Taboo Topics (Heavily moderated)

[Syobon]

That's what I meant although I did a terrible job of getting it across.

[BurntToShreds]

So this happened.

(Sources are on the video's actual YouTube page)

It seems like Anita's being picked apart bit by bit. I wonder if this will have any effect on her series?

[Syobon]

Do people still care about that? I thought it was pretty obvious by now that that kickstarter was a giant waste of cheddar. At least it raised attention to to the issue in general I guess.

[Doormaster]

To be honest I don't really think that video has a lot of punch to it. I mean, is there some reason she couldn't have played video games when she was a kid, but dislike/not know a lot about video games as they are now?

[Brekkjern]

If you re-watch the video, then no.

She explicitly says she isn't a gamer in one of the lectures and don't really like them while in the interviews she says she is a gamer and has been playing games since she was 5.

While I still think there are some issues with clarity in that video, it does shine some new light on her motives.

[Doormaster]

See, I didn't really get that out of the lecture video

When she says she doesn't like games in the lecture it's immediately clarified that she doesn't like that the only form of conflict resolution seems to be violence

Of course, I could be missing something

[Brekkjern]

If you were a gamer, you would know that there are more genres than FPS and RTS, or did we just demote all the adventure and society builder games?

She also says "I am not a fan of video games. I actually had to learn a lot about games in the process of making this [video]".

I guess that could mean "I had to learn a lot about games I have not played", but that's not the vibe I am getting. To me, the tone she delivers this in and the rest of the clips from the lecture suggests that the first statement is true.

But to be honest, I don't think we are going to get any conclusion out of this small clip.

EDIT: I just watched the Vimeo video from the lecture where this is taken from and that video is even more cut up so gleaning anything useful from it isn't all that easy. To get the full meaning in context, you would need the raw footage from that lecture.

The clip is taken from about 12:00 in.
http://vimeo.com/13216819

[Lambeth]

I'm really tired of the notion that there has to be some litmus test to be considered a real gamer.

[Barabba]

Well, if gamers' body fluids deviated too much from 7, they'd die. Any other gamer is just a fantasy.

So I've been thinking about the devil lately. What is he? Is he a rebellious person out to inflict misfortune on humanity, or is he a judge that provides tests for humans to determine their worth?

[Kamak]

To some people, he's an individual that provides an alternative to God's way, which is restrictive and goes a bit against free will for the sake of harmony and eternal peace, which can be extremely chafing. Generally, in this line of thinking, you go to hell not because the devil took you there, but because God casts you there for disobeying, since he's the dominant force, which is why the devil challenges his authority in the hopes of overtaking the system.

To others, he's a manipulator, trying to tempt those who hit hard patches in their life and stray them for the sake of dragging them to his level to join him in hell for eternal torment. He still hopes to overtake God, but that seems to be more of a way to spread even more misery, like a Saturday morning cartoon villain.

And I'm sure there's a myriad of other thoughts on the matter that I'm too tired to expand upon.

Like with a lot of things in religion, there's a lot of ways to interpret it. Even many devout Christians view the devil as a necessity and/or a tragic figure, even if they oppose his methods or supposed ideology.

[Reyo]

I was raised to the "God is the ultimate good" and "Satan is the ultimate evil" lesson, but then as I got older what I could observe suggested that humanity can't even put a definition on just what is "good" and "evil" when it comes to itself. Not only are good and evil purely subjective, but they can be anywhere between polar opposites to exactly the same in the right light. Just look at politics, where everyone's saying everyone else is evil while they're the shining example of morality, which is physically impossible, when the real truth is that they simply think what they have to say is correct. If the human mind can barely recognize the difference between good and evil within itself, how can we be expected to believe that we can apply such things to omnipotent beings.

The problem isn't that God is bad, and Satan is good, it's that we're trying to look at a sunset through a straw and describe the nature of it to a blind man.

Also the straw is fixed to an immovable tripod and pointed in the opposite direction.

At noon.

[TheStranger]

Isnt it basically human nature to belive that your group is good and everything else is evil? It kinda stands to reason that youd expect God to be on your side and Satan on the other in that case. Considering the lengths people are willing to go to justify the horrible crap they do, its obvious that "good" is a social construct used as a weapon by whoever holds political power.

[Dire]

Or, you know, people can come to that decision on their own if given a chance. It's why people are capable of converting to and from religion/s.

Not everyone uses religion as an excuse to be horrible.
I, for one, am horrible because I am not religious.

[Syobon]

Well, if gamers' body fluids deviated too much from 7, they'd die. Any other gamer is just a fantasy.

So I've been thinking about the devil lately. What is he? Is he a rebellious person out to inflict misfortune on humanity, or is he a judge that provides tests for humans to determine their worth?

It depends on what religion and what subreligion and what dogma you're talking about.

[Reyo]

Posting in Taboo just in case.

I have a rather dirty sense of humor, and tend to make comments or jokes that people label "inappropriate." I'm not here to try and justify that I'm not actually saying inappropriate things, I realize full well that sometimes I say things that approach that line, and then beat it to death with a 2x4. My concern comes from the occasional moments where I'm called out on it because I'm "not alowed to make such comments in polite [female] company." It's not that I'm being called out by females who are offended by my behavior, I'm being called out by other guys under the pretenses that there's a girl present, therefore it's inappropriate.

It makes me wonder, given this "not-even-recent" wave of female independence (like feminism), which is actually worse? When some guy makes a vulgar comment around you, or when someone tells him it's inappropriate to make such vulgar comments in front of females? In my mind, it'd be pretty assumative of me to think that just because someone's a female, that they'll get offended by such a comment. What's more is it'd be just as rediculous to think that if it did offend them, that they can't speak up for themselves and say "Hey, I'm offended by that!" Instead they need another guy to speak up and say "Hey, bro, there's a chick present, can't be sayen' shit like that bro!"

Am I still completely in the wrong here?