61

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Game of Thrones

« on: June 13, 2016, 08:27:05 PM »

And the Arya subplot was terrible, just terrible.  No, you don't get to do an off-screen moment of badassery when she has yet to demonstrate said badassery in the first place!  Seriously, the Waif has spent the whole season kicking Arya's ass, and now at the last minute they think they can cut away and we'll just imagine that this time it went differently?  Bah.

The badassery was off-screen because it was in the dark. Since she was blind for a while, Arya has experience fighting without vision. The Waif has always been sighted, so being in the dark gave Arya the advantage. Which is extra satisfying because the Waif is the one who kept beating up a fucking blind girl and made Arya learn to fight without vision in the first place.

62

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Game of Thrones

« on: May 19, 2016, 07:15:11 PM »

Also, I really ship Tormund and Brienne. They would make the greatest warrior children ever.

63

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: F&@% YOU George Zimmerman

« on: May 13, 2016, 06:48:00 AM »

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you you should. If I understand correctly, LD doesn't think Zimmerman should be disallowed from selling his gun, but that doesn't make him any less of a scumbag for doing it.

64

Technology & Information / Re: The Flat Earth Society official IRC chat

« on: May 12, 2016, 10:34:01 PM »

And no, it's not a no girls club. Roosroos and Snupes are on there every day.

Snupes isn't a girl. It doesn't identify as a conventional gender and it won't let you put it in a box and label it. And Rooroos is just a lesbian waiting to discover the taste of rug. By the age of 35 she'll have a shaved head, wear large cardigans and own 4 cats.

I'm going to ignore the transphobia, because I know I'm not getting anywhere with you there, but surely you're not idiotic enough to think that lesbians aren't women?

65

Technology & Information / Re: The Flat Earth Society official IRC chat

« on: May 12, 2016, 08:59:15 PM »

And no, it's not a no girls club. Roosroos and Snupes are on there every day.

I go there semi-regularly as well

66

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Veganism is a handicap of the religions

« on: May 06, 2016, 03:44:36 AM »

Plus, have you seen alpacas after they've been sheared? That shit is hilarious. Their necks are all skinny but their heads are still poofy c:

67

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Veganism is a handicap of the religions

« on: May 06, 2016, 01:00:33 AM »

What I never understood is vegans believing honey is bad. If anything, these days, we really need to be supporting honey and honey bee related business. Wild honey bees have become extremely rare and it doesn't hurt the bees in any way to take portions of excess honey from a commercial beehive.

Ugh, yeah. And also wool. PETA has this ad that shows a sheep all bloodied up supposedly due to shearing and it's like, no. Not only is shearing a sheep not bad for the sheep, it's also actually good for it. Too much wool can really weigh down on a sheep, not to mention the possibility of overheating.

68

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Veganism is a handicap of the religions

« on: May 06, 2016, 12:10:05 AM »

Personally I think if you're going by the "byproducts are okay just don't kill anything" method then you should open yourself back up to animal byproducts. Taking milk from a cow is no more harmful than taking an apple from a tree.

69

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Veganism is a handicap of the religions

« on: May 05, 2016, 08:37:17 PM »

For that matter what about the poor soybean plant? I feel like a lot of your more vocal vegetarians forget that plants are living things too. No one seems to care about their rights.

The common response to this is that plants are not intelligent and don't feel pain.

We also identify with animals, and even more so with mammals, so it makes sense that vegetarians would care more about sparing them than plants.

Also, there's a thing called fruitarianism in which you only eat fruits since they are the products of plants rather than the actual plant; you don't have to kill a plant to eat fruit.

70

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Veganism is a handicap of the religions

« on: May 05, 2016, 07:15:40 PM »

Increasing the number of the vegans probably makes the foods cheaper and accessible. some of this is relevant caused by the free market economy.

I don't fully agree with you there. Demand obviously plays a role, but there are some regions where vegan food is simply less accessible.

For instance, I went to high school in a tiny town in the mountains. The area was dry and often cold. There were ranches, but agriculture wasn't really a thing. That means that produce had to be shipped in from other places, or you had to spend gas money to drive to a city and get it. Even if all ~1000 citizens happened to be vegan, you can't get around the fact that acquiring vegan food will cost more money. And the quality and variety of that food won't be great either.

71

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Veganism is a handicap of the religions

« on: May 04, 2016, 03:20:29 PM »

Every time I see a baby animal I think about how horrible it is to eat them when they grow up. Every being is basically sharing the same experience, which is basically just trying not to die. Who are we to decide what lives and dies.

But then I think about Bacon.

Yeah, I've kind of gotten over the ethical dilemma of actually eating animals. A) because thinking about bacon and b) because it's just how life goes--we evolved to be omnivores. One thing that does still get to me though is the inhumane treatment of animals in the food industry. If I could afford to only eat locally I would.

72

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Veganism is a handicap of the religions

« on: May 04, 2016, 03:07:24 PM »

Arguments over its health aside, it is super expensive (especially in certain regions where fresh produce is a rarity), and the militant vegans who shame everyone else are incredibly short-sighted to not take that into consideration.

For the record, I've never been vegan, but I have spent fairly long periods of time in the past either being a vegetarian or a "beady-eyed vegetarian" (i.e., only eating animals with beady eyes like fish and poultry). I don't think I'll ever try vegetarianism out again, but I don't exclude the possibility of being selective about my meat intake again.

73

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Teachers deserve low pay

« on: May 02, 2016, 08:48:35 PM »

It should also be noted that I'm in what I imagine is a relatively research-light field. If English professors can spend a fair chunk of their time researching the life of Mary Shelley or the history of vampire fiction I'm sure that professors in STEM fields keep pretty busy with their research.

74

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Teachers deserve low pay

« on: May 02, 2016, 08:37:45 PM »

I know that anecdotal evidence is less valuable than actual data, but since you seem to be disagreeing about the data anyway, I'll go ahead: A number of my professors have explicitly told me that their classes are almost a side-job compared to their research. Some of them occasionally miss classes because they're off at some conference talking about their research with other researchers. I'm sure this isn't the case for everyone, but the types of professors that SexWarrior is describing definitely exist.

75

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Teachers deserve low pay

« on: April 28, 2016, 04:49:43 AM »

Right because of course colleges and universities are exactly the same thing.

I thought Americans referred to university as college.

The terms are frequently used synonymously. However, we still make a distinction between universities and colleges. Universities tend to be research institutions as well as offering undergraduate and graduate degrees. Colleges tend to focus on undergrad degrees and don't have the research capacity of universities. Colleges tend to be smaller campuses with smaller class sizes. There's probably a few other distinctions as well, but you get the idea.

Also, universities are comprised of colleges. That's why you can say "I go to college" when you actually go to university and still be technically correct (in America). Usually the colleges are just a way of categorizing majors.

The university I go to actually only just got its university status a few years ago. It used to only be a college.

76

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Teachers deserve low pay

« on: April 27, 2016, 02:25:48 PM »

Why do you need to educate the child? If the child is not educated to become a google programmer, you can import an immigrant from another country to do it. Therefore any effort to educate in America is a waste of time and money. Children have become a massive waste to the economy. It is why higher education for women, contraception, abortion, divorce, homosexuality and every single other anti-baby policy are enforced by the government. They are outsourcing birth to the 3rd world. Why have an expensive American child, when you can import a Mexican one that cost nothing to raise to fill the hole in the economy? American teachers are part of the waste. Cutting their wages and providing a terrible education for Americans has no draw backs. Americans can wait the tables and wash the cars of the rich immigrant workers for a lower national education budget + fight the wars as poorly paid soldiers to protect those well paid immigrant jobs.

Oh man that was a wild ride from start to finish.

77

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing

« on: April 26, 2016, 02:43:19 PM »

So I'm not sure if this belongs in its own thread or if it's fine to tell you about it here, but this streaming site is cool as fuck. It lets you pick a playlist by mood, country, and decade.

78

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Teachers deserve low pay

« on: April 26, 2016, 01:42:34 PM »

So this horseshit came up in my fb newsfeed this morning.

79

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Teachers deserve low pay

« on: April 25, 2016, 02:54:04 PM »

Putting aside the debate on whether or not the job is difficult, one could argue that it should be a highly paid position just because of how necessary it is.

Jobs aren't paid by necessity. In fact, I would say the opposite is true. We need garbage persons, construction crews, truck drivers, etc to make society function. Yet, these people aren't paid that great. Conversely, do we need another programmer at Google? Do we need an all-star quarterback for our home team?

Oh, I know they aren't. I'm saying they should be Garbage persons, construction crews, truck drivers, and teachers all deserve higher pay than entertainers. Although that can't really be helped since oftentimes entertainers' income is at least in part determined by people choosing to pay for their entertainment.

80

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Teachers deserve low pay

« on: April 25, 2016, 04:42:28 AM »

Putting aside the debate on whether or not the job is difficult, one could argue that it should be a highly paid position just because of how necessary it is. Even if all a teacher does is regurgitate textbooks (I've seen that happen but it's definitely not the norm, at least not in my experience), people need to be educated some way or another in order for society to work. And even if they were just babysitters, y'know, those kids do need someone to supervise them all day. If we make the parents do it we'd have a catastrophic cutback on the workforce.