Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

That Stalin had a few good ideas.

At 10/19/13 08:01 PM, Fim wrote: Tea party republican defends being on Medicaid while opposing Medicaid

So? There are many situations where someone can use something while opposing it and not be a hypocrite.

For example a slave who does as they are told and eats the food given to them while opposing the institution of slavery is not a hypocrite even though technically their master is giving them food and they are contributing to the institution of slavery by being a good slave.

If someone who says "I will help push this car off the road if others agree to help" is not a hypocrite even if no one agrees to help and they do nothing.

In both these situations it is futile or at great personal cost for them to live by their "morals". I would say that they are living by their morals, it is just that their morals are more complex than just "don't do this, don't do that".

At 10/15/13 05:50 PM, Korriken wrote: Had Unga not bashed his brother Gokk over the head with a chunk of rock then had his way with Gokk's wife, then the Vikings would have been peaceful farmers

It might have postponed nordic adventurism for a few years but the march of progress and socioeconomic pressures would mean that Unga or someone like Unga would have eventually taken the opportunities presenting themselves.

Now in the case of Wilhelm II, things were changing quickly due to the industrial revolution and technological change, it was possible for an influential leader to hold things over until troubles passed by and change history.

At 10/14/13 03:41 PM, Camarohusky wrote: Meh, I've never been a fan of these "well this guy lead to the events that happened 20-30-40 and so on years later" claims.

If anyone had an impact it was Wilhelm II. He was definitely in a position to get his priorities straight and prevent Germany being dragged into a pointless war, a lesson we can all learn from.

Cynical side of me says he is the Iranian Obama, he is more diplomatic but only willing to make token measures in practice and when it comes to the crunch he will act like his predecessor.

Another side of me sees this as a change in Iranian political culture. Not everyone in a position of authority is safely within Khamenei's inner circle, these people are not directly controlled, they are the "subconscious" and the words that come out of the president's mouth influences their behavior. If the president is working to prevent Iran from seeming like a rogue state then they will believe this is what is right and proper and gradually adopt the same attitude.

At 9/9/13 12:31 PM, SteveGuzzi wrote: i knewthis thread would be nowhere near as scintillating as i had hoped.

was my post scintillating? was it even exuberant?

I think occupy wall street protestors are stupid and lazy but thinking about it, maybe that's not such a big deal. In the past a high school dropout could walk into a tire factory, get a job on minimum wage and pay off a home in 5 years whilst raising a family or afford university. Now it is an ordeal for most people to afford basic necessities.

There is no freedom anymore, there has to be a reason for this and all the politicians and economists are shills who never give any real answers.

yeah multiculturalism is dumb and just to make ppl feel better being a minority but there was no need to write a wall of text about it, maybe you're a racist

You have to be careful not to have a confirmation bias when thinking about such complex things. There are limits to everything. If your objective is to prove something, as opposed to figuring out the truth, then you will ignore the limits of what you are trying to prove. For instance if you say "tax is wrong", that is true up to a point but even that has limits, you need some taxes to maintain democratic institutions so the system doesn't collapse and turn into tyranny. You could say "killing is wrong" and that is true up to a point but what if terrorists then invaded the USA and we could only use non-lethal weapons to stop them?

I know you were just joking but lets look at the Obama telling people to burn down their house scenario, some people would burn their house down only very few and congress would unanimously impeach Obama or something after such a clear indication of insanity.

Lets look at the milgram experiment as well. That will help us think about this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

So it is better to find what those limits are, rather than to declare that one thing is bad in every situation. What if the independents are all swell and decide to form a party so they can win an election and get a president? Would you abandon them?

it might take more willpower for someone to watch their weight but there is no such thing as being "naturally fat", you are not a whale that needs blubber for insulation, you are a great ape from the jungle

There are many ways to organize these things and you have to look at the pros and cons to figure out what is the most effective.

There is the problem of who has the final say in government though. The average voter does not understand the finer details of various issues, this is not a problem when you can judge their effectiveness by their results, however when it comes to authority and executive power the "results" may weaken voters, you can't afford to have voters confused about what their rights are and whether authority is being abused. So you need a relatively simple way of electing a central government so that people can see when democracy is being undermined.

life is chemical reactions based on a framework of hydrocarbons in a solution of water

At first I thought "HOW DARE SOMEONE NOT LIKE ADVENTURE TIME", but then...

> I became a brony recently

At 3/1/13 11:39 PM, TheColourAwesome wrote: What the fuck is the matter with people?

That is what people do when there are no consequences to their actions. It is not necessarily malice, more like indifference.

Your body language, mannerisms, clothing and all sorts of things can put across the air that there will be consequences if they mess with you. Even if you're soft and fuzzy on the inside.

It is physically impossible for a flood to cover the world. So they must just be talking about populated areas. Also I have my doubts about all these legends.

Probably just a regular flood.

Or maybe the end of the ice age.

At 8/17/13 03:23 PM, brutalexcess wrote:
You are clearly an athiest

Me?????

and very skeptical when it comes to living with nature. Nature is evil? To a person who clearly wants this planet to be run by machines, yes. I hate machines, along with many scientists to this day.

You completely misunderstand!!! Nature isn't evil or good, it is just something that happened, it is like a rock or an oxygen atom. I don't want to the world to be run by machines, I want to be immortal and never suffer. I want all sapient beings to be immortal and never suffer. This can't be achieved by "nature".

Without nature, we are dead either way.

For the moment. Later on there is a real possibility civilization can replace nature with something better, in fact we will draw upon nature to develop this technology, so a little part of nature will live on.

Develop technology so we can live without nature? What sort of world are you living in...

A world where technology developing rapidly, beginning to rival the complexity of the natural world and where we can manipulate our DNA.

humans are stupid, so why have we got technology?

Because technology is just so useful, we grudgingly started to put our feeble minds towards it and we've had a lot of time to do so. Renaissance started 600 years ago.

Think of a scenario where there is not a single tree, no grass, no nothing, all of that green destroyed from this world, we have robots roaming the land

Not necessarily, once we are in complete control over nature we can control it. We can breed butterflies and watch as they emerge from their cocoons without having to see caterpillars being parasitized by wasp larvae.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMG-LWyNcAs&t=2m48s

Your opinion stays with you, and you should not force on others. Attempt to, and I will easily fall out of my comfort zone.

There are plenty of things in nature that would impose their will on you just for a meal.

IT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

It would actually be more of a burden for me to have to try and ensure everyone is biologically immortal. What will happen is you will be left behind and die of old age. I will tell myself "that is what he wanted, it was his freedom" but deep down I would know it would have been for the greater good if things had gone differently.

I suppose I could always clone you.

At 8/16/13 09:43 PM, brutalexcess wrote: Community of Contributions
We do not need computers or any technology to survive

What???? Technology is the foundation of the modern economy! There will be serfs and slaves again, you'll regret it.

Police
Legal Standards

They already have something like that, but they don't care, and they won't care about your idea either. Why haven't you found the root of the problem?

Educational Standards

Children are stupid and don't know what they need to learn, in fact parents and teachers are stupid too. That is why we need to diversify, but obviously we should put less emphasis on useless things like religious education, home economics, art, music and drama. PE however is the exception because people are fat and unhealthy, a healthy cardiovascular system means a healthy brain, if anything they should make them run up and down the playground 20 times each morning.

Medical Standards

Natural remedies is mostly pseudo-science, some herbs and spices have therapeutic properties but we can't be sure what their benefit is if all the "studies" are performed by snake oil salesmen. Also I'm pretty sure banning "man-made" medication in order to reduce life expectancy is evil, I don't know.

Reputation versus Money
I prefer communism

people already get employed based on their reputation. Communism ignores the practicality of things, it says we must try to centralize the means of production and all autonomy leads to evil, in reality everything has its limits, even the sacred government, and at a certain point it is a good idea to allow some autonomy.

don't make your community angry

What if the community is ethically wrong?

Ideas should be shared

So you spend millions researching a technology, but it gets given away and you can't make any money from your idea to pay back the loans.

Conclusion

Why don't you have malaria yet? Malaria is a part of nature. You can't claim to be a part of nature until you have malaria.

Nature is evil, we are sapient beings yet we only live about 70 years, many people aren't so lucky. Humans must develop technology so we can live without nature, then we can replace all nature with nanomachines or artificial life forms, then there will be no sapient being that suffers.

It's fine. This is a democracy, people should be free to choose a foreigner to run a section of the government if that's what they want. Like for instance an Italian running France, a Georgian running Russia or an Austria running Germany.

At 8/11/13 06:49 PM, supergandhi64 wrote:

At 8/11/13 06:00 PM, HibiscusMallow wrote: how does the law find out what happened without the appropriate documents?

what are you even talking about

--supergandhi64

word of mouth isn't good enough proof in a court of law, if you want to stop people taking advantage of drunk women you need to make it illegal to have sex with a blood alcohol content above 0.2 without documentation

At 8/11/13 07:06 PM, Warforger wrote: From the book of Revelations and Armageddon to Thomas Matlhus saying exactly what you're saying in the early 1800's.

Malthus was right, if the population grows to fit the resources then those resources get depleted what will happen? Maybe we won't be able to afford burgers, but then we will have to subsist on rations of GM supersoy food and krillmeal. We need to keep populations nice and low with family planning and maybe cut off countries that don't cooperate.

Also smart people did predict ww1, the great depression, ww2, cold war, collapse of the soviet union, dot com bubble, housing bubble, everything. It is just that no one will listen. There are smart people who are interested in the truth, then there are smart people interested in telling people what they want to hear. So we should start listening to them.

All these measures will ensure future populations are healthy, intelligent, in control over their own lives and happy.

At 8/11/13 05:58 PM, Warforger wrote: That's what they said 50 years ago, and 50 years before that, and 50 years before that, and 50 years before that..........

no they didn't, except about the war, and they were right about that

At 8/10/13 11:52 PM, satanbrain wrote: Idea- what if we all were hunter gatherers again?

wouldn't be enough food

At 8/11/13 05:59 AM, supergandhi64 wrote: i never said they'd decide . . . that's exactly the point. since intoxication lowers inhibition it's up to your to be considerate & respectful of their wishes instead of theirs alone when you're around drunk people.

--supergandhi64

how does the law find out what happened without the appropriate documents?

unite humanity under what?

the next 50 years will be a time of economic depression due to resource depletion, war, overpopulation and climate change yet also a period of extraordinary technological advances and global capitalism

At 8/10/13 04:43 AM, supergandhi64 wrote: you should consider what the person under the influence really would want were they sober

--supergandhi64

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content

How do they decide what they want to do before their alcohol content reaches 0.2%? Do they write it down on a piece of paper?

At 8/9/13 11:10 AM, Wriggle wrote: They pretty much just spy on me because of my beliefs.

They're still trying to suppress old southern ways after all these years.

We have to use land as effectively as possible, giving everyone small pots of land to work is not as efficient as having a big commercial farm.

there should be a law, no sex above an alcohol limit, everyone can carry around breathalizers

Obviously health standards should apply to GM like every other food. Also companies should be allowed to label their products as organic etcetera.

However companies shouldn't have to declare their food uses GM any more than they should have to declare it complies with holistic health or homeopathic medicine.