Not even a fucking paragraph setup for the obligatory christian jesus joke and this gets modded to five? Insightful of all things? How? What cave have you people been in? Can I get modded 5 insightful if I start ripping off Jim Carry jokes?
Sorry what I meant to say wasy "Oh ho ho, rather good shot that was. Quick, hit me with one about creationists before 2005 rolls about."
While someone listed other designations in a more technical manner (ie, a list), I find that the only organizations that spring to mind as a "cult" to me are the ones that have an overbearing control on their members. It's really hard to call a lot of buddists cultists, and if you were to inform a catholic that his religion is and was a cult, you'd first have to find him, and if you waited at church on sunday or saturday you'd still be hard pressed to do that.
People by and large don't have time for religions that double as cults. Religion is fine by itself, it releaves a lot of the stress caused by metaphysical questions most of us can't answer or would really rather not. That's everyones right and more power to them. Going the extra step of telling people you are right and they are wrong is saddening, but also AOK, they have their opinion and you're an asshole, fair enough. It's the additional effort of keeping people who listen to you indoctrinated and controlled for the duration of their life with no escape and no agency that scares the shit of most free thinking people, and it also happens to be something scientology has shown itself capable of doing.
I am a customer. You are a business owner. Your business is seen by me to be hurtful to the environment/freedoms/poor people/cute kittens. I thusly get a placard and go protest your business front in an obnoxious and disruptive way. People can't go into your establishment without seeing me, and they can hear me inside.
Do I have the right to continue if a policeman has informed me of the disruptive nature of my act? I am protesting in a public place in a non-violent albiet loud and obscene manner.
Further information, I (the protestor)am in fact shit nuts and off my meds. The business I am protesting is a maker of enviromentally safe teddy bears that make children smarter and more confident through learning programs and encouragement. My speech borderlines on the point that if people aren't incited to destroy the ediface of the complex I very well might do so my self, and seeing this, various customers and clients have decided that they'd rather let kids be stupid and self-concious than brave a mad man.
So in closing. Freedom of speech is assured in this country. Trying to be like Ghandi, or MLK Jr. is admirable, but if you're resorting to being a loud and obnoxious prick yourself then you have more or less failed and faultered in their footsteps. Words are incredibly powerful, but despite a prevelance of places to practice and perfect speech most people just resort to being somewhere they can't be missed and raving like a lunatic. If you are less eloquent than a stand up comic, don't bother showing up to a protest, no one needs to hear you be a retard in person, and no one will cry when you're beaten over the head in attempt to remove you from our everyday lives.
mob rule? The 'mob' as you and Plato himself would call it isn't as bad as you think if one could do a cursery elimination of certain factors, the primary being people who can control and sway the mob to their own ends.
What you are refering to, or what you seem to be referring to, has never happened, you can say it has, but a historical anylisis will hold that most cases involved a charismatic leader, an oligarchy, or some other such entity driving the mob entity to a very narrow and disastrous end.
As industrialized nations become increasingly populous and educated it more likely a beneficial element to have 'mob' rule, an educated citizenry participating in the workings of government, than an elite or moneyed group of people sowing fear, distrust, and anxiety among the 'mob'(more commonly known as yourself and your neighbors).
Basically the only way, in todays world, that you can condemn mob rule is to say "The mob, or the group of people I am in, is too stupid to guide itself. I am therefore of the opinion that someone should tell me what to do," at which point in time logicians heads start exploding.
Though seriously, are you worried about the dumbing down that comes with being "casual" or being "an idiot". I have met some seriously hardcore retards that played for more hours a week than I thought was possible for anyone but a 27 year old-millionaire-paralyzed-asocial-eunuch. Ensuring that people have to be basically competant at lvl 70 or 60 or whatever by requiring them to spend days of their life getting gear to do something at the end game is pretty sad. Computer games do have an element of skill and WoW was never all that steep. Situational awareness, key-bindings, spell choice, were all fairly dumbed down for everyone but the most insane PvPers, and that was always the case. Being "casual" and competed was never a problem, it was being "stupid" and addicted that killed the game for most.
I mean honestly? After you got to 70? After you got to 60 and had to wait for 70? During all those days you couldn't raid or see new content because of drama, lack of people, lack of gear. Did you really enjoy most of your gaming experience? Was it fun? Take away the boss kills, the hard fought ones, and factor in everything else.
But also it is probably the case that most people subscribed today were hardcore at one point, invested a lot of time and money and refuse to let their character go because of that.
Why do people need to grind to see the ecounters end game? Why can't (for fun, remember fun?) they just have a scalable difficulty for raid dungeons? I don't want them to tweak the number of people that can go in, I want gear proportionate to the effort put in by those involved. Instead of one or two epics ( a crime even on the normal setting) an easy mode should drop a ton of blues, truly each boss in a raid should drop enough loot for at least a third of the people in the raid to get geared up, if not half (a far more reasonable number).
There is more complex, rich, and RPG content that is completely inaccessible to most people at the end game than there is in the rest of the world. It's a damn crime.
You're playing an MMO. You have a job, a family, and friends (it's possible). You have one level 70 (whatever the end game cap is). Given your time constraints you do not have time to level another toon, but you'd like to explore the majority of the game as a different class. What pray-tell is the reasoning of making someone go through the first 20 or 30 levels without access to most of the abilities and a mandatory tutorial experience to get another end game character? I killed every boss in ever dungeon before end game, do I really need to kill them again on my priest/mage/warlock? I won't being wearing any of the stuff five levels past when I got it. Do I really have to be a whipping boy on PvP servers for disillusioned 70s who need to take out their excessive amounts of free time camping my 40 level lower toon for the duration of my leveling experience?
If there was a means for me to play all the classes towards the end game (where players actually can still be found in the double digits, "Barrens chat...is anyone there?") I'd play the game probably ten years because I would have a variety if characters and play styles to utilize when I'm not working, on vacation, sleeping etc.
On another note...Hey, look at that, we have 25 people online to raid, but no healers, or no tanks or, whatever. We do have them? Fantastic. Can we play the raid dungeon on a non-heroic (easy) mode first to get the feel of the encounter? Ah, I see, well then, glad to know a sense of realism is kept in place where I can talk to gnome named after a star trek character and standing next to a teleporter. Wouldn't want myself to actually play the parts of the game I paid for now would I?
In 2.4 Blizzard released the Isle of Quel'dollar. Apparently it is the island where all the gold farmers go when they die, because without an epic mount or even a functional cognitive system you can do quests that give you hordes of gold. These quests range from "kill this type of thing" to "fly on this and bomb that" with an occasion al "zap this, or kill that to get this item".
Not saying I expected a lot or wanted it but I wouldn't say this was a huge patch for non-raiders. In fact it was sadly the first added content patch (major one at least) that I can remember that didn't have a significant world event associated with it (Diremaul was met with little fanfair). AQ and the scourage were both rather neat, and I really enjoyed the missions to go out with friends and kill invading NPCs. Now the invading npcs are permanent, but you're only going to encounter them on QD and they aren't particularly threatening. It was basically the Burning Crusade opening all over again with about 1/100th of the effort applied.
I realize a lot of big craporations release games that need to be patched later because of shoddy production, but you can go ahead and flux yourself on the old "consoles are better quality because they HAVE to work" crap.
Comparing old school PC games to cartridge based consoles is apples to retard babies. You'd patch the game because the system changed not because the game was released not up-to-snuff. The more the OS changes/sucks the harder a game dev. team has to work to make sure it doesn't bork, and it's the reason they want you to report every crash.
It's the difference between dancing on a hard wood floor or a jenga tower. The latter being more exciting but more likely to involve catastophic failure.
Which is a mistake because not even evil people think of themselves as such. You're right in that there is absolutely no reason that anyone in the world should be thirsty, hungry, or suffering from just about anything we have forgotten about as a life threatening illness in America. It's money though. The driving need to have something extra, to raising yourself that much further above your fellow man, is the only reason people are dying of the things you bemoan.
So what then is the moral, the wisdom from this fact? World of Warcraft imitates life. The richest people, and the people who make the game suck for the rest of us, are the assholes that have nothing better to do than to get more money and beat us down with their god damn twink corporations. Fuck the twinks.
Giving in to Taiwan would be like having let the Southern States form their own country. Furthermore, if your into "human rights" look at how Taiwans native tribes were treated by the Taiwanese Hans who took over.
You're joking right? You have to be, no one asserts history in such a grandiose manner and then fails so utterly. The only way this could be referenced to South in the Civil war is if Abraham Lincoln had, on a whimb, promised to go to the south and kill every Democrat for the good of the Union. Then you can say "Giving in to Taiwan would be the same (as that)". Believe it or not, despite the incredibly treasonous acts of the South, they were not tried as such and shot/hanged at wars end.
Also, you're full of it if embezzling a couple million dollars in Taiwan compares to corruption in China. China does not need to cheat to do the same thing, policy is pretty much whatever the party feels like, which makes such wonderously quaint ideas such as banking/currency adjustment moot over there. Sure if you are a no-name management fellow at factory where pesticides get into food or lead into toys you might be shot, but you also might be shot because you had nothing to do with it and the guy who did is higher up and gives the killing orders.
Mind you I'm not saying Taiwan is perfect nor am I saying China is all that evil. Using a true historical perspective draconian leaderships have always been the most successful in Asia, not that I think they still need one, but you can't really find a populous country in the region that doesn't have a list of human rights/democracy issues a mile long. Pitting one against another in a test of morals is like arguing the merits of banality over boredom.
I really wouldn't recommend not taking medication. Not only is there nothing that can cure it, but such people have a long history of murdering that predates psychotropic medication.
I mean, I hate to refer to the above post in the third person plural but damn. How is that organization still going? I'm all for competant evil empires with scary bad ass powers and personel, but forum trolling? I...wow.
Really I'm just left with one bothering question; Why couldn't you give me your money instead of to Scientology? I've got various-meters that I can strap to you, make them beep, and write things about to give you an interpretation that makes you think your getting spiritually better. If the classic crazy lady with a crystal ball purging spirits is more your style I can cross dress (extra-charge).
Hell I even have a cool sci-fi fantasy world in my head that can describe an origin for EVERYTHING and I can tell you not to take any medication that would cause you to become aware of your diminished capacity, as it would probably hurt my income from you.
Seriously, all that bullshit they're telling you about how to do well in the world that sound like terribly bad ideas on their face and really only have the depth of a child philosophizing about life, I can tell you the same things for cheaper. I also can tell you to kick the ass of anyone who defies me because it's in my best interests, later when you're caught I'll lie (as you should too) because that's A-OK.
Are you a yuppy that has a lot of cash and thinks that the high times of human civilization lie somewhere between blood letting and taking massive doses of vitamins ignoring the actual advances that have raised life expectancies to their highest since Noah, then boy howdy I've got a bank account you can start filling right away.
You say that companies would sell the wonder widgets now and screw all for the future, but nothing in corporate history really supports. You're using the percieved fallacy that companies only care about the immediate revenue. That's very true if your name is "Middle-class-Bob" but when it comes to product they stick with the same thing for as long as possible and really only desire to kill competition. Them buying such a technology and hiding it or ruining/discrediting the people making it are far more likely to occur than them selling. Do you really need to look any further than your mp3 collection and the numerous RIAA articles to see how much industry leadership resists change?
Speaking of long term, car companies, fast food, and wal-mart all started their market conquests with the idea to not have the best product, service, or technology, but rather to make sure there tech and product was the only one that mattered.
I'm frankly baffeled as to how you criticized the personal opinions you quoted from his website when actual on air news casts from CNN verge very nearly on everything he said, or in a similarly extreme manner. Your opinion that the network had every right to fire him is completely true. They have every write to be idiots too, and he can be pissed that they are idiots.
There isn't a thing I really like about CNN's standpoint here from an American cultural sense. They demand conformity, offer no security for conformists, and use fear and vagueness on their audience and cast alike. It's like taking asian focus on the society, blending with a distopian thought police, taking away the social safety net, and keeping only the American trait of being a bunch of self proclaimed jack asses. Being upset about this guy writing his personal opinions somewhere it is plainly not endorsed by CNN (otherwise, they'd be on CNN huh-ha) is just an area they have no fucking right to go. Don't give me a bullshit line about them being justified, they aren't because they haven't paid him to think exactly what they want him to think. This kind of shit is the sort we revolted against and we support revolts against. It's who we are.
Again, they had the right, but as a consequence people have a right to look at their decision and say "Fuck off" for them being pricks in suits with a wad of cash up their ass.
In summation, don't be a fucking tool and express pride in other tools. It's like the president saying something absolutely retarded and acting like he's the only one that makes sense.
But I do own an iPod. Before that though I burned cd's with music and ripped them fine, but I forget how long ago that was. It's a marginal convenience at times, but now that I am in Japan it's really nice, the only really annoying thing from an international perspective is that they still attempt regionalization. Don't get me started on video game downloads outside of the US or DVD player regionalization. It's all fucked up.
Take everyone who is playing WoW and hook them up matrix style to their PC. Simply feed them with IVs and suck their nerd warmth to provide for people who do something more than waste power on extra FPS in a damn mmorpg.
most people on this forum are criticizing it for all the right reasons and not because it necessarily disagrees with their particular anecdotal experience killing legions of fiction people (though I'd point out that again this should provide a hint about the validity of any such study given that your average die-hard-finger-twitching-nerd has played more violent video games for more years than your average poverty-level or below-poverty level violent offender has actually been alive).
This research is not saying that this or that individual will necessarily be more violent after having played a video game; but it says that there is a measurable effect on average.
So basically you are saying that it will not necessarily be this way but on the average it is? Well fantabulous, next time you want to make it sound like you have a noncommittal adherence to a theory just shove your foot in your mouth without pressing 'submit.' In case you missed what he was actually saying, it was something a little more extreme than your interpretation;
"Exposure to violent electronic media has a larger effect than all but one other well known threat to public health. The only effect slightly larger than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer," he said in a statement.
I'm sorry but a social scientist who says that is looking for one thing; recognition.
"The research clearly shows that exposure to virtual violence increases the risk that both children and adults will behave aggressively," said Huesmann, adding it could have a particularly detrimental effect on the well-being of youngsters.
Mind you I'm not arguing that children should be force fed psychotic images and I think there's a certain level where developers should wonder if they are doing something because it is a good game or if it is just going to be the game males want to buy so they can show their friends they have this holy grail of obscenity (though I'd point out that children aren't exactly earning the kind of money that buys these games which even a little parental screening could determine are a little mature). Still this kind of polemic will only do two things: discredit social scientists doing sound case studies or causing hysteria among parents who are overly paranoid and think their child will try to knife them if they see an advertisement for the Wii.
Your argument games are violence simulators is sound on paper, given that on paper one can describe things and people can further imagine a real world example of the action, which is far removed from a square screen third person shitty graphical interpretation of a fake world that video games actually have been for the better part of this controversy. I remember Columbine and the fact that the kids played Doom was mentioned as a cause and the huge bloody arsenal of weapons was apparently just the symptom. Why? Because very few kids in America have an arsenal of weapons, but they do have their video games which were then and are now advanced violence simulators compared to the benign every day goings on of public school. Remember kids if a bully beats the crap outta but doesn't play video games he's just traditional, but if you play video games and aren't violent you're time bomb. Have you ever seen a kid try a mortal kombat move? I haven't, but I have seen kids emulate steroid pumping "wrestlers" and they seem to make it by as family entertainment (which is so beyond fucked up it borders on cancerous).
I find it funny that GTA is the poster child of violence effecting kids because if it's aping of gang culture but that vehicular manslaughter isn't in the news unless a disgruntled spouse gets a wild hair behind the wheel. Seriously you argue that a large percentage, or I'm sorry a significantly underestimated, portion of soci
that you say "Sparta failed too in the end" like they weren't over taken by another military force. Why don't you mention that the violent psychotics of Sparta lasted for over 300 years as their martial state? It isn't that I disagree with you but given any context of what Sparta was it's a completely and utterly retarded thing to say. If I wanted to make a simillarly retarded statement I would have to look at something like drinking water and imply that if you drink water you'll only live to maybe at most a 110 years (I suppose the human record is obve 120 but I also think that is disputed). Next time before you say something that sounds scholarly because it references history, or some popular movie, you comprehend the full meaning of it.
a level of tactical training that they really don't. Don't get me wrong there are some games out there that have extremely detailed acts of violence (or so I'm told I've never bothered to pay money for something selling ONLY on violence like manhunt) but most of the violence in violent video games if fantastical at best and excessively gory at worst. Honestly if you took out the copious amounts of blood from some games they would seem a little more violent than an episode of Friends with nerf guns. Look at the most popular violent video games and you are either playing the equivilant of watching endless reruns of Saving Private Ryan, or the equivilant of watching endless reruns of Star Wars (the crappier trilogy sadly). Just because it is slightly less boring because you are actively PRESSING BUTTONS as opposed to just sitting on your arse seems to be a rather moot point.
If I sound offended or defensive on the issue it is because I am both offended by it and defensive of video games because I really do think it is the same as trying to treat the symptom and not the disease. Is your child playing a violent video game with a devotion that borders on the religious? Then I would say you should ween them off of that. At the vary least try installing a sun-lamp in their room to help combat the lack of vitamin D. I suppose you could argue that modern controllers have controllers with trigger buttons but where does that factor in with the physical violence? Has Remmington come out with a "lil slugger" baseball bat-shotgun combo? Was there a lot of violent media during the civil war? Obviously I'm being facetious with that question but seriously at what point did people suddenly think violence came from video games rather than people being assholes? Playing devils advocate is all well and good but playing paranoid yuppy's advocate just makes society more paranoid and yuppy like.
and violent crime? I mean this thing about violent video games has been going on since 2D sprites battled each other in grainy death matches on 16 bit machines and probably before that. While I appreciate the power of violent ideas and concepts, they really aren't anywhere near the horror of modern warfare.
Buying easily purchased items in one town and hawking them the next town over for insane prices because only a fool would dare traverse the pirate infested road between them? Also, when I do need money I can just tool about in the frontier ganking asshole pirates for their cash before I upgrade my leet ride. That sounds awesome, I'll catch you homicidal jerkwads later (in my huge plasma cannon sights, lawls, noreally.)
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Not even a fucking paragraph setup for the obligatory christian jesus joke and this gets modded to five? Insightful of all things? How? What cave have you people been in? Can I get modded 5 insightful if I start ripping off Jim Carry jokes?
Sorry what I meant to say wasy "Oh ho ho, rather good shot that was. Quick, hit me with one about creationists before 2005 rolls about."
While someone listed other designations in a more technical manner (ie, a list), I find that the only organizations that spring to mind as a "cult" to me are the ones that have an overbearing control on their members. It's really hard to call a lot of buddists cultists, and if you were to inform a catholic that his religion is and was a cult, you'd first have to find him, and if you waited at church on sunday or saturday you'd still be hard pressed to do that.
People by and large don't have time for religions that double as cults. Religion is fine by itself, it releaves a lot of the stress caused by metaphysical questions most of us can't answer or would really rather not. That's everyones right and more power to them. Going the extra step of telling people you are right and they are wrong is saddening, but also AOK, they have their opinion and you're an asshole, fair enough. It's the additional effort of keeping people who listen to you indoctrinated and controlled for the duration of their life with no escape and no agency that scares the shit of most free thinking people, and it also happens to be something scientology has shown itself capable of doing.
I am a customer. You are a business owner. Your business is seen by me to be hurtful to the environment/freedoms/poor people/cute kittens. I thusly get a placard and go protest your business front in an obnoxious and disruptive way. People can't go into your establishment without seeing me, and they can hear me inside.
Do I have the right to continue if a policeman has informed me of the disruptive nature of my act? I am protesting in a public place in a non-violent albiet loud and obscene manner.
Further information, I (the protestor)am in fact shit nuts and off my meds. The business I am protesting is a maker of enviromentally safe teddy bears that make children smarter and more confident through learning programs and encouragement. My speech borderlines on the point that if people aren't incited to destroy the ediface of the complex I very well might do so my self, and seeing this, various customers and clients have decided that they'd rather let kids be stupid and self-concious than brave a mad man.
So in closing. Freedom of speech is assured in this country. Trying to be like Ghandi, or MLK Jr. is admirable, but if you're resorting to being a loud and obnoxious prick yourself then you have more or less failed and faultered in their footsteps. Words are incredibly powerful, but despite a prevelance of places to practice and perfect speech most people just resort to being somewhere they can't be missed and raving like a lunatic. If you are less eloquent than a stand up comic, don't bother showing up to a protest, no one needs to hear you be a retard in person, and no one will cry when you're beaten over the head in attempt to remove you from our everyday lives.
mob rule? The 'mob' as you and Plato himself would call it isn't as bad as you think if one could do a cursery elimination of certain factors, the primary being people who can control and sway the mob to their own ends.
What you are refering to, or what you seem to be referring to, has never happened, you can say it has, but a historical anylisis will hold that most cases involved a charismatic leader, an oligarchy, or some other such entity driving the mob entity to a very narrow and disastrous end.
As industrialized nations become increasingly populous and educated it more likely a beneficial element to have 'mob' rule, an educated citizenry participating in the workings of government, than an elite or moneyed group of people sowing fear, distrust, and anxiety among the 'mob'(more commonly known as yourself and your neighbors). Basically the only way, in todays world, that you can condemn mob rule is to say "The mob, or the group of people I am in, is too stupid to guide itself. I am therefore of the opinion that someone should tell me what to do," at which point in time logicians heads start exploding.
Though seriously, are you worried about the dumbing down that comes with being "casual" or being "an idiot". I have met some seriously hardcore retards that played for more hours a week than I thought was possible for anyone but a 27 year old-millionaire-paralyzed-asocial-eunuch. Ensuring that people have to be basically competant at lvl 70 or 60 or whatever by requiring them to spend days of their life getting gear to do something at the end game is pretty sad. Computer games do have an element of skill and WoW was never all that steep. Situational awareness, key-bindings, spell choice, were all fairly dumbed down for everyone but the most insane PvPers, and that was always the case. Being "casual" and competed was never a problem, it was being "stupid" and addicted that killed the game for most.
I mean honestly? After you got to 70? After you got to 60 and had to wait for 70? During all those days you couldn't raid or see new content because of drama, lack of people, lack of gear. Did you really enjoy most of your gaming experience? Was it fun? Take away the boss kills, the hard fought ones, and factor in everything else.
But also it is probably the case that most people subscribed today were hardcore at one point, invested a lot of time and money and refuse to let their character go because of that.
Why do people need to grind to see the ecounters end game? Why can't (for fun, remember fun?) they just have a scalable difficulty for raid dungeons? I don't want them to tweak the number of people that can go in, I want gear proportionate to the effort put in by those involved. Instead of one or two epics ( a crime even on the normal setting) an easy mode should drop a ton of blues, truly each boss in a raid should drop enough loot for at least a third of the people in the raid to get geared up, if not half (a far more reasonable number).
There is more complex, rich, and RPG content that is completely inaccessible to most people at the end game than there is in the rest of the world. It's a damn crime.
You're playing an MMO. You have a job, a family, and friends (it's possible). You have one level 70 (whatever the end game cap is). Given your time constraints you do not have time to level another toon, but you'd like to explore the majority of the game as a different class. What pray-tell is the reasoning of making someone go through the first 20 or 30 levels without access to most of the abilities and a mandatory tutorial experience to get another end game character? I killed every boss in ever dungeon before end game, do I really need to kill them again on my priest/mage/warlock? I won't being wearing any of the stuff five levels past when I got it. Do I really have to be a whipping boy on PvP servers for disillusioned 70s who need to take out their excessive amounts of free time camping my 40 level lower toon for the duration of my leveling experience?
If there was a means for me to play all the classes towards the end game (where players actually can still be found in the double digits, "Barrens chat...is anyone there?") I'd play the game probably ten years because I would have a variety if characters and play styles to utilize when I'm not working, on vacation, sleeping etc.
On another note...Hey, look at that, we have 25 people online to raid, but no healers, or no tanks or, whatever. We do have them? Fantastic. Can we play the raid dungeon on a non-heroic (easy) mode first to get the feel of the encounter? Ah, I see, well then, glad to know a sense of realism is kept in place where I can talk to gnome named after a star trek character and standing next to a teleporter. Wouldn't want myself to actually play the parts of the game I paid for now would I?
In 2.4 Blizzard released the Isle of Quel'dollar. Apparently it is the island where all the gold farmers go when they die, because without an epic mount or even a functional cognitive system you can do quests that give you hordes of gold. These quests range from "kill this type of thing" to "fly on this and bomb that" with an occasion al "zap this, or kill that to get this item". Not saying I expected a lot or wanted it but I wouldn't say this was a huge patch for non-raiders. In fact it was sadly the first added content patch (major one at least) that I can remember that didn't have a significant world event associated with it (Diremaul was met with little fanfair). AQ and the scourage were both rather neat, and I really enjoyed the missions to go out with friends and kill invading NPCs. Now the invading npcs are permanent, but you're only going to encounter them on QD and they aren't particularly threatening. It was basically the Burning Crusade opening all over again with about 1/100th of the effort applied.
I realize a lot of big craporations release games that need to be patched later because of shoddy production, but you can go ahead and flux yourself on the old "consoles are better quality because they HAVE to work" crap. Comparing old school PC games to cartridge based consoles is apples to retard babies. You'd patch the game because the system changed not because the game was released not up-to-snuff. The more the OS changes/sucks the harder a game dev. team has to work to make sure it doesn't bork, and it's the reason they want you to report every crash. It's the difference between dancing on a hard wood floor or a jenga tower. The latter being more exciting but more likely to involve catastophic failure.
Which is a mistake because not even evil people think of themselves as such. You're right in that there is absolutely no reason that anyone in the world should be thirsty, hungry, or suffering from just about anything we have forgotten about as a life threatening illness in America. It's money though. The driving need to have something extra, to raising yourself that much further above your fellow man, is the only reason people are dying of the things you bemoan.
So what then is the moral, the wisdom from this fact? World of Warcraft imitates life. The richest people, and the people who make the game suck for the rest of us, are the assholes that have nothing better to do than to get more money and beat us down with their god damn twink corporations. Fuck the twinks.
You're joking right? You have to be, no one asserts history in such a grandiose manner and then fails so utterly. The only way this could be referenced to South in the Civil war is if Abraham Lincoln had, on a whimb, promised to go to the south and kill every Democrat for the good of the Union. Then you can say "Giving in to Taiwan would be the same (as that)". Believe it or not, despite the incredibly treasonous acts of the South, they were not tried as such and shot/hanged at wars end.
Also, you're full of it if embezzling a couple million dollars in Taiwan compares to corruption in China. China does not need to cheat to do the same thing, policy is pretty much whatever the party feels like, which makes such wonderously quaint ideas such as banking/currency adjustment moot over there. Sure if you are a no-name management fellow at factory where pesticides get into food or lead into toys you might be shot, but you also might be shot because you had nothing to do with it and the guy who did is higher up and gives the killing orders.
Mind you I'm not saying Taiwan is perfect nor am I saying China is all that evil. Using a true historical perspective draconian leaderships have always been the most successful in Asia, not that I think they still need one, but you can't really find a populous country in the region that doesn't have a list of human rights/democracy issues a mile long. Pitting one against another in a test of morals is like arguing the merits of banality over boredom.
I really wouldn't recommend not taking medication. Not only is there nothing that can cure it, but such people have a long history of murdering that predates psychotropic medication.
I mean, I hate to refer to the above post in the third person plural but damn. How is that organization still going? I'm all for competant evil empires with scary bad ass powers and personel, but forum trolling? I...wow. Really I'm just left with one bothering question; Why couldn't you give me your money instead of to Scientology? I've got various-meters that I can strap to you, make them beep, and write things about to give you an interpretation that makes you think your getting spiritually better. If the classic crazy lady with a crystal ball purging spirits is more your style I can cross dress (extra-charge). Hell I even have a cool sci-fi fantasy world in my head that can describe an origin for EVERYTHING and I can tell you not to take any medication that would cause you to become aware of your diminished capacity, as it would probably hurt my income from you. Seriously, all that bullshit they're telling you about how to do well in the world that sound like terribly bad ideas on their face and really only have the depth of a child philosophizing about life, I can tell you the same things for cheaper. I also can tell you to kick the ass of anyone who defies me because it's in my best interests, later when you're caught I'll lie (as you should too) because that's A-OK. Are you a yuppy that has a lot of cash and thinks that the high times of human civilization lie somewhere between blood letting and taking massive doses of vitamins ignoring the actual advances that have raised life expectancies to their highest since Noah, then boy howdy I've got a bank account you can start filling right away.
You say that companies would sell the wonder widgets now and screw all for the future, but nothing in corporate history really supports. You're using the percieved fallacy that companies only care about the immediate revenue. That's very true if your name is "Middle-class-Bob" but when it comes to product they stick with the same thing for as long as possible and really only desire to kill competition. Them buying such a technology and hiding it or ruining/discrediting the people making it are far more likely to occur than them selling. Do you really need to look any further than your mp3 collection and the numerous RIAA articles to see how much industry leadership resists change? Speaking of long term, car companies, fast food, and wal-mart all started their market conquests with the idea to not have the best product, service, or technology, but rather to make sure there tech and product was the only one that mattered.
I'm frankly baffeled as to how you criticized the personal opinions you quoted from his website when actual on air news casts from CNN verge very nearly on everything he said, or in a similarly extreme manner. Your opinion that the network had every right to fire him is completely true. They have every write to be idiots too, and he can be pissed that they are idiots. There isn't a thing I really like about CNN's standpoint here from an American cultural sense. They demand conformity, offer no security for conformists, and use fear and vagueness on their audience and cast alike. It's like taking asian focus on the society, blending with a distopian thought police, taking away the social safety net, and keeping only the American trait of being a bunch of self proclaimed jack asses. Being upset about this guy writing his personal opinions somewhere it is plainly not endorsed by CNN (otherwise, they'd be on CNN huh-ha) is just an area they have no fucking right to go. Don't give me a bullshit line about them being justified, they aren't because they haven't paid him to think exactly what they want him to think. This kind of shit is the sort we revolted against and we support revolts against. It's who we are. Again, they had the right, but as a consequence people have a right to look at their decision and say "Fuck off" for them being pricks in suits with a wad of cash up their ass. In summation, don't be a fucking tool and express pride in other tools. It's like the president saying something absolutely retarded and acting like he's the only one that makes sense.
But I do own an iPod. Before that though I burned cd's with music and ripped them fine, but I forget how long ago that was. It's a marginal convenience at times, but now that I am in Japan it's really nice, the only really annoying thing from an international perspective is that they still attempt regionalization. Don't get me started on video game downloads outside of the US or DVD player regionalization. It's all fucked up.
Take everyone who is playing WoW and hook them up matrix style to their PC. Simply feed them with IVs and suck their nerd warmth to provide for people who do something more than waste power on extra FPS in a damn mmorpg.
most people on this forum are criticizing it for all the right reasons and not because it necessarily disagrees with their particular anecdotal experience killing legions of fiction people (though I'd point out that again this should provide a hint about the validity of any such study given that your average die-hard-finger-twitching-nerd has played more violent video games for more years than your average poverty-level or below-poverty level violent offender has actually been alive).
This research is not saying that this or that individual will necessarily be more violent after having played a video game; but it says that there is a measurable effect on average.
So basically you are saying that it will not necessarily be this way but on the average it is? Well fantabulous, next time you want to make it sound like you have a noncommittal adherence to a theory just shove your foot in your mouth without pressing 'submit.' In case you missed what he was actually saying, it was something a little more extreme than your interpretation;
"Exposure to violent electronic media has a larger effect than all but one other well known threat to public health. The only effect slightly larger than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer," he said in a statement.
I'm sorry but a social scientist who says that is looking for one thing; recognition.
"The research clearly shows that exposure to virtual violence increases the risk that both children and adults will behave aggressively," said Huesmann, adding it could have a particularly detrimental effect on the well-being of youngsters.
Mind you I'm not arguing that children should be force fed psychotic images and I think there's a certain level where developers should wonder if they are doing something because it is a good game or if it is just going to be the game males want to buy so they can show their friends they have this holy grail of obscenity (though I'd point out that children aren't exactly earning the kind of money that buys these games which even a little parental screening could determine are a little mature). Still this kind of polemic will only do two things: discredit social scientists doing sound case studies or causing hysteria among parents who are overly paranoid and think their child will try to knife them if they see an advertisement for the Wii.
Your argument games are violence simulators is sound on paper, given that on paper one can describe things and people can further imagine a real world example of the action, which is far removed from a square screen third person shitty graphical interpretation of a fake world that video games actually have been for the better part of this controversy. I remember Columbine and the fact that the kids played Doom was mentioned as a cause and the huge bloody arsenal of weapons was apparently just the symptom. Why? Because very few kids in America have an arsenal of weapons, but they do have their video games which were then and are now advanced violence simulators compared to the benign every day goings on of public school. Remember kids if a bully beats the crap outta but doesn't play video games he's just traditional, but if you play video games and aren't violent you're time bomb. Have you ever seen a kid try a mortal kombat move? I haven't, but I have seen kids emulate steroid pumping "wrestlers" and they seem to make it by as family entertainment (which is so beyond fucked up it borders on cancerous).
I find it funny that GTA is the poster child of violence effecting kids because if it's aping of gang culture but that vehicular manslaughter isn't in the news unless a disgruntled spouse gets a wild hair behind the wheel. Seriously you argue that a large percentage, or I'm sorry a significantly underestimated, portion of soci
that you say "Sparta failed too in the end" like they weren't over taken by another military force. Why don't you mention that the violent psychotics of Sparta lasted for over 300 years as their martial state? It isn't that I disagree with you but given any context of what Sparta was it's a completely and utterly retarded thing to say. If I wanted to make a simillarly retarded statement I would have to look at something like drinking water and imply that if you drink water you'll only live to maybe at most a 110 years (I suppose the human record is obve 120 but I also think that is disputed). Next time before you say something that sounds scholarly because it references history, or some popular movie, you comprehend the full meaning of it.
a level of tactical training that they really don't. Don't get me wrong there are some games out there that have extremely detailed acts of violence (or so I'm told I've never bothered to pay money for something selling ONLY on violence like manhunt) but most of the violence in violent video games if fantastical at best and excessively gory at worst. Honestly if you took out the copious amounts of blood from some games they would seem a little more violent than an episode of Friends with nerf guns. Look at the most popular violent video games and you are either playing the equivilant of watching endless reruns of Saving Private Ryan, or the equivilant of watching endless reruns of Star Wars (the crappier trilogy sadly). Just because it is slightly less boring because you are actively PRESSING BUTTONS as opposed to just sitting on your arse seems to be a rather moot point.
If I sound offended or defensive on the issue it is because I am both offended by it and defensive of video games because I really do think it is the same as trying to treat the symptom and not the disease. Is your child playing a violent video game with a devotion that borders on the religious? Then I would say you should ween them off of that. At the vary least try installing a sun-lamp in their room to help combat the lack of vitamin D. I suppose you could argue that modern controllers have controllers with trigger buttons but where does that factor in with the physical violence? Has Remmington come out with a "lil slugger" baseball bat-shotgun combo? Was there a lot of violent media during the civil war? Obviously I'm being facetious with that question but seriously at what point did people suddenly think violence came from video games rather than people being assholes? Playing devils advocate is all well and good but playing paranoid yuppy's advocate just makes society more paranoid and yuppy like.
and violent crime? I mean this thing about violent video games has been going on since 2D sprites battled each other in grainy death matches on 16 bit machines and probably before that. While I appreciate the power of violent ideas and concepts, they really aren't anywhere near the horror of modern warfare.
Buying easily purchased items in one town and hawking them the next town over for insane prices because only a fool would dare traverse the pirate infested road between them? Also, when I do need money I can just tool about in the frontier ganking asshole pirates for their cash before I upgrade my leet ride. That sounds awesome, I'll catch you homicidal jerkwads later (in my huge plasma cannon sights, lawls, noreally.)
"Hey there sonny Jim, you love your violentastic video invigerations don'tcha?"
"Why yes I do Mr. Creepy sociologistpath!"
"Fantasmagorical. Here's a baseball bat. That child over there called you a 'wonderbat' what do you want to do to him?"
"I want to call him a 'double dumb wonderbat'."
"Dontcha wanna hit him with a baseball bat all video game violence like?"
"But I could go to jail, and also, I think he might hurt me."
"Oh, well don't worry about it. This is a sporting event type thing and you get points for beating him with the bat."
"So no jail... and he can't hit me back?"
"Sociopaths' honor"
"Weee! Smashy smashy!"
and auction off frequency ranges for broadcasting purposes? How is corporate collusion with government a good thing?