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[SalmonGod]

The GOP is not crazy.

I don't think statements about anti-choice people being "cruel" are actually true or helpful at all.  I'm pretty sure they don't actively enjoy inflicting harm upon people as the article seems to suggest.

Not to mention there's nothing saying you can't have crazy beliefs and yet have the power or influence to act on them.

I think what this blog post is commenting on is the phenomenon where people disregard people with crazy or wildly inconsistent beliefs as being irrelevant, because it's hard to imagine those same people being capable of intelligently formulating and pursuing an agenda around them, especially in concert.

And I don't appreciate the demonization, either, but part of dispelling the above illusion is getting people to accept that sometimes people need to be treated as dangerous adversaries, even if they are not necessarily motivated by cruelty or malevolence.  Many fundamentalists are so deeply invested in their beliefs, no matter how irrational, that they've spent decades involved in political games and cultural engineering from positions of power just to force them on others.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Anyway, totally in for default organ donation. I'm kinda' surprised there's people reporting trouble with it in the states, though.

People maintain this paranoid fear that doctors will kill you for your organs, and so don't sign up to be organ donors and complain about the entire system's existence. This is ignoring that organs are only harvested from people who suffer brain death (and you sure as hell aren't going to recover from that) and the decision to harvest is generally made by someone other than the doctors treating you. Regardless, it kind of puts a stop to initiatives to make organ donation opt-out.

I absolutely hate doctors, and if harvesting organs was easier I wouldn't put it past them at all to let people die like that, but that fear is just plain unrealistic.

[Montague]

Having the government codify in law that your internal organs are their property upon your death isn't really reassuring either. It brings into question again, if your body is truly your own property or not.

Although, if anything doctors letting you die for your internal organs is probably less of an issue then paramedics and doctors stopping CPR and other measures because you are not an organ donor and thus they don't need to worry about keeping your organs (and your life functions) viable if they think you are going to die anyways.

[Pnx]

Having the government codify in law that your internal organs are their property upon your death isn't really reassuring either. It brings into question again, if your body is truly your own property or not.

It's not the government's property. The only transplant list in the US is handled by the United Network for Organ Sharing, the government never touches it.

I actually can't find any regulation determining who gets the organs, all of it seems to be about whether or not doctors are allowed to take them.

[Leafsnail]

Cruelty =/= sadism. That said... yeah, the ones leaning that way that I've met do, in fact, partake in a sort of vicious glee when they get through those cruel laws, so maybe there's a bit of both going on.

Reaaaaally though?  Of course there's a kindof inevitable glee you get from beating your opponents, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't stem from the idea that they're about to inflict suffering on people.

And I guess "enjoy" is the wrong word.  But I don't think anti-choice people tend to be indifferent to suffering either (which would be my definition of cruelty, and to some extent evil) - they often seem to genuinely believe that their policies will result in less suffering.

Article's main point was that calling them crazy dismisses the fact that they're working inside a coherent and directed plan and system -- it's just one that's malicious and cruel. They're being very systematic and logical in going about what they're going about, it's just working off some reprehensible axioms.

Bad, irrational axioms do make you to some extent crazy, even if you follow through on them logically.  And I don't really see how calling them crazy would dismiss them as a threat - I mean, it's perfectly possible to be insane and dangerous.

I'd definitely have to challenge you on both "malicious" and "cruel".  I can see indifference towards suffering in many libertarian mindsets, but I'm not sure about socially conservative ones.

[Montague]

Having the government codify in law that your internal organs are their property upon your death isn't really reassuring either. It brings into question again, if your body is truly your own property or not.

It's not the government's property. The only transplant list in the US is handled by the United Network for Organ Sharing, the government never touches it.

I actually can't find any regulation determining who gets the organs, all of it seems to be about whether or not doctors are allowed to take them.

Yes, but the issue of who's property they were would be handled by the government. If the organs didn't end up where the government wanted them to do, the law would be broken and the government might even go and recover them with force. The organs don't necessarily need to be handled by the government, they'd simply be the authority mandating the property transfer, because it would be the government's choice as to where the organs would go.

Still, it's the point that your body is no longer your property posthumously, even though everything else you own is. It's an interesting ethical point, I think, besides the obvious implications of dead homeless people and death-row inmates being the easiest source of internal organs for rich people.

[Frumple]

Re: Leaf: Well, when you're actively campaigning to reduce rights and force huge numbers of people into really bad situations or actively campaigning to prevent people from gaining rights and getting out of really bad situations, I'd call that malicious and cruel

Both of those are pretty high up on the social conservative issue list, unfortunately. That'd be reproductive and LGBT issues, respectively. There's more that fit into either category, of course.

But yeah, re: anti-choice specifically, remember that a lot of social conservatives in the states are also anti-welfare, and preventing abortions in many cases would specifically lead to a major upswing of suffering for the people involved. Most anti-choice folks I've at least heard talking (via the web or in person), really don't think that it's going to reduce suffering -- at best, they think it's preventing murder. Whether the situation nosesdives afterwards is either completely irrelevant to them (which is your indifference to suffering, if you're looking for it ) or a much, much smaller issue.

It comes from the base axiom that living is more important than living well. It's more important for the child to be born than to not be born into a situation that doesn't want it and/or can't support it

[Truean]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/bomb-iran-santorum-romney-gingrich-paul-nuclear-threat-202124336.html

Ok, first, Iran, specifically their current leader and puppet leader, are crazy. Second, this will not help with that. Third, still have much bigger issues. Fourth, I'm sorry, I didn't realize we voted on which countries we wanted to bomb next.... War is now openly an electoral issue and the security of other countries is subject to our majority whim?

Tactically, even if you were going to attack some other country, you either do it with incredible diplomacy beforehand to make it legit, or incredible silence to make it covert.... WTF is this?

[Pnx]

Having the government codify in law that your internal organs are their property upon your death isn't really reassuring either. It brings into question again, if your body is truly your own property or not.

It's not the government's property. The only transplant list in the US is handled by the United Network for Organ Sharing, the government never touches it.

I actually can't find any regulation determining who gets the organs, all of it seems to be about whether or not doctors are allowed to take them.

Yes, but the issue of who's property they were would be handled by the government. If the organs didn't end up where the government wanted them to do, the law would be broken and the government might even go and recover them with force. The organs don't necessarily need to be handled by the government, they'd simply be the authority mandating the property transfer, because it would be the government's choice as to where the organs would go.

Still, it's the point that your body is no longer your property posthumously, even though everything else you own is. It's an interesting ethical point, I think, besides the obvious implications of dead homeless people and death-row inmates being the easiest source of internal organs for rich people.

I er...

I think I'm just going to ignore you now.

[kaijyuu]

Eh, I hate how games are becoming easier and more console based, I hate dumping down and skipping combat do sounds lame, but I also love heavy story and I love how progressive Bioware is sexually, so the whole article seems to me, to just see what it wants to see, not what is actually there.

Off topic, but... Difficulty is what hard mode's for.

The ideal challenge is always "just enough." "Just enough" is different from person to person. Your grandma who plays angry birds and facebook games is going to have a far, far lower difficulty tolerance than you are. Your girlfriend you convinced to play co-op with you might kick your ass, or might be a total liability. Ideally, a game will be able to hand you the correct difficulty so you can get through the game either way and not be bored.

Options, then, are awesome. The gameplay skip the Bioware writer suggested isn't one I'd be happy with, though. Video games are interactive mediums, and ignoring that is bad design through and through (make a movie instead, sheesh). The interactive parts should play an important role, as if *you* are participating in the story, not Personality Lacking Game Protagonist #24601. So, to fix her complaints, I'd rather make the interactive parts more narrative focused, and make sure that even your grandma can participate in them without frustration. Bad game stories "get in the way" of the gameplay, and vice versa.



Re: Abortion stuff.

Didn't Salmongod just link something about understanding the people you're fighting against? No, these people aren't crazy. No, they're not necessarily malicious. I'm willing to bet their motivation is "prevent murder," which is something obviously pretty damn important if you carry that opinion. As for the "suffering" caused by this, it's either a lesser evil (death is worse than financial problems), or they just can't empathize outside their monkey sphere, like all the world's jackasses.

[Max White]

The ideal challenge is always "just enough." "Just enough" is different from person to person. Your grandma who plays angry birds and facebook games is going to have a far, far lower difficulty tolerance than you are. Your girlfriend you convinced to play co-op with you might kick your ass, or might be a total liability. Ideally, a game will be able to hand you the correct difficulty so you can get through the game either way and not be bored.

Options, then, are awesome. The gameplay skip the Bioware writer suggested isn't one I'd be happy with, though. Video games are interactive mediums, and ignoring that is bad design through and through (make a movie instead, sheesh). The interactive parts should play an important role, as if *you* are participating in the story, not Personality Lacking Game Protagonist #24601. So, to fix her complaints, I'd rather make the interactive parts more narrative focused, and make sure that even your grandma can participate in them without frustration. Bad game stories "get in the way" of the gameplay, and vice versa.

Wow I hope this doesn't turn into a derail, but we all have to start somewhere.
Portal for PC. I have seen pro FPS players play it, and total amateurs play it, and their is surprisingly little difference for a while there. The veterans only come into their own once anything with quick reflexes is involved.

This is because thinking in portals, the main problem solving tool in that game, was a some what new idea, so it was level ground, and universally appealing regardless of prior skill level in other games. So if you want a great game that doesn't need adjustment for difficulty, a possible solution is to be creative! Test new skills and give players a totally new tool to work with, and suddenly you can control the skill level of the player, instead of accommodating to prior knowledge they picked up in other games.

Although something totally new and original isn't easy to do, so it is a lot more likely to involve skill levels, like you said.

[Truean]

Didn't Salmongod just link something about understanding the people you're fighting against? No, these people aren't crazy. No, they're not necessarily malicious. I'm willing to bet their motivation is "prevent murder," which is something obviously pretty damn important if you carry that opinion. As for the "suffering" caused by this, it's either a lesser evil (death is worse than financial problems), or they just can't empathize outside their monkey sphere, like all the world's jackasses.

Meh? ----> http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-reasons-humans-will-never-understand-each-other/

Linked over m'ere? ----->http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=85981.msg3020056#msg3020056

Or something else?

[Vector]

I think he thinks I'm SalmonGod, or SalmonGod is me, or whatever.

[Criptfeind]

Close enough.

[Frumple]

Re: Abortion stuff.

Didn't Salmongod just link something about understanding the people you're fighting against?

Not seeing it. You might be talking about the GOP aren't crazy thing that Vec linked, but that certainly wasn't about understanding in the sense you're talking about, heh.

No, these people aren't crazy. No, they're not necessarily malicious. I'm willing to bet their motivation is "prevent murder," which is something obviously pretty damn important if you carry that opinion. As for the "suffering" caused by this, it's either a lesser evil (death is worse than financial problems), or they just can't empathize outside their monkey sphere, like all the world's jackasses.

Yeah... you can prevent death and still be incredibly cruel and, indeed, outright malicious. The lesser evil is still evil. I'd be willing to trade cruel and malicious for cruel jackasses, though, sure.

But yeah, the suffering that results from unwilling/unplanned pregnancies is generally (note the generally, there's obviously exceptions) ignored by the folks trying to deny women legal abortion -- and there's considerably more going on there than just "financial problems". So there's definitely cruelty there.

As for other issues, such as LGBT... well, now we've got cruelty and maliciousness