jocundthejolly's page

Libertarians and conservatives, can we agree that it should be illegal to market kid guns?

If anyone is up there now, hope you are OK and staying safe.

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The sad, or happy I guess depending on your table, thing is that this game can descend into entendre entirely too quickly. Something as simple as, "He unsheathes his longsword," can send the wrong group, or the right group depending on your table, down the unrecoverable road to perversion. Heaven forbid somebody brandishes a shortsword; their masculinity will be called into question for eternity.

It's hard to talk about rods, wands, and staves without eliciting some snickering.

I 'get" neutral good - you do the right thing by a greater moral code.

I "get" Lawful Neutral - you follow the law regardless of the outcome.

So what is Lawful Good? Both? You follow the law because the law is good? But isn't neutral good, following a "law" of moral goodness...

For example...

The law says that slaves are property. What does a Lawful Good person do with that?

Believing that social organization conduces to human thriving doesn't mean believing that every law is good. Take Princess Leia, for example. Her goal is to eliminate a system of political and social organization which is oppressive and destructive and replace it with one which is not. There's nothing inherently contradictory about being a lawful good rebel.

:confused:

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Lets stay on topic here the story isn't about semi-auto weapons. Its about a person defending themselves and then being made out to look like an insane blood thirsty murder.

The limits of your right to inflict harm on someone, even someone trying to hurt you, is a topic worthy of philosophical inquiry. I find that many gun rights advocates fall prey to false dilemma thinking here, i.e., have trouble understanding the idea that doing something "bad" doesn't wholly abrogate your morally considerability. Thinking in black and white is certainly easier on the poor, overwhelmed human brain than contemplating the complexities of this issue, but I don't accept that once you try to commit a trangression against me all moral bets are off and nearly anything I do to you is justifiable.

Maybe Fret(Fredegar Rockcrusher), the sage in Alustriel's retinue/employ?

Evil Lincoln wrote:

I still twitch when I read "an errata."

I think that the majority of English-as-a-first-language speakers are relatively uninformed/uneducated regarding "foreign" plurals, particularly Latin neuter plural. How often do you hear about an interesting datum? Usually, you will hear "piece of data," which is mostly right but not very concise. I don't think I've ever heard anybody refer to an erratum, at least not out loud.

I mentioned "graffito," earlier, too. If it doesn't end in "-es," you will lose a lot of American English speakers. Sad, but apparently true.

Oh, yeah! I almost forgot about "a lot." Please, for the love of whatever you consider important, don't ever write "alot."

As someone smart once said about pronunciation, you must often choose between sounding like an ignorant toad or sounding like a supercilious toad.

1:"We visited several chateaux."
2:"I've always wanted to see some chateaus."
1:"You mean chateaux?" (you ignoramus!)

jocundthejolly wrote:

I see your point, though Latin adjectives are often used as substantives.

I would personally like to see this as a normal convention in English. It works in Latin and Cantonese (at least; I'm sure it's perfectly normal in quite a few other languages, too) so why couldn't it work for English?

English I find is in many ways much less economical than other languages. It seems to me that this pattern is most common in gnomic utterances (e.g., 'The good die young,' 'the rich get richer,' 'the poor you have always with you.').

jocundthejolly wrote:

Abyssian wrote:

Bonus means "good" in Latin. The English word "bonus" is only derived from said Latin word. The plural is, therefore, "bonuses." "Boni" is a Latin adjective describing plural, masculine nouns.

Just thought everyone should know.

Not sure why some words are customarily partially declined and others aren't. At this point "data," the nominative/accusative plural of the 2nd declension neuter "datum," isn't going away. "Datums" is not entering the English language.

I agree totally with "data" as a plural noun. My issue with "boni," specifically is that bonus doesn't mean the same thing in Latin and English and, therefore, shouldn't be used interchangeably (well, I don't think it should). Another fun fact with plurals from Italy: graffito is singular (even in English) and graffiti is plural.

I see your point, though Latin adjectives are often used as substantives.

"Boni laborant" is understood to mean "The good (men/people) work(s)."

Bonus means "good" in Latin. The English word "bonus" is only derived from said Latin word. The plural is, therefore, "bonuses." "Boni" is a Latin adjective describing plural, masculine nouns.

Just thought everyone should know.

Not sure why some words are customarily partially declined and others aren't. At this point "data," the nominative/accusative plural of the 2nd declension neuter "datum," isn't going away. "Datums" is not entering the English language.

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Awesome, in the proper sense of the word (or at least pretty cool to look at), even if you aren't a big sense of wonder person.

+1. No one complains that you need a psych evaluation before you are issued a badge and service weapon.

Stebhil wrote:

I get the point and see why any legislation in that area is not easy. Still, is it outrageous to suggest that a 200+ year old legislation might be in need of revision?

To Americans, the bill of rights isn't just a law that was passed by our 'first' legislature: Its the ten commandments given to our nation by its patron saints during our founding mytholgy. It has all the force of a holy writ as well as the sanction of law. Re- interpreting it to be more reasonable in a day of automatic weaponry is tricky, abolishing it would be blasphemy.

Federal courts have, however, consistently rejected an individual right(s) interpretation of the 2nd amendment. Gun enthusiasts don't like to talk about this, despite their claims of fervent belief in our system and in the rule of law. Not surprisingly, most "gun people" feel that the Constitution happens to mean precisely what they want it to mean.

One thing has struck me as "peculiar" since it was mentioned the first time through the news.

The behaviour of the guy after the shooting.
In many of these cases the guy is usually shot in a fight with the police afterwards (not necessarily fatally) or he commits suicide.
None of that happened, instead he was apprehended in/at his car at the scene without any struggle at all.
Now, that can indicate a couple of things.
1) The police arrived at the scene very quickly (which they did) and he didn't have time to do anything else. However, there was only one officer at his location, who then called for backup (evidenced by the released communication). So, in a firefight, he would seem to have the upper hand with only one cop present.
2) He was remorseful for what he had just done and was caught "unprepared" quickly after, sitting in or standing next to his car.
3) He had absolutely no intentions of dying over this, because he wants to be alive for the aftermath and the infamy it entails.

2 or 3 also both seem possible, although for two very different reasons, given his freely given information about his booby trapped apartment.

I wondered about that also, but I think it is safe to assume that he wasn't thinking clearly at that point. It's conceivable that he planned to kill himself but didn't (couldn't) go through with it. I imagine that you can't really say whether you are willing to blow your brains out until you are at the point of doing it.

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In your own space you can say what you like, but it's Paizo's house; they just let you chat in it (though it is frustrating at times).

I always use the wish guidelines from Dragon Magazine #49:

The General Principles of Wishes
I: Wishes are 9th-level magic spells and are limited in power accordingly; Limited Wishes are 7th-level spells which are even more limited.
II: Wishes cannot change what has already happened, but they can be used to alter or negate the result of some prior happening.
III: Wishes cannot directly affect that which will happen, except in the sense that everything that will happen is a direct result of what is and has been happening.
IV: Wishes are bound by the laws under which they themselves are brought about and used.
V: Wishes have no authority and no power over the abstract, the insubstantial, or the non-concrete.
VI: Wishes will always act in the simplest manner possible while abiding by the wording of the Wish itself.
VII: Wishes are general-purpose spells, and as such may be used voluntarily in a number of ways, with varying chances for success.
VIII: Wishes will rarely achieve more than one end, and never more than two.
IX: Wishes will fulfill, to the limits of their power, not only the desired end but the means by which that end is brought about.
X: Wishes are impartial, objective and consistent.

Of course, if a god chooses to use alter reality, these guidelines are out the window. But for general purposes these do nicely.

Wish is an event in my game. It's not cheap. It costs you time, money, and other stuff you might not know about before you cast it. Such is the nature of great magical power. You don't just flick your wrist and forget it like it's a cantrip.

What is best in life?

Slam dunk .

BigNorseWolf wrote:

When i repeatedly ask 'what on earth do you do with philosophy?" and the only answers I see so far are

1) Justify religion/belief in god
2) Apply philosobable to patently inane/obvious ideas
3) Use a fancier method to justify pre held convictions.
4) Define philosophy to be thinking so that any idea is philosophy.

I agree alsmot at 100%. I would say that in this forum people tend to 4).

I don't endorse 4, and I think it is more useful to say that philosophy can be lived naively (unreflectively) or (self-)consciously. Most people don't, for example, spend a great deal of time or brainpower articulating for themselves their ideas about the problem of conduct (how should I live, what should I do, how should others live, what should others do or not do), and yet of course we are all forming opinions about it all the time and momently pursuing modes of life informed by those opinions.

This is backwards. Science stands on the shoulders of philosophy. Causality and empiricism (the idea that there is a neutral reality that is independent of the observer) are philosophical concepts without which science cannot exist. So no, philosophy as a whole is not scientific or unscientific. The scientific method is itself a philosophy!

Also

Quote:

Unscientific and therefore not knowledge of any kind

WTF? Are you seriously saying that anything that isn't scientific isn't knowledge?

It's good to remember that what we call science was long known as natural philosophy. The terms we use in talking about the enterprise and those who prosecute it became widespread in the 19th century.

While Myrkul's beliefs and religion are not my own, I disagree he is 'avoiding the elephant in the room'. The arguments posted for G-D on the first page do not make any mention of this, and he has tried to explain his own position on each one, whether he believes they are arguments for G-D or not.

In response he's been called a liar, told that his statements are B.S. because they don't match up with someone else's experiences and whatnot.

I'm not sure where the hostility is coming from, because he's presented himself as the most reasonable and even tempered guy on the religious side of things.

Yeah, but this

he's presented himself as the most reasonable and even tempered guy on the religious side of things.

is like saying,"I don't know why such civil pro-lifers are being received so uglily at this NARAL event." The climate on these boards is decidedly anti-religious (I won't try to adduce any reasons for this, though I have some ideas).

My first thought is a good-natured gearhead, maybe a dwarf. I don't see anything strange about being good and being mechanically inclined, and having good fine motor skills. You need a methodical, logical approach and organized mind for such things. Maybe you have developed some stealth as well as an adaptation to bullying (you don't like fighting much so you learned early to avoid being mistreated for being nerdy by slinking away or melting into shadows). Not every LG is a crusader, but you use your skills to help people whenever you can. Perhaps you help those unjustly imprisoned to escape by defeating shackles, cell locks, etc. when you can.

Probably what I remember SJ Gould for most was his dogged attempts to combat the idea that humans are the best/most powerful/most important thing in the universe.

Although any designation of most salient features must reflect the interests of the observer, I challenge anyone with professional training in evolutionary theory to defend the extending tip of the right tail as more definitive or more portentous than the persistence in one place, and constant growth in height, of the bacterial mode. The recorded history of life began with bacteria 3.5 billion years ago, continued as a tale of prokaryotic unicells alone for probably more than a billion years, and has never experienced a shift in the modal position of complexity. We do not live in what older books called "the age of man" (1 species), or "the age of mammals" (4000 species among more than a million for the animal kingdom alone), or even in "the age of arthropods" (a proper designation if we restrict our focus to the Metazoa, but surely not appropriate if we include all life on earth). We live, if we must designate an exemplar at all, in a persisting "age of bacteria"-the organisms that were in the beginning , are now, and probably ever shall be (until the sun runs out of fuel) the dominant creatures on earth by any standard evolutionary criterion of biochemical diversity, range of habitats, resistance to extinction, and perhaps, if the "deep hot biosphere" of bacteria within subsurface rocks matches the upper estimates for spread and abundance, even in biomass. I will only remind colleagues of Woese's "three-domain" model for life's full genealogy, a previously surprising but now fully accepted, and genetically documented, scheme displaying the phylogenetic triviality of all multicellular existence (a different issue, I fully admit, from ecological importance). Life's tree is, effectively, a bacterial bush. Two of the three domains belong to prokaryotes alone, while the three kingdoms of multicellular eukaryotes (plants, animals, and fungi) appear as three twigs at the terminus of the third domain.

Hmm I am wondering if it is similar to hand sanitiser in that it can actually foster germs . . .

You mean by weeding out the weak microbes you are actually breeding a resistant superstrain?

Gorbacz wrote:

No matter where you are, it's either law or anything related to math or chemistry/biology.

If you're majoring in anything else you either have rich parents or you're making a big mistake.

Speaking as a dude with a law degree and finishing up an LLM. - avoid law school in the united states unless you have acceptance from a top 10 university. Anything other than top 10, they are just taking your money and giving you nothing in return - unless it is a state uni that charges nothing and you expect to work legal aid / criminal defence / family law out of graduation (there is nothing wrong with those fields they just aren't as 'glamourous' as say MD&A or corporate b&#*+++%).

The last few years, I guess roughly since the world blew up in 2008, I've read the same story over and over again: I'm out of law school with a zillion dollars worth of debt and no hope of being able to pay it back; this was a ruinous decision.

I had an interesting idea last night. What about a double major in Archeology and Paleontology, taken at least to Master's in both. Not only would it mix my interests in History, Biology, Geology, and Engineering, both majors are highly related, meaning core classes overlap and the degrees support each other. After that, I could go and work for a museum as a researcher, go on a dig, or get teaching credentials, and my dual degrees in the art of digging up old stuff would help, because if you want to dig something up, I know how.

What elective slots I had would go to classes in Geology (for knowing a bit more about how artifacts and fossils exist), Zoology (for knowing a bit more about what I'm digging up), and History (for knowing a bit more about what I'm digging up) that are not core for my majors.

I think you would start with something like the BS in Evolutionary Anthropology I did at Rutgers .

You're talking about some pretty specialized areas of interest at the undergraduate level, and you also have to consider that not all courses in a catalog are offered regularly. You don't want to pick a school counting on being able to take a few specific classes, only to find out that they aren't been given during your time there. Of course lower-level courses are offered more frequently because there is more demand for them, but upper-level courses can go through long periods of unavailability. You have to be flexible and take what is available that meets your requirements.

If you're doing a 4 year degree in the US, usually the first 2 years are mostly general ed requirements. After that you probably have to take more general, lower-level courses in your field. In the end, it's likely you won't get to take loads of 300 or 400 level (advanced) courses that are somewhat more specialized. What I am saying is at most schools you don't get to customize and specialize too much until you get to graduate school.

Again, we would have to define 'respect'. As I understand it, many native American cultures 'respected' animals and yet they ate them.

Would respect mean that we are obligated to prevent infanticide, coercive copulation, and warfare among what used to be called higher primates? The first two are natural aspects of certain primates' (including gorillas' and orangutans') social and reproductive lives.

jocundthejolly wrote:

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Samnell wrote:

I think adult chimpanzees are probably about as much a person as a human toddler is. Call them maybe 50% people.

I've read that adult parrots, on average, have the cognitive development and functionality of a 3-year-old human. Does that make them 17% people? But this sort of scale bugs me, because humans show a VERY wide range. Is someone with an 80 IQ considered an 80% person? Is Stephen Hawking a 160% person, even though he can't move or speak unassisted? And how do we account for cultural (and/or species) bias in our tests?

To my mind, if you "affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person," you're more or less making it a binary thing: every organism that meets the criteria is a "person" and therefore gets affirmed and promoted.

You can bet that, were there other extant human species (of our genus or of closely related genera) still walking the planet, most of us would consider them subhuman.

I wonder if Neanderthals had survived and later evolved greater creative capacities, which of us would dominate the other...

I never really get used to the strangeness of the idea that one extant human (sensu lato) species is the exception, not the norm for the last 7 million years or however long ago it was that the human lineage diverged from the chimp lineage. I had this weird flash before: "Specializing in Neandertal, early Homo, and Australopithecine medicine."

Samnell wrote:

I think adult chimpanzees are probably about as much a person as a human toddler is. Call them maybe 50% people.

I've read that adult parrots, on average, have the cognitive development and functionality of a 3-year-old human. Does that make them 17% people? But this sort of scale bugs me, because humans show a VERY wide range. Is someone with an 80 IQ considered an 80% person? Is Stephen Hawking a 160% person, even though he can't move or speak unassisted? And how do we account for cultural (and/or species) bias in our tests?

To my mind, if you "affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person," you're more or less making it a binary thing: every organism that meets the criteria is a "person" and therefore gets affirmed and promoted.

You can bet that, were there other extant human species (of our genus or of closely related genera) still walking the planet, most of us would consider them subhuman.

There are seven principles which Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote:

The inherent worth and dignity of every person;

That sounds nice but it kind of leaves open that gigantic philosophical question of personhood. I don't really want to talk about fetuses. Is a bonobo a person? What about artificial intelligence or aliens? Thoughts about who is or isn't a person and why?

Turkey always has crazy shiznit going on with artists and secularists being threatened with death by Islamic clerical fascists every couple of years. (The Gray Wolves?) Never mind what happens to the Kurds.

We don't hear much about it because Turkey has been such a stable pillar in the US imperial system that they pretty get a free pass to do what they like.

They're not on the Bad Country list like China.

Pianist Fazil Say in legal trouble for comments about Islam.

I'm on a crazy Arvo Pärt kick. If you're not familiar, you should be.

I am particularly fond of "Lamantate," a work for piano and orchestra. Also "Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten."

It's a strange experience to be so into a composer who is still alive.

I like him, too. I've also discovered a (living) Finnish composer called Einojuhani Rautavaara. Cantus Arcticus has become one of my favorite pieces.

I've struggled a lot with a cluster of related conditions (depression, anxiety, social anxiety, obsessive thinking) and I have a lot of experience with various modalities, lots of shrinks, and with IOP, so please let me know if I can help by sharing my knowledge. Maybe the toughest thing about emotional/cognitive/behavioral issues is that by their nature they often disincline you from talking about them and seeking the treatment you need for them.

Tough to know just what the issues are without knowing the person or knowing more about the person. I would certainly talk to a psychiatrist and psychologist if I had such problems (I have perhaps had similar problems), since it could be a struggle with an organic illness like OCD. If that is what it should probably be attacked from several different angles (behavioral, as others suggested, as well as possibly pharmacological). I have an organic problem with obsessive thinking which I can manage with some success or allow to dominate (give it room to flourish, so to speak), depending on the choices I make.

I can't see why as a GM you would tie your hands that way. Why institute a rule so potentially disruptive to a game (to a campaign)? And it's not fair to a player who succeeds that you occasionally decide on the spot to waive it.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Sanakht Inaros wrote:

Watching what he went through, I'm more than convinced that genetics plays a defining role in our sexuality. It's just that our brain and our genetic code is still so complex that we may never fully understand how it all works.

The hormone hypothesis has a fair bit to it, and would be just as hardwired into the brain. It wouldn't be something genetic (thus there's nothing to test or alter) but it would still be something you're born with (just not something you're conceived with)

Hormones being a major factor in sexual orientations makes a lot of sense to me. I've been thinking there may just be a big hormonal mess up in me that's causing what's going on with me. I don't know if something like that can be checked for, however.

(Brain) organization during development in utero, and hormonal activation are separate, though related, phenomena. Simon LeVay's research on hypothalamic structure could be a starting point. He found that the size of certain areas (INAH3) of the anterior hypothalamus may correlate with sexual orientation.

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Mehophist:

Well, I wish you success. I thinkg though that when you talk about changing sexuality, you forget a very important option - you assume the homosexual or otherwise un-normal people would prefer to change it, when actualy many people would appreciate the oppurtunity to broaden their sexual orientaiton - out of curiosity or a need for equality.

about genetics vs. enviromental, I think the answear is kind of obvious. look around at the natural world. Humans are most comparable to other mammals, and homosexualty in those other species is scarce to the point of near non-existance. It's true that while most animals do not enjoy sex like humans do, they have the same base urges. If homosexuality is a wired in physical need, I don't know how we can explain the fact that it exists nearly entirely within the confines of humanity. I would dare say that humans *are* in fact more sophisticated and complex than most animals and therefore homosexuality, a human phenomenon, is derived from something deeper and more complex than gene structures. and by "complex" I mean it probably has to do with the brain :P

Bonobos, considered our closest living cousins among extant primates, are frequently cited in this regard. I don't know if any bonobos are known to be preferentially homosexual, but they have been publicized as the sexy ape, as many engage in sex liberally (and creatively) with conspecifics of both sexes. Also because of the important role sex plays in bonobo group life.

I am a vegan for many reasons beyond animal welfare including health, environmental and social reasons. It is a really simple thing one can do to really effect this planet in a positive way and something I care very deeply about.

:solidarity:

Naja wrote:

Lateral gene transmission is a pretty potent argument to Mother Evolution for keeping homosexuality in the gene pool. The presence of a few permanently non reproducing but economically contributing adults in the group improves survivability significantly for that group's offspring.

I'm not a big fan of kin selection. I think its far more likely that there's a combination of genes that lead to an increase in reproductive success in moderation.

You don't have to be. I'm sorry if someone else mentioned this, or if it is so obvious as to be trivial, but sex is very often situational. If people are together, especially in stressful situations (which is to say, all the time, for us), they have sex. In every way that people can have sex-consensual, coercive, m-m, f-f, f-m. For various reasons,gay people produce offspring, not infrequently.

What are you doing with the story? You can do whatever you want privately but you can't publish with someone else's IP yourself. If you are trying to sell it you have to be up front with the publisher, who will dismiss it out of hand.

Old school: "You've come here seeking rumored riches, and perhaps for other reasons as well. In the middle of the clearing there's a hole in the ground and stairs descending into darkness."

If atheism is a religion, then you are broadening the definition of religion so much that it doesn't really mean anything anymore.

How about Unitarian Universalism? We call ourselves a religion and are widely recognized as such. Many of us meet in a building we call a church, despite having no creed. Though our movement has its roots in non-Trinitarian Christianity (we come from a business merger of two Christian movements about 50 years ago and trace our roots to Michael Servetus in the 16th century), many of us identify as agnostics or atheists.

Apparently you can see it if you take the guided tour. Speaking of the Met, I recommend the Cloisters also. Really wonderful spot, even if you don't care much for art or history, especially during the warm months when they have their gardens going and you can enjoy the views outside. Unfortunately not too convenient if time is tight because it's way out of the way in the northern boonies of Manhattan.

I would say Strand is a must-visit for you, and while you are in the NYU nabe take a stroll past the arch in Washington Square Park and check out the famous chess hustlers, and also check out Union Square. The Marshall Chess Club is also in that area, kind of the Yankee Stadium of chess. Even if you don't play it's pretty cool as a geek to tread the floors Bobby Fischer and so many other luminaries have trodden. Depending on how lost you get in Strand, you can do this whole tour in a few hours. If I were coming for the first and maybe only time, I'm sure I would visit the Met Museum and the Morgan Library. The nice thing about NYC museums is that there are a bunch on the upper East side not too far from one another (Museum Mile). Another nice idea for a day out is checking out the financial district (the famous bull, stock exchange, House of Morgan, etc. I have always wanted to see the gold in the Fed vault but never gotten around to it) and South St Seaport and taking a ride back and forth on the Staten Island ferry, especially at night.

Wondering if any groups use one, loose or strict, and what standards you use. We all know stuff happens and people have more important things than RPGing going on, and we don't want to exclude good players who are friends, but at some point you just become a drag on everyone if you miss too many sessions. If you miss more than, like, once every couple of months (let's say more than 10-15% of sessions), I think you are becoming a problem, especially in a long-term campaign. Thoughts?

Sissyl wrote:

There are three arguments in favour of religion. 1) It's true. 2) It's useful. 3) Atheism is a religion too. Please tell me if you find any others.

I don't think #3 is an argument in favor of religion; I think ti is an attempt to shift the burden of proof.

I have seen #2 used before, but I believe most most are interested in truth, not social utility.

As for #1, I'd say that is the conclusion of the majority of arguments, not the argument itself.

We #2s are a minority, and we are interested in human truth. I wouldn't use the term "social utility," but as Alain de Botton says in his fine book Religion for Atheists we believe that we have secularized poorly, meaning that we struggle to take the deep human truth and wisdom found in religious practice and develop secular practices and institutions informed by them. Most people are either believers or people who want to dump religion wholesale.

I'm afraid it's very front-loaded vis-a-vis exposition. You introduce (presumably) our hero, but then we detour to this (I'm not trying to put you down here) textbook about his life and personal history. Generally it is much more effective (draws the reader in more) to start in the middle of things (medias res), often with action or with something that reveals the hero through his actions, and then work in the exposition more gradually and incidentally as you proceed.

How can they be both good and evil? Good and evil aren't symmetrical or zero-sum; good is a narrower path. Evil people can do good sometimes and still be evil, but if you do evil you are evil.