Michael Archer

Well, Paul got raped in the Illinois primary by Romney. I did all I could. Looks like Romney is going to win at this point. That's just perfect. Now America can choose between a white Obama, or the regular Obama.

I voted for both. Morally, there's no difference between the two. A property owner has the right to decide in what manner that his property gets distributed. When you pirate software or steal from a store, you're taking the property in a manner which the property owner did not give you permission to. When you take something that doesn't belong to you and the property owner says that you can't have it that way, then that's theft no matter how you look at it.

They have one Kleiner, and a Vance, but the rest are generated. I've been waiting for this mod for a long time, and it's not going to come out anytime soon. Don't get your hopes up.

I formally request that the title of this thread be renamed to "Out of all the First World Problems, this is the,worst, possible one! Just kidding. But it would be a good idea to let this thread die when Steam starts working, and then post in it again when it inevitably crashes.

Aww, Jack Noir is such a cute little troll! Can I keep him, Doctor? Please?

Well, there are now more Cutie Mark Crusader episodes than Rainbow Dash episodes this season; this simply unacceptable. Unlike most CMC episodes, I actually kind of liked this one. I thought about it a lot and then I realized why: I was deprived of the Mane Six's screentime, so when I got glimpses of them, like a drug, I thought it was the best thing in the world and I didn't take them for granted. I thought their scenes were funnier than usual, but in flanksight, they're just as funny as the other episodes; I just though they were funnier because I missed them. Response to Twilight:

Oh man, I thought Civil Protection couldn't have gotten better than The Tunnel; I was wrong. The stories of both shorts are brilliant; I never thought I see such an inner conflict of humanity and such deep characters written by a machinima writer. Dave's inner struggle with himself makes him the most complex and interesting character I've seen in my entire life--characters written by Alexander Dumas and James Joyce seem like poorly written fan fiction characters compared to Dave. Also, the character Mike is really growing up; you can really see him torn between selling his soul to be with his best friend, who's descending into madness, and staying true to himself at the expense of being alone. Bravo, Ross--bravo. Animation: I also never thought you could find an animation style more lucid and amazing than Source; and to think that Source is harder to use! The animation style also allows itself to do things that you'd never be able to do with Source. For both shorts, I actually forgot that I was watching an indie film, and I actually thought this was happening in real life. Amazing Ross--simply sublime.

Some people are, but I get the feeling that this isn't really what you meant. I can see where you're coming from. But when I said "money," I meant "wealth." Money is just one of the many forms of wealth. Wealth, as in "all material objects that have economic utility" (from Merriam-Webster). A kidney is a material object that has an economic utility--so is a watch, or a house that you inherited from birth. Why is taxing someone's kidney or taxing their land considered morally different, even though they're both--by definition--wealth? Again, this is a problem with democracy, rule by majority, and utilitarianism--in my opinion. Moral standard is decided by the majority. Well, in principle, it's no different. Both people are people, both earned their wealth, and both have the right to not be robbed. It's kind of like the whole Argentina vs. United Kingdom and the Falkland Islands. Falkland Islands has very little--just a bunch a sheep. Britain didn't need the islands, nor would the lack of them have any impact on their economy. But Britain wanted it anyway, because--in principle--they were entitled to the land since it was rightfully theirs and no one had the right to say otherwise. What does money represent? Well, assuming both the low income and high income person achieved that money through honest means, that money represents the value that they've produced. Someone who has earned more money has produced a greater value than someone who earns less money. So really, in this sense when you "what money represents", you're saying that the greater value someone has produced, the less they're entitled to it. Let me put it to you this way: there's a limited pool of money social security gets all year, and they're using need as the standard of distribution. Who's in a greater amount of need: a man who's only joy in life is to paint his Union Army figurines and reenact battles with his friends, or the teenage girl who is socially ostracized and facing developmental problems because she doesn't have a cell phone--does the money go towards Minié balls or a data plan? Who needs more: the mother who needs the money to fix her indoor plumbing, or someone else who needs the money in order to fix his only car which he relies on to get to work? In these scenarios, there is nowhere where you can draw the line as to who needs the money more--each party has its case. Therefore, what social security distributes is decided by a majority vote, and you know how much I hate those. As for production and trade, that's easier to decide what's more productive than not, objectively--it's quantifiable for one thing. A computer with a ten gigabyte hard drive is objectively more valuable than a computer with a five gigabyte hard drive. When you propose transaction, you're saying, "this money represents the value of my work. I deem your product to be equal to the value of my work, so let's make a deal." The businessman will either accept your deal, or reject it. The businessman will only accept the deal if the money offered is equal to the value. There's no majority vote, there's no panel; it's a simple objective evaluation. This standard says that a person's ability does not give them moral authority to a good, rather that a person's inability gives them the claim, which I don't understand. Also, you said "everyone." What if someone doesn't want to take part in the social security? Is his property threatened if he says no? Again, I fail to see the difference between this, and the mafia's protection racket. I don't mind. I like to think that the phrase "TL;DR" is not allowed in the "Civilization Problems" subthread. I've seen that. I'm a frequent reader of Cracked, and never has an article ever gotten me mad at the website before. I love Cracked; I like how they make education fun and enjoyable. This article really made me think less of them. Here's why: #5: "'Hey, I work hard for what I have!' is perfectly true. It's also insulting."--So...what is the author implying? That the truth is insulting? I'm sorry he feels that way. "It implies a bizarre alternate reality where society rewards you purely based on how much effort you exert, rather than according to how well your specific talents fit in with the needs of the marketplace in the particular era and part of the world in which you were born."--No, it doesn't. The rich person is saying that the hard work he does produces value. Again, I'm sure it's incredibly hard work to paint Civil War figurines, and I'm sure you're really proud of it (who wouldn't be), but in actual physical value, it's low compared to selling houses or computers. Just because you work hard, doesn't automatically produce value. #3: "The fact that you don't like it only proves that you need it."--what an immature argument. The fact that the author gets mad when I call him ugly, only proves further that he's ugly. "the only reason I haven't murdered a dozen people in traffic is because society will bring consequences if I do"--This is kind of like the Christian argument "I don't do it, so I can get into heaven." I'm an atheist and the reason I don't murder people is because it would be a dick thing to do, and I don't want to live in a society where the standard is force. "And when you're powerful (due to being a politician, or a rich man, or having a position of authority like a...police officer), we turn up the heat even more."--again, equating the difference between economic influence and physical force is like equating the difference between a persuasive argument and the threat of violence. It's equating the difference between production and stealing. It's context-dropping, nothing more. "It's why we hate bullies and dictators and supervillains. It's why we hate people who benefit hugely from society and then pretend like they're living on an island with a population of only them."--I'm sorry, but did you seriously say you hate businessmen for the same reason you hate dictators? There are no words to respond to this...I just feel like they would be wasted. As for the second part, I imagine that the author is referring to the businessman who makes a lot of money, but that sentence can refer equally as well if not more to the consumer; they benefit hugely (arguably more so) than the businessman and then pretend like he's not the cause of the benefit. This is a blatant example of context-dropping. #2: "So, Rich Guy, let me explain this as calmly and logically as I can: Are you fucking 6 years old? Do you still think mom made you clean up your room because she was mean? In the adult world, we get asked to do things because shit needs to get done."--well, "punish" means "impose a penalty on for a fault, offense, or violation; to inflict injury on, hurt" (also from Merriam-Webster). The businessmen certainly feel as if they're getting hurt, so they are getting punished. Fines are considered a punishment and penalty, aren't they? Couldn't taxes be considered the same way? You're losing money, so it's a penalty of sorts. So, the penalty is money and the fault is for having too much of it. That's punishing people for making society work. Author, you need to open a dictionary sometime--punishment isn't always something a parent does to a child. This is a huge scarecrow argument. "It has nothing to do with fairness, it has nothing to do with judging you. It has nothing to do with you at all. There's a whole world out there, with people who need helping and projects that need accomplishing."--oh, I see it now. It has nothing to do with the businessman, you just want his money! He's not a person and he doesn't deserve to be treated like a person, we just want what he makes. You're trying to violate the Law of Causality, author. Money is an effect of a cause; and the cause is the businessman. The money doesn't come from nowhere. "You're only being [forced at the point of a gun] to pitch in because you have the resources. You're not a tall person who us dwarfs are jealously trying to cut down to size. You're a tall person being [threatened with jail or seizure of property] to get something down from a very tall shelf because nobody else can fucking reach it."--Author, I noticed some typos. I fixed them for you. "Really ... I'm not trying to be condescending. We're all adults here."--I guess that's why you called them six years old. So, those are just a few of my many reasons for hating this article and the person who wrote it. It's condescending, context-dropping, and scarecrow arguments. Cracked should stick to educational articles.

Koach, you just can't understand the concept of a "rifle" and that it's accurate past one hundred yards.

Idiocracy: It was hilarious--at the very beginning. Then I just got sick of the stupidness when they went forward in time. Also, it's really pretentious when you think about it:

Just when I thought that BTGBullseye was going to say something I completely agreed with, he wrote the rest of that sentence. Wikipedia says that USA is a "Federal Presidential Constitutional Republic". It's not a democracy in any stretch of the word. It has always intended to be a republic, but some people are trying to change that. The word "democracy" never appears in the constitution--and the constitution even explicitly says that it's a "Republican form of government". James Madison warned about the evil of democracy. I think a lot of people bash the Constitutional Republican form of government because the United States is the quintessential example, and they're not doing that well. The problem is not with the actual system--it's with the Constitution. It's a very fractured and incomplete document. The Father's were geniuses who were aware of the danger of democracy and unlimited government, but they forgot to account for everything and figured a lot of other stuff was self-explanatory.

Because I love this show so much, I'm not going to lambast it for violating the Law of Causality. In all fairness, it's not the first story to do so and it definitely won't be the last. Did anyone else think that Twilight and Rainbow Dash sounded slightly different. Pinkie sounds fine, though.

Actually, now that I think about, I think it's really good that Ross puts useless and uninformative options in the poll like "Who the hell is Ross?" People who have nothing to contribute will vote there; if it wasn't there, they would vote for other, more useful things and skew what we really think of him.

I really, really, hoping this doesn't become a "Hurr, hurr, European white man bad. Red-man will conquer all." Signs are good that it won't be though: it says he's a "Mohawk" and he's killing redcoats--the Mohawk tribe sided with the British, so maybe he's a man of justice. This looks awesome. I hope we get to use the Brown Bess or the Kentucky Long Rifle! I'm slightly disappointed by the setting and the character; I was hoping that it would be Civil War America and the assassin would be female. Let's hope that Connor is completely different from Ezio or Altaïr. Assassin's Creed: I love you. Please, please, don't let me down.

I have zero interest in Infinite. Never has a series so sucked me in before and then just as quickly spat me back out.

Do you guys listen to True Capitalist Radio? I can't tell if the host is serious, or he's just an actor playing this ridiculous character; I'm leaning towards the latter. Basically, he has this show that is supposed to be a political talk show about capitalism, but he has such a short fuse and reacts in such a hilarious manner, that the only calls he gets is trolls. I think, at this point, he keeps the show on because he knows that people only listen to him get mad, so I think he's playing along at this point and stopped being serious a long time ago, if he was ever serious: LcJUWdkZJl8

That would be so cool if he released it. It would be awesome to be able to just get lost in the Tunnel's twists and turns. It would make me want to buy Half-Life 2 for the PC.

Assuming that these thousand are, in my judgement, the only moral people left on the planet, and everyone else believes in initiating force to get their way--then yes. The reasoning behind this is as follows: humans are, by nature, rational beings; if someone initiates force on you and behaves in a way that is in direct opposition to reason and the way you survive, then by definition, they have behaved as an animal and are no longer worthy of the title of "human being". You're missing essential questions. When you say "place higher", you must imply that there's a system of values. The missing questions are: value for what and for whom. Only individuals can have systems of values, and these differ from everyone else. So we need a morality and a code of values to help us which I'll talk about later in this post. As you can see, the businessman and the mobber have different moralities: To a person in the mob outside the tractor beam building, they value their lives over the greedy businessman who just wants to watch the world burn and selfishly doesn't care about his fellow man. To the businessman in the tractor beam, he sees a bunch of disheveled angry apes, who can produce nothing and simply want to usurp the sum of the effort of his life: the tractor beam. He values his life's work more than the apes. So, in summary, I imagine that if you asked the businessman how he could justify leaving them behind on earth, he would say something like, "This tractor beam is my life. I put my life and soul into making this tractor beam. My life is more important than the destroyers of my life." If you asked a member of the mob, he'd say "This tractor beam is my life. I rely on this device that another person put their own life and soul into making. Therefore, the beam is rightfully mine." So it depends on who you ask. Since the beam is the businessman's, it's his decision. Human beings are resilient and they can suffer much harm without dying, per se. Usurping the businessman's tractor beam would be metaphorically identical to, say, cutting off his hand or removing his kidney. He would physically survive both procedures, but his work in the future is hindered. Even worse, this would set an outrageous precedent: if we can remove the businessman's kidney without him dying, complaining, or taking retaliatory measures against us, why don't we just take the other kidney when we need it? In practice, this would mean that whenever someone has less than the businessman, they're entitled to it e.g. "I have half a kidney while the businessman has two. I need it more than him and he can live without it!" to "I have no kidneys and the businessman has one. He can live on half a kidney" ad inifintum until all the men of production are gone. If you continue to bleed someone, he may physically be alive in the short term, but it's only a matter of time until his blood is all gone. On another note, this raises a fair point: if it's ok to tax someone, is it ok to take their kidney without permission? If no, why? Isn't someone's money equally their property as their kidney? This is the utilitarian morality which is, by definition, in complete contrast with the individualist morality. The problem I have with the utilitarian morality ("the greatest good for the greatest number") is that the greatest number gets to decide what is the good, period. Often, this results in "need" being used as the standard for who gets something, which has problems and contradictions as I've explained before (e.g. no objective standard for "need" other than a vote, incompetence is rewarded while greatness is censured). This morality has, not surprisingly, been used to justify many atrocities committed against individuals and other minorities. I've always thought that people who support "minority rights" but reject individualism are usually just racist or sexist. After all, the individual is really the smallest minority ever. That's why I believe in individualism, since I do not see any rational justification to initiate aggression against a helpless human being, nor do I accept the justification of "we're the majority" to trample the minority. Literally, I see any code that uses the majority as a justification as an angry lynch mob. I also don't like "crony socialism"; it's crony capitalism, but instead of the corporations collaborating with the government against the middle-class, the middle-class collaborates with the government against corporations (I think this is what OWS wants). I fail to see why one is better than the other.

Use the hell out of the spoiler tags, people. Every time you spoil an episode for someone else, Rainbow Dash cries. Speaking of Doctor Whooves, he's actually the reason I've become a rabid Doctor Who fanboy now. That show is my religion now. It's not my favorite show per se (MLP still takes that award), but it's my religion. There was a character called Doctor Whooves that people were freaking out at when he flipped the hour glass, so I started watching it, and fell in love with the theme song. Then I fell in love with Christopher Eccleston and with David Tennant even more.

Ross, can you really blame them? I mean, sure, those are outlandish claims they're making (e.g. they're claiming that stealing Michael Jackson's music is worse than killing him--I thought that was hilarious), but you have to look at it from their perspective. We live in a society where the status quo is simply to steal music that you want. It surprises me, that I'll be out with people--one will mention a song they like and then they'll say "I'll send it to you." Itunes has made it so easy to obtain music--for the most part, it's even DRM-free. The pirates are stealing for the sake of stealing. I think the RIAA don't care so much about the money as they do setting an example. They want to show that people stealing their songs will not be accepted by them. That's why the claims are so large; so people pay attention. You can argue that it's not really that effective, but I'm thinking that that's their motive. Same way that shoplifting is a natural response to the fact that people can't afford or want to pay for things? Are you kidding? Western IP laws are the most profound laws that have always existed. I especially like the British copyright laws: last time I checked, British copyrights lasted for life, and then fifty years after death. I really fail to see how its feudalism. They're only concerned about things they legally own the copyrights too being misused. I think they don't want to censor the internet, rather, they've pushed Congress to make stricter laws and penalties for stealing intellectual property and Congress overreacted a bit. My mistake. I thought you were taking pride in pirating per se. There's nothing wrong about being proud in the fact that you're spending your money where you see fit. It's only bad when you think you're clever or good for stealing. Carry on.

I firmly believe that the only reason that the Gettysburg themes and motifs in its soundtrack are not iconic in movie history, similar to how the Jaws theme is, is that the movie was too long, too technical, too slow, and not geared towards the average person.

Defying Gravity GLINDA (spoken) Elphaba - why couldn't you have stayed calm for once, instead of flying off the handle! (sung) I hope you're happy! I hope you're happy now I hope you're happy how you Hurt your cause forever I hope you think you're clever! ELPHABA I hope you're happy I hope you're happy, too I hope you're proud how you Would grovel in submission To feed your own ambition BOTH So though I can't imagine how I hope you're happy right now GLINDA (spoken) Elphie, listen to me. Just say you're sorry: (sung) You can still be with the Wizard What you've worked and waited for You can have all you ever wanted: ELPHABA (spoken) I know: (sung) But I don't want it - No - I can't want it Anymore: Something has changed within me Something is not the same I'm through with playing by the rules Of someone else's game Too late for second-guessing Too late to go back to sleep It's time to trust my instincts Close my eyes: and leap! It's time to try Defying gravity I think I'll try Defying gravity And you can't pull me down! GLINDA Can't I make you understand? You're having delusions of grandeur: ELPHABA I'm through accepting limits ''cause someone says they're so Some things I cannot change But till I try, I'll never know! Too long I've been afraid of Losing love I guess I've lost Well, if that's love It comes at much too high a cost! I'd sooner buy Defying gravity Kiss me goodbye I'm defying gravity And you can't pull me down: (spoken) Glinda - come with me. Think of what we could do: together. (sung) Unlimited Together we're unlimited Together we'll be the greatest team There's ever been Glinda - Dreams, the way we planned 'em GLINDA If we work in tandem: BOTH There's no fight we cannot win Just you and I Defying gravity With you and I Defying gravity ELPHABA They'll never bring us down! (spoken) Well? Are you coming? GLINDA I hope you're happy Now that you're choosing this ELPHABA (spoken) You too (sung) I hope it brings you bliss BOTH I really hope you get it And you don't live to regret it I hope you're happy in the end I hope you're happy, my friend: ELPHABA So if you care to find me Look to the western sky! As someone told me lately: "Ev'ryone deserves the chance to fly!" And if I'm flying solo At least I'm flying free To those who'd ground me Take a message back from me Tell them how I am Defying gravity I'm flying high Defying gravity And soon I'll match them in renown And nobody in all of Oz No Wizard that there is or was Is ever gonna bring me down! GLINDA I hope you're happy! CITIZENS OF OZ Look at her, she's wicked! Get her! ELPHABA :Bring me down! CITIZENS OF OZ No one mourns the wicked So we've got to bring her ELPHABA Ahhh! CITIZENS OF OZ Down!

1. The Tunnel Part 1 2. The Tunnel Part 2 (Part 1 is better than Part 2 since the least scariest part is at the end, since you see the monsters in broad light) 4. Morning Patrol 3. Shadow of a Doubt 4. 5. On a Rail 6. Halloween 7. Christmas 8. Oil's Well 9. Machinima 10. Friday. I did not like this one at all. Except for Dave's "whoops", this was a very mediocre episode.

Oh man, I thought of something terrible, but totally in character. After Eli gets killed, Freeman says, "So...are we still going out tonight?"