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[wierd]

This story made me sad today.

(Blanket ban on all gun sales in chicago declared unconstitutional.)


More specifically, the comments section made me sad.

I'll be quite frank here. I see debates about gun control, (and similar absurdities), and have the following farce play out in my head:

"Gun Control" == "Preventing farts, by plugging buttholes"

A fart happens, and is completely unavoidable-- it HAS to happen-- as a consequence of what a person eats, when they eat it, and what microbes happen to be inside their bodies. That is simply the gist of it. Having a free and unobstructed keester hole just lets that fart sail right on out.

The rhetoric of the gun control advocate-- something along the lines of "If we restrict supply of guns, then we make it much harder for violent crime to be performed. Just think of all the lives we could save by simply banning guns!"-- basically translates to "If we obstruct the butthole, then we make it much harder for people to break wind. Think of all the relationships, friendships, and elevator rides we could save if only we completely banned farting!"

Then you have arguments like that fellow in the comments for that article-- "there is never a need for a gun! Guns are toys for children, adults have no need for guns!".  Again, this can be ad-absurdium substituted with "there is never a need to fart! Farts are toys for children, adults have no need to fart!"

The really real reality is that plugging the butthole does not solve the source of the flatulence-- what people eat, either because they can't afford better, or because of biology beyond their control. Plugging the buttholes of every man, woman, and child in the US will certainly make an impact in the rate of farts produced.

It won't really solve the problem, and will instead lead to all manner of other problems, like ruptured colons, and bloody, uncontrolled discharges. What a lovely picture.

The same is true of violence. Gun related or not.  Violence happens when humans have no other means of solving a percieved problem or source of adversity. In the case of gun violence specifially, the statistically most relavent cause is social inequality. People born into poverty, systematically excluded from improving their lives or those of their children, living in dangerous and poorly policed areas, in debt up to their eyeballs, and often on social subsistence programs. These are the people who's kids grow up robbing liquor stores, so their kid sister can have diapers. How will banning guns help their kid sisters get diapers? How will it solve the inequalities that lead to the violence? Oh-- that's right, it just makes it harder for them to hold up the store, making the need for their violence get even stronger.

"Clearly, we need stronger gun control laws! Banning the guns only made the crimes worse!" == "clearly, we need even bigger corks and stronger glue! Now people aren't just breaking wind, they are soiling the carpet with bloody shit!"

Every time I see this topic raised, with "availability of guns" as a topic, it makes me sad. Just as sad as if the prospect of preventing parts with superglue and rubber stoppers were a seriously raised solution.

Because they are equally stupid.

I am all for helping to stem the tide of violence in america. I am vocally opposed to willful stupidness, however. Willful stupidness makes me very sad indeed.

[Vector]

Ah, I meant specifically that weird smiliness.  It's not that I'm saying "people won't listen to you," I'm saying that there's a specific sort of cloying niceness.

Would it be too much to ask that people just be nicer in general? I'm really sick of the whole "fuck you, got mine" attitude that much of the world displays.

Yep, I'm in.

[Mr Space Cat]

Results.

...that ending was way too funny, oh man. All this scientific discussion on space and weird planets and silicon based life forms and it abruptly ends with

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

>Stranger: "I will have to find another way to tame my flagella."
>you:"..."
>You have disconnected.

That was beautiful. Get a laugh track for that, that's gold.

[Ogdibus]

Never use the word "biology" when talking to strangers. x3

[wierd]

Greetings fellow biped!

My endochrine system has illicited an uncontrolled discharge of urea and sebatious secretions in response to your proximity! The experience is self catalyzing, as the emotion known as "anxiety" only hightens this response, and the response is directly attributable to the emotion!

Thank goodness for our fellow humans who have formulated complex suppressant compounds to control the growth of epidermal microbial colonies! Without those, I would surely smell quite nasty right now!

Let us be thankful to our modern world, where we are no longer slaves to such sources of embarasment!

It is our wishness to feel confidence in your presence!

(Taken from Japanese underarm deodorant pamphlet.)

(Well, not really, but that's what this topic had me thinking.)

[AlleeCat]

OH MY GOD you watch the same guys I watch.

Although I got into it via Derpcraft w/ Galm, TehSmarty, ChilledChaos, Rio, ZeRoyalViking, etc. And of the group and their friends like Seananners and Hutch, it seems like few update very much. Seananners does like 3 min videos, IHasCupquake is just a bit slow and irritating, Galm does super marathons of like a hundred hours of GTA5 and nothing else even though he claims he's trying to mix it up (and he doesn't post any Natural Selection 2 anymore). Feels like Chilled is the only one still doing a mixed bag.

Also they all say the dumbest stuff.

Used to watch Syndicate but got tired of it after he spoiled his Minecraft world with the airship-cave-city fiasco. Syndicate led me to the Minecraft Hunger Games which was cool and that made me watch Captain Sparkles etc. a bit, but didn't stick with any of them.

PressHeartToContinue (Dodger) and OMFGCata (Jesse Cox) are pretty fun to watch too.

[Steelmagic]

Our apartment doesn't have a heater. It is -16 degrees Celsius outside, and we have no heat. I'd be angry if i wasn't too cold to be.

[BlackFlyme]

Our apartment doesn't have a heater. It is -16 degrees Celsius outside, and we have no heat. I'd be angry if i wasn't too cold to be.

I've been there before. My old Super was very stingy with heating and A/C, waiting until the weather turned real bad before turning it on for everyone on the 'standard' side of the building. The senior's side of the building would always get access early though.

Would it be possible to pick up a portable heater? It's supposed to be freezing over the next week where I'm at. -40C with the windchill.

[wierd]

Boil water. Water vapor has one of the highest specific heat values of any easily tolerated atmospheric gas, and will make your apartment warmer, longer. It will also alleviate the dryness that comes from heating in the winter. (When air cools, water condenses out. Everyone knows this. Most people don't stop to consider what that means when you then heat it back up again in the winter. The air is now very dry, and simple osmotic forces with that atmosphere will literally suck the moisture out of your nose and lungs, giving you that nasty winter dry cough, and other maladies. Simply boiling a little water on the stove can fix many winter ills. Try it.)

[Frumple]

Would it be possible to pick up a portable heater? It's supposed to be freezing over the next week where I'm at. -40C with the windchill.

Also maybe lots and lots of blankets. If it's an option. If you've got access to big ones (especially thicker stuff), I sorta' remember sticking them to the wall(s) can help a bit with heat retention, on top of the whole burying oneself in a bedding mound thing. Keep enough of that heat you generate stuck in one spot... it can help, anyway.

[Steelmagic]

We do have two portable heaters, but they're old, crappy things that couldn't heat up a tiny room. At least they keep the dogs warm.

Fortunately we do have loads and loads of blankets and I'm fairly resistant to the cold. Still, in the summer our air conditioning's broken and in the winter our heater's broken.

[Tiruin]

I wish I was a girl so people would be nice to me like that.

I wish more people would be nice without it being about their nads =/  Seriously.

So much this. >_>
Of recent note: I've seen so many people...put so much emphasis on gender as if its the one that defines who you are and how people should treat you instead of your character being your defining traits. :/ (can't relate with the sexual part but I get the gist of it).

It's saddening me.

[Bauglir]

I have recently devised a valid argument for gender determining how people treat you, but it revolves largely around linguistics and a Native American language whose gendered words are by "Animate" vs "Inanimate". There may also be some equivocation about what the word "gender" refers to.

[wierd]

Gender, gender roles, social programming, and sexuality in general have been a festering sore on the human race for at least 2000 years that I know of.

It may seem a bit twisted by today's standpoint, but that just makes this even more apropos, about how that wheel has turned and turned and turned over the ages, and always it's the same stink. Gender X needs to act X way, and gender Y needs to act Y way, and anything outside that program is "deviancy!"  The sharp clash of the above link's version of that program against that of the prevailing western world just goes to show how it is the programming, not the nature.

The problem is not with the plumbing, the preferences a person has, or any of that. The problem is the pre-expectation that a gender be a certain way, do certain things, and that in the presence of those genders, that people speak and act certain ways.

Specifically, that people do these things in lieu of simply seeing another feeling, thinking, and independent person. The prohibition against a man hitting a woman for instance. Sexist stupidity-- you shouldn't hit anyone, regardless of the gender. However, when diplomacy fails, why should one gender be given a free pass? Nonsense. We are all people.

That road runs both ways. Women shouldn't try to exploit men. Men shouldn't fawn all over women. (Or any combination thereof.) Both are equally disturbing.

I agree, it certainly is a thing to be sad about. 2000 years, at least, and we haven't gained even an inch of progress.

[Vector]

Spousal rape is now considered rape in the US.

That's an inch.