New Testingstan

Does anyone have a link to that page that talked about fascism and how one of its aspects was the simultaneous belief that the enemy is a dangerous threat that must be dealt with before it's too late while at the same time much weaker than ourselves? I thought I'd gotten to something with Umberto Eco's stuff but I'm not finding that part itself.

Edit: nevermind, ended up on a page that talked about that immediately after posting this :L

"Let's bomb the Czech Republic".

Yeah, let the US bomb a NATO member, I'm sure this is going to go just well

It's always funny watching duchess melt down at SDN. At least she isn't advocating rounding up poor people and executing them just in case they may behave criminally.

That this post and her post were made within a minute of each other in separate threads is far too amusing to me right now

Flagg wrote:It's always funny watching duchess melt down at SDN. At least she isn't advocating rounding up poor people and executing them just in case they may behave criminally.

You do realize that rather than some kind of emotional or mental melt down, I'm just endlessly bemused by how people on SD.net respond to my ideas, right?

magic princess wrote:

Flagg wrote:It's always funny watching duchess melt down at SDN. At least she isn't advocating rounding up poor people and executing them just in case they may behave criminally.

You do realize that rather than some kind of emotional or mental melt down, I'm just endlessly bemused by how people on SD.net respond to my ideas, right?

I meant an Internet meltdown, but I can see how it would appear otherwise and my apologies. I'd suggest that people respond to your ideas as mostly rational human beings.

I honestly do think so. I mean, I don't think I'm really making rational arguments myself, but I don't find the objections to them very rational either. Then again, I don't really find anything humans do to be particularly rational, and trying to make yourself rational against a few billion years of evolutionary process seems like just another great way to get depressed.

The repulsion to your posted ideas is rational is what I'm getting at.

Flagg wrote:The repulsion to your posted ideas is rational is what I'm getting at.

I see it as evidence of the psychological neuroses of a society which has used clinicalism to isolate itself from the daily reality of life for the majority of people, and indeed, of the consequences of their own actions, like meat consumption.

magic princess wrote:

Flagg wrote:The repulsion to your posted ideas is rational is what I'm getting at.

I see it as evidence of the psychological neuroses of a society which has used clinicalism to isolate itself from the daily reality of life for the majority of people, and indeed, of the consequences of their own actions, like meat consumption.

I do think there's a lot of that. I mean keep it away from little kids, but people need to see the consequences of our actions. Even to the point of making public the Sandy Hook crime scene pictures and autopsies and showing them on TV. And I don't eat anything I wouldn't kill myself.

What's the debate about over there ?

I mean, in all seriousness, let's ask ourselves (taking the actual death penalty debate away for a moment) -- bullet to the head, or two hours strapped to a gurney while untrained people fumble for your veins by poking you with needles over and over again? Which is more humane?

Is the fact that we do the later rather than the former really a sincere effort at being more humane, or is it just because the blood and brain splashed everywhere from a fat fist sized hole in the back of the head would force people to viscerally confront that they just killed a person? My real argument is that the effort toward more "humane" versions of the death penalty has actually been the exact opposite, and has been driven by a desire on the part of people to have their cake and eat it too, to be able to have the death penalty without having to face any of the reality of death.

The second argument of course is that it's better to just live in a society that rules by fear than a society that teaches you to hate yourself. If you're going to be oppressed, why the fuck sign up to be your own policeman? But that's exactly how society has evolved in the past 200 years.

Lets be fair, it'll likely fuck up the executioner for...well, ever.

That said, I'd rather be shot.

magic princess wrote:I mean, in all seriousness, let's ask ourselves (taking the actual death penalty debate away for a moment) -- bullet to the head, or two hours strapped to a gurney while untrained people fumble for your veins by poking you with needles over and over again? Which is more humane?

Is the fact that we do the later rather than the former really a sincere effort at being more humane, or is it just because the blood and brain splashed everywhere from a fat fist sized hole in the back of the head would force people to viscerally confront that they just killed a person? My real argument is that the effort toward more "humane" versions of the death penalty has actually been the exact opposite, and has been driven by a desire on the part of people to have their cake and eat it too, to be able to have the death penalty without having to face any of the reality of death.

I agree completely. If I weren't opposed to the death penalty for a number of reasons I'd be advocating for a bolt to the head that just liquifies the brain stem. But that would be too bloody for the witnesses.

One of my French (language & literature) teacher once advanced as an argument against the death penalty that, throughout history, the job of executioner was handled to the lowliest of the lows, the pariahs of society, and that as such the death penalty was not only a sentence against the alleged criminal, but also against the poors.

Or something like that, it was like six or seven years ago and it's a bit fuzzy, but basically the idea was that we let the poors do the dirty job, and that this further ensure a lack of empathy toward the person being killed AND the executioner, which itself become a victim of the system.

Ostracization, yadda-yadda

Flagg wrote:I agree completely. If I weren't opposed to the death penalty for a number of reasons I'd be advocating for a bolt to the head that just liquifies the brain stem. But that would be too bloody for the witnesses.

I had always figured that the guillotine was one of the cleanest and most humane ways of killing someone, but the possibility that you may remain awake a few seconds to a few minutes after being beheaded makes me kind of squeamish about it.

Oxymoron wrote:One of my French (language & literature) teacher once advanced as an argument against the death penalty that, throughout history, the job of executioner was handled to the lowliest of the lows, the pariahs of society, and that as such the death penalty was not only a sentence against the alleged criminal, but also against the poors.

Or something like that, it was like six or seven years ago and it's a bit fuzzy, but basically the idea was that we let the poors do the dirty job, and that this further ensure a lack of empathy toward the person being killed AND the executioner, which itself become a victim of the system.

Ostracization, yadda-yadda

I went to hit "like" and then realized this isn't facebook.

When I've had to do mercy-killings on animals (usually finding them hit on the side of the road, mortally injured and already mostly dead from disease/dehydration, the only difference I make is that they *don't* have several more hours/days of agony before they go), I've always tried to find the quickest means of completely destroying the brain, no matter how messy. A lot of people seem to have trouble comprehending the fact that something in agony doesn't care if the end to its pain is a bit splattery, it only cares about ending the damn pain.

Aaron wrote:I went to hit "like" and then realized this isn't facebook.

Sometimes my own vanity leads me to miss the fact that there isn't a "score" system for posts here

but then I quickly "remember" that if we did that the place would quickly turn into an echo chamber and that this would only serve to alienate people with different, unpopular opinions.

I was a member of a board that did that, it sucked.

Yeah. Because you can insult someone all you can, but once you give someone a -1, then all hell break loose.


I frequent another board that does have a +1/-1 system for posts, and I too often for my taste surprise myself caring / hoping for my "score" to go up.

Almost whoring the upvotes.

I sicken myself.

Oxymoron wrote:A thought-provoking opinion piece regarding the involvement of corporations in the open-source world.

the problem with linux is it is a steaming pile of incompatible shit, so everyone wants to do their own thing and ignore the others in an attempt to straighten it out and make things better...

...which is part of the fucking problem as that leads to more incompatible (and shitty) shit!


and as i read that i was like "they should just fork it"... which would solve some problems kinda, a fork can be pretty compatible, but not really because if people are using red hat's shit the devs are screwed anyway

so i just had some guys come to my door with a petition on a moratorium on hydrofracking in new york

i'm wearing my purple footed pajamas with the yellow duckies, pom hat, and monkey slippers. lol not exactly dressed for outsiders. but what the fuck am i worrying about if people will approve of my dress.

but oh well i signed their shit

good man