Recent posts by Suicidal_waffles on Kongregate

Topic: Serious Discussion / Boys and Girls are same in Swedish School

that doesn’t explain why. why do we use the bilateral pronoun “he” and “she”? just saying that it’s defining or characteristic doesn’t explain why we by pronoun define genders, and not for instance the species, or the age.

It’s a remnant of older languages from which modern ones are derived. For example, my language doesn’t even have any neuter gender. Everything is masculine or feminine.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Suggestions/Bug reports

Originally posted by joelandos:

When i want to upgrade training ground it says:" you cannot upgrade that building while it is working." while building isn’t working!

Same here. Haven’t used training grounds for a couple of days, but can’t upgrade it

Topic: Serious Discussion / Baxter and US Manufacturing

Well, from what I know, robots don’t respond well to unforeseen circumstances, and can’t optimize processes on the go like people do. And automation tends to slow down production, even if it makes it cheaper. Which means people are still very important in production and that won’t change for a while.
As for the industry vs. jobs question; any automated system needs LOTS of maintenance. By people. And those are the jobs for the newly unemployed. It is simply a matter of foresight: if you see that the industry is increasingly using robots, you plan training and education accordingly. Factories don’t get automated overnight.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Blood and Organ Donation

Tried donating once, but, apparently, my blood has uncommon makeup, and they only accept it in one place in my country. And it’s an hour+ on public transportation to get there. Bugger that.
Organs, on the other hand, I might donate. I’m torn between doing that and leaving it to medicine (there’s a serious shortage of cadavers available to medical schools here).
Donating blood is common when it doesn’t take time and effort. My university organizes blood drives a few times a year, when you can donate blood between lectures etc. Most people participate in them (excluding those who are sick and so on).

Topic: Serious Discussion / AX: Teleportation

I must have missed it. Bad thing, posting late at night. In my defense, this thread gets a lot of posts.
Yes, in such a situation I see a reason for choosing the lesser of two evils. BUT, if one was to believe the person created through the process was innately different the decision rests on his altruism and/or selfishness. You die either way, but by using the machine you let live another person who might continue your work/spread your knowledge/finish hunting down your enemies/having bastard children using all memories and body of yours.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Do vegetarians have weak blood vessels?

Originally posted by Chris2fly:

Originally posted by Suicidal_waffles:

Not only blood vessels, all cell walls need cholesterol and saturated fat. All animals need that, plants don’t, that’s why meat has cholesterol and a lot of saturated fat compared to plants. That’s why doctor’s usually don’t recommend a vegan diet. However, as thijser mentioned, people often eat too much fat, so eating more vegetables is good advice, though the best one is “eat a balanced diet”

On a vegan diet however you will gain body mass very slowly but you are also faster, and way healthier than those that eat meat.

Way healthier? I know personally only 2 people who are vegetarian. One is sickly, the other one has ulcerative colitis. Can you provide proof for your claims?

Topic: Serious Discussion / AX: Teleportation

What we’re really arguing here seems to be “what is consciousness?”.

So, indeed, if I am fully destroyed and a clone with a different “soul” comes out, then “I” won’t be the one experiencing those things any more.

just because two brains are identical, doesn’t mena they share one mind, no more than two identical twins are one person.

These statements rely on a consciousness (in this context personality might fit) being somehow separate from the processes underlying it. In this case clearly teleportation is a mortal danger to oneself and should be avoided. The process would be comparable to teaching your twin to act same as you, then killing yourself. Not a smart thing to do.

On the other hand, if one believes the conscious to arise from memory, experience, emotion and thoughts and needs and simple instincts and chemical brain balance and neurons etc ad absurdum, then the problem is very simple: where do I get such a machine? Essentially you are making yourself exist in two places at once, then remove the copy you don’t need.

Topic: Serious Discussion / AX: Teleportation

Since karmakoolkid (and maybe others) misunderstood my statement:
The new conscience will know exactly the same things, will have experienced everything I have experienced in exactly the same way, and it’s brain’s neurochemical balance is the same. Therefore, it will believe to be me, and I agree with such position. There would be no difference.
Therefore, I see no reason to not use the machine.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Evolution vs Science

I’ve read a few articles arguing against evolution, but they at least gave reasons for doubt, trying to explain various phenomena in different ways. This one, however, already in the first page shows complete ignorance towards genetics and biology in general. Flawed arguments bring flawed conclusions.

Topic: Serious Discussion / AX: Teleportation

I see no reason not to use it, if it works as you said in your first post. The atom by atom copy would be me. The only reason to avoid such a convenience is the belief of your consciousness being a flux state independent of current thoughts and memories. The consciousness on the other end would be me, because there’s no reason for it to be any different, and destruction of a copy of me doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t need me at the previous location, only on the new one.

Topic: Serious Discussion / What's In It For Me?-A Controversial World View

Seems just about right for most people I’ve met. Just take into account pleasure derived from acting upon your morals, as well as general praise for being “good” and the the feeling of moral superiority and you can explain most choices with seeking pleasure. Nothing wrong with that, society balances its needs by punishing “bad” choices and rewarding “good” ones.

Topic: Freefall Tournament / The Robot Advice Voice

I loved the voice when I first heard. Leave it. Maybe even expand it. Awesome voice

Topic: Serious Discussion / Do vegetarians have weak blood vessels?

Not only blood vessels, all cell walls need cholesterol and saturated fat. All animals need that, plants don’t, that’s why meat has cholesterol and a lot of saturated fat compared to plants. That’s why doctor’s usually don’t recommend a vegan diet. However, as thijser mentioned, people often eat too much fat, so eating more vegetables is good advice, though the best one is “eat a balanced diet”

Topic: Freefall Tournament / May 9, 2012 Build Update Notes

Is it possible to see chat and event log while you’re dead? If not, I’d like to see what’s going on while waiting to respawn.
Also, you need a suggestions sticky

Topic: Serious Discussion / Controlled human evolution?

Originally posted by Stretch1:

Originally posted by JohnnyBeGood:

Originally posted by Stretch1:

A terrible idea or a socially unacceptable idea? Even if it would turn out better for the species? Here is what I think:
Scenario A) We choose not to facilitate evolution by providing healthcare for patients with a lethal disease, providing vaccinations, not eliminating a population based on phenotype, not selectively breeding, etc… We have a greater genetic diversity but also a gene pool of less quality than what would result from…
Scenario B) We choose to facilitate evolution by doing some if not all of the things above. Disease susceptibility and obviously useless traits will be filtered out from our gene pool and result in a less diverse gene pool, but of better quality.
Sure, it would terribly immoral according to our current morals but if there is some calculated method by which we can improve the quality of our species, why should we not practice it? We are the only species intelligent enough to facilitate our own evolution. I would think we should take advantage. Food for thought.

1. For better Quality selective breeding alone is enough, if done correctly it would actually lead to a greater diversity. Since most traits have no ideal. For example being big or small give different advantages and disadvantages one can not say which is of better quality.
2. The most of the better Quality your thinking about the resistance against disease type seem very minor. If we have medicine to treat those who have such diseases so that they can procreate, then being resistant to diseases that can be easily treated seems like not such a significant advantage.

Wow, very true. Selective breeding would work wonders and still, if done correctly, maintain genetic diversity like you said. Beneficial traits would populate the next generations while steadily doing away with negative traits. However, like you said, it would be difficult to say who or whom should dictate which traits survive into the next generation or not. In this I think you and I most definitely agree. Even further, it would be difficult to make selective breeding look appealing. As far as the whole medical thing, I think it is certainly important but it would not be the only thing that could make us a better species. It happened to be that it was the direction this thread has taken and I reacted. I’m thinking we can improve things beyond resistances to disease.

There already exists selective breeding for certain traits and it’s perfectly natural (short, dumb, acne-faced guys don’t procreate much, do they?). Human directed selective breeding is usually actually done to improve diversity in a select group (think royal marriages etc.). So why the debate about taking it further?
We don’t know what traits WILL be useful, only what ARE useful now. Evolution is all about adapting, and at the moment we’re perfectly adapted to current conditions, as shown by quickly increasing population. Since we control our environment, there is, in fact, no reason to change much. This is where gene pool quality comes in: the best gene pool is the most diverse, because we will only need genetic advantage when we can no longer control the environment. In other words, when something catastrophic happens. And we don’t really know what could happen, ergo diversity equals genetic quality.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Controlled human evolution?

Originally posted by donseptico:

Without being able to predict the future it’s also true that we can’t tell what mutations might turn out to be of some benefit later. However, I consider it quite unlikely that losing the ability to breathe effectively (CF) or severe developmental delays (Down Syndrome), for example, will ever be useful to the human species.

Eliminating the defects that cause these, and similar, diseases would marginally decrease genetic diversity, it’s true, but to the net benefit of the species.

What say you? I know I can quite happily support such genetic manipulation (although, as stated previously, not eugenics generally).

I generally agree to that, because it’s more akin to curing a defect than controlled evolution, as the topic implies. However, it requires more research (which, I believe, is underway), as the example of sickle cell anaemia protecting from malaria shows. I vaguely remember that CF has high occurence among european white people compared to other ethnicities, which hasn’t been explained. Could be just a case of genetic drift somewhere in history I suppose.

@somebody613
There is much ongoing research into genetic manipulation and recombination. The main problems are vectors. We usually use viruses, as they are innately capable of penetrating cell membrane and modifying the genome. For our purposes we need to modify its genome for medical purposes, which isn’t an easy task, and make sure the body doesn’t stop it from affecting all diseased cells, an even less easy task. It can be done however, and with good results.
I believe donseptico has provided enough information on the subject, you should read it. A short course in human genetics also does wonders.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Controlled human evolution?

Ideas like this are caused by incorrect understanding of genetics and evolution. Those who are most adaptable survive, therefore having many traits (some of which may not seem useful) is a huge evolutionary advantage to the species. The more varied our genetic code, the more resistant we are to disease. Of course, human intelligence gives abilities to adapt above the average mammal, but we don’t know which traits we will need. Without being able to predict future with accuracy, reducing genetic variety by artificial selection is foolish.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Communism

Cuba sucks ass too, in case you haven’t noticed. Communism isn’t necessarily mutually exclusive with a constitution and a republic, it’s just that every example throughout history where Communism has been implemented has essentially proven the fact that a Communist economic/governmental system cannot be trusted to implement a Bill of Rights or anything of the sort.

Actually, communism has never been successfully implemented. Furthermore, only dictators have ever even tried to do that, which is stupid, because communist ideas are by nature democratic, not autocratic. Were a democratic, well developed country to try communism, results could be drastically different.
On another hand, I believe communism is a tad too idealistic to actually work. One thing is having socialistic ideals, another completely forfeiting private property and trade.

Topic: Kongregate / Best of 2011 *Official Voting*

One and one story

Topic: Serious Discussion / Cults

Any cult that doesn’t do anything illegal is as good as any other religion. The problem is that they usually don’t. So cults aren’t bad and are part of a person’s religious freedom.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Suicide

@ Paranova
However, an educated opinion with research and facts to back it up means the right opinion. You have yet to show any superior knowledge and intelligence. I mean, how many depressed patients have you talked to? The terminally ill? The suicidal?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Perceived communities?

Really interesting ideas here. I believe that humans in general tend to look for similarities in other people and if they don’t find enough, they create some. Most of us grow up among those that are culturally related to us. While assumption that people are at least somewhat similar is correct, we perceive that other people should have more things in common with us than they do. Thus, quite a few communities are perceived, rather than actual groups of similar minded people we assume them to be.
However, Kongregate seems to be at least somewhat a community. It is safe to say that people who come here enjoy playing Flash games. They do it often enough to make an account here. They are the type of people to spend a part of their time on the computer for entertainment. These people are similar in their preferences and habits to a degree, thus they form a community. That is more than some communities I know of are based in. Not having physical contact is not a factor here. I agree with Jantonaitis that people lead alternate lives offline as well as online, it’s just slightly easier when people cannot observe you.
As for the country correlation, I won’t give a comment as the whole idea of nation-states and patriotism is foreign to me and seems stupid.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Suicide

depression is not a disorder or illness

your psychology textbook is wrong

Source on that? Because any psychologist, psychiatrist (or any educated person, really) will tell you that depression is a mental disorder. Suicidal thoughts are not, however they show bad mental health. There people who kill themselves without any suicidal thoughts beforehand (once again I must mention the terminally ill), but it’s rare.

Also, people commonly confuse depression with mood swings, sadness or bad mental health. These are different things. Just throwing that out there.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Suicide

While formally they try to prevent it (suicide watch etc.) they can’t stop you if you actually succeed the first time. Even if someone fails to kill themselves (which is a clear sign they should have) there are no imperative measures the government can take against you. Most of the high profile cases reported in the media are of people that tried to kill themselves for attention. Those that really want to die usually succeed and are only reported as “unknown corpse found under bridge” or something like that. People who kill themselves because they can’t live with terminal illness also sometimes receive help from medical personnel. While it is unethical, I believe it’s moral. Same goes with lawfulness. It may be illegal, but what people think about it means more than what laws say.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Suicide

Originally posted by Indy111:
I think suicide should be allowed.

It’s allowed. No one can stop you. And most people won’t even try nor care about it. I cannot understand why a person not terminally ill or horribly injured would that but it’s their choice. Now people who are actually depressed is another matter, as they are ill and their judgement is flawed. Everyone else has a free ticket out, and I’m fine with it. Leaves me more food, fuel etc.