Doom Shepherd

So Doom, do you want me to try and see if I can make something interesting?

Yeah. Check your PM's soon, I'm gonna email you about a few design elements that I think should be in the poster somehow.

Well, we could talk about what would need to happen for mankind to ever change

from being driven by 'hatred, greed and envy' to being driven by 'compassion, love

and charity' instead, but that would be kinda offtopic, I guess?

Nevertheless it would be possible even without becoming borg (accidently though,

if changing into 'something better' would mean not being human anymore, I would

gladly do it).

You can't have heads without tails. (Also, the word is "incidentally.")

It would only take a few generations of the 'right kind' of education.

I believe the correct word is "brainwashing."

But well, gotta keep being optimistic, ey?

Yes, I continue to hold out the hope that people who don't understand things like math and economics and basic human behavior will someday not be put in charge of nations.

I think Jon Stewart had it right when he said that the media is biased... toward laziness and sensationalism.

Any art I produce on my own would most likely be the visual equivalent of the Brown Note.

That's falsely assuming that the inhabitants will all be children or act like children.

Heh. I've had to interact with a LOT of people in my jobs at a public library and then at a University.

Yeah, most adults don't act like children.

A lot of them are much, much worse.

I don't believe any "utopian" society, such as Anarchism or textbook Communism, will ever work in a society run by humans acting under the effects of their natural emotional and psychological variations.

Utopia is like a supersaturated solution, where if you drop in one crystal, and suddenly the entire structure is altered by the disturbance, and ceases to be what it was before. Utopias have to be extraordinarily xenophobic to survive. Changes and new ideas disrupt the system.

Now, maybe, over time, you could remove the impulses that cause disruption from humanity. Ambition. Desire. The need to change things for change's sake. The need to test the boundaries, and "game" the system for one's own benefit. The desire to have more than what one has, or to compete with others or one's self. Maybe these could all be "bred out." But what you'd be left with... wouldn't be humans anymore. They'd be something closer to androids. Or Borg.

But you have not proven that given the same circumstances for both sub-species, that they wouldn't return to the same species...

 

Until that is done, it is still adaptation... (every animal/person on the planet adapts to their surroundings, and 99% of the population adapts similarly when provided the same environment)

The very fact that species exist on this planet in such amazing diversity is incontrovertible evidence that this is not right.

Take convergent evolution. Two animals, existing in very similar environments, but on different continents, will adapt in similar ways and even grow to look similar.

For example, the anteater, pangolin, and aardvark all have powerful fore claws and long, sticky tongues that allow them to open the homes of ants and termites and eat them.

Or the pronghorn antelope of North America vs, the "true" antelopes of Africa.

But they can't ever interbreed. Evolution does not happen in "reverse," and species of two distinct genera, even if they evolve to become very similar, cannot merge to become one species.

*This is a completely distinct phenomenon than the ability to create "hybrids" using animals of species within the same genus. Which, while it can happen on occasion (usually with substantial human intervention), does not result in the creation of new species, because such hybrids are rare, usually of one sex, and almost always sterile, so a breeding population cannot be created even in a large population of parent animals.

**The lines between species and subspecies are actually a lot fuzzier than textbooks written for "laymen" generally state. This actually supports Evolutionary theory, because if "a wizard did it" there would be no such need for fuzzy areas.

My wife's antinausea meds and antianxiety meds are neither addictive nor dangerous. Maybe you just need a better doctor.

What are the drug names? I bet you'll find something not on the label online about them...

Possibly, but then again I completely trust neither online sources nor the drug approval proccess.

For instance... Did you know that a drug canot get approval from the FDA unless they can determine how much of it will kill you? I learned this while my brother was in pre-med. If someone came up with a drug that you could take in endless amounts, and it would never kill you, it could not be approved.

Anyway, Phenergan and Ativan.

Okay, so is this intended to be a Party poster, or a Candidiate poster? Because naturally the two will be different.

Brain is already storming.

I would like to ask:

 

What do you call a society that completely abolishes the state (that is, no governing body whatsoever) but also abolishes capitalism (no private ownership)?

An unsupervised elementary school. And trust me, you do NOT want to have to live in one.

Works like this:

1. One individual mutates.

2. This mutation enables the individual to better survive than its fellows. (That is adaptation, and that is where adaptation ends.)

3. That individual, by virtue of its greater success, can now more effectively mate with other individuals, and pass on its improved mutation.

4. The mutation allows that individual's offspring to outproduce other members of its species by virtue of the same success

5 Repeat steps 3-4 as needed.

6. Eventually, the adaptation is incorporated into the genetic code of an entire population of the species. (Not necessarily throughout the entire species, which is why the species tree has branches)

7. One new individual mutates.

8. Repeat items 2-6 until speciation occurs.

Items 3 through 7 are Evolution. And the entire process has been witnessed and verified both in the lab and in nature.

Dismissing this fact is like saying that you believe in the existence of the number 1, but you can't see how that can lead people to conclude that the other numbers exist.

Change is cumulative. Evolution is cumulative adaptation. It's as simple as 1+1... +1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+... etc.

I think there is unused potential in marijuana as a prescription drug. It's not physically addictive either and in small doses it can help people with severe angst deal with daily tasks such as going to the store without having panic attacks.

 

On the other hand, we already have legal medicines that generally do all these things better than marijuana does.

No, actually we don't. They all have serious permanent long-term medical issues associated with them, and they're highly addictive. Frequently they are far more powerful than they need to be...

My wife's antinausea meds and antianxiety meds are neither addictive nor dangerous. Maybe you just need a better doctor.

PDQ Bach.

Also, when I was in Grad School there was this band with three vocalists, two French horn players, a guitarist and a girl who played spoons. It was called "Only Us." They made no albums and released no singles. And they broke up after 5 days. They were so underground that not even Hipster Cat has heard of them.

Wait, there were challenges? But I don't even HAVE Photoshop! I am old (relatively speaking) and marginally computer literate! My phone is ONLY a phone! I was ALIVE during the Moon landings!

Not really.

But as an aside (and mentioned elsewhere on the forum,) chimps also go to war.

I think there is unused potential in marijuana as a prescription drug. It's not physically addictive either and in small doses it can help people with severe angst deal with daily tasks such as going to the store without having panic attacks.

On the other hand, we already have legal medicines that generally do all these things better than marijuana does.

how is Obama doing for you right now???

Answer in Link.

Ok, wait, did you read the first quote....

 

Caffeine and tobacco? THAT'S your support???

 

I'm sorry, but I'm now going to have to mock you mercilessly for the next year or so.

So that's your problem, you ignore the fact that those are drugs too....

You're addicted to oxygen. Not all "drugs" are the same.

What was the point of all of this anyway, I'm supporting marijuana, you?

I'm for rapid progress. Of course, in Star Trek terms, that would be, to paraphrase Q...

The Late 21st Century, when governments learned to control their citizenry with drugs.

Hey, as long as I'm on the side of the controllers, what happens to the drug-users ain't my problem. Legalize it all... tax it, regulate it, put it in the hands of the bureaucrats... just be forewarned about what we're going to do with it once you do.

Argh... who do I vote for?

 

Doom Shepherd - Working and educating instead of posting speeches with large words.

Also, funny.

If it helps, here's a link to one of the educational applications I was talking about above (planet smashing!) You can play it on any computer that has Java.

http://www.arachnoid.com/gravitation/

(Pay special attention to the "Data" button. You can use it to adjust the mass and speed of your planets and stars. Turn the sun into a black hole! Make a planet 10 times as massive as Jupiter, and send it careening through the Inner Solar System - thereby disproving the "Nibiru" hypothesis)

Ok, wait, did you read the first quote....

Caffeine and tobacco? THAT'S your support???

I'm sorry, but I'm now going to have to mock you mercilessly for the next year or so.

Yet, there is a FACT of evolution. Nothing is "proven" in science. But there are facts, like gravity, germs, and evolution.

Yep. Evolution and Gravitation are BOTH theories that explain OBSERVED FACTS. They are ENTIRELY equal in validity...

Yet for some reason I never see the same people who claim that their guesses are right because "evolution is just a theory" going skydiving without parachutes because Gravitation is "just a theory" too.

Come on, guys, where's your support for the opposing "Red Bull Gives You Wings" theory? Get up in that plane and JUMP!!! You can FLY! Only SCIENTISTS and ATHEISTS believe in GRAVITY!!!

I always liked Tesla...

...but you didn't demonstrate that he was addicted to anything. Your quotes support the idea that he drank on occasion, but not that he was addicted to alcohol or anything else.

Still awaiting some kind of verification for that Einstein story.

Why is Greece broke? Well, 6 weeks paid vacation every year and retiring at 53 with 80% benefits MIGHT have something to do with it.

 

Actually germany is doing good with those same stats

Germany is in the position of being one of the last dominoes, by virtue of it pretty much always having been in one of the best economic locations (both physically and capability-wise) in Europe. All things are NOT equal, and Germany has the strength to maintain those kinds of working conditions for a LOT longer than countries like Greece and Spain can.

(This is something a lot of the collectivists ignore: places and peoples are different, and what will work for one country will not work the same way for its neighbors with differing demographics and other factors. That's why assuming that the same healthcare plan that works in Canada or Sweden will work in a country like the US is a bad assumption.)

If you bet your life savings on a game' date=' you're already a contender for a Darwin Award.[/quote']

 

Do you mind if I use that last line as my new signature for next month? It's just so brutally honest.

 

Go ahead. Brutal honesty is my best (and most feared) quality. It's why I'll never get elected to any office ever (except maybe winning our forum election.)

I'm pro-censorship where it would prevent the bad guys from knowing important things. War information, for example. We shouldn't have these reporter clowns broadcasting from the front lines letting the enemy know where our troops are and what they could be up to.

Same thing with these butt-monkeys who go around infodumping military and diplomatic cables for any nutball to read. You're not saving lives, you're endangering them.

That said, aside from that I'm a radical anticensor. These people that want to do crazy crap like burning Harry Potter (or even Twilight, despite the fact that it makes better kindling than reading material) need to be taken out into the street and peed on. (For starters.)

One of the reasons I became a librarian was so that once a year, I could make a display and encourage people to check out "banned" books... the ones various left and right-wing nutballs have tried to get taken out of schools and libraries.

Nice work, BTGbullseye. have a doughnut. Also, a trophy.

Sorry for not responding to my opponent's mishmash of tangled thoughts earlier, but I've been.. you know... BUSY. Doing real things instead of drumming up false or misleading campaign rhetoric: teaching classes of children about space (and smashing entire planets, sending them crashing into the sun) at the Doom Shepherd Center for Astronomy and Omnicide, taking care of the disabled, and... well, what I do with my Interns is my own business. She's over 18! I have proof! What we're doing is legal in THIS state! You can't see anyone's faces on that alleged videotape! That's not blood, it's ketchup! SHUT UP!!!

So, I can't waste hours coming up with some fancy logo to plaster all over my posts to waste our precious bodily flui--- er, bandwidth. That doesn't mean anything. My predecessor left everything in a mess, I can't fix it ALL before the election even happens.

Meanwhile, my oponent has made the decision to go negative, attacking my position and character whilst failing to put forward any counterproposals or compromise positions whatsoever. Is THIS the kind of leadership we can expect from the new Party of 'No'?

It's time to put aside negative politicking, so I will not be responding to my opponent's distortions of my positions. Let his responses' total ridiculousness speak for itself.

It's time to move forward into the future. A future filled with Doom Shepherd.