nation or the BNP getting the apathy vote. People who vote properly but dont care who they vote for are worse then people who Donkey.
Bush could have won by a much larger majority in both elections due entirely by apathy voters. More people voting != more people caring.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
As an Australian who has worked at polling booths counting votes, I can say that the number of informal ballots (that is, ballots that don't indicate a valid choice, such as your examples above, or people who just shove the form in the box without voting at all) is a small minority. Even then, it is useful - the most recent federal election had a record number of informal votes, indicative of a populace who was deeply apathetic about both primary party candidates. The apathy was borne out by other evidence as well - we ended up with a minority government for the first time in my lifetime, due to the extreme swing away from both primary parties.
I think that apathy was expressed largely by the number of votes that went to third parties. Labor won government but they depend on the Greens and the Independents (speaking personally, I dont see an issue here as I dont trust Labor or the Coalition to do things in the best interest of Australians) even a lot of the Coalition votes came in via the Nationals.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Now, all I do is, when I hear someone complain about politics, I ask them "did you vote?" And if they go "no," I simply walk away and that person is simply dead to me forever more and I have zero respect for them.
that might be a bit of an overreaction, don't you think?
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
If I dislike (or like) all candidates in an election equally,
If you can say that, you haven't even bothered to look at the candidates. Even choosing the least worst is better than abstaining and letting the worst win by default. It's self-righteous "they're all scum" people who allow the "scum" to win time after time.
If I dislike (or like) all candidates in an election equally, not voting is a (even the) proper choice.
Most elections have a bunch of offices and decisions, each with a bunch of candidates/options. How is it possible that you are consistently seeing equivalence between the various sets of candidates and options? I could understand if, in some small fraction of individual line items, your research turned up that the options were equally bad. But how can you not be voting at all?
Far more likely: you aren't doing adequate research. The options seem equivalent to you because, with minimal information about the candidates, you are unable to substantively differentiate between them. So get off your butt and do your homework.
If you like or dislike all candidates equally I would argue that you haven't done the research and are making excuses.
I don't want to rate / order my friends or family, but gun to my head (or theirs) I could.
Compulsory voting is A GOOD THING because it gives the extra push to those who are just on the edge of going what they need to get off their a$$es and vote.
Ouch
I don't understand why this simple troll gets so many angry, indignant responses, yelling that the lyrics are wrong. First of all, I like "cosmonaut" better. It's subtle and completely absurd, turning a commercial jingle into a nonsensical, absurdist masterpiece. Second, how the fuck do you know the lyrics to this song? Seriously. Are you actually dedicating space in your head to 80s TV sitcom themes? Why would you do that? Third, it's probably fucking obvious that this is a troll, and I can't understand what possessed you to respond to it. Now, of course, you'll accuse me of having no room to complain, since I've replied, as well, but you're wrong. I'm vibrating at a completely different frequency.
Its less than half of the proportion who declared themselves as Jedi in the UK census (0.7%).
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I don't vote because I don't have a voting district or state and therefore I am added to the "just in case" tally which is for expats.... it has never been and never will be counted.
I do however talk about politics and try to influence the votes of others. I don't tell them who to vote for, I ask them to justify their choice and will educate them either way.
Gore you might say wouldn't have gone to war with Iraq. Some would also say that the Taliban almost certainly wouldn't have targeted the U.S. during a Gore administration. We can make all kinds of guesses like this. But in reality, you need to understand one single, simple fact about Gore. He does no represent the American people. GWB did a much better job of representing the American people. Sure the middle class hated him, but the rednecks and the rich people loved him.
Gore was a terrible choice for president because he was too stupid. Really... yes, he was a million times smarter than GWB... but GWB didn't ever pretend to be smart. Gore isn't that bright.... but he and a huge number of idiots think he's a genius of some sort. I won't say Gore isn't smart for a politician, hell, probably one of the smartest presidential candidates we've had in a while. But he was a total moron on a biblical scale when he ran for president. He spent so much time bashing GWBs intelligence (which just wasn't necessary as GWBs intelligence was... well I can't find the words... just it isn't nice to pick on slow people) that he offended the majority of the U.S voting population who actually have to look up to see GWB on the intelligence food chain.
GWB was the absolute best American president in a long time because he was exactly what the voting majority wanted and deserved. He was a moron that was just short of drooling. When you're in a democracy, you're not voting for who will do the best job. You're voting for who you think represents you best. Then the candidate with the majority of votes wins. If you've watched Fox, the Disney Channel, hell even Discovery at times, TLC... ok... pretty much any TV station with high rating in the U.S., you might have noticed that every single one of them has been getting rich by glorifying how great it is to be stupid. Disney is doing it from age 3 until Fox takes over. In a society where a brand like Diesel can make a fortune selling T-Shirts which glorify how being smart is for losers and stupid rules, can you seriously tell me that an intelligent president is what best represents the U.S.?
The U.S. almost never has produced anything truly amazing from within... except when it was socially funded. I use the term social instead of federal to make a point. NASA is a social organization. A government owned company producing products and producing jobs etc... And it got us to the moon. But we don't like socialism, so that's bad right? The U.S. practically invented modern Physics with Albert Einstein, Julius Robert Oppenheimer and others... Wait...we imported those guys... actually nearly every great advance in the U.S. in the past hundred years has been by foreigners we imported to America. At the very least, whatever wasn't made by the first generation immigrants was done by the second generation immigrants. After all, by third generation, we don't have to work hard anymore... we can simply stand on the shoulders of giants.
The truth is, the average american is fat and lazy. Shops for nearly half their shit at walmart. Is wasteful as sin. Is entirely self absorbed and before paying one more hard earned red cent on improving the lives of their neighbors and therefore increasing their own personal value twice as much as holding onto the the money, they will shoot off their noses to spite their faces. We believe that because we can jam a military invasion with a million trigger happy assholes all fighting for some god down someones throat that we're superior to everyone else. We have a pathetically low level of education. We want the government to fix it, but we don't want a big government controlling how we t
You didn't "get pussy", you bought pussy. Big difference there.
Can't you cast a blank vote? In Spain there is the option to cast a vote without marking any candidate/party. These votes are effectively counted when it comes to the distribution of seats(*), and give a clear meaning of "I want to vote but I find nothing worth voting" (instead of "I don't think voting is important enough to go to the poll station").
(*) The distribution of seats is done taking into account the number of votes cast, so blank votes affect results (abstention does not). There is even a political movement arguing that blank votes should be treated as a full list (with all seats gained by it becoming unassigned).
Why can't
I live in Prague for a few years now. My partner is Czech and one of those "Jedi"s.
Seems like, at the time, it was the best option given the possibilities available...
Consciously abstaining is the stupidest fucking thing imaginable. Vote for a third party, if you must, but better yet, vote for the less bad candidate.
I've spoken out against this for as long as I could vote, and no one has convinced me otherwise in 20 years (though I now vote - for the Pirate Party).
If you find a party or a candidate that suits you - fine. But if you don't, then voting for the least evil is not appropriate. It sends all kinds of wrong messages. Not only does it give the party you vote for a false sense of representation, it also tells everyone that the system is fine as it is, when it really isn't (because there is nobody in it who represents you).
My vote is all I have in a representative democracy. I will give it only to someone who I want to be represented by. I'm not falling for these attempts to give me a bad feeling about withholding my vote when there is nobody I trust with it. In fact, I would wish there was a "none of the above" option on the ballot, I would have used it for almost 20 years. As there isn't, abstaining is the only option I have to express myself in an election.
I am not responsible for bad people coming to power - the people who voted them in are, and nobody else.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Good... Let the hate flow through you!!!
(Sorry - seemed an appropriate response to your indignation given the topic)
Yes, Facebook triggered it. Then, there was actually a separate checkbox in the form too:
http://czso.cz/sldb2011/redakce.nsf/i/csu_secte_pri_scitani_i_lidi_kteri_se_prihlasi_k_hnuti_jedi
(use google translate)
It's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end. -Douglas Adams
...how many pastafarians are there
Difference is semantics only. You pay for it one way or another.
...so if you believe in Chi/Qi then it's not a long step to believing in the Force.
(Though I doubt that many Jedi followers actually believe story elements such as Jedi vanishing upon death, Sith imploding, etc. Surely they don't.)
I believe in Chi because I've felt it numerous times and in different ways. You may laugh and scoff at me, but should I take other people's opinions more seriously, or my own observations? I don't pretend to know what it is, but I suspect it's simply another form of energy that science has yet to identify.
That said, I wonder how many people didn't read properly and so ticked Jedi instead of Jewish by mistake?
You can't sit in the park and whittle? Seriously?
Oh, I give in to hatred very easily. In fact, I'm probably halfway to being a sith lord, already.
p.s. my first post was obviously off-topic. Flamebait? Come on. I could even see troll, but flamebait? Moderators on crackers!
No, there was no separate checkbox for Jedi. There were three checkboxes: non-religious, religious but not belonging to any church, religious and belonging to the following church (with a space for writing the name of your church). That news article just says that the statistical office won't file you under "other" when you write "Jedi".
You can take your threats of violence and shove it up your ass. Do you really expect to force people to take an action and expect to get a positive result out of it. When deciding to use force on a group of people you better have a bloody good reason for it. I see no proof that using violence will provide a positive outcome, there is however evidence that using violence (or threat of) causes harm.
Last ~10 elections (basically since this place got a elections with multiple choices) I was forced to pick "less bad candidate". I'm tired of it. I don't get to vote for someone but rather have to vote for lesser evil. So I'm considering to propose a new voting system: we should indeed get to vote against someone. The candidate, that get's least votes, wins. Let's stop pretending that we give someone our vote, when we, in fact, don't want to do that.
I'd mod you up had I the points. I abstained from our most recent election (I am Canadian) for this very same reason.
In politics there is rarely a lesser evil.
Is that a common pastime? Strange.
No, I wouldn't wave a knife around in public. I bought kubotans for myself and my little brother a few years ago. Then it turns out that they're illegal too so I stopped carrying it..
which is totally what she said
Just across the border in Germany, the Sith is a growing religious practice. You can even hear them praying the "Vader unser".
Just because the candidates you know about don't represent your values doesn't mean there isn't someone better suited on the ballot. Or someone that is running a write-in campaign. Seriously, if you dislike all the candidates equally, then I don't believe you have actually bothered to learn about any of them.
That is all besides the point because not voting is not the same as abstaining. When you don't vote, you're voice is not heard, at all. Period. End of sentence. They don't know why you didn't vote and frankly they don't care, because the guy which the most votes from the people who actually did vote, will win. By not voting you have officially voted for the person with the most votes. Hope you really don't care because you could have been an accomplice in getting the next jackass elected who will run your government into the ground. And that is worse than voting for him. Because really, your apathy for your government (and by extension your country) is why that person got elected. Not because you made a conscious decision that you thought was the best course of action.
If I dislike (or like) all candidates in an election equally, not voting is a (even the) proper choice.
No, it's not. The proper choice is to write in somebody else. Even yourself for President of the United States. Sure it seems silly, and there's no chance you're going to win, but if people who disliked everybody regularly voted that kind of way, we'd see people carrying states with 37% support rather than 53% support. That makes it considerably harder to argue that the one who won really represents the whole of the electorate or has any kind of 'mandate'.
I am officially gone from
If you find a party or a candidate that suits you - fine. But if you don't, then voting for the least evil is not appropriate. It sends all kinds of wrong messages. Not only does it give the party you vote for a false sense of representation, it also tells everyone that the system is fine as it is, when it really isn't (because there is nobody in it who represents you).
In our parliament there's 7 parties. If you add all the other ones that were running last election it was 24 choices. There's three and a half million eligible voters, which means there's over one hundred thousand voters per party. I think that's as much as any man can expect, and yet obviously none of those are going to be a perfect fit for me and 99,999 others. Alternatively you can look at it this way, If you tried making a binary tree of choices four to five choices (2^4=16, 2^5=32) is all you get. In reality most of those small parties are complete fruitloops, the bottom 11 parties got <0,1% of the votes. So for the 99,9% that's more like 250,000 people per party and less than four bits of information.
Am I able to accurately place my political point of view with that? No. Particularly not with coalitions that will lead to politics I disagree with, it's possibly even more limited than that. But I try throwing my weight on the right side of the tug-of-war, because often it doesn't matter how extreme the extremes are, just that someone can say "60% of the population wants less of X" then it's likely it'll move in the right direction, rather than me saying nothing at all. I'm often torn between two parties that both have their good and bad moments, but there no doubt in my mind that a vote for either of those two is right in the greater block politics. So it has never crossed my mind not to vote, even though I don't feel I've found "my" party.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I would wish there was a "none of the above" option on the ballot, I would have used it for almost 20 years. As there isn't, abstaining is the only option I have to express myself in an election.
There's another way: The write-in line. Write in yourself, or write in the leader of Pirate Party USA, or whatever floats your boat, but that way your vote is registered as being for somebody other than either major party's candidate.
As far as lesser-evil is concerned, whether it's better to vote for lesser-evil or good guy (even if you have to write somebody in) depends on two factors: How likely it is that greater evil will win (in your state if it's a US-style presidential election) and the degree of difference between greater evil and lesser evil. If you'd rate greater evil 0 of 100 and lesser evil 2 of 100, go ahead and vote for third party or write-in. If greater evil or lesser evil is polling at 65% of the vote, go ahead and vote for third party or write-in. If, on the other hand, you have a choice between 0 of 100 and 40 of 100, and it's a really close race, you might consider voting for lesser evil just so there's less damage done.
I am officially gone from
Speaking of idealists, really it's people like you who claim that "every vote matters" who are the idealists. In fact you are not just an idealist, but outright wrong in this. You are also wrong in claiming that by voting people should make compromises; no, they shouldn't.
In reality the vote of any single person is worth zero. The chance that your vote makes a difference - that without your vote the result would be a tie - is so small as to be negligible, and even if it were the case that your vote was the tie-breaker, since the precision in counting the votes for things like a national election is always greater than one vote, even then it would be pretty much up to pure chance who ends up winning, not up to your tie-breaker vote.
The decision of any single person whether he votes also does not have a significant influence on how many other people may go to vote, and so we are back to the argument in the previous paragraph: your vote does note make a difference. Period. From the perspective of the rationality of your decision it does not matter what would happen if everyone else did the same etc. It would be entirely rational for people to not vote at all, and in fact many people make this rational decision when they stay home or hang out with friends instead.
Hence there is no point in voting if your goal is to influence the result. You are wrong if you think there is. This is the negative part. Now to the positive: One value I see in voting is that it gives you an opportunity to signal your preferences and your goals in your local community when you participate in political discussions. The preferences and goals of people living around you influence your life, and by participating in these political discussions you may actually have an effect on how these preferences and goals change over time. Having chats about "who to vote to" is one of the very few contexts which allows for exchanging ideas regarding these issues.
And so I think you should make use of this opportunity to influence others around your. By taking the effort of walking to the poll booth you signal your preference for living in a democratic society (although you could merely assert this preference as well, the fact that you give up a pleasant afternoon just to stand in line may give some actual credence to the claim). When it comes to choosing the candidate, you should choose the person 1) who represents your views and your preferences most closely, and 2) from whom it's unlikely that you would get favors if it became known that you voted for him. Why? Because such a choice would make it most credible that you indeed intend to make use of the opportunity of voting to represent your preferences and goals, as opposed to using it for some other purposes, i.e. in hoping to get favors from someone.
From this it follows that you should not make compromises and should not choose the candidate who is most likely to win among the barely acceptable ones. You should pick someone who is not among your friends, but whose views are closest to yours, even if he is relatively unknown. Again: your actual vote does not make a difference. You voicing your opinion about preferences and goals might have a local effect. You should use the opportunity of voting to maximize this latter effect.
AFAIK in the US there is always a write-in option. More people should make use of it.
Attitudes make the difference between Space and Time: we want to MAX our temporal, and MIN our spatial extension.
Probably on account of Jedi being derived from a space opera movie that was never intended as anything but entertainment.
It's on a level of seriousness with Scientology, albeit not as harmful.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
May they burn in the furry hells!
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I don't vote in all elections because sometimes I have no faith in ether candidate. I see it for what is and my vote won't matter because nothing will change.
One of the reasons I think in all government elections there should be a "none of the above" option. This option lets you, the voter reject all the candidates with a vote of no confidence in any of them.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Well, are you so sure about that? Lucas might have been saving that one for his next sequel...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Right. Let's not ask people about what kind of delusion they adhere to, how about that for a start?
I somehow have a hard time taking a census seriously that asks about your favorite imaginary friend.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Your vote matters if, and only if, you're in a "swing state" due to your completely fucked up voting system. Else Gore WOULD have won.
Seriously. If you're a Democrat in Alabama, save yourself the trip to the voting booth.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There is no side to like least because the two-party system is a rigged system that only allows you to vote for one political establishment. The candidates selected by the establishment might have idiosyncrasies since they are human, but because they are human they also change their minds and lie so there is no rational basis to choose between them. While there might be independent candidates on the ballot, the system makes it impossible for them to be elected, so voting for them is a gesture without meaning.
Difference is semantics only. You pay for it one way or another.
Only people who can't get laid without using prostitutes say that.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You can't sit in the park and whittle? Seriously?
No, and you can't wank off over porn mags either. If you want to whittle or wank, do it at home.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Damnit. Redundant was not what I was going for.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
You over-simplify.
See... You were raised to believe that the shoe is your best option for your feet. It may not be the same shoe which others accept as their best option, but those who wear shoes generally accept that the shoe is "it" for footwear. You have not devoted your life to arguing for alternatives to shoes; nor have you devoted significant energy toward inventing something more appropriate. In all probability, you are aware that there are other styles of shoes, but those which you've always worn tend to be what you stick with.
The same is true of religion... You accept that the shoe is what you need and is what is best for you because that is all you've ever known. In terms of indoctrination, acceptance of religion is strikingly similar...
The shoes you choose to wear. The divine comedy you accept as truth. The questions which never come to mind because the answer has been built into your social DNA by those who raised you...
where is sue? sue is idle.
Women are like phone companies. Some require a contract and provide limited metered service, but some are pay-as-you-go with added features for a small fee.
Some of us don't vote because we consider it politically irresponsible to make a choice that we don't believe in. If I dislike (or like) all candidates in an election equally, not voting is a (even the) proper choice. The point: before you brush people off for "not participating" in government, make sure they really are being lazy rather than consciously abstaining.
I would respect this viewpoint if people actually went and spoiled their ballot papers rather than just staying at home.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Couldn't you please ask Santa for a shift key this Xmas? Your abhorrence of capital letters becomes a slightly annoying distraction from the excellent points you make.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
That's just self-fulfilling defeatism in my book.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
There's another way: The write-in line.
In the US, yes. In my country, there is no such line.
And no, I don't go with the wager, either. It's just another attempt to get people to vote for something they don't support through the false generation of bad conscious.
If you don't want a specific party or candidate to win, but you don't like the others either, the reasonable approach is not to give a dishonest, corrupt vote to someone you hate not quite so much, but to convince voters of the really, really bad choice to change their vote.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
and yet obviously none of those are going to be a perfect fit for me and 99,999 others
I never requested a perfect fit. Heck, I can't represent myself at 100%, because - surprise - circumstances and opinions can change over time.
I was talking about the case where you look at the available parties, immediately discard half of them as insane (usually minor parties anyways), check out the others and realize that none of them are even an acceptable fit.
Also, you ignore that in reality (i.e. aside from the rhetorics and the campaigns), the major parties in all western nations have become very hard to distinguish. We've had several switches between the major parties and their coalition partners here in Germany over the past 15-20 years. In real-life day-to-day politics, it barely mattered.
If your political view diverts from the status quo in more then details, chances are that throwing your vote at any of the major parties is a waste and won't change any of the things that are important to you. All you are doing is solidifying the status quo.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
He's Australian so he has Democrats (I think they're still around) but not Republicans. He also lives in a country where the majority party in Parliament is a coalition of a couple of different parties and one or two independents. The opposition is also a coalition of two parties. Hell, he mentioned One Nation and the BNP in his post! Do you know who they are?
Is 1563649 a prime number?
The difference is that phone companies f*** you.
Too bad your book seems to be full of pictures and not reasons.
I prefer mine, where I can explain why I act or think the way I do.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Brazilian here, and I for one hate to be forced to vote. I probably would vote if it was optional anyway, but I would feel my vote is more important, really making a difference, if you know what I mean.
This is a UDP joke, I don't care if you get it or not...
Just wait till your wife gets her hands on a whip and a strap on.
Obama is dealing with a legacy of toxic economics and disastrous foreign policy that was years/decades in the making.
As for compulsory voting: I'd say [citation needed] on the higher percentage of apathy voting. I'd also say that Australian ticking boxes randomly which are randomly ordered causes no upset in the competition because the apathetic votes will be evenly distributed.
Not to mention I'd kill for the instant runoffs you guys have.
what you just said earns you, from me, instantaneous disrespect and disgust
Back at ya. A choice between the frying pan and the fire is not a choice. The one's offering that "choice" should be grateful they don't next feel a dagger sliding between their ribs.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
I have to wonder what it would have garnered if it had been accorded a check-box like the "proper" religions. "Proper" religions must be terrified of the combined effects of people being comfortable enough to express what they really feel to censuses and having other choices made easy. This sort of thing can snowball.
Nullius in verba
I was going to moderate this comment as funny, but then I realized, hey, I'm a sys-admin...
Making fun of dumb people since 2009
If you feel that no candidate is worth voting for you should spoil your balot paper. When Micky Mouse wins an election people will pay attention at the moment you appear to be apathetic rather than consciously abstaining.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jediism#Reaction - wonderful. a jedi knight gets thrown out of a job centre for not removing his hoodie.
Yeah, then that wiki link goes on to say "The following year, a Jedi was thrown out of a Jobcentre in Southend, Essex, for refusing to remove his hood; he later received an apology." :-)
I don't care what color your light sabre is, that's funny. An official apology
and a new law in 2010 *excludes* members of the Church of Jediism in the UK from protection against racial discrimination and hatred. wonderful.
Uh, the same wikipedia link says that law didn't pass: "During the drafting of the UK Racial and Religious Hatred Act, as a tool for debate, an amendment was proposed that excluded Jedi Knights from any protection. The amendment was subsequently withdrawn, the proposer having made his point that defining religious belief in legislation is difficult."
This simply sounds like common sense illuminated by satire. Help me understand why we don't need more of that kind of insight from our career politicians.
Then you should vote 'informal' if that is at all possible in the US system. Practically that would mean casting your vote without making a selection.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Given how tight budgets are today, I'd know a few things that are more sensible (and help a far higher percentage of people) than to build a new home for someone's imaginary friend.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A lot of Australians just tick boxes at random or worse yet in order (ballot order is randomly drawn) but you dont want someone like One Nation or the BNP getting the apathy vote
I think all ballots should include the option "None of the above" - this way you could send a clear message to the candidates that you think they all suck.
I think you've missed the point. A lot of people do apathy voting where they just walk in, label all boxes 1-7 in top down order simply because they want to avoid the fine for not voting and dont want to think about voting. Donkey voting would require them to understand what they are doing (which involves reading the instructions on how to vote) which is simply too much effort.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The director of the brillant 80's sitcom ALF was named Peter Bonerz; strange but true.
Don't blame me, I voted for Cthulhu.