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What I think is funny is that people more or less have to not draw Obama darker than other people because they don't want to be accused of racism. But they're accused of racism.

At 2/27/09 02:27 AM, Dekagaru wrote: Zelot-types seem to be against it... untill they or somone they love could benefit from it. Then they have a "change of heart" or "see the light". Really makes me sick sometimes.

The "argument from self interest" is kind of weak to be perfectly honest. If I offered someone a million dollars of dirty money, a lot of them would take it and justify taking it. But that doesn't mean that it's okay to steal.

It seems like a somewhat affectionate term, in the same way that the Beach Boys used the word "little" to refer to their "little surfer girl".

I don't really see it as demeaning.

My understanding is that stem cells are harvested from embryos, not fetuses, so it's generally less morally ambiguous than abortion. With that said, I think that we have to take a cautious stance when we look at stem cell research. Is it okay to use human beings like that in research?

At 2/25/09 10:06 PM, blackattackbitch wrote:

At 2/25/09 05:39 PM, Al6200 wrote:

As in white nation? There is no white nation, so he can't be a white nationalist.

Yes, but a white nationalist wants there to be a white nation, even if none exists.

You can be a white supremacist, and I already said that there's nothing wrong with holding those views. Just don't be surprised at the repercussions and don't be surprised when I put all my logic into changing your views.

I'm not a white nationalist, on the condition that other people are not trying to push the political interests of their race.

I suspect no one here knows the true reason for Africans scoring lower in the IQ test, and neither do I. But does that matter, honestly? What purpose will that serve in the long run? What purpose will that serve in international politics? None, none at all. The ONLY purpose I can see this tidbit of information serving is to fuel the argument for racial supremacy.

To be perfectly honest I don't think that it has any use in policy at all. Everyone should be judged as an individual.

At 2/25/09 05:56 PM, Ericho wrote:

At 2/25/09 05:39 PM, Al6200 wrote:

He's not a white supremacist. He's a white nationalist. Big difference.

Which is?

A white supremacist thinks that the white race is better than other races. A white nationalist thinks that white people should create policy that acts in the collective interest of their race. While the two tend to coincide, it would be possible for someone to think that because white people are inferior to other races they need to group together into their own nations. Likewise one could believe that whites are superior to races but that policy should not discriminate (because everyone is an individual).

My personal view is that while race may correlate to intelligence, it still makes no sense to discriminate based off of race. Consider that height, good looks, and income all correlate with intelligence. But I don't think that a "Tall Power" movement would make one bit of sense.

What makes you think that this is the case? (If this were true, then average Africans raised in America would have American IQs).

I went to Wikipedia and it said that the countries that with the lowest IQs are African countries. And who says they don't have IQ's on the same level as white Americans?

G-loaded tests like the SAT show a gap of about one standard deviation. Twin studies show a significant heritability of IQ. It is still debated just how much of intelligence is heritable though.

At 2/25/09 09:57 AM, Ericho wrote:
Oh really? Maybe you might want to hear the statistical information that Asian countries have higher IQ's than that of America? Why aren't you an Asian supremist? And yes, the African countries do rank low,

He's not a white supremacist. He's a white nationalist. Big difference.

but that is because Africa is such a poor country it is hard to get good education. It has nothing to do with genes, only geography.

What makes you think that this is the case? (If this were true, then average Africans raised in America would have American IQs).

At 2/25/09 11:11 AM, Der-Lowe wrote: YES!

Dude. You know radiohead and Kraftwerk are touring south America?

At 2/25/09 06:49 AM, KemCab wrote: The problem with tying this system in with mass-energy equivalence is that you can't access much of the energy in mass itself. It's a good system but people's power demands will increase (especially for big business) and inflation will rise as it gets easier to create more power.

That's intended.

Of course, you can solve it by making one dollar equal more energy but it'll obviously be erratic enough as is.

I thought about making it equal to the amount of energy recoverable using state of the art technology (i.e, if you gave them a lump of coal as a 1 watt payment and coal plants are only 10% efficient then you'd give them 10 times that amount in coal).

The problem is that this would create a speculation market where people would trade coal and oil to make profits off of newer and more efficient engines.

The problem with debating the heritability of intelligence is that there's a positive feedback loop between genetics and environment. A person who is very intelligent will probably spend more time studying and thinking, in effect they create a stimulating environment.

Suppose that intelligence was 100% heritable, and there was a nation of people with a mean IQ of 80. Of course this country would fall into poverty very quickly. There would be a weak economy, poor schools, lots of abandonment, and a high poverty rate. People could easily make the argument that intelligence wasn't heritable at all, and that the people in this nation simply had a poor environment.

At 2/23/09 12:20 AM, n64kid wrote:

Uh why? All currency systems have drawbacks, and considering we abondoned the gold standard twice, something tells me that a backing of a monetary system with another asset seems to collapse.

The thing is that energy doesn't run out, but gold does.

Here's the problem. A government that is bound by this "Energy Standard" will have to send energy to other countries to have a balance of trade equilibrium, and governments CANNOT create money that is not backed by energy.

Why couldn't they spend their reserve currency on something other than energy?

Some problems-
-Energy can be expensive to export over our waters

Yeah, but we already do it on an epic scale (oil), so I don't see a big problem. Besides, a country might hold onto US currency and then just use it to buy goods and services.

-Say the grid goes down and we cannot print money

I'd imagine that a dollar would translate to a number of watts over a given period of time, rather than a single transfer.

-We have private companies producing energy, that is, the government does not own every source of power

I'd think that the government could just buy electricity from private producers.

-Not every nation has nuclear power

I think that every can have nuclear power. But even without nuclear power, a nation could still trade with the US and then use their currency to buy foreign goods or services or whatever.

-Excess energy may be produced to gain wealth, creating waste and lost opprotunity costs

You'd only have to have enough power to justify all of the currency that exists.

-How does the public convert their money into energy? Do they get energy rebates?

If someone wanted to exchange US currency for energy or whatever, it could be shipped over. I don't see how that's really any different than the current system, where China or whoever can use their reserves of American currency or T-bills to buy products or services from the US.

At 2/23/09 01:10 AM, Dawnslayer wrote: Let's do it. I'll be sure to build a working overunity device within the year and we can kill two or three birds with one stone.

No, seriously; for that system to work, think of how many more coal plants we would have to build. From an environmental perspective, I have to say no.

It's not like the government would have to build a ton of new coal plants. It would just have to have enough energy production capacity to justify the amount of money in circulation.

At 2/22/09 11:37 PM, Dawnslayer wrote:

The way Kev-o describes it, yes. But consider that he's been referring specifically to anarcho-syndicalism this whole time. I'm just talking syndicalism in general.

Point taken.

Now consider this: in a syndicalist economy, the "Syndicate of Medical Professionals" can argue to the other syndicates that a higher wage - say, $50 an hour - is necessary incentive to draw people to the field.

I don't see why the other syndicates wouldn't just try to get the highest wages for their own workers. If all the syndicates have the same bargaining power, then they should have similar funds for wages. If you give all the syndicates equal ability to demand higher wages, then the syndicates with the fewest employees should get the highest wages.

Another criticism comes to mind. Let's say we have a syndicate of type-writer manufacturers. Aren't they going to use their bargaining power to keep their business alive, even though it isn't necessary?

At the same time, the "Retailers' Syndicate" can not feasibly argue to pay a cart-pusher $50 an hour, because the job requires no training. Syndicalism often allies with anti-capitalist movements, but it is not necessarily socialist, communist, or anarchist itself. As I outlined in my last post, a meritocracy might actually be more feasible under this system if executed correctly.

The thing is that no one is stopping you or anyone else from creating these syndicates on your own. Go out, buy a McDonalds, and let your employees vote on everything. If it really works, then it should catch on. I'm not being sarcastic. It actually sounds like an interesting idea. I bet the fry cooks at McDonalds know a lot about how to run the business that the managers don't realize. But I doubt that there's too much more efficiency to be had. I worked as a fry cook, and the system was pretty good.

I've been reading some Austrian critiques of the current fiat money system, in which currency is not backed up by some commodity or precious metal. The problems with a gold based currency are that:

1. There's a fixed amount of gold, but we continuously become more productive and populous.
2. A lot of money is wasted on new ways of getting gold, as opposed to producing valuable things.
3. If a new supply of gold is suddenly discovered
4. Economists can't control the economy by increasing or decreasing the amount of money in circulation (some think that this is a good thing).

That got me thinking - what if we used an energy standard to back our currency, where one dollar is always fixed to a certain amount of energy? For example, you might make one dollar equal one watt year (which is about 10 kWh or 50 cents based on the current US dollar).

People would be able to use their money to buy goods, services, or whatever. But people would also be able to go to the government and ask to get their money exchanged for energy, in some form or another. For example, if someone turned in one dollar then they'd be given a guarantee for one watt of electricity over the course of a year (or a natural gas/coal/oil equivalent). To print more currency, the government would have to ensure that it has enough electrical capacity to back up the money supply (when the US had the gold standard we had enough gold to back up our currency).

The effect of this would be that the supply of currency would be tied to our ability to produce energy. The government wouldn't be able to print money willy nilly, but rather would not be able to print more money unless society actually became larger or more productive.

To me it seems like this system avoids the problems with fiat money and the problems with the gold standard. There is no huge economic incentive to mine gold or precious metals, which have no practical use - and there is not the problem of the inflation that comes with fiat money (or rather, the money supply expands as our energy supplies expand).

What do you guys think about creating a kilowatt standard for our currency?

At 2/22/09 10:54 PM, Dawnslayer wrote:

When did we start preaching equal wages across the board?

It seems like part of the idea of syndicalism is paying people relatively similar wages. Consider that a doctor might make around 200k (very rough, depends on what they go into), while a wal mart cart pusher makes less than 20k. That's a huge disparity in income, but to be honest it has to be that large to make people become doctors.

And no, I wouldn't. I'd get bored, restless, and depressed. The incentive to take a tougher job is (or should be) that it gives you a challenge and a purpose.

There's some element of truth to that. Consider math professors. They could probably be making crazy money as actuaries, in a job that requires 4 or so fewer years of schooling and is probably less intellectually demanding (the hours might be worse though). But instead they become math professors, because they have an intense passion for the topic.

By the way, guys, thank you for giving this thread the boost I was hoping for. :D

Thank you, for making an interesting thread. : P

Be honest - would you spend ten years of your life going to college to be a doctor if you could make the same amount of money pushing carts at Wal Mart?

At 2/21/09 08:21 AM, Kev-o wrote:

No competition means no exploitation and no greed. According to the link I posted, productivity in Anarchist Catalonia actually went up AFTER farms and factories were collectivized, and workers began to democratically-manage workplaces without hiearchial control.
There's a lot of information here: http://www.dam-iwa.org.uk/pamphlets/1992 /anarchist-economics.htm

Okay, if this is such a great idea - why don't you do it yourself and make billions?

At 2/22/09 12:24 PM, CBP wrote: First off, if you use Jesus you run the risk of alienating any atheist previously on your side.

Jesus was a historical person.

On the other side we have intelligent Christians who are really pissed at people using our Savior for their own personal reasons.

It's not like they "own" Jesus. Although only some people view him as divine, few thing that he didn't actually exist.

If you have half of a brain in your head you can understand that manipulating the image of someone who represents everything you have to scare the weak-minded into doing what you want is only going to turn away would be supporters who can tell the difference between the faithful and the opportunistic.

Did you seriously think that the ad appealed to Jesus in some way?

At 2/21/09 02:42 PM, fli wrote:

And the ad shows 3 wise men.

They also showed a coliseum. Obviously they used those different historical images to give us a sense of just how long two thousand years is.

To chuck this up as some sort of coincidence is really being coy...

No, it's being thoughtful and inquisitive. They obviously used Jesus's birth because it's a date that most people recognize and can associate as being "A long time ago". If you threw out "Gengis Khan" or "Founding of ancient Rome" or "Budda's birth", most people would not be able to conjure up a strong mental image of the time period.

Using God-- from the party who proclaimed themselves as the Party of God for several years no less-- for their own political gain is really despicable.

Show a source for this. Party of God? I have never once heard this used to describe the Republican party, even though I'm a member of the Republican party and have been quite involved.

Also, the ad had nothing to do with God. Jesus was a historical figure of immense significance, whether or not someone follows his teachings.

We had 8 years of that shit...

Really??? Show one case where the Bush administration used religion for political gain.

I'm glad people are lashing back at these sort of ads... like Elizabeth Dole's "Not Christian Enough" ads against Kay Hagan. God, I loved how that bitch got it real good up her wrinkly asshole...

Can you think of an event that happened roughly two thousand years ago that people know as well as Jesus's death? The closest thing might be Aristotle, but alas that changes the numbers and is less well known.

At 2/21/09 01:25 PM, Dante-Son-Of-Sparda wrote:

of course he got away with it. killing tens of thousands of people in Iraq but oh well.

I don't see how we can hold president's accountable for their errors unless you can demonstrate that they were acting with malice or ulterior motives.

The president has so much power that any mistake they make will probably end up indirectly killing people (like changing the healthcare system, or what have you) but we don't try them for murder in such a case.

At 2/20/09 10:48 PM, Christopherr wrote:

Of course, that wouldn't make much of a difference, because the demand for abortions has grown to the point where they are usually performed in abortion clinics. In other words, if a doctor doesn't agree with abortions, he never has to be in that specialty.

I'd be interested to know what most neuroscientists and OB-GYN's think about the rights to life and reproductive choice. It seems like they have the strongest grounding in the topic, and should be influential in deciding what our laws are like.

At 2/20/09 05:31 PM, Proteas wrote:

The only person here inimating racist intent here as far as pointing out Obama's inability to speak correctly is.... you.

So who's the racist again?

I was being sarcastic (I was probably being a bit too subtle too). When Bush was president, he was compared to a monkey because of his appearance, which is mostly genetic and outside of his control. And people constantly called him an idiot because of his accent and southern way of speaking.

If people did the same thing to Obama, calling him a monkey because of his appearance and calling him an idiot because he's from the inner city - there would extreme cries of racism.

At 2/20/09 04:44 PM, JoS wrote: We had Bushisms, so why shouldn't we poke fun at Obama for his misspeaks.

That's racist and highly offensive. Just because it's okay to compare Bush's appearance to a primate and call him an idiot because he has a Texas accent - does not mean that it's okay to point out Obama's mistakes.

At 2/19/09 08:33 PM, Truth wrote: "Girls would cover themselves up a lot more if they only knew how guys thought"

I would cover myself up a lot less if I knew how girls thought.

At 2/18/09 09:52 PM, heroicspatula wrote: I knew coming to Newgrounds was a smart thing to do.

I thank all of you who responded to my poll, because you've helped me reach my quota!! (hurray! Whoopee!)

I'll have the results of the poll sometime this weekend, and you guys/girls can see how it turned out.

Yep. Also if it helps at all, the GSS keeps statistics on all sorts of social issues. So you might be able to use that to see how the views on Newgrounds compare to the population at large (from what I see it looks like Newgrounds leans to the left somewhat).

lol. We could just make more kids. Sure, we'd lose a generation, but then teachers would get a year off.

It's win-win.

*Pulls out grenade*

At 2/16/09 09:59 PM, Proteas wrote:

This argument goes both ways, I'm afraid. Any "reduction" of sensation is purely a subjective claim, as no finite definition can be given to the reduced sensation that comes with circumcision.

*Lobs it into the air*

You could ask men who were circumsized as adults for medical reasons if they felt that it had a significant impact on their sexual functioning.

*A perfect hit!*

At 2/16/09 07:10 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

A coop system, even under capitalism, could exist... Infact, in some respects it already does. (Search fairtrade on wikipedia). If it was more economical than the division of labor it should spring up naturally... And yet it seems the only way for Syndicalism could take hold is by forcing all capitalist competitors out.

Right. And people only buy fair trade products because they feel guilty. They are not competitive.

I need four things from you guys. Your name(or a believable fake, I don't care), your age, your state (or country if non-American), and your answers to the poll(duh)

Oops. Forgot to provide this.

Alex Lamb, 18, Massachusetts.

At 2/16/09 09:44 PM, heroicspatula wrote:

What are(or were) your feeling towards the following:
1. The Iraq War when it began

SO

2. The Iraq War currently

S

(this seems like a strange flip flop, but the casualty levels in Iraq are quite low right now, and it seems silly to give up after all of the lives we've lost and resources we've invested. But it was still a dumb idea in the first place)

3. The proposed 900 billion dollar bailout plan

O

4. Gay and lesbian rights

N

5. Allowing Marijuana to become a legal substance

S

6. The closing of Guantanamo Bay prison

S

7. Abortion Rights

O

8. Religious Study(as in study of how Religion influenced art, literature, world leaders, etc) in school

SS

9. Universal health care programs

SS

10. Government taking a larger role in environmental protection

S

(for actual pollution and conservation, not trojan horses designed to destroy middle class America, like global warming)

At 2/16/09 12:35 AM, RommelTJ wrote:

Simply answer the following questions:

1. If you are from the USA, where does your family originally come from and how did they get here?

They emigrated from Germany.

2. Do you agree that every person has the right to migrate to find the means to sustain life? If you don't, why? If you do, are there limitations to these rights? Consider the situation of the Jews during and after WWII.

Yes, but there are limitations. Immigration lowers salaries in the United States and in many places has completely decimated the middle class.

3. Do you believe certain immigrants have a superior right to migrate?

Yes. A nuclear physicist should get priority over a peasant.

4. Consider an Arab refugee fleeing war, a Mexican family escaping poverty, and an Asian Computer Engineer seeking a better job? Which of these are more likely to get into the United States? What should our policy be?

The computer engineer should get first priority, then the Mexican, and finally the Arab.

5. Do you agree that a country has a right to regulate immigration and control it's borders?

Yes.

6. Do you believe immigration policy needs modification? What changes do you suggest? Do you think U.S. immigration policy is just and merciful? Why or why not?

We should set and enforce quotas that allow immigration into the US on the basis of merit.