2012 - objectively the best year ever - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Memobot;38867989]I'd still rather be alive now than any other time, so I guess that makes that statement correct.[/QUOTE] I wouldn't mind being a noblemen in the 1880s. Life was good in Europe, if you werent turkish or russian.

2012 was a great year, lost about 22 pounds since may after i realised i was wasting my time alone infront of the computer instead of socialising

2012 was near perfect. Everything in the article is right.

Thread Music [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cfq-9qzlIc[/media] Really glad to hear that things are actually getting better. I guess I just don't pay enough attention then I should.

Yeah, but 2012 had more mass murders in the US than any other year in history

[QUOTE=mac338;38865542]This is what I've been saying all along. This is what I've been writing in all the threads where people whine "worst year ever". Shit's been great globally. Shit's been great personally. Shit's good, and we should all stand back and appreciate what we have. Even those living in poverty have families, and those without have their lives, hope and the future ahead of them.[/QUOTE] For you, for me it was the most terrible year.... and personaly too.

[QUOTE=showtek;38868613]For you, for me it was the most terrible year.... and personaly too.[/QUOTE] Why?

Wish I could say the same about the updates for TF2 this year.

Hmm lets focus on the bad this year. February 27, 2012 School shooting to where a kid shot 10 rounds into a group of teens, killing 3 and wounding 2 August 24, 2012 - School shooting to where the shooter shot its self in the bathroom August 27, 2012 - School shooting to where the shooter took a double barrel shotgun and shot a upsidedownsyndrome kid September 26, 2012 - School shooting where the shooter killed himself before school started November 29, 2012 - School shooting that the shooter shot him self in front of fellow students November 30, 2012 - School shooting that killed 2 the shooter and his father December 14, 2012 - School shooting that killed 26 children and teachers Fun Fact: Theres more shit thats happened. Another fun fact this all had happened in Merica. School Shooter 2012 North America Tour

[QUOTE=Nicca;38868865]Hmm lets focus on the bad this year. February 27, 2012 School shooting to where a kid shot 10 rounds into a group of teens, killing 3 and wounding 2 August 24, 2012 - School shooting to where the shooter shot its self in the bathroom August 27, 2012 - School shooting to where the shooter took a double barrel shotgun and shot a upsidedownsyndrome kid September 26, 2012 - School shooting where the shooter killed himself before school started November 29, 2012 - School shooting that the shooter shot him self in front of fellow students November 30, 2012 - School shooting that killed 2 the shooter and his father December 14, 2012 - School shooting that killed 26 children and teachers Fun Fact: Theres more shit thats happened. Another fun fact this all had happened in Merica. School Shooter 2012 North America Tour[/QUOTE] Another fun fact: America isn't the only place in the world.

I stubbed my toe 3 times this year and I only cried the first 2 times :(

[QUOTE=Dr. Gestapo;38868976]Another fun fact: America isn't the only place in the world.[/QUOTE] Another fun fact: Its the only place in the world that isnt a third world country besides europe and australia.

[QUOTE=Nicca;38869035]Another fun fact: Its the only place in the world that isnt a third world country besides europe and australia.[/QUOTE] I can't tell if you're joking because you've only made 2 posts.

[QUOTE=mac338;38869055]I can't tell if you're joking because you've only made 2 posts.[/QUOTE] Im joking silly.

[QUOTE=Nicca;38869035]Another fun fact: Its the only place in the world that isnt a third world country besides europe and australia.[/QUOTE] You should probably stop posting at your second post at this rate.

2012 has been significantly better by 2011, at least for me.

1st half was the happiest period of my life, the second half was comparatively shit, but There is always the new year.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;38869158]You should probably stop posting at your second post at this rate.[/QUOTE] Ill tell gatty as that hurts my feelings..

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;38865818]True, although the "Dark ages" weren't that dark, and in many ways life was pretty ok after the Romans fell to bits.[/QUOTE] No, the dark ages were a genuinely horrible time to live in. People literally wallowed in their own shit and killed anyone who wasn't a christian. As brutal as the Romans were, they were at least relatively tolerant and well educated when compared to Medieval Europe.

Probably no one has mentioned this [quote]Take global poverty. In 1990, the UN announced Millennium Development Goals, the first of which was to halve the number of people in extreme poverty by 2015. It emerged this year that the target was met in 2008. Yet the achievement did not merit an official announcement, presumably because it was not achieved by any government scheme but by the pace of global capitalism. Buying cheap plastic toys made in China really is helping to make poverty history. And global inequality? This, too, is lower now than any point in modern times. Globalisation means the world’s not just getting richer, but fairer too.[/quote] woo capitalism and globalism!

This article is a little too cheery because Globalization has a large cost to it beyond the "things that are better YAY!" that they mention. There is a reason why Globalization is also known as "neo-colonialism". [B]I.E. mangrove forests disappearing in south-east asia, due to massive expansion of fishing farms to meet the global demands of shrimp, catfish, etc. They also also disappearing due to the expansion of palm-oil farms:[/B] [img]http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/deforestation_borneo.jpg[/img] [B]Loss of the Aral Sea in Central Asia:[/B] [img]http://node1.ecogeek-cdn.net/ecogeek/images/image/aralsea.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.chillinpanda.com/img/weird/the_disappearance_of_the_aral_sea/the_disappearance_of_the_aral_sea01.jpg[/img] [B]Causes:[/B] rampant cotton and cash-crop irrigation in the past couple of decades from rivers that feed into the sea. The effect? Fishermen who live in port towns that rely on the sea must travel 40+miles to reach the coast, even though 20-30 years ago they only had to go off the pier. Once home to over 20 specicies of fish, now home to only two, and at least one of which is an invasive species introduced that has a high salt tolerance because the sea (due to the shrinking) has an extremely high salt concentration. The worst part? The soviets used to bury old biological weapons and radioactive material under the sea here. Now that the seabed is exposed, its spreading toxins such as Anthrax all around the region from wind. Many cases of death have already been reported. [B]CHINA CANCER VILLAGES:[/B] [img]http://www.environmentmagazine.org/sebin/z/p/made-in-china-photo2.jpg[/img] (number of "cancer villages" - AKA villages and population centers that have extremely high rates of cancer, caused by industrialization, pollution, and poor standards for manufacturing waste) [I]Source:[/I] [url]http://www.environmentmagazine.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/March-April%202010/made-in-china-full.html[/url] [B]Great garbage patch of the pacific (and the loss of the coral reefs in south-east asia fueling war motives for china and could easily be the cause for future hunger for that entire region as all the fish die off:[/B] [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/North_Pacific_Subtropical_Convergence_Zone.jpg[/img] [B]Effect:[/B] Massive fish die offs, the entire area here at the convergence point is a dead zone, fishes that don't die inevitbly carry garbage inside of them until fish that we get off our coast quite literally has toxins or small garbage particles inside them, from the food-chain or migration. [img]http://images.wri.org/map_reefrisk_asia1b.gif[/img] Red= high threat level of coral reefs ------------- And the whole spiel of energy abundance is kind of silly. The environmental cost of using fossil fuels is huge. Most deforestation that happens around the world is done via slash/burning which creates a huge amount of carbon pollution as well. China's energy consumption has increased so much in the past decade alone to meet the demands of globalization that they have exceeded the US in carbon emissions (Mostly from skyrocketing coal burning). We have "green" alternatives, but they are all damaging on the environment in their own ways or way too expensive to actually power more than a small village or town. Hydro power for example basically involves irreversably altering a very large chunk of the enviornment to build your resivoir, and you usually have to displace thousands or millions of people (see Three Gorges Dam in China). Point is, Globalization is amazing. It has done wonderful things for humanity as a whole and it is a great first step in truly unifying the world and reducing stuff like disease and poverty. [B]But to pretend that it has no cost is silly. It has massive costs on people and the enviornment, some of them can't be fixed. [/B]A lot of this simply has to do with us being unaware of what is going on or the effects. Some of them are hidden away from public eye. Such as, warlord control of cheap coffee farms and such in Africa, the fact that most agriculture grown in developing third world countries are made with very toxic pesticides banned in the first world, child labor, etc and guess where we get the majority of such foods? Also fishing farms from Taiwan/Indonesia/Etc (that feed most of the worlds supply of cheap fish) have very high contents of various toxins and hormones banned in the US, not to mention they have terrible cleaning standards (the fish often quite literrally swim in their own filth), and the only cheap way for farmers to keep the waters from getting to toxic is to expand the farm (cut down more mangrove forest habitat).

it's been a good year for me i got my high school diploma despite half the school administration claiming I'd never do it suck on [b]that[/b], negative elements. [editline]17th December 2012[/editline] And it was even on time too

[QUOTE=Melkor;38869481]No, the dark ages were a genuinely horrible time to live in. People literally wallowed in their own shit and killed anyone who wasn't a christian. As brutal as the Romans were, they were at least relatively tolerant and well educated when compared to Medieval Europe.[/QUOTE] Source? Seriously I want a source for "people wallowed in their own shit" and you saying that they killed non-Christians like some kind of reflex. Also the Romans well educated? Illiteracy was pretty high among people before the 19th century.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;38869669]Source? Seriously I want a source for "people wallowed in their own shit" and you saying that they killed non-Christians like some kind of reflex.[/QUOTE] The Crusades were going on during the dark ages and shit if I remember correctly. Although the whole wallowing in their own shit may be a bit too far, but on that point when the vikings met the English they thought they were unclean because they bathed like once a month.

[QUOTE=Pierrewithahat;38869743]The Crusades were going on during the dark ages and shit if I remember correctly.[/QUOTE] Except the Crusades went on during the 11th to 13th centuries and weren't black and white as a religious conflict. [QUOTE=Pierrewithahat;38869743]Although the whole wallowing in their own shit may be a bit too far, but on that point when the vikings met the English they thought they were unclean because they bathed like once a month.[/QUOTE] Baths depended on who you were. If you went around digging or moving refuse, you bathed daily (usually in a local stream). People actually had fairly high degrees of cleanliness, but this was restricted to hand, foot and face washing (the parts most used and seen). A proper bath is a considerable investment of time each day, given you need to heat up a whole tub of water to clean yourself in.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;38869779]Except the Crusades went on during the 11th to 13th centuries and weren't black and white as a religious conflict. Baths depended on who you were. If you went around digging or moving refuse, you bathed daily (usually in a local stream). People actually had fairly high degrees of cleanliness, but this was restricted to hand, foot and face washing (the parts most used and seen). A proper bath is a considerable investment of time each day, given you need to heat up a whole tub of water to clean yourself in.[/QUOTE] Fair enough, I can't really find anything that supports my argument other than Vikings washed every morning at least and tended to carry clean clothes and shit.

This is what I've been trying to tell people. Especially the "I wish I lived in *pre 21st century date*" people ESPECIALLY the ones who want to live in medieval/reneissance times for whatever reason Ugh...

Worst year on record for me, doesn't even compare to any year prior highly doubtful I'll have a worse year in my entire life, so that's the bright side i guess

[QUOTE=Swebonny;38865687]It is indeed a good year. My boostar earnings since last year has grown exponentially.[/QUOTE] Whenever I boostar anything I'll give nothing to the mods that ban me, so some advice; don't ban people, make more money.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;38869669]Source? Seriously I want a source for "people wallowed in their own shit" and you saying that they killed non-Christians like some kind of reflex. Also the Romans well educated? Illiteracy was pretty high among people before the 19th century.[/QUOTE] Most of the information I have comes from college lectures, but it's pretty common knowledge that sanitation standards in Medieval Europe were horrible. Many cities didn't have sewers, so trash and waste from chamber pots were often just left on the side of the street. And I say they killed non christians because they did kill non christians, usually after torturing them. [url]http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vatican/esp_vatican29.htm[/url] [url]http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gbetcher/373/MedTowns.htm[/url] [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation_in_ancient_Rome[/url]