Recent posts by Jantonaitis on Kongregate

Topic: Serious Discussion / Why fixing a mistake mid sentence is bad, and makes you a slower typer.

Trouble is that the auto-correct doesn’t catch words that are spelt correctly but contextually wrong. We need something on Word that can actually read a text and understand it well enough to tell you that the word you used makes no sense in the sentence. It would also help us eradicate bafflegab forever. That’d be sweet.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Does God exists? and why?

Well, at least you took a stab at it, in your own way. That’s more than the ‘lolspaghetti’ I expected from you, though you did confirm my opinion in the last paragraph, thanks for that – I don’t like being wrong about first impressions.

Keep in mind that i’m not actually religious, so the idea of an omniscient god controlling the universe like clockwork has nothing to do with me…perfect beings don’t exist except as concepts. Just an FYI.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Educated or Informed?

all of that is basically the exact opposite of reality.

No, liberals in the US DO attack conservatives all the time. He’s just wrong to suggest it’s one-sided.

Also he might be right about rising liberalism depending on your definition – bear with me here. Neo-liberalism in the US is swiftly replacing the classical liberalism that used to be the main part of the Republican Party. As foreigners we’d call them both conservatives compared to our countries’ concept of liberal vs conservative, but the neos (who are also a big chunk of the democrats) are more ‘liberal’ about typical conservative views than traditional conservatives.

That’s semantics, but not meaningless semantics – if you’re a liberal in the usual sense of the word, you may be tempted to pair ‘liberal’ with positive words like ‘freedom’ and ‘tolerance’, but in this case it just means that the neo-liberals have a looser conception of conservatism than their predecessors…their views aren’t becoming more free and tolerant, they’re just breaking with the older orthodoxy, if that makes any sense. Like, (fiscal) libertarianism is probably the closest the US has to a classical liberal movement. They agree on a few things with the Holy Roller majority, but they aren’t in the same camp for most hot button issues, and it’s pretty damn tricky to reconcile evangelical christianity with libertarianist thought.

so you still believe slavery is right and interracial marriage the worst thing ever?

The democrats pushed for those things. Of course, they weren’t the same democrats as now, but neither are these conservatives the same as the ones who came before. We’re not talking slight differences over time here, these are radical changes in a short timespan.

So don’t try to pack some original sin style argument on the Reps, it’s fail-logic.

This also applies, in general, to most of your other counters, not to say that they’re wrong, just uninformed.

and i got news for you: these supposedly sacred Founders of the USA (slaveowners, btw) were Secular and anti-church!

Aside from Jefferson, not really. But they definitely weren’t anywhere near on the same level of religiosity in politics as conservatives today. Thats…the…point.

Is any of that what the poster actually meant? I doubt it. But your own post was such a meaningless throwaway attack on a dumb conservative (welcome back btw) that I figured I might as well spice up his position. Call me an altruist – now you don’t look like such a cretin attacking an unbelievably easy target (y’know, like everybody else in this thread did).

Topic: Serious Discussion / Does God exists? and why?

The title to this topic is unintentionally insightful: ‘Does God exist and why’, meaning, ‘give supporting evidence for (the Judeo-Christian) God’s existence’, ie. the tired old saw that’s been phrased and rephrased an endless amount of times. But see, the question could also mean ‘Why does God exist’, which IMO brings up infinitely more possibilities for discussion, enough to satisfy the zealots on either extreme.

‘Why does God exist’, assuming it does? Well, define ‘exist’. God as a living entity? meh. God as a concept certainly exists, something that was briefly posed on page 2 and then discarded after the neo-atheist shills decided it was no different than ‘Santa Claus as a concept’. The biography of the last 6 thousand years (not counting the neolithic stuff) of recorded human accountings of God, versus some shitty meme to ridicule, would suggest otherwise. So what does God-As-Concept mean in regards to the question?

Well, why did humans invent God as a concept – assuming they did and its not an evolutionary feature. Are there any reasons God-the-concept is still relevant today? For most non-religious people, I’m sure the answer is a definite ‘No’, but hang on a sec: if God was invented solely to explain why the sun comes up and to keep people morally in line, then yes, it’s irrelevant to the non-religious. But what if there’s more to it than that? Does belief make people happier versus non-belief? Skip the pithy rejoinders and consider the possibility. I’m not arguing that it’s true, but I am arguing that there’s probably more to it than we typically give credit for.

Or take a different tack – ontology (I think that’s the right word). What factors le(a)d to the creation of a god? Vika touched on this one earlier, but again, it quickly got discarded (more vika’s fault than any strong opposition):

Originally posted by vikaTae: I can think of two possible ways that would qualify right now; making the planet a single sentient entity, or combining several million sentient minds (willingly or through force, it does not matter) into a single distributed entity. Both would qualify for godhood, being entities who effectively cannot die, whilst at the same time each being a few hundreds of thousands of orders of magnitude above the capabilities of a human.

The first I think is a Matrioshka Brain, the second sounds like a Noosphere, both are theoretically possibly, though the latter seems more metaphysical in nature. They’re both candidates for godhood though, if we go by their descriptions rather than some vague spiritual requirement.

Lastly, there’s the teleological angle, ie. what purpose does God exist for, assuming it exists as more than a concept. This is, I suppose, where the creationist slant would go, but IMO God’s utility would have less to do with the First Cause – which is mostly agreed to be just a placeholder – and more to do with ensuring the factors necessary for the formation of life (and to an extent, intelligent life), like the anthropic principle, the unique properties of water, the Cambrian Explosion, etc. Those aren’t arguments for god’s existence (though they have been used as such by IDers), since they are necessarily without proof of a puppeteer, so to speak. But they ARE hypotheticals for the actual purpose a god would have, apart from eschatological navel-gazing.

Of course, in order to have this discussion you have to be capable of entertaining the possibility that God exists without being compelled to jump in and ridicule it, and apart from like three people here, I’m not convinced it’ll work in SD. But I wrote all this out so it’d be cool if someone gave it a whirl.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Why are people hating on Koreans

It doesn’t make much difference. Unless it refers to communist countries, I almost never hear ‘defector’ used. It’s usually political refugee or exile, something like that. Defector also seems to imply a government connection, like a spy who defects.

Originally posted by Draconavin:

Diaspora.

No.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Why fixing a mistake mid sentence is bad, and makes you a slower typer.

Originally posted by Ungeziefer:

I could care less about how fast you type. Frankly, it is bizarre how brazenly self absorbed your approach to the written word is. Have some class and polish, fix your mistakes so you don’t come across as a frenetic slob hammering away at your keyboard.

+1

I’d just add that the internet needs more people who can write legibly, not faster. We’ve already got plenty of the latter.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Nepotism In Western Media

If you call that defeatism, so be it. I’d rather be considered defeatist and be effective at getting the message across, then be a proud elitist who fails to capture the attention of 90% of the audience, and actually increases general public ignorance as a result.

Very true. The public intellectual-celebrity barely exists anymore, and that’s not because of the degradation of society or anything, it’s because the public intellectuals of today are generally incompetent at selling their ideas to the public eye. The ideas that capture our attention tend to come from skillful practitioners of rhetoric, like the four horsemen of new atheism – like them or not, they’re very good at gaining publicity for their work.

Topic: Off-topic / Off topic could be a better place

OT would be a much better place if everyone who posted in OT were quarantined to this forum and couldn’t post anywhere else.

…

My mistake, I meant SD would be a much better place.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Nepotism In Western Media

That isn’t ‘nepotism’, it’s just bias.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Should we tolerate the intolerant?

Tolerating others ideology should cease when it starts to become surrendering of your own.

K, just as a disclaimer, this is a serious question:

What if you have no ideology?

An ideology isn’t just a POV or even a ‘worldview’. It’s a thought-system with its own internal logic. It also has a discrete set of rules or proscriptions on behavior. Most importantly it has defense mechanisms embedded within to root out or suppress dissenting ideas. People who belong to religions or political parties follow (in theory) the ideology of the group they’re in.

Now my point here is that this idea that we shouldn’t ‘surrender’ our own ideologies on the altar of tolerating others has one big problem – it shifts the concept of a free flow of ideas and argument into, essentially, a war of ideologues. So for example, you’re a liberal and I’m a conservative and we argue around a particular issue, like gun control. So as members of different ideologies, what do we gain from this argument? Well, at best we gain insight into how the opposing side argues, what sort of buzzwords or talking points they use, etc. Basic rhetoric stuff. However, we don’t really learn anything about the other perspective, except how to beat it. We certainly don’t accept that hey, that guy might have a point, maybe my ideology isn’t 100% correct, because as I say, belonging to an ideology (of ANY kind) brings with it a certain inflexibility of thought that isn’t open to new ideas if they contradict accepted notions.

EDIT: It does happen, of course, that people of a certain ideology come to accept an aspect from an opposing one; the problem becomes, however, that because they have an ideological frameset already ordering their thoughts, they may become disillusioned with their old ideology only to abandon it for the new one – they get converted. I see this alot in the israel/palestine debate among people who aren’t personally invested in the conflict…if you have no actual ties to what happens on the ground, only the ideas that make it up, then it’s a lot easier to jump ship when presented with a compelling counter-argument. As I say though, rather than the contrary argument or idea freeing them from their ideological constraints, it often seems to just push them into accepting a different sort of dogma, often the one most antagonistic to their old ideology (especially in cases where their ideology is inherited, like a family religion or political stance). Or they just become apathetic and ignore the debate altogether. /end EDIT

Now, in contrast, suppose I simply lean towards looser gun control and you lean towards stronger gun control, but neither of us have made up our minds entirely on the subject. We don’t put ourselves in one ideological camp. What happens then is that we argue, and learn from each other, without relying on accepted notions to shield us from the other person’s perspective. We also might jump around a lot from different points, or appear to be contradictory in our support for one aspect but disagreeing with another. It’s more messy but IMO it’s more fruitful.

That’s why I don’t agree with this idea of not ‘surrendering’. Arguments resemble warfare too much as it is. I’ve never seen much value in being locked into a position. Of course there’s a tendency to gravitate towards a certain view, but allowing yourself to become too attached to one side or another is IMO a form of intellectual laziness – I’d much rather fight against THAT than x ideology.

Topic: Serious Discussion / North Korea

uh…so because kim jong un is crazy, he’ll defy political logic and attack his own ally. uh-HUH.

The idea that kim jong un is crazy – it’s rather more likely he’s playing the long-hand – would, at best, only signify that he would ignore MAD protocols and attack a country without fear of consequences. Hence why the threat towards SK could be genuine. Now, by contrast,

By the way, any big country can do what China did for NK, and if NK could prove it got nukes, SK and Japan would accept NK extortions no matter what, wouldn’t they?

THIS is crazy talk.

Topic: Serious Discussion / North Korea

Those who should be worrying are Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul. Hopefully, the latter two will have US-aided defenses,

Unless Japan / SK have missile shielding (and they dont), nothing the US could provide would help stop a nuke.

so the question becomes whether NK will target China.

Why would they?

Topic: Serious Discussion / What's the last book you've read?

Originally posted by xProStar:

How did this end up on serious discussion? kills himself

The better question is, how did you end up on serious discussion?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Should we tolerate the intolerant?

I figured as much. Still, in another poster’s hands, that comment would’ve turned incendiary fast.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Should we tolerate the intolerant?

I checked just to make sure…

No one in this thread has actually come up with a practical definition for ‘tolerance’. Most people seem to be following the Lockean idea that tolerance is simply the freedom from the threat of punitive retribution for something said or done. What I find curious is how unworkable this idea is when you take it away from the textbook religious violence / skinhead examples, and bring it somewhere a bit closer to our vested interests: tolerance on the internet. We very plainly don’t permit people to say whatever they like on a forum like this, even if they pose no apparent ‘threat’. In fact, the only ‘threat’ tends to be in the form of exaggerated slights to our norms. A perfect example is in this thread…

Originally posted by Wave_Rida:

Originally posted by Ninjitsu_Pirate:

Of course we should tolerate the intolerant. Why not?

Please try to add something to the discussions on the SD forums, instead of these useless posts. Thank you.

Pretty sure he doesn’t need to write an essay to have an opinion, bud (unlike some of us). But you certainly added something useful to reinforce my point, so thanks.

There’s plenty of examples of non-violent intolerance and outright bigotry just right here in SD. Those who do this are swiftly tarred and feathered by the more, shall we say, aggrieved posters, or get outright silenced by the capricious mods. Now, I don’t have any axes to grind here, but I think before we drag out the hoi polloi of “of course we’re tolerant to the intolerant!” on the macro level, we might take a good look at the micro level, which is to say, the very place we are having this discussion.

Oh, one other thing. It strikes me that our relative internet tolerance depends largely on our appreciation or conversely disapproval for superficial personality-based or ideological trappings, which is to say that a conservative poster with a track record for spouting intolerant blather, nattering on about those muslim crazies, will be quickly booed and shouted down, while a more liberal, self-effacing poster can go as far as implying a comparison with them to nazis without earning as much as a blink from other posters. I feel I’m actually a particularly good example of this, since I’ve said plenty of things that earned newer posters a permaban, with nothing worse than a 24hour ban, for no other reason I can guess other than I’ve been around awhile and say lots of clever things otherwise. Not exactly the most logical rationale for tolerance.

Topic: Serious Discussion / What's the last book you've read?

It’s lulzy that some people seriously call novels ‘chapter books’. I so hope you’re still in primary school.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Want to participate in an mma fight.

Considering this is a flash game site, and what you want is ranked homo-erotic grappling, no, I don’t think ‘ironic’ is the right word.

No seriously, this question is what Google is for.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Why are people hating on Koreans

Fair points all around. I’ll have to check out WJS – you’ve recommended it before.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Why are people hating on Koreans

Right, ok, so almost ALL media, with the exception of government funded media, is ratings driven. Even there, though, ratings matter – CBC in Canada depends on a regulatory agency to oversee its funding. If they think that CBC’s coverage is no longer relevant to a majority of Canadians, they can recommend that its funding be cut or its programming changed…nobody in the media lives behind a ratings-proof bubble.

shrug Yes, but the Economist also attacks domestic policy regardless of who’s sitting in the oval office. Point me to another american news source that’s so even-handed.

You’re correct to a point. Having some political knowledge I think is quite valuable – at least to the extent of knowing who/which party you want to vote for, which aligns with your own personal ideologies and how you want to see your country/state/district/city progress.

Only if you believe your vote actually matters. It’s as much a matter of personal belief as practical necessity. The people who don’t care about politics, probably don’t vote because they don’t know enough to care. And, unless you’re living somewhere that either has a low vote percentage to guarantee a seat, like the Netherlands, OR someplace on the verge of instability, like Lebanon, there’s no reason to care. I don’t vote for national elections in Canada, not because I don’t know enough, but I just don’t care. Whichever party that comes into power here will continue to run things exactly as before with small superficial changes to distance themselves from the previous ruling party. And despite all the high-tensions and bitter feuding, I’m almost certain it’s the same situation in the US.

As for whether it’s more interesting or not, it’s subjective. If I didn’t find it interesting, I wouldn’t have invested myself so deeply into it. My buddy likes motorcycles. Which interest is more ‘lively’, or perhaps ‘deep’? I think most people would agree motorcycles are more lively than politics, and when you get right down to all the aspects of motorcycle maintenance, that book about the zen of motorcycles, bike tours, bike culture, etc, it’s probably just as deep as politics. I don’t know because I don’t give a damn about it. To me it looks shallow.

Topic: Serious Discussion / What's the last book you've read?

Trolling isn’t just for the internet:

For those who love to hate Dan Brown

Topic: Serious Discussion / Why are people hating on Koreans

ALL media is ratings-driven. Also I think people tend to look at the worst parts of American media and forget the high points – The Economist is IMO the best foreign policy magazine in North America. Conversely, everybody talks about the BBC, but they overlook all the junk ‘page 3’ tabloids. It’s a question of picking and choosing and making generalizations from that – the sort of ‘dumb americans’ people keep referencing are probably the same types of people you’d find in Canada or anywhere else: wholly uninformed / apathetic about the world around them.

And to be fair, who can blame them? Politics make for great discussions, sure. But they aren’t intrinsically valuable. They’re no more useful to anyone than discussing celebrity oopsies. The idea that it’s unquestionably better to be an informed citizen rather than an uninformed citizen is self-justifying elitist pap. It’s an idea invented by people who only have knowledge about politics or art, etc, and feel the need to prop up their societal importance. Incidentally, and before the flames get me, I am very obviously one of those people…conversational ‘expertise’ on eastern politics doesn’t pay any of my bills.

As for beau’s example of the dumb american med student versus the pakistanis/somalians/west indies, well, keep in mind that world politics is probably rather more relevant to a guy from Somalia, whose reason for not being at home isn’t that he loves the UK so much. I mean, it’s like observing that young expat palestinians tend to move towards int’l social justice movements. Wow! Surprising!

Topic: Serious Discussion / Why are people hating on Koreans

Weasel words?

Economically, sure it’s state-directed. But their reliance on communism as a political philosophical system (the way it was in actual communist countries) is just fluff. They actually have a different term they use than ‘communism’, it’s korean and i forget the wording (but it’s more similar to iran’s veleyat-e fiqh), but in “the cleanest race” the guy suggests that it’s a thought system deliberately constructed to confuse outsiders, even fluent koreans. Like reciting sections of any baffling difficult philosopher whilst pretending to understand it. It’s really just a personality cult.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Why are people hating on Koreans

Eh, it sounds less like jhco and more like you’ve been reading Niall Ferguson’s Empire / Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, if anything. Not bad books, just curious to see that perspective on a fairly unrelated topic.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Why are people hating on Koreans

Maybe they are more happy than we will ever know.

This. They aren’t like other oppressed peoples. Yes, they are oppressed, but they’ve been brainwashed into the dear leader mentality. They aren’t comparable to iranians or egyptians, where the populace is fairly rational and/or attempting to resist their government in some way. I’d argue most NKers would tell you without coercion that they’re happy to be part of something greater than themselves.

Now, there are definitely dissidents who get smuggled out, and they’ve got horror stories about living there. And doubtless that’s on the rise largely because of the internet – it’s become a lot easier for them to watch SK movies and stuff…they’ve been told pretty much since day 1 that SK was poor and starving in comparison, but that’s increasingly harder for the regime to justify.

They don’t have to challenge their simple ideologies, and can live their simple peaceful lives with relatively few stressors. Just accept their leader to keep their country stable while the government does all the heavy-lifting for them while they can live with their families happily—*communism, yay happiness :P.*

Not this. Number one, they aren’t communists. They never were. They’ve used communism as a shield to get benefits from actual communist countries like USSR and China, much the same way countries like Egypt and Afghanistan use(d) the pretence of Islamic government to get perks and recognition. The state media says it’s communist, but the government doesn’t take care of them in any way we’d connect to communist social programming…being a farmer in NK is several magnitudes worse than being a farmer in China, mainly because they have to do everything themselves, and the govt takes what they make for themselves. atm they have even less cause to claim communism than China…and they also have little need for it anymore. The famine in NK started right after Russia withdrew support for them prior to dismantling their own communist system. But they’ve moved past that now, added it to their heroic myth complex as a great era for their country, and as much as they’d like more handouts, they can get it from SK with enough threats (they don’t beg for anything). As for China, it doesn’t matter if they’re communist because they’d support NK anyway, for the same reason Iran supports Hezbollah – because they’re a destabilizing force on other countries, but can’t do enough damage (ie nukes) to backfire on them.

Finally,

It could be argued that Asians(East and South) are actually far more racist, and xenophobic than whites. Especially with all the social studies graduate imposing white guilt on a large populace of the European descended people.

So they take up the flag of ignorance, and anger against those that are not like them, and for the woes of their life they say let’s blame the white man—not unlike the blacks.

The laissez-faire teaching model seems a little silly with modern liberal teachers, nowadays, don’t you think? They need to stop being such pansies, and instill a little bit of fighting spirit into these kids.

We allowed the “social justice warriors” distort the reality because their purposeless lives required purpose, and they really had very little to offer, so they took on these agendas, but caused more harm to public perception than good—there needs to be more balance in these discussions instead of extremities, all the time.

As a liberal arts / social sciences graduate who dabbles in social justice, it would be nice to see you explain your beef with us, rather than burying it in conservative talking points.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Why are people hating on Koreans

Speaking as a Brit, I think you’re deluding yourself here. In almost every way, I feel closer to other European nations than I do to America, especially its more conservative elements. This despite being opposed to much of what the EU stands for. I rather suspect I could quite enjoy having a beer or three with someone like jhco, but culturally we are a million miles apart.

I don’t understand what the South Koreans are supposed to have done to deserve the hatred of the world. Most of the problems in North Korea are of their own making, but we all guilty to some degree. For years the North found that all their preposterous bullshit rhetoric actually worked, that they could squeeze concessions out of us by talking aggressively. For the moment it has stopped working, and they seem to be unsure about what to do next. Couple that with the presence of an inexperienced leader in Kim Jong-un, and I actually find the situation there to be quite worrying.

As I’ve said a dozen times before, it’s sometimes necessary to have a nice cosy chat with people you despise in order to make any progress. With both sides ramping up the rhetoric, any sort of common understanding or compromise is becoming increasingly unlikely.

It’s been happening too often of late, but once again we have an OP making a bald and completely unsubstantiated claim, with no attempt at elaboration. I think it’s about time Cowpower came back and explained just why he thinks I should hate the government of South Korea.

He’s correct to say the culture has a lot of similarities, but it goes too far to say they’re almost identical. In this case I can actually prove it, or at least source it (I’m not sure if that’s a free version or not). Author is a prof at one of korea’s universities who’s been to north korea several times for research, but lives in the south. So, not a nut.

I took this book with me when I went off to teach in Korea. Despite the fact that it was written about North Korean culture, it was surprisingly eye-opening about southern culture as well. Both cultures are extremely xenophobic – while I was in the south I saw an ‘expose’ on one of their major news stations about how white guys are corrupting the korean gene and cultural pool by sexing korean girls. Again, that wasn’t a fringe report, that was coming from the NBC equivalent. Blacks are reviled over there; that’s not uncommon in Asia as i understand it, but it’s pretty disgusting to be walking through a hallway in your middle school and see cartoonish posters of black-faced kids raping korean girls, as part of a lesson on ‘keep your hands to yourself’.

The ‘cleanest race’ aspect refers to the belief among koreans that they are literally and metaphorically purer than foreigners. I don’t know how many times I was accused of being unwashed by students and teachers alike, and I’m a pretty clean guy! Dirty and trashy are both major insults in korea, say around the same intensity as calling someone an asshole, only tied to cultural racial moeurs, like an N-Bomb (funnily enough, korea has an appalling waste disposal system; communities tend to just leave all their shit in an open-air pile like a miniaturized garbage dump).

Also there’s the reunification thing. Whenever I hear that word I think of Romulans and Vulcans for some reason. The south koreans excuse every kind of nastiness from north korea on a sort of assumed pretext that if they keep being nice and overlooking their sunk ships and kidnapped citizens, NK will eventually come around and play nice. Hence why they are also not worried about missile tests and the like. We laugh about them because of how absurd the Kim Jong dynasty is. They laugh about it because they just can’t wrap their brains around the idea that NK would ever attack so brazenly…and yet they don’t think in terms of ‘oh we have the US base in Jeju and all this support, they wouldn’t dare…’ No. It’s as though they believe NK wants reunification as much as they do, and hey, maybe they do, but not enough to keep from attacking them.

Short version is the south koreans as far as I could tell were not in any way what we would call ‘critical thinkers’. They also hide a lot of their nastiness under the cover of their juvenile pop culture (Gangnam style), but it’s definitely there and it seems strongly reminiscient of NK…the same kinds of things that baffle us about NK, a ‘what could they be thinking?’ response, we’d find in SK too if we peeled back the superficial gloss of their export culture.