• Unpopular Opinions V6 You know maybe fascism wasn't all that it was cracked up to be
    5,009 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;51031324][b]Why do the parts have to be reflective of the whole?[/b] That's a pretty substantial argument to be making. Individual behavior, be it people in a society, or atoms in a molecule, frequently has no direct correlative effect on the behavior of the whole. It's far more complicated than that. I'm not saying you are wrong, just that you seem to be stretching things, or attempting to reduce things to too basic of a level.[/QUOTE] because ultimately nobody is born completely independent. we're born into families (usually), and they tend to be one of the least free things around. the emotional satisfaction we gain from relationships like those ultimately cannot be chosen (or if we do choose them, they entail obligations you can't easily walk from with ease or justice). remember that humans are social creatures and have spent millions of years living in some kind of communal grouping - whenever it be small families and hunting tribes or vast civilizations. those people who argue that we can build a society built entirely upon the individual and their rational pursuit of self-interest ignores these basic facts and as such any attempt to construct such a society is doomed.
So would you argue that the existence of sociopaths is universally detrimental to civilization? That's the definition of self interest, yet many advances throughout history have been driven by the actions of sociopaths. Large scale corporate decisions, politics, and other avenues, have all had people who pushed their ideas without regard to anyone else, frequently in the name of profit or pure pride, and society has progressed because of it. Just because they are frequently detrimental doesn't mean they are universally so. Many pieces of technology you use every day, down to your phone, have been driven by cult personalities who saw an opportunity for gain, and influenced the behavior of billions through their self serving actions. You're oversimplifying the model, and turning it into a binary issue where either we accept pure individualism, or small collectives. You are failing to account for individuals who fall outside of your idealized person. Such people of both types exist. It's not such a simple binary issue. Given what you've written in the past, you want to believe that people are nearly universally decent and caring of one another, which in turn explains why you've been a proponent of socialism/communism. Those societal ideals are reliant upon idealized people. History has shown that these idealized people are not present in sufficient quantities for such societies to function long term. Most people are caring of one another, but their tolerances are lower than you seem to wish them to be, and many people are simply not interested in helping others. Such collective ideal based societies are exceedingly vulnerable to sociopathic behavior, which means you can make the interesting argument that capitalism is a form of hedging bets. It's conceivable that a perfect socialist/communist people would advance faster, and enjoy better qualities for everyone, but because of the vulnerability, and the fact that many people aren't truly interested in collective interests, all large scale attempts at socialism or communism will fail. History certainly supports that last claim. Capitalism protects against that by not being reliant upon the perfection of humanity. You can certainly argue about whether that's a limitation of humanity or not. I'm not convinced that it is. Regardless, it is something that must be considered.
[QUOTE=Blazedol;51023414]steven universe sucks[/QUOTE] I guess its my unpopular opinion then that it's really really good Its got a pretty good underlying lore to it thats very interesting and compelling, and the story we've been presented is really good. The music is just fantastic, I adore everything from the cheesy musical-esque tunes to the instrumentals. I can see where people might be coming from with the character designs but I enjoy their simple designs and color palettes. The characters themselves are pretty refreshing and the show has a lot of great morals that are excellent for kids (and heck even adults) to learn. Even the filler for the show is really comfy, quirky and enjoyable Probably my favorite western show since The Last Airbender tbh
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;51033170]So would you argue that the existence of sociopaths is universally detrimental to civilization? That's the definition of self interest, yet many advances throughout history have been driven by the actions of sociopaths. Large scale corporate decisions, politics, and other avenues, have all had people who pushed their ideas without regard to anyone else, frequently in the name of profit or pure pride, and society has progressed because of it. Just because they are frequently detrimental doesn't mean they are universally so. Many pieces of technology you use every day, down to your phone, have been driven by cult personalities who saw an opportunity for gain, and influenced the behavior of billions through their self serving actions.[/quote] well yeah they're detrimental in that if everybody acted that way we'd live in a nightmarish world. society is not composed of the total sum of a million sociopaths working from the basis of pure-self interest. even if we could create such a society nobody would wish to live in it. again as before i argue very strongly that the individual is not the smallest and most primary unit of a society. when you argue that these sociopaths built the modern world (and not the quiet and unnoticed labours of millions upon millions of peasants, clerks, merchants, craftsmen, priests, monks, bishops, the countless unremarkable kings and their ministers who fade into the background because they didn't preside over a bloody war or genocide), you are arguing that all of modern civilisation is reflective of the mentally ill, the self-serving, and the greedy. that our collective achievements and knowledge is not also down to the steady labours of everyday people who keep the world functioning - but instead to the disgusting and unaccountable kind of people that destroyed the last one? the sociopaths wish to rentseek as much as they contribute. they destroy just as much as they create. sociopaths tried to destroy whole races and civilizations - some succeeded. there were those who pulled down the roman libraries to make way for their thrones. those who would sacrifice their own families and nations just to claw their way up a greasy pole to attain more temporal riches and power on a speck of dust floating amongst the cosmos? and yet somehow these "supermen" are those who created the world with their own self-interested hand? responsible for the wonders that nature hath revealed unto us? responsible for the good things of life when they could just as easily destroy it all? what bullshit
First rule of debating with Sobotnik You do NOT start an economic, psychological, and philosophical debate with Sobotnik
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;51031324]Why do the parts have to be reflective of the whole? That's a pretty substantial argument to be making. Individual behavior, be it people in a society, or atoms in a molecule, frequently has no direct correlative effect on the behavior of the whole. It's far more complicated than that. I'm not saying you are wrong, just that you seem to be stretching things, or attempting to reduce things to too basic of a level.[/QUOTE] I may not be able to debate philosophy or politics but I'm going to stop you right here and point out that atoms have [i]everything[/i] to do with how a molecule behaves. More importantly, the behaviour of the molecule as a whole is determined by how the individual atoms interact with each other. You've chosen the worst possible analogy to make your point.
I believe Hillary would've been better as a lobbyist instead of a career office holder. It would suit her as a person. Her character is one of a soft power mercenary for hire and not at all suited to be an emperor. She would do (and often does) better behind the scenes instead of being in the public eye. She should work towards being the power behind the throne instead of trying to exert wasted effort towards parking her butt upon one. She has difficulty running against Trump. This is proof she lacks the charisma needed to get the public to follow her with a passion. She maybe more charming face to face and in private settings. If she wasn't, she would not be able to build consensus regularly behind closed doors, as she is adapt to doing.
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;51034389]I may not be able to debate philosophy or politics but I'm going to stop you right here and point out that atoms have [i]everything[/i] to do with how a molecule behaves. More importantly, the behaviour of the molecule as a whole is determined by how the individual atoms interact with each other. You've chosen the worst possible analogy to make your point.[/QUOTE] Perhaps I wasn't clear. Individual atoms frequently have wildly different properties than the molecules that they are part of. That's because there's a whole hell of a lot more to chemistry than "the sum of the parts". It's the complexities of the rules defining their interactions that lead to this. You can predict behavior if you understand the rules, but they are explicitly not a simple summation of properties. Individual properties that make something like Fluorine extremely reactive lead to extreme stability in some circumstances. If it were simply a summation of parts, everything involving fluorine would be violently reactive, and that's simply not true. Not all mercury compounds are liquid at room temperature. Not all compounds with iron in them are magnetic. etc etc etc. All of these behaviors can be predicted with a sufficient understanding of the rules governing the interactions. [QUOTE=Sobotnik;51033425]well yeah they're detrimental in that if everybody acted that way we'd live in a nightmarish world. society is not composed of the total sum of a million sociopaths working from the basis of pure-self interest. even if we could create such a society nobody would wish to live in it. ...snip...[/QUOTE] I never said that they were a universal good. My point is that your argument ignores their very existence. Sociopaths exist. Their unit of measurement is the individual, because they by definition do not care about anything, or anyone else. Their very existence is a direct counterexample to your original point that societies smallest unit is larger than the individual, because for sociopaths, it literally is. Are you arguing that sociopaths are not members of society?
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;51035621]Perhaps I wasn't clear. Individual atoms frequently have wildly different properties than the molecules that they are part of. That's because there's a whole hell of a lot more to chemistry than "the sum of the parts". It's the complexities of the rules defining their interactions that lead to this. You can predict behavior if you understand the rules, but they are explicitly not a simple summation of properties. Individual properties that make something like Fluorine extremely reactive lead to extreme stability in some circumstances. If it were simply a summation of parts, everything involving fluorine would be violently reactive, and that's simply not true. Not all mercury compounds are liquid at room temperature. Not all compounds with iron in them are magnetic. etc etc etc. All of these behaviors can be predicted with a sufficient understanding of the rules governing the interactions. I never said that they were a universal good. My point is that your argument ignores their very existence. Sociopaths exist. Their unit of measurement is the individual, because they by definition do not care about anything, or anyone else. Their very existence is a direct counterexample to your original point that societies smallest unit is larger than the individual, because for sociopaths, it literally is. Are you arguing that sociopaths are not members of society?[/QUOTE] Yes, I'm aware of that, considering I'm working towards a Masters degree in Chemistry. And no, you can't a priori predict a lot of things in chemistry because the calculations involved are hopelessly complicated, much like the interactions between individual humans in a society. [editline]12th September 2016[/editline] Sociopaths are the exception rather than the norm. Why do you try to define society by them rather than the 99% of other people who interact healthily with other individuals?
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;51013830]if you don't bother to try upholding any of the culture or language of a group (or even bothering to try learning it) you shouldn't deserve to call yourself that one i mean you get fuckos who say "i'm 1/16th cherokee" despite the fact they know as much about the cherokee as they do about the moons of jupiter[/QUOTE] not to mention they all have a pair of these: [IMG]http://image.rakuten.co.jp/pine-avenue/cabinet/03621870/img62707832.jpg[/IMG] don't mind me just practicing my people's culture
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;51035643]Yes, I'm aware of that, considering I'm working towards a Masters degree in Chemistry. And no, you can't a priori predict a lot of things in chemistry because the calculations involved are hopelessly complicated, much like the interactions between individual humans in a society. [editline]12th September 2016[/editline] Sociopaths are the exception rather than the norm. Why do you try to define society by them rather than the 99% of other people who interact healthily with other individuals?[/QUOTE] I don't define it by them outright. That would also be incredibly simplistic and would likewise ignore the complexity of reality. Failing to even attempt to account for them strikes me as some combination of hopelessly naive/delusional/ignorant/stupid, especially given the disproportionate impact that they frequently have on society. It's simply not reflective of readily observable facts to define society by them, or define it without them. You can say, oh well in an idealized society, blah blah blah, but you may as well be talking about frictionless objects on inclined planes in a vacuum. The world very rarely works that way. They exist as part of society, and as such any model of society needs to account for them in some fashion if it wants to have a chance of being relevant.
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;51035621]I never said that they were a universal good. My point is that your argument ignores their very existence. Sociopaths exist. Their unit of measurement is the individual, because they by definition do not care about anything, or anyone else. Their very existence is a direct counterexample to your original point that societies smallest unit is larger than the individual, because for sociopaths, it literally is. Are you arguing that sociopaths are not members of society?[/QUOTE] you don't define society by its exceptions. you're missing the point
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;51036134]you don't define society by its exceptions. you're missing the point[/QUOTE] You don't define it by ignoring the exceptions either. That leads to oversimplified idealized models that have limited bearings on reality. Read the above. I'm really not missing your point here. I'm not advocating defining it in terms of the exceptions. You're the one insisting on treating things as clear cut black and white. I'm not. I've repeatedly said that neither one of those proposed models is properly reflective of reality. I don't know if you are incapable of understanding what I'm saying, or just stubbornly refuse to accept it. Either way, your initial argument has a very simple, cut and dry counterexample that invalidates the belief you initially claimed to hold, that being that societal units must be larger than the individual. You keep stubbornly sticking to that, despite it being trivially invalidated by the very existence of type of individual that is widely known and accepted to exist, even by you.
Travis Scott (particularly Rodeo) is severely overrated. The mixing on his albums are totally fucked up, his lyrics are poor, and his rapping ability is [I]terrible.[/I]
London is made of the ugliest buildings in the Western world
[QUOTE=Sector 7;51037216]London is made of the ugliest buildings in the Western world[/QUOTE] In a similar strain, Edinburgh >>> London
[QUOTE=Bathtub;51037032]Travis Scott (particularly Rodeo) is severely overrated. The mixing on his albums are totally fucked up, his lyrics are poor, and his rapping ability is [I]terrible.[/I][/QUOTE] Was never too big a fan of his pre-Rodeo work, but Rodeo may have been my favorite album of 2015; I was shocked by how much I enjoyed it. Oh My Dis Side, 3500, and 90210 were all 10/10s for me. It had a slew of other fantastic tracks like Nightcrawler, I Can Tell, and Apple Pie too. I suppose I am a bit biased since I totally adore the album, but I would be interested if you cared to go in depth about what you disliked about it. But if it's not that interesting enough subject for you to elaborate on, that's fine too.
[QUOTE=Sector 7;51037216]London is made of the ugliest buildings in the Western world[/QUOTE] You're just jealous of their massive cocks. [t]http://i.imgur.com/4ecd6.jpg[/t] [editline]11th September 2016[/editline] Oh and this [del]dildo[/del] building almost became a thing that existed in London. [t]http://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/4/3/6/161436_v1.jpg[/t]
[QUOTE=Linkuya;51037303]Was never too big a fan of his pre-Rodeo work, but Rodeo may have been my favorite album of 2015; I was shocked by how much I enjoyed it. Oh My Dis Side, 3500, and 90210 were all 10/10s for me. It had a slew of other fantastic tracks like Nightcrawler, I Can Tell, and Apple Pie too. I suppose I am a bit biased since I totally adore the album, but I would be interested if you cared to go in depth about what you disliked about it. But if it's not that interesting enough subject for you to elaborate on, that's fine too.[/QUOTE] 90210 is a good ass song, that's for sure. I just felt like I wasn't getting something with Rodeo. Everyone was talking about how stellar it was, but it felt like it was missing some inexplicable element that turns an album from good to great. The production was very good, and I'm glad he's executive producing for Cruel Winter, but I think he just completely fails as an MC. If he would commit to the autotune singing shit like Cudi/Party, he might improve in my eyes, but every time he tries to spit it just sounds really bad to me.
[QUOTE=Captain Chalky;51040142]Hearthstone, Magic the Gathering and the rest are a bunch of P2W pieces of trash.[/QUOTE] A lot of hearthstone players get into it for arena, which isn't P2W trash. I can't really disagree about magic the gathering. Though, I know there are formats that restrict what can be taken in to make it very accessible if you got no dosh.
Arena isn't p2w trash, it's just garden variety rng trash.
Hearthstone was fantastic when it released. A great concept with very solid execution and design. But it was a ticking time bomb. Even then, at the release of the game people knew it. A game needs updates, and the expansions cost quite a bit if you want a decent sized card collection. You need to buy the expansions to stay truly competitive. A new player, playing two years after the game launched? You have a lot to buy, and a hell of a lot to catch up on. The new 'Standard' format did not save the game. Standard rotated out a lot of the poorly designed cards, but with Standard the Hearthstone dev team sealed their fate: the base set of cards that never get rotated out will always, always be the prominent set of cards, since they are still the strongest cards in the game. Two years ago I played Mage with Firebolts and Fireballs, and two years later every single Mage deck still runs them. Every Druid deck still runs Wrath and Innervate. The game is stagnant. The new expansion, One Night in Karazhan was genuinely bad. It introduced no new card concepts at all, and moved the game in no direction at all. The 'Professional' scene for the game (tournaments and the like) is dissolving, with former professional players leaving, stating that the game's RNG has turned them into nothing more than glorified coin flippers. The game was great for a time, but the blood is in the water. Something big needs to change, or people will continue to loss interest in the game.
Hearthstone as a competetive game? Hah
[QUOTE=Linkuya;51040878]Hearthstone was fantastic when it released. A great concept with very solid execution and design. But it was a ticking time bomb. Even then, at the release of the game people knew it. A game needs updates, and the expansions cost quite a bit if you want a decent sized card collection. You need to buy the expansions to stay truly competitive. A new player, playing two years after the game launched? You have a lot to buy, and a hell of a lot to catch up on. The new 'Standard' format did not save the game. Standard rotated out a lot of the poorly designed cards, but with Standard the Hearthstone dev team sealed their fate: the base set of cards that never get rotated out will always, always be the prominent set of cards, since they are still the strongest cards in the game. Two years ago I played Mage with Firebolts and Fireballs, and two years later every single Mage deck still runs them. Every Druid deck still runs Wrath and Innervate. The game is stagnant. The new expansion, One Night in Karazhan was genuinely bad. It introduced no new card concepts at all, and moved the game in no direction at all. The 'Professional' scene for the game (tournaments and the like) is dissolving, with former professional players leaving, stating that the game's RNG has turned them into nothing more than glorified coin flippers. The game was great for a time, but the blood is in the water. Something big needs to change, or people will continue to loss interest in the game.[/QUOTE] i'll say what i always say, blizzard really needs to stop being so scared of balancing (mostly buffing) cards. imagine if piloted shredder was a 3/3 or a 4/2, how different would gvg have been? imagine coming back and seeing that cards like magma rager and novice engineer have been buffed and are actually useful? i just don't understand why blizzard doesn't make full use of the advantage that is hearthstone being in a digital format
in what sense is Hearthstone pay-to-win? you can unlock all content by playing the game. Pay-to-win [b]only[/b] refers to games where some gameplay content is locked behind a paywall.
it doesn't alleviate it if you have to play for a gajillion hours just to get a single build that's even statistically on par with players who paid like blacklight
[QUOTE=VenomousBeetle;51041185]it doesn't alleviate it if you have to play for a gajillion hours just to get a single build that's even statistically on par with players who paid like blacklight[/QUOTE] If you log in only to do your daily quests (maybe less than an hour a day if you reroll quests properly), you will be able to fully purchase each new adventure's content (4-month release schedule) in about 40 days - almost right as the adventure wings come out. If you play as seriously as competition level hearthstone players do, this is extremely easy to accomplish. If you're a casual player who wants to hit legend with a net deck, then yes, you will need to break out a credit card. Being free-to-play doesn't mean a game needs to cater to casual players.
daily quests are the absolute worst in hearthstone. something you only get once a day shouldn't be your primary way of making gold. it doesn't reward you for binges at all; once you've completed your daily you're stuck at a whopping 3.3 gold per win
rewarding binges poisons the entire experience. you should binge a game because you're having fun, and for no other reason. Grinding is a waste of life.
[QUOTE=Sector 7;51041344]rewarding binges poisons the entire experience. you should binge a game because you're having fun, and for no other reason. Grinding is a waste of life.[/QUOTE] how so? say, if the bonus rank stars you get from win streaks also translated into bonus wins towards the 3 win threshold, how would that "poison the entire experience"? [editline]12th September 2016[/editline] also you're implying the game isn't already grindy
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