Recent posts by iMachine on Kongregate

Topic: Serious Discussion / The Backfire Effect, or why we can't agree on anything

Hm, well okay. I have read through many of the posts, and I realize (oh the irony, eh?) that I was being too pessimistic about this whole thing.

Topic: Serious Discussion / The Backfire Effect, or why we can't agree on anything

Lol, whatever. Have fun.

Topic: Serious Discussion / The Backfire Effect, or why we can't agree on anything

So I just read this, an article explaining that arguments never really take you anywhere as studies have shown that evidence contradicting your original beliefs often ends up strengthening them, and that we for the most part seem to believe what we want to believe, accepting everything that can support the views we already have, while scrutinizing evidence contradicting our views and often either dismiss them or ignore them.

So is there a point to debating things on the internet when we will probably never accept the opposing viewpoint anyway? And even if others have an accepting attitude towards evidence contradicting their own beliefs, how can we be sure that we aren’t deluded ourselves? I for one am pretty demotivated, so this will probably be my last post in SD.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Do we have free will?

One interesting thing to note is that your brain unconsciously prepares to execute an action about half a second before you are even aware of wanting to execute the action (shown trough Benjamin Libet’s experiments during the 80’s).

Topic: Serious Discussion / Why do people seem to hate atheists so much?

I guess you meant gnostic theists and gnostic atheists?

Well, I guess. I consider myself an agnostic atheist, and also believe that there is little to imply the existence of a God, but I don’t claim to be able to know whether a deity exists or not (I try not to, at least). As long as religious don’t force their morality on me, then I don’t mind them at all.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Why do people seem to hate atheists so much?

I think we should just realize that we can never prove either the existence or non-existence of higher forces, and realize that we can only assume the one way or the other. Both the theist and atheist stance seem extremist to me.

Topic: Off-topic / I smiled because of this

“If your girlfriend were to ask Kant how she looked, Kant would be a cunt and say ‘You do not look good’ instead of lying.”

Best one. The best part is that he is spot on.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Why do people seem to hate atheists so much?

I think it might have something to do with the faith being so integrated in their lives that they react badly to anyone trying to disprove their established views on the world and their lives. Just a theory, though.

Topic: General Gaming / Remove Kupo's Games

Not to mention that pirates are glorified in huge amounts of popular culture. What society deems acceptable and not is often very arbitrary. A reason might be the extent of Hitler’s actions and that it happened relatively recently.

Topic: General Gaming / Remove Kupo's Games

IMachine: It may be part of an internet fad/culture but it does not make it okay… Also, those girls are right, I’d beat the shit out of all three of them if I saw em.

I think they are boys, actually. Hard to tell, though.

Topic: General Gaming / Remove Kupo's Games

It is just some more unexplainable anime weirdness. They seem to love that kind of stuff.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Idea of Hell?

Originally posted by Privett:

Originally posted by Geenf11:

Viking hell was better, the Christian one is kinda generic.
Also, according to the bible, you are eaten by worms. Luckily, worms lack teeth. So its more like being nudged by worms.

How old is the viking religion, according to carbon dating and factual evidence?

Wikipedia says that petroglyphs in Sweden from ca. 2,300–500 BCE depict symbols that seem to indicate the beginning of Norse religion.

Topic: Serious Discussion / President Obama

One could argue that manufacturers have advantages over producers of raw materials in that producers of raw materials are more affected by diseconomies of scale by being limited by the amount of raw materials in their area. For example, a logging company cannot chop more trees than is sustainable in the long term, while manufacturers can import from all over the world, having a much greater supply of resources and possibilities for growth.

Topic: Serious Discussion / What's Your Political Party?

Many students are graduating and finding their particular major is worthless.

True. My father graduated in art history, and barely got himself a job through the university. There aren’t many jobs available for art historians.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Religion Is Escapisim From The Fear Of Death

That you brought your weak argument for life to something else – and the argument itself was impotent.

My ‘weak argument for life’? I was pointing out that “deserving” is a meaningless concept, so that claiming that people who dress slutty deserve to get raped is a ridiculous claim, as what one deserves or not is completely dependent on individual opinion. And out of all things, you decide to claim that my “argument doesn’t matter much at all”, because it is written by “the suicidal teen”?

So the problem is reading comprehension.

I could say the same thing about you. I have no idea of what you are talking about as of now.

Okay. I already fleshed it out for you saying he resorted to name-calling. So you simply choose to ignore it? Good shit.

What the hell?

1. I call you out on hypocrisy because you call him out on calling critics for “trolls”. Calling critics for trolls fits the definition of both an ad hominem, and name-calling.

2. You imply that I have chosen to overlook some context that would change the meaning of what you wrote, meaning that what you said wasn’t hypocrisy at all.

3. I read through your posts, and find no such context, and I ask you to point it out to me. You say you would be glad to, if the post wasn’t removed.

4. I read the remnants of the post, and find out that you were both discussing semantics, therefore excluding the possibility of there being a related context that would change the meaning of what you first said. This means that the implied context that would make your initial post (where you called him out on name-calling) non-hypocritical does not exist.

5. Now you refuse that you called him out on name-calling, telling me to re-read the post so that I don’t add my own preconceptions.

6. Then I quote you where you call him out on calling critics for trolls, and I show how that is equal to you calling him out on name-calling.

7. Then you for some inconceivable reason imply that I have ever said that you called him a troll. Which I never have. Ironically, you criticise me for adding my own preconceived notions to the meaning of posts. Lol. Then you show me what you meant in your initial post by adding brackets with the words “[level of name calling]”, again implying that you did call him out on name-calling, even when you claimed you didn’t, just some posts above, contradicting yourself.

So what the hell are you talking about?? Are we just misunderstanding each other, or are you deliberately trolling?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Religion Is Escapisim From The Fear Of Death

Where did I call him a troll?

When did I ever accuse you of calling him a troll? You denied that you called him out on name-calling, so I showed how you did so trough calling him out on calling critics for trolls.

Arguments of a continuum of potency, not ‘right and wrong’.

What?

‘Much at all’ != ‘Invalid’

So what you you mean by “coming from the suicidal teenager, that argument doesn’t mean much at all”? What was the intent behind it, if not to discredit the argument?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Religion Is Escapisim From The Fear Of Death

And never have I ever said “your argument is invalid because you’re an emo teen.”

No, but you did say:

“Coming from the suicidal teenager, that argument doesn’t mean much at all.”

Which is another way for saying “I consider your entire argument invalid because you are a suicidal teen”.
Or you might want to elaborate on the meaning behind the post?

Btw, I didn’t call him out on “name-calling” – re-read the posts without inserting your own preconceptions

This is what you said:

“I know it’s tough for you to take criticism without calling the critic a troll, but lets not sink to that level, eh?”

Calling the critic a troll is in the very best case an ad hominem. It could also be classified as name-calling. So you did.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Religion Is Escapisim From The Fear Of Death

I don’t see how a post discussing semantics does much to change the fact that you called him out on name-calling, while you resort to name-calling yourself.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Religion Is Escapisim From The Fear Of Death

Originally posted by DarkBaron:

Funny you choose one post, with a few lines, which is part of a an ongoing discussion to critique. We call that quote mining, since it builds on the preceding context that you so aptly ignored.

What preceding context? Him calling you a troll, and you criticising him for not being able to handle criticism without resorting to name-calling? That context does nothing to change the meaning of what you said. If I am wrong, you could always point out the context I missed out on.

The hypocrisy here is not on my end.

When you criticise another for not handling criticism without resorting to name-calling when you do exactly the same, you are being a hypocrite. As a linguist as yourself would know, it fits the definition of hypocrisy perfectly.

Topic: Serious Discussion / President Obama

Originally posted by AaronB:

jh – I actually know that; my memory for trivia is very good, unlike my memory for, say, names of people I see semi-regularly. A coca cola used to contain roughly 1/5 the equivalent of a street hit of cocaine. It wasn’t unusual, however, for people to either drink five of them or use 5x the concentration of the syrup. Yet, you didn’t have 40,000 Mexicans being killed because of the violence associated with the coke trade the way we do now, due to the laws and not to the drugs themselves.

This. Say what you want about the drugs themselves, jhco, but prohibiting them does not necessarily come without negative side-effects. Take ecstasy for example. Pure ecstasy usually have some degree of MDMA in it, and such ecstasy pills are not very harmful (relatively speaking). However, as bans on chemicals used in the making of MDMA rises, more and more drug producers have to substitute MDMA with PMA, a much deadlier chemical, that has caused deaths amongst ravers who thought they were taking MDMA. It doesn’t help that dogs trained to smell drugs can only smell MDMA, and not PMA, further increasing the ratio of dangerous ecstasy containing PMA to the much more harmless ecstasy containing MDMA.

And as AaronB said, I am sure society would have fewer expenses and fewer deaths if drugs were regulated instead of just prohibited. As long as there is a profit incentive, you will have people trying to sell drugs, killing each other and civilians over market shares. And despite prohibition, people still get high. I am certain prohibition costs society more than it benefits us.

Topic: Serious Discussion / How do we prove what is real and what isn't?

Originally posted by Privett:

Originally posted by iMachine:

You don’t, but it doesn’t really matter. Perceived reality is as real to the observer as ‘objective reality’ is.

That sounds like you’re just saying “ignorance is bliss”. But yes thats what I was wondering, if something feels real enough, am i allowed to call it real?

You could always call it “your reality”, which is all it is. I really depends on what you mean by “real”. There certainly exists an objective reality, but we can never be 100% sure what it really is like, since all our information depends on an imperfect brain.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Religion Is Escapisim From The Fear Of Death

I know it’s tough for you to take criticism without calling the critic a troll, but lets not sink to that level, eh? I opt to discuss something I understand perfectly well because, well, the word you’re seeking is teach. That’s mainly what I feel like I need to do on this forum.

Then you should probably learn to take criticism without calling the critic names (such as “your argument is invalid because you are an emo teen”). I don’t know which is the most ridiculous, your hypocrisy or your arrogance.

EDIT: Related:

Topic: Serious Discussion / How do we prove what is real and what isn't?

You don’t, but it doesn’t really matter. Perceived reality is as real to the observer as ‘objective reality’ is.

Topic: Off-topic / What movie has the best Soundtrack?

RocknRolla
Trainspotting
Pulp Fiction
Reservoir Dogs
Once Upon A Time In America
Our Day Will Come
Scarface
Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas
The Big Lebowski
There Will Be Blood
The Godfather
American Gangster

Topic: Serious Discussion / Abortion

Cool off, hm? Also, Ad Hominem much?

You’ll get used to it. The irony is that I think that such moronic posts do more to discredit himself than they do to discredit me.