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Discussion of science, technology, politics, and other topics that aren't strictly philosophical.
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Matt Gregory
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Post by Matt Gregory »

Any theories on why these types of shootings are becoming more common? It has to be the symptom of some kind of lack in society. Maybe there aren't enough natural environments for people to hang out in. Many people just stay in the city their whole lives. I think that's kind of screwed up.
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DHodges
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Shoot 'em High

Post by DHodges »

Matt Gregory wrote:Any theories on why these types of shootings are becoming more common?
In Philadelphia, the high homicide rate is blamed on the easy availability of illegal handguns.

More generally, no. The school shootings I hear about tend to be in the suburbs. The story I got on the recent local one was that the boy (Shane Halligan) had been falling behind in his grades, and his parents told him that he was going to have to cut back on his extra-curricular activities and concentrate more on his school work. The next day he shot himself. From the circumstances (taking an AK-47 to school with him and shooting himself in the hallway) it sounds to me like he bailed out of shooting up the school at the last minute.

He left a note for his family, but they aren't telling what it said. Who knows?
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Jamesh
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Post by Jamesh »

POLL: Only 13% Of Congressional Republicans Believe Global Warming Caused By Man...

http://syndication.nationaljournal.com/ ... NJlogo.pdf

This is actually quite an amazing display of rationality versus emotion. At first I thought, what idiots these republicans are, and they are, but what is interesting is the comments. Some people think and others just react by emotion, or to the norm of the herd they asssociate themselves with.

I haven't thought the following comments through sufficiently, but I'll post them anyway.

Of those who had sufficent brains to comment, Democrats are definately more herdy, they tend to use terms that appeal to emotion, which hampers rational actions, while the republicans are either realistic or just ignorant. Overall though, the actual percentages show a dissimalar heirarchical social structure. Democrats constist almost entirely of the mean in the human bell curve, while Republicans cater for both ends of tyhe human spectrum.

The democrats have a majority of emotional people and to sort out these emotional problems they resort to equality. The ignorant among the democrats don't wish to be herdy, but still are.

The republicans have very few non-emotional thinkers, but the rest are entirely subservient. Those that are thinkers define what the non-thinkers think, as they realise the value of herd thinking to their own power base.
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Jamesh
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Post by Jamesh »

Anna Nicole Smith - nice to see that she is dead.

Now we want Paris, Lindsay and Britney to die quickly in a similar manner, and I will be most pleased.

Happiness is never found via submission to desires and this crowd is an enormously bad influence on young women. The sooner karma rears it ugly side, the better.
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Katy
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Post by Katy »

Paris needs to be the next to go.
-Katy
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David Quinn
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Post by David Quinn »

Celebrity women are like terrorists. You get rid of one of them and another one automatically takes her place.

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Ryan Rudolph
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Post by Ryan Rudolph »

David Quinn wrote:
Celebrity women are like terrorists. You get rid of one of them and another one automatically takes her place.
Yes, perhaps the US government should invest another 500 billion into a new war - 'The War on Celebrity Women.'
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David Quinn
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Post by David Quinn »

That would only result in celebrity women popping up in even greater numbers.

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Philosophaster
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Post by Philosophaster »

Haha.

So true.
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Jamesh
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Post by Jamesh »

Sharly_Li
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Post by Sharly_Li »

Jamesh wrote:Anna Nicole Smith - nice to see that she is dead.

Now we want Paris, Lindsay and Britney to die quickly in a similar manner, and I will be most pleased.

Happiness is never found via submission to desires and this crowd is an enormously bad influence on young women. The sooner karma rears it ugly side, the better.
It was an over dose wasint it?

Why do you think this stuff keeps happening to these celebrities? They either OD, have a mental breakdown or end up in rehab

Theses people are like robotic corporate shills that have been conditioned/programmed to live a lifestyle of talking, acting, dressing in a certain way only within the means of selling something. Every aspect and facet of what they do is a lifestyle of “live to sell".

When your life is all about being a fake and living up to everyone else’s expectations it gives so little room for individuality and self awareness, in many cases these people begin to forget their own name, let alone who they are.

Living a life of persistent individual suppression can come to a point when the alter ego just shuts down and they end up taking a box of Prozak daily in desperation to maintain “entertaining people” and selling a falsified lifestyle
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Jamesh
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Post by Jamesh »

Yes I would agree with what you have said, and it also applies to high fliers in business to anyone really who feels they have to display confidence and coolness.

On the other hand, there is the addiction affects of the drugs themselves that applies to everyone. It makes little difference if the drug is physically addictive, as all drugs are mentally addictive. If X makes me feel good and confident without having to expend effort, then I will value X and use it. As the body acclimatises to the drug, and the effects decrease, this concept still remains in the brain, so people just use more and more of that drug or try others.
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sue hindmarsh
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Post by sue hindmarsh »

Sharly_Li wrote:
Why do you think this stuff keeps happening to these celebrities? They either OD, have a mental breakdown or end up in rehab

Theses people are like robotic corporate shills that have been conditioned/programmed to live a lifestyle of talking, acting, dressing in a certain way only within the means of selling something. Every aspect and facet of what they do is a lifestyle of “live to sell".

When your life is all about being a fake and living up to everyone else’s expectations it gives so little room for individuality and self awareness, in many cases these people begin to forget their own name, let alone who they are.

Living a life of persistent individual suppression can come to a point when the alter ego just shuts down and they end up taking a box of Prozak daily in desperation to maintain “entertaining people” and selling a falsified lifestyle
It’s more a case that they had no “individuality and self awareness” to begin with; making it easy for them to fit into the ‘bits of fluff’ mold. They are boneless creatures dependent entirely on the external world to define them. They naturally crumble and fall when the world loses interest in them, or changes its opinion of them, or falls out of love with them.

.
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Jamesh
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Post by Jamesh »

There goes Harvard's quality

Harvard picks first woman president

- Faust, has never managed a big organisation

- Bryn Mawr College is a womens college

- In another break with Harvard tradition, Faust was never a Harvard student

- making Harvard the fourth of the nation's eight elite Ivy League schools to name a woman leader.
Winning support of Harvard's fiefdom-like faculties eluded

-Summers, a former US Treasury secretary whose confrontational style led to a faculty vote of no confidence and his resignation last year despite his popularity with students.
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Shahrazad
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Post by Shahrazad »

Jamesh said,
Anna Nicole Smith - nice to see that she is dead.

Now we want Paris, Lindsay and Britney to die quickly in a similar manner, and I will be most pleased.
I wonder if Nat never saw this. 'Cuz to be fair, Jamesh should've also been chided for this elitist attitude.
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Dan Rowden
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Post by Dan Rowden »

Well, we want Osama bin Laden to die and no-one would find that especially outrageous, but one could fairly debate the proposition of who does the greater harm in the long run. But as has been said ealier in the read, like terrorists, mindless bimbos just pop into the scene to replace those that have fallen.
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Shahrazad
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Post by Shahrazad »

But as has been said ealier in the read, like terrorists, mindless bimbos just pop into the scene to replace those that have fallen.
It's not the mindless bimbos' fault -- the culprit are the men who love blonde bimbos but wouldn't give intelligent self-respecting women the time of day. They make it possible for the bimbo career to be much more profitable than one that a thinking woman would undertake. Maybe we should be killing these men instead.
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David Quinn
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Post by David Quinn »

Shahrazad,
I wonder if Nat never saw this. 'Cuz to be fair, Jamesh should've also been chided for this elitist attitude.
Isn't chiding people an elitist activity in itself?

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Dan Rowden
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Post by Dan Rowden »

Shahrazad wrote:
But as has been said ealier in the read, like terrorists, mindless bimbos just pop into the scene to replace those that have fallen.
It's not the mindless bimbos' fault -- the culprit are the men who love blonde bimbos but wouldn't give intelligent self-respecting women the time of day. They make it possible for the bimbo career to be much more profitable than one that a thinking woman would undertake. Maybe we should be killing these men instead.
No-one has been talking about killing anyone. There's a difference between killing and thinking it best that certain people might die. However, it's an interesting thought experiment: if you could just will the disappearance of a particular portion of humanity, would you do it (given "change" rather than disappear is not on the table)? Those who say "no" are clearly lying or stupid.

And blonde bimbos, btw, are not generated nor succoured by men necessarily. Men don't buy celebrity mags - women do.
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Shahrazad
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Post by Shahrazad »

David,
Isn't chiding people an elitist activity in itself?
There is that element in it, but I would take into account the motive for chiding. It's 'ok' if your motives are pure.
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Dan Rowden
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Post by Dan Rowden »

Everyone is an elitist in some fashion. There's no getting around it. The question is do we want our elitism to be grounded in reality or delusion. That's all that really matters.
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Shahrazad
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Post by Shahrazad »

Dan,
if you could just will the disappearance of a particular portion of humanity, would you do it (given "change" rather than disappear is not on the table)? Those who say "no" are clearly lying or stupid.
Interesting mind experiment. My answer is that with great power comes great responsibility. Using power responsibly is something that very few people will do.
And blonde bimbos, btw, are not generated nor succoured by men necessarily. Men don't buy celebrity mags - women do.
OK, let's take Anna Nicole, for instance. Her claim to fame was appearing in the cover of Playboy magazine. I don't know a whole lot of women that will pay $4 for one of those. And the way she climbed the success ladder to reach Playboy was by stripping in clubs -- again, an activity almost 100% sponsored by men.

If your point is that women also contribute to making the blonde bimbo business so profitable, I would have to agree. But I wouldn't say they are the main creators of this market.
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Dan Rowden
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Post by Dan Rowden »

Shahrazad wrote:Dan,
if you could just will the disappearance of a particular portion of humanity, would you do it (given "change" rather than disappear is not on the table)? Those who say "no" are clearly lying or stupid.
Interesting mind experiment. My answer is that with great power comes great responsibility. Using power responsibly is something that very few people will do.
That's no doubt true, but you didn't really answer the question.
And blonde bimbos, btw, are not generated nor succoured by men necessarily. Men don't buy celebrity mags - women do.
OK, let's take Anna Nicole, for instance. Her claim to fame was appearing in the cover of Playboy magazine.
Her greater claim to fame, and where she really got her celebrity was in marrying a nearly dead rich guy. Trust me, no one remembers a Playboy centrefold. They are a dime a dozen.
I don't know a whole lot of women that will pay $4 for one of those. And the way she climbed the success ladder to reach Playboy was by stripping in clubs -- again, an activity almost 100% sponsored by men.
Her "celebrity" didn't really come from that however. A meagre living may have, along with some passing notoriety, but that's all.
If your point is that women also contribute to making the blonde bimbo business so profitable, I would have to agree. But I wouldn't say they are the main creators of this market.
I say they are, and I think you'll find the market agrees.
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Shahrazad
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Post by Shahrazad »

Her greater claim to fame, and where she really got her celebrity was in marrying a nearly dead rich guy.
I don't think that was how she became famous, but how she got most of her money, and why her child is now worth a fortune.
Trust me, no one remembers a Playboy centrefold. They are a dime a dozen.
That is hardly the point. The point being that she became famous that way. It doesn't matter if people later forgot how she got there.
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Shahrazad
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Post by Shahrazad »

That's no doubt true, but you didn't really answer the question.
I didn't because I thought it was a rhetorical question.

But if you really want to know, I'm not sure what I would do. Without having gone through the experience, it's easy to say that you would do the right thing. But I'm not cocky enough to answer that question categorically.

As with going to a cliff, where I would not trust myself enough to do it, I'd try to stay away from getting into that situation in the first place.
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