Michael Archer

You don't get to demand anything from a man providing you with free entertainment. I have mixed feelings about the status bar. It just gets people's hopes up and I think it will cause more harm than good. He'll complete the episode when he completes the episode. (Incidentally, care to join the tautology club?)

Bullseye, I haven't been following this thread, but I hope that you're not discrediting evolution simply because it's a "theory" (Atomic Theory, Newton's Gravitation Theory are all legitimate despite being called "theories") If you can come up with a better theory; one that is backed up by decades of scientific research, empirical studies, hundreds of fossils i.e. things that are objectively demonstrable, we'll teach that to our kids. In the meantime, evolution is the best we've got. Before you do, remember: lack of proof is not proof for something else. Even if what you're saying about the other people's facts about evolution being false are true, this does not mean proof for creation.

You misunderstood me. My point was that it's useless to try to convince someone reality is different than what it actually is. Black is not white per se, so it would be insane and irrational to convince someone that it is for the same reason it would be insane to convince someone 2+2=5. Reason is the process of how man observes reality, gains knowledge and then produces based on that knowledge. The entire human cognitive process (e.g. input, interpretation, logic, action) is reason; this process doesn't work on its own, man has to choose for it to work. That's why humans have free will, but animals don't. Rights are moral principles in a social context. At this point, you should read something by John Locke or Ayn Rand, but if you don't want to, I'll just paraphrase: Rights are conditions of existence necessary for man to survive properly. Think of a prehistoric human in the wilderness. He has nothing except what nature granted him at birth i.e. reason. Some animals are quick, some can fly to catch their food; man is rational. If man is going to live, he must use his mind, so it is right to use his mind. In a social context, man must be able to obtain knowledge and act on that (right to liberty) and he must sustain himself since he's a physical being so he needs material (right to property). Man survives by reason, so reason is right. In a society full of humans, reason is sanctioned. What percentage of the world? Is this really relevant?

Huh. I did not know that. Still, I think killing terrorists is more in our self-interest. So I say once we're done wiping terrorist sponsoring nations off the face of the earth, if we have any spare bombs left and we need oil, we'll go into Libya. Bombs are the keyword here. It is immoral to put our boys in danger when we can just carpet bomb something.

I lurk on the Black Mesa forums quite a bit; from what I gathered is that the developers are egotistical assholes and any criticism of them will result in many insults against your mother. But they say it's on schedule. I think it'll come out eventually; if not this year, next year.

Yahtzee is one of the smartest game reviewers, if not people, I know. You guys should read his Extra Punctuation articles sometime. Usually, his Zero Punctuations are mostly to be funny. His articles are serious; I can't find one thing on which I disagree with him.

Really? Read a bit what those people wrote; they did think what I'm telling you here. Read the Deceleration of Independence sometime: the document that marked the beginning of the first free nation in the world; a document written by one of the greatest minds of all time. You know, the guy who said "We hold these truths to be self-evident". If this isn't the basis of western society, what is? You have the right to liberty and property; both of these things are taken away by outlawing abortion. Please name one system besides capitalism that bans the initiation of force between all human relationships. Also, name a system that is not capitalism but at the same time, not statist. See, now I'm confused, because first I said that "you're not a capitalist" and then you say "literally nothing in that post was correct". So you are a capitalist...but you think abortion should be illegal....these are diametrically opposed ideas. At least I'm consistent. Why don't you cut the shit and do the same? Sorry, miss. I just assumed you were a guy, because of the guy in your display picture that kind of looks like Solid Snake. Anyone who "doesn't deal with absolutes" and continually makes arbitrary, contradictory statements and assumptions is not worth arguing with; Miss 'Rights Can Violate Rights' Geneaux. I don't understand this: You're saying that a fetus has the right to life for pretty much the same reasons a baby has the right to life. I said that the potential is not the actual and to think it is, is a complete abrogation of reality. You can keep on trying to convince me that a fetus is metaphysically identical to a baby, but that would be like trying to convince me that black is white i.e. insane and incongruous with reality. My view is based on the view as man as a rational being. This is congruent with the real world. Your view is based on man as a being to be used to sacrifice to others. This is the view that is insufficient with the real world and how man survives. But indulge me; how is my view insufficient? Your turn, Miss Geneaux.

It makes me mad that Obama is so eager to go after Ghaddfi and Libya, but he is appeasing the real terrorist-holding nations like Iran. Granted, we are morally in the right to go into Libya; an Islamic dictatorship has no right to exist. But we have no self-interest in going into Libya. Out of all Islamic dictators, Ghaddfi poses the least amount of threat to us. If we're going to send our boys to die, we should have a good reason for doing so. For example, in Iraq, our self-interest was oil. But seriously, we have no business in Libya. Let's pull out and bomb Iran.

Sure, no problem. Capitalism is an economic system where all property is privately owned. When I say all property, I mean all property; even streets and government buildings. This means that the means of production are privately owned and the driving force behind it is profit. Prices of goods are objectively determined by supply and demand. In capitalism, the initiation of force is banned from all human relationships. No human may initiate force on another; this includes the government. The only organization that is legally allowed to use force is the government and they may only use it in retaliation. To do this, they need three (and only three) departments: the police, to catch people breaking the law; the legal system, to punish these people; and the military, to defend the country's borders. Capitalism is a system that respects individual rights e.g. the right to life, liberty and property (this is the reason capitalism is the best system). Basically, you can do whatever you want under a capitalist system as long as you don't violate anyone's rights. A capitalist country is a republic; this means that certain individuals are elected to positions in the state, but these individuals have very limited power and they are bound by a constitution. Remember when I said even government property is owned by private individuals? In a capitalist system, government property is owned by public corporations (a corporation traded on the stock market). Elected officials will obviously decide how to use the property, but the actual physical ownership would belong to the corporation. The reason for this is that the government can not "own" anything per se; the government is just a representative of the people and despite what you've read in The Communist Manifesto, "public ownership" doesn't mean anything. Keep in mind, when I talk about capitalism; I'm not talking about half-assed United States/Canada capitalism. I'm talking about pure, unregulated, lassiez-faire capitalism. Basically the economics is separate from the state kind of like how the church is separate from the state.

It's my belief that the "All Ghilled Up" level in COD 4 is the best level in gaming history. Every single level up to that point is just mindless violence. Then all of the sudden, you're in Pripyat, skulking through the grass, with your only friend being the Captain; it's you guys against the world. The level is extremely atmospheric from beginning to end, especially when you go through the Pripyat Culture Center and you hear the faint voices of little kids. Even to this day, I'll occasionally pop in COD4 and play this level in the dark with the volume turned up high. This level actually got me interested in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Accident. I bought Call of Pripyat and I hope to visit Pripyat one day.

Being an avid player of Halo: Reach, I'll tell you right now that the chess mod is shitty. First of all, the game can't tell when someone is in check and the game will yell "check!" at the weirdest times. It also allows you to make a lot of illegal moves. It also doesn't let you castle or en passant, so it's a gimmick, if anything.

I don't think games are overpriced. It's expensive as hell to make those games, so they shouldn't be expensive as hell to buy.

Kill Bill? Eh. I thought it was trying to hard to be artsy. There were some good parts, but I felt that it really insisted upon itself. It wasn't bad by any strech of the word, it was ok. I did like the part when she was training with that guy and I was pissing my pants when she was buried. Pulp Fiction, now...that's great. It was great blend of humor and ultra-violence.

Looks solid; if you have a great idea, go for it! I think it will be hard to make a serious comic in Garry's Mod, but if you can do it, great.

No you couldn't argue that Alyx, without arguing that reality is not to be observed by humans, but rather created by humans. This, of course, is arbitrary and therefore, irrational. Yes, the same applies to actual transgendered people; they think they decide what reality is. Reality gave them a male or female body, but they say, "no, reality is wrong; I decide what I am."

Come up with what? The roots of the environmentalism movement, or that they perpetuate it? If it's the former, the environmentalists say that nature's value is intrinsic, as opposed to nature's value is only what humans can make of it. Humans have to exploit the earth to survive (capitalism), environmentalism says they shouldn't (anti-capitalism). If it's the latter, all I said was that I think that any hint of evidence that we're running out of oil is greatly exaggerated by the environmentalists and the real evidence is obscured by the fact that the environmentalists are anti-capitalists.

Not really. It takes a while to make a birth certificate. I'm sure for a few minutes after a baby's born, they have no certificate. Semantics, really, but whatever. I know, but people like Geneaux are ok with the woman in pain as long as the precious embryo isn't harmed; this view is only possible if you view people as an means to an end i.e. you see a woman as an end to making a baby instead of seeing her as an individual. This is actually the most reasonable and fair course of action I've ever seen on this forum i.e. "I hate you for what you're doing, but I'll fight to the death for your right to do it." For example, I hate the attitude at the rallies that the Green Party and the environmentalist have in downtown Toronto; it's anti-industry and anti-capitalism, but I believe they should have the right to do it. In summary, I have no problem with someone hating someone else for any reason, but as soon as they try to use the government to initiate force on the people I hate, then we have a problem.

If there are better pesticides, why wasn't the market demanding them? Why were so many people dying before DDT? Thank you, Ross! That took a while. I said that after a few other threads were moved to Free-for all. I'm thinking of staying out of this section; there are too many subjectivists.

Geneaux...I'm afraid that I'm unable to continue this rather pleasant discussion. I can't follow your illogical contradictions when you say that you have the right to initiate force and that force and mind can co-exist peacefully. I can not even begin to comprehend how it's possible for you to think that the potential and the actual are metaphysically synonymous; you're trying to convince people that a potential baby (a fetus) is metaphysically identical to real baby and therefore have the same rights. This is a complete contradiction of reality. If you view reality in this skewed way, you've lost all credibility with me. I can't respond to your statements if they're not coherent with reality. Before I talk to the other people I just want to say one more thing: after talking to you, it's clear that you do not respect rights as observed by many great thinkers of our time (e.g. John Locke, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Ayn Rand); their view of rights is the basis of the establishment of current western society. I just want to be perfectly clear: it doesn't matter how you justify it; if you think that a woman has no right to her body, you cannot be a defender of individual rights and are therefore an enemy of capitalism. If you're not a capitalist, you're a statist; there's no in between. Capitalism is the only system that is not statism (as it's the only system that bans the initiation of force) and you're sure as hell not a capitalist. Good day, sir. Geneaux, compared to this guy, you're a hard-core objectivist. At least you try to pretend that reality is objective. Actually Geneaux, I take that back: the only difference between you and eedobaba is that eedobaba is more honest about it. I'm not going to continue my discussion with you for the same reason I'm not going to talk to eedobaba. You kept telling me you weren't a subjectivist and I believed you for a while until you said that a fetus and a baby are metaphysically identical. I've never seen a subjectivist as extreme as eedobaba. Reasoning with subjectivists is pointless, as subjectivists are the most irrational of the irrational. To everything you say, they'll just respond with "that's just your view!". *sigh* And...there's the Nazi comparison. That took a while! Eedobaba, not only are you a subjectivist and therefore highly irrational, you just invoked Godwin's Law. You're out of this conversation. True, it probably shouldn't. But that's not your or my choice to make. It's not even her husband's choice.

Your point? You're not entitled to that job, the same way that you're not entitled to the boss' money. Health of the people? Notice that in 20th century, the average lifespan of a poor person in even semi-capitalist United States was far longer than the average lifespan of peasant in the Soviet Union. At least the poor capitalist had enough to eat. No exploration of space under capitalism? You've obviously never heard of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Galactic Human knowledge is down the list under capitalism? Wow, what an ignorant statement. Capitalism is the only system that allows and encourages human knowledge; in order to survive, man must use his knowledge of the world around him to survive. The more knowledge he gathers, the more likely he'll survive and be happy. The mind can only operate with freedom, and capitalism is the only system that frees his mind from the initiation of force. Statism is the worst offender of man's mind and his knowledge; statists like yourself believe that it's ok to initiate force on other people, rendering their mind and their knowledge useless. If a company wants to dump toxins in their own land, that's their own business; you have no place to tell them how to use their land. However, if they're dumping toxins in someone else's land, or the toxins in their land are seeping through the ground and hurting other people, then they will be held responsible under capitalism. Notice that the privately owned parks in Scotland are much more beautiful and cleaner than the parks owned by the government in India. Again...what's wrong with that? If there's something that's important that needs to be done, there will be a demand. Demand=work. If there's no demand, it's not worth doing. I guess that's why you think it's ok to initiate force on them; you don't view an individual as your fellow man, you view them as a tool to be used, which is statism. Maybe. The only social aspect of capitalism tells humans how they can treat one another. In terms of socializing, capitalism says that no man may initiate force on another. That's it. Everything else follows. To those people that say capitalism=democracy, you have no idea about what you're talking about. Capitalism is about the individual and no majority may initiate force on an individual. A capitalist country is a republic, not a democracy; there's a huge difference. And yet his deceleration that everyone has a "right" to health care, and his following health care bill say otherwise. I could go on, but there's just too much to list; that's the big one, I think. Yeah...I was exaggerating a little bit. The United States is not socialist, but it's socialistic. To be fair, the United States is the most capitalistic country on the planet. I don't think you're understanding me; I'm not advocating capitalism because it works the best (although, it most certainly does). Even if it meant a lower GDP, I would still advocate it. The reason I advocate is that it is the only system that exists that respects and upholds man's rational nature and it protects man against his worst enemy: force.

The problem with the anti-abortionists is that they think that potential=actual i.e. a potential baby=a real baby. The problem with this is that potential is very metaphysically different than actual. An acorn is a potential oak tree, but birds cannot live in an acorn. When driving a car, I have the potential to murder many people; my potential does not make me a murderer. I could potentially make billions of dollars eventually; this does not mean the government should tax me as much as a billionaire etc. Because of this, there are moral and physical differences between potential and actual. Potential babies do not have rights, unlike real babies. Oh my god; this is the most evil thing I've ever read. Rights are conditions of existence; they're things that are inherent in our nature. To imply that that they're given by society, is to imply that our existence is only permitted by society. An individual does not need a permit to live. To think that they need one, is to advocate slavery. "Will of the majority" doesn't mean anything, anyway. All it can mean is "the sum of the will of most of the individuals", still that doesn't mean anything. Also, how the hell can the majority give rights if rights don't exist? The majority is simply most of the individuals in a society; if those individuals don't have rights, they can't give anything. "Voluntary parasite" is a contradiction in terms. Someone can choose to carry a fetus to a full term. This is also not an issue of sexual history; it's a matter of rights. The question is: does a fetus have the right to live within the body of a woman and consume her resources without her consent? I agree; it would be psychotic. You shouldn't kill your dog when you've adopted it and you can't afford dog food. But my point is that the government shouldn't do anything about it because the government's job is to protect rights and animals and fetus' don't have rights. We should morally condemn people who get abortions capriciously, but the government shouldn't do anything. Children cannot be raised without a guardian. But parents don't have a "claim" per se, they're just "guardians". There's a big difference.

Very true... There are some exciting parts though, but it just takes way too long to get to them without hacks... Also, I hate how it's possible to get a bad ending with the lack of a save system.

I always imagine that during the course of Half-Life 2 (if Ross decides to take it that far) is that Freeman would be incredibly hostile to Alyx. He would hate her hair, her clothes, her voice, her patronizing demeanor etc. But then at the beginning of Episode 1, he suddenly would find her less repulsive and would start trying to be nicer in a way like he was trying to be genuinely nice, but it would just come off as superficial. He wouldn't be able to explain how he was feeling until after he and Alyx got out of the zombie-infested parking garage and listened to Dr. Kleiner talking about how "the suppression field is down."

No, my rep is the highest. I IZ MOST POPLAR