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."
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.
Well, judging from Episodes 1-3, I would say "heretic" is the term. George Lucas is a hack.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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.
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?
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
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!
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
There can be consequences if you don't pick a recognized religion. I was restricted to base for a weekend and given extra duty twice for putting down atheist and refusing to change 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!
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.
I'll say it's impressive - that's up around Linux desktop adoption level!
Hmm... now that I think about it, that's probably not a coincidence...
#DeleteChrome
Good... Let the hate flow through you!!!
(Sorry - seemed an appropriate response to your indignation given the topic)
Difference is semantics only. You pay for it one way or another.