Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 ... 324 325 [326] 327 328 ... 852

Author Topic: Chill and Relaxed Progressive Irritation and Annoyance Thread  (Read 870651 times)

Rose

  • Bay Watcher
  • Resident Elf
    • View Profile
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4875 on: September 14, 2011, 09:42:46 am »

I mean, hell, the current worth of people has already been diminished by things like animal intelligence studies (tool creation, occasional innovation, etc.).
On that note, I've been trying to find information on the intelligence studies for Crocodiles as research for my current novel project, but google continues to fail me in this regard. Worst of all, the only crocodile videos I can find are not about the lifestyle of a crocodile, but the various attacks on humans. And literally every site I've been to repeats the same few factoids about crocs. It seems that despite them being the only reptile species that displays higher intelligence, it's hard to find specific information on the subject.

Unless I'm just continually looking in the wrong places.
Find somebody who lives in florida. Ask them for info.

On that note, I went and asked somebody I know who lives there. this is what I got.

Quote
intelligent is a strong word
they are very food oriented and will remember things based on jow it pertains to getting food and they know some tricks and are designed in such a way that unwary creatures become food  but im not sure id place them in the intelligent category
Logged

RedKing

  • Bay Watcher
  • hoo hoo motherfucker
    • View Profile
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4876 on: September 14, 2011, 09:59:14 am »

@Andir: Well, for one that would be a horrible idea if extended to all animals. Zero predation means we'd be up to our assholes in assorted rodents in a relatively short time. Not to mention insects. Oh God, the insects. It would also be a death sentence for many carnivorous species who biologically cannot be herbivores. Cats, for instance, do extremely poorly on a vegetarian diet.

If you're talking about chemically or genetically turning all humans into herbivores...I still think it's a bad idea, but it is at least plausible. I disagree that meat-eating in humans is related to some primal instinct to kill, though. Especially given that Americans are among the top 5 meat-eating countries (yes, we're actually not #1--at last check, that belonged to Denmark, though I suspect that's mostly fish) and yet most Americans have a total disconnect with where their meat comes from (and in a lot of cases with processed food, it's more soy than meat). I'd wager that many American meat-lovers would be too squeamish to actually slaughter and butcher an animal. Even in societies where the connection is much more immediate (hunter-gatherer tribes, for instance) hunting is typically done without any kind of bloodlust or aggression. It's about filling your stomach, not a desire to kill. In fact, there's even (arguably) a more acute awareness and guilt on the part of "primitive" societies about killing an animal for food, which is typically dealt with by animistic ritual "thanking" the animal for its meat and placating its spirit for having killed it. I wish more people in industrialized societies made that connection. It irks me to hear people "thank God" for their food, when they should be thanking the animal (and the farmer who raised it). That meat didn't fall from the sky.

« Last Edit: September 14, 2011, 10:02:45 am by RedKing »
Logged

Remember, knowledge is power. The power to make other people feel stupid.
Quote from: Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.

Frumple

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Prettiest Kyuuki
    • View Profile
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4877 on: September 14, 2011, 10:24:15 am »

On that note, I went and asked somebody I know who lives there. this is what I got.

Quote
intelligent is a strong word
they are very food oriented and will remember things based on jow it pertains to getting food and they know some tricks and are designed in such a way that unwary creatures become food  but im not sure id place them in the intelligent category

Floridian ho! Actually, we generally don't care about alligators down here, other than the obvious bits of 'don't screw with them, they won't screw with you'.

Never seen much mention about their intelligence, but the area I'm in, despite being gator infested, isn't exactly a breeding ground of people that care about the intelligence of animals. More interest in whether they taste good (alligator does, indeed, taste pretty good, though I haven't had it very often), how to catch them for the purpose of eating them (sharp metal pole into brain, i.e. 'jigging (Gyg-ing)'; alternately, dog hanging from rope with hooks and suchlike. No, I'm not joking, people have done this. Fortunately haven't been witness to it.), and how to avoid getting bits removed by them (re: don't screw with).

That said, my father did illegally keep one as a pet for a few years, a very young one. I was too young to be able to really pay attention to it, but it wasn't a particularly stupid animal. More intelligent than snakes, less intelligent than dogs tend to appear to be. Kinda' cute and likes to be petted, when they're young. Similar to snakes in that regard, actually.

I mean, hell, the current worth of people has already been diminished by things like animal intelligence studies (tool creation, occasional innovation, etc.).

The question that arises to me fairly often, especially re: human worth: Is it really that bad of a thing for human worth to be diminished a bit? Take this in the least offensive way possible (if possible, heh) -- it's just that the sheer arrogance of our species tends to be offputting to me fairly often. We're not very special creatures, from what I've seen (though we've got some very nice tricks), we just seem to tend to think we are. Just seems like, if the worth of people wasn't so bloody inflated, we wouldn't quite so willing to go screw with things not-us.

I'd wager that many American meat-lovers would be too squeamish to actually slaughter and butcher an animal.

American meat-lover here, and this is completely true. I actually have trouble eating meat when there's still bones in it and tend to get a bit squeamish when I actually think about what the meat is and where it came from :P Why eat meat then, you ask? Because it tastes good and I love the texture of certain kinds of meat, prepared in the proper way. If there was actually a non-meat alternative to this that didn't cost out the (and taste like) ass, I'd be all over it.

I've also got a terribly sneaking suspicion that, if we weren't exploiting food animals for, well, food, we would have killed them off somehow long ago. That tends to be what happens to animals we're not using somehow :-\ Not a good thing, but it seems to be the pattern.

That said, there's a lot of meat eaters in the more rural areas that actually do hunt, kill, clean, and prepare their own meat at least occasionally. Not terribly uncommon for city folk of certain inclinations to do the same thing, actually. It's definitely a minority of the meat eating population, though.

None that that tends to improve their opinion of animals above the normal cultural one (exploitexploitexploit), though, at least not in an statistically significant sense. At best, it'll encourage a bit more of a conservationist (hold off exploiting fully now, so can exploit more over the long term) slant in folks.

Side question here, but let's say that someone finds a way to "turn off" the desire for animals to kill each other turning them all into herbivores... would you think that would impact future generations?
Utterly horrific violation of personal something-or-other (word forgotten!) that would be if extended to humans aside, I'm terribly certain, as RedKing stated, that would be be an utter ecological trainwreck that would cause a tremendous amount of mass extinction -- it would probably match or surpass humanity's current tally of other-species-killed-largely-or-entirely-by-us in one fell swoop. This would be an awe inspiring achievement, in the classic sense of awe.

It would also cause an incredible economic crisis if applied to humanity in one go.

Any case, herbivores kill each other for reasons not involving food, so there's no telling how much of a genuine difference that would make. What would you be trying to accomplish with such an action?
Logged
Ask not!
What your country can hump for you.
Ask!
What you can hump for your country.

Andir

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4878 on: September 14, 2011, 10:27:53 am »

@Andir: Well, for one that would be a horrible idea if extended to all animals.
Philosophically though?  (Sorry, I didn't specify.  Concentrating solely on the point of eating other animals because "they do it too".)

It irks me to hear people "thank God" for their food, when they should be thanking the animal (and the farmer who raised it). That meat didn't fall from the sky.
Oddly, I think this falls in place with the previous discussion Vector and I were having on abstraction.  Some people feel more holistic in thanking a god instead of looking at where the result of their dinner table came from.  (ie: they place more value on the sustenance than the formula of operations that got them to that point...)

Any case, herbivores kill each other for reasons not involving food, so there's no telling how much of a genuine difference that would make. What would you be trying to accomplish with such an action?
It was a philosophical question.
Logged
"Having faith" that the bridge will not fall, implies that the bridge itself isn't that trustworthy. It's not that different from "I pray that the bridge will hold my weight."

RedKing

  • Bay Watcher
  • hoo hoo motherfucker
    • View Profile
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4879 on: September 14, 2011, 10:36:22 am »

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/audience-tea-party-debate-cheers-leaving-uninsured-die-163216817.html
When even Rick Perry is going, "Dude, that's harsh," then you know you have gone too far. These are mostly the same kind of people who cheered wildly when Rick Perry mentioned that Texas has executed nearly 300 people under his stewardship. Scary. Mother. Fuckers.
Incidentally, The Daily Show's Al Madrigal absolutely nailed it out of the ballpark on this one when he stated last night, "The party that started out fearing death panels has become one."
Logged

Remember, knowledge is power. The power to make other people feel stupid.
Quote from: Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.

Nadaka

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
    • http://www.nadaka.us
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4880 on: September 14, 2011, 10:43:20 am »

Knowing where meat comes from doesn't make me want to eat it less. I don't have a problem with killing and butchering animals. I was squeamish about it when I was 6, but once you do it a few times it doesn't really bother you. You should know and respect where your food comes from. I think that if more people hunted or fished at least occasionally they would understand and appreciate their food more. Plus you can be sure that an animal you kill yourself has been killed as humanely as possible. There is a line between food and intelligent creatures. Very few animals come close to that line. Primates, cetaceans, some cephelopods and some dogs are really the only ones off the top of my head that sit close enough to that line to make me unwilling to kill them for food (unless I was literally starving).
Logged
Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't comin' back...
I don't care cause I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me...

I turned myself into a monster, to fight against the monsters of the world.

Andir

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4881 on: September 14, 2011, 10:44:38 am »

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/audience-tea-party-debate-cheers-leaving-uninsured-die-163216817.html
When even Rick Perry is going, "Dude, that's harsh," then you know you have gone too far. These are mostly the same kind of people who cheered wildly when Rick Perry mentioned that Texas has executed nearly 300 people under his stewardship. Scary. Mother. Fuckers.
Incidentally, The Daily Show's Al Madrigal absolutely nailed it out of the ballpark on this one when he stated last night, "The party that started out fearing death panels has become one."
To be fair, it's not "technically" correct...  When people think of a Death Panel, they think of a small dedicated group of people deciding mortality on a case by case basis.  There's a minor distinction between that and people not being able to afford care.
Logged
"Having faith" that the bridge will not fall, implies that the bridge itself isn't that trustworthy. It's not that different from "I pray that the bridge will hold my weight."

RedKing

  • Bay Watcher
  • hoo hoo motherfucker
    • View Profile
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4882 on: September 14, 2011, 11:06:02 am »

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/audience-tea-party-debate-cheers-leaving-uninsured-die-163216817.html
When even Rick Perry is going, "Dude, that's harsh," then you know you have gone too far. These are mostly the same kind of people who cheered wildly when Rick Perry mentioned that Texas has executed nearly 300 people under his stewardship. Scary. Mother. Fuckers.
Incidentally, The Daily Show's Al Madrigal absolutely nailed it out of the ballpark on this one when he stated last night, "The party that started out fearing death panels has become one."
To be fair, it's not "technically" correct...  When people think of a Death Panel, they think of a small dedicated group of people deciding mortality on a case by case basis.  There's a minor distinction between that and people not being able to afford care.
I don't think that the's calm, rational impression of a Death Panel that was conveyed by the Tea Party propaganda back then. It was "The government is going to tell Grandma she can't get that liver transplant because she's not worth it!"

And now it's "The government (and hospitals) should tell people without insurance they can't get that liver transplant because fuck poor people."

There is a minor distinction, but it's not the one you claim. The former is actually a more rational approach. It's societal cost/benefit analysis. Giving a liver to an 85-year old is not as overall effective as giving one to a 35-year old in terms of man-hours of productivity saved.

What the Tea Party is applauding is a purely short-term, proft-driven analysis. Can Grandma's insurance pay for the liver? Bring her on. The 35-year old can't pay for his? Too bad. Should have thought of that before you got sick, loser.

Mind you, these are ALSO the same people that whine that people shouldn't be forced to buy insurance, despite the fact that a mandate is needed to avoid precisely this scenario of having to choose between condemning the uninsured to death or letting them get a free ride on the Medical Express.
Logged

Remember, knowledge is power. The power to make other people feel stupid.
Quote from: Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.

Nadaka

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
    • http://www.nadaka.us
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4883 on: September 14, 2011, 11:07:24 am »

It may not be precise but "a group of people deciding if someone should live or die based on cost of medical treatment" applies to both death panels and the tea party at this point.
Logged
Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't comin' back...
I don't care cause I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me...

I turned myself into a monster, to fight against the monsters of the world.

MonkeyHead

  • Bay Watcher
  • Yma o hyd...
    • View Profile
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4884 on: September 14, 2011, 11:16:21 am »

As a liberal EU citizen, I still find it hard that in the good old US of A, cruel and unusual punishments are forbidden, but its ok to put electricity through someone until they are dead (and suchlike for gas chambers, lethal injections and so on...). Yes, I know that this doesnt reflect the opinion of the populace as a whole, and is more common in some more conservative states, but still... To me it seems not to act as much of a deterrent, which must be its only intent as it offers zero in the way of rehabilitation. Heres hoping this doenst turn into an argument about crime, punishment, gun law etc in the USA.

Frumple

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Prettiest Kyuuki
    • View Profile
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4885 on: September 14, 2011, 11:31:28 am »

To me it seems not to act as much of a deterrent, which must be its only intent as it offers zero in the way of rehabilitation.
The main intent often is neither for deterrent nor rehabilitation, but simply to kill the person that's being, well, killed. Substantial portions of the US are of the opinion that there's some acts that a person should die for performing, regardless of any other impacts the death in question may have. Rehabilitation doesn't enter the equation -- the people in question are considered to have crossed a line past which there is no return, regardless as to the possibility (or lack thereof) of rehabilitation.

To give an example of the thought process here, it is seen that there are some acts for which the only acceptable punishment -- for nothing else is equal to the crime committed -- is death or torture (i.e. life imprisonment, which is most definitely torture), and the former is seen as both more humane and more economical. Murder is one of the more common reasons for this, but things like serial rape, extreme child abuse, etc, are also seen as reason enough for execution, from time to time. Some acts cannot be forgiven and the perpetrator of the act cannot be allowed to be part of or supported by society, is the main line of reasoning.

From a personal standpoint, I'd much prefer execution to life imprisonment, if I had to choose between one or the other being done unto me. I seem to be an odd one in considering torture to be a greater moral evil than murder, though.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2011, 11:33:30 am by Frumple »
Logged
Ask not!
What your country can hump for you.
Ask!
What you can hump for your country.

MonkeyHead

  • Bay Watcher
  • Yma o hyd...
    • View Profile
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4886 on: September 14, 2011, 11:44:07 am »

Personally I find it hard to reconcile the idea that if through thier actions someone was to kill and that this act is abhorrent, it is then justifiable to carry out the same/similar act that was deemed abhorrent. I do concur that certain crimes or acts do put someone beyond rehabilitation, but feel that life incarceration is a more fitting punishment (a life of no freedoms) than death.

Andir

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4887 on: September 14, 2011, 11:51:51 am »

Personally I find it hard to reconcile the idea that if through thier actions someone was to kill and that this act is abhorrent, it is then justifiable to carry out the same/similar act that was deemed abhorrent. I do concur that certain crimes or acts do put someone beyond rehabilitation, but feel that life incarceration is a more fitting punishment (a life of no freedoms) than death.
In that respect, some people would prefer a life without freedom in exchange for being fed, clothed, not having to worry about work, money...
Logged
"Having faith" that the bridge will not fall, implies that the bridge itself isn't that trustworthy. It's not that different from "I pray that the bridge will hold my weight."

MonkeyHead

  • Bay Watcher
  • Yma o hyd...
    • View Profile
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4888 on: September 14, 2011, 12:01:36 pm »

Better that than them presenting a danger as part of the general populace. Besides, from what I have been exposed to (addmitedly very limited), prisons are not nice or comortable places anyone would really want to be in by choice (although I do understand that many serious criminals are not of sound mind).

Besides, my argument/internal cognitive conflict is not over the psychology or intent of a criminal, just on my percieved immorallity of killing someone as a punishment. I can not internally justify death as a punishment - there is some family history here I have to draw on, so its not as if I speak without expereince. Your milage, however, may vary.

Frumple

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Prettiest Kyuuki
    • View Profile
Re: Vector's Chill and Relaxed Progressive Rage Thread
« Reply #4889 on: September 14, 2011, 12:24:37 pm »

Besides, my argument/internal cognitive conflict is not over the psychology or intent of a criminal, just on my percieved immorallity of killing someone as a punishment. I can not internally justify death as a punishment[...]

That's honestly one of the more common arguments against the death sentence, and is not without its merit. It's indeed irreconcilable if you consider killing a murderer to be as abhorrent an act as killing an innocent, or at least someone who has not committed acts as vile as murder.

The general response that I've seen is that the act of the murderer (to use murder as an example) is not the same as the act of the person killing the murderer. By performing the act of murder, the murderer has removed some of their own value as a human being, reduced their moral worth. It's not an abhorrent act to kill someone that has performed abhorrent acts, because the abhorrent acts they performed reduced their value (that is, that thing by which we judge abhorrence of acts performed upon them, in this case) as a human being. Made them less human, less worthy of moral consideration. The act of the executioner is not abhorrent, because to kill a creature that has performed abhorrent acts is not seen as abhorrent. This is, of course, questionable.

The words I hear fairly regularly, is that when you kill a murderer, you're not killing a human, you're putting down an animal. Their acts have stripped from them those things which with attribute humanity (or at least some important subset thereof) and as such they're no longer worthy of receiving the same consideration given to other people, who have not performed such acts. There's a parallel scenario in the fact that people generally put down rabid dogs, instead of attempting to cure them.

Besides, from what I have been exposed to (addmitedly very limited), prisons are not nice or comortable places anyone would really want to be in by choice (although I do understand that many serious criminals are not of sound mind).

Prisons aren't particularly nice or comfortable places, but they're honestly better than some alternatives. It's a very real issue that some people (In the US) perform petty crimes strictly to get incarcerated, because the situation in jail is better than outside of it. Further, it's not uncommon for those who would commit the kind of abhorrent acts that are seen to justify the death sentence to be the kind of individuals for whom the more negative aspects of prison (generally, the other prisoners) are either easily negated or ignorable. There's a portion of humanity for whom prison is an upgrade.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2011, 12:27:37 pm by Frumple »
Logged
Ask not!
What your country can hump for you.
Ask!
What you can hump for your country.
Pages: 1 ... 324 325 [326] 327 328 ... 852