Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Baron MacDoblin on November 27, 2003, 01:51:30 am
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... for those of you fortunate enough to be an Amerirerican, the greatest country in Earth aside from that one with the name that sticks up all the time, take some time to sit back with a loved beer and remember how it all started (http://www.livejournal.com/users/spacehamster3d/52776.html?#cutid1)
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Originally posted by Baron MacDoblin
... for those of you fortunate enough to be an Amerirerican
:lol:
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that, of course, is leaving out a lot of details. particularly the giant squid.
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...and a couple of indians robbed of their land, their freedom and heritage.
Sorry, couldn't resist. :(
There's an another side of everything, I love the American ever strong and willing spirit, but I pitty the shortsightedness that sometimes obscoures their judgement.
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Americans. beh. Typical.
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Originally posted by Flaser
...and a couple of indians robbed of their land, their freedom and heritage.
And so far every country on the planet has done that in one form or another, your point?
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America did it about 6-8000 years after everyone else started doing it.
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No not entirely,...besides,..we had to get caught up and all.
Seriously though, I think it's far enough in the past to not have current generations having to deal with it.
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well, yeah, I suppose your arrogant power-hungry cowboy president kinda makes up for that.
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:rolleyes:
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Originally posted by Warlock
Seriously though, I think it's far enough in the past to not have current generations having to deal with it.
Bwuahahaha. I take it you missed the CNN story about people trying to have Master and Slave hard-drives renamed because they're offensive?
And all the multi-billion dollar law suits made against companies which profitted from the slave trade in the 1800's.
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i don't like where this thread's going :-/
EDIT:
I take it you missed the CNN story about people trying to have Master and Slave hard-drives renamed because they're offensive?
you're kidding! HAHAHAHA that's so stupid.
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Let me help you then:
(http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ga/2003/ga031127.gif)
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dude, if u want to start insulting america, theres PLENTY of things on other countrys too.
For one South america and the carribeans bought close to 6 million + slaves and continued after america stopped. America bought 500,000 or so. Britan also bought close to 150,000 and even though they stopped before us, everyone likes to put the shame on america for having slaves. And yet again no one cares when they hear of Egypt having jewish slaves for hundreds of years, even though it was a long time ago it shouldn't change anything.
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It wasn't so much that they had slaves. More that when the slaves were freed under federal law, state laws were set up to keep blacks as slaves and even when those laws were nullified groups like the KKK went around slaughtering the blacks.
When everywhere else was all "All the slaves are free", all the slaves were free.
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yes, only other countries don't go around looking like the etalon of the democratic model good everyoneishappy world.(tm)
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Personally, I don't see how thanksgiving has anything to do with what country you are living in.
And that link was damn funny. All wrong.. but damn funny. :)
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erm.... because it is only celebrated in like two countries in the world?
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Eh?
America and....err.....Canada?
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Canada's out. Technically, I think it should only be celebrated in Massachusetts, as that's where the whole deal supposedly happened. If anything, in a sensible world the rest of the country would have declared it a day of mourning, as it's a symbol of the events that lead to our ****ed-up Puritan heritage. But in reality, corporations take any excuse for a national holiday they can get to sell **** to people.
Anyway, yeah, this deal always comes up aroung Thanksgiving, basically because the whole point was how terribly nice the Indians were in saving the Puritans' dumb arses from starving to death, in the handful of years before the Puritans returned the favor by slaughtering the lot of 'em and kicking the handful of survivors out into a ghetto as bad as any seen in South Africa or Germany, slaughtering them some more, and forcing them into the wasteland, where most of their descendants remain to this day. It's pretty hard to put the white guy in any positive light, there, especially since modern white Americans on the whole are completely and wholly unabashed and unapologetic about a genocide that made Hitler look soft and cuddly, and especially since we're still ****ing them over royally. Everyone refuses to admit what happened, or when forced into facing facts deny that there's any association between that and themselves.
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This is what I've been saying for years. Until they needed to demonise Hitler during WW2 as part of the propoganda campaign, genocide was a perfectly acceptable practice of both peace and wartime.
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It still is in my books.
::Attends Bi-Weekly courses entitled "Genocide for all"::
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Just wait till I get around to finishing/starting GenocidalMonkey.com. Then you'll see. The you'll all see.
Mwuahah.
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So every country has their dark ages, we just happened to have ours 50 - 200 years ago..
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Originally posted by Baron MacDoblin
... for those of you fortunate enough to be an Amerirerican, the greatest country in Earth aside from that one with the name that sticks up all the time, take some time to sit back with a loved beer and remember how it all started (http://www.livejournal.com/users/spacehamster3d/52776.html?#cutid1)
Amerirerican is another word for Canadian? Or Australian? Or is that supposed to be New Zealander?
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Stop arguing and get back on the topic:
HOT LESBIAN CHEERLEADERS
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yeah, some turkeys are like that indeed.
Or is it the other way around?
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Originally posted by Nico
Let me help you then:
(http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ga/2003/ga031127.gif)
:lol:
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Europeans can take their holier-than-thou attitude and toss it out the window. This is an American holiday and I like it.
Everybody have a happy Thanksgiving!
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Weren't the pilgrims all from Britain? So shouldn't it be a British holiday?
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Didn't you read the link? The Pilgrims were Japanese-Italian refugees from Ireland.
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Originally posted by Liberator
Europeans can take their holier-than-thou attitude and toss it out the window. This is an American holiday and I like it.
Everybody have a happy Thanksgiving!
I wouldn't have said it was a holier than thou attitude. More of a couldn't give a **** really.
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Originally posted by Baron MacDoblin
Didn't you read the link? The Pilgrims were Japanese-Italian refugees from Ireland.
Unfortunate for you, we owned the colonies that made up your contry for a good while. Whatever.:doubt:
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Originally posted by vyper
Unfortunate for you, we owned the colonies that made up your contry for a good while. Whatever.:doubt:
YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR INSOLENCE
(http://trelane.hamtwoslices.net/images/thanks09.gif)
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[color=66ff00]I have always felt very happy about where I live. Ireland rocks.
I don't like potatoes though. Or styrofoam.
[/color]
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Ireland is cool. Any place that's cold, dark, and rainy that many days out of the year and still manages to be interesting kicks ass in my book. Plus it's got that whole deal going on up north with the **** blowing up every once in a while. Can't beat that.
Rain and rocket launchers. All I ask for.
Lib: How, exactly, are Europeans holier-than-thou? Read the news articles coming out of Germany lately? They're ****ing neurotic about their latest escapade with mass murder. Last I checked, Britain was pretty apologetic towards its colonies. They certainly don't celebrate what total bastards they were. I guess that qualifies as being nicer people than Americans, dunno if that automatically translates into holier-than-thou.
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Can we try and leave off the US slamming (or indeed any other country slamming). It's an age old arguement that I'd like to settle with the comment "all countries suck". Thankyou.
Anyhow, Happy Thanksgiving to the US guys - have a good one. Roll on Christmas for the rest of us who celebrate it (Christian or no, it's a good excuse for food).
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Thunder: What, exactly, do you think Thanksgiving is supposed to be about? Why do people celebrate that particular day? Is it just a random excuse for gorging to you, to fill up the time between the random candy binge that people call "halloween" for some reason and the really random day you stuff yourself called Christmas?
Aargh, nothing means bloody anything anymore to people.
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Actually I have beliefs of my own - it just so happens that being English, Thanksgiving means nothing to me - it's an American event. You don't see me celibrating French equivilants do you? They to mean nothing to me because there's simply no relation between me and the event.
As for Christmas - I'm not Christian. However Christmas seems to be a gray area - some celibrate it for the birth if Christ and so on - which is fair enough - others celibrate it as a kind of thanks to their friends and family and to reflect on what they mean to them. In that aspect I do partake in Christmas (and heck, if there's food going - and thats a part of the event - who am I to not eat it). But Christmas certainly doesn't mean anything religious to me in that respect.
Now if you want to talk religion, the next one for me would be Yule which would be on the 21st/22nd of December. The previous would be Samhain which is Halloween to you. I didn't forget Samhain and I don't plan on forgetting Yule either - but generally it's good to work the dates into what the rest of the world is doing - so I may honor Yule but I'll also remember those I love on Christmas day as well with the rest of my family.
All in all - as far as I'm concerned you're wrong - a hell of a lot of things mean something to me. But events don't always have to mean the same thing to the different people. It's only a date. I've found it's better to try and remember things when it feels right to you - it means more.
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Exactly- it's "only a date". There is no history to it, no tradition, it's just a preprescribed day on which you pay attention to your friends and family, in contrast to every other day, and there's no real reason for it except that it came handy. It's a day to eat lots of stuff and not consider maybe why that day is different or what late November has to do with food. It basically "means" visit the family and stuff yourself.
That's not meaning, except in the absolutely most crass sense. But it's all holidays mean to 90% of people. Thanksgiving means you eat turkey and stuffing, Valentines' Day means you buy your girlfriend some jewlery, Easter that you look around the back yard for boiled eggs with the kids. Nobody knows why you do that, nobody's interested in the significance of turkey or eggs, nobody cares. They just do it because they're told that's what's appropriate, shrug their shoulders, and move on. At most they manufacture a rationalization for it that has nothing to do with the actual reasons, just because they're uncomfortable admitting that they're spending their lives doing these things and they have utterly no clue why, or interest in finding out.
And that's not the limit of it, either, that's just all that ties directly into holidays. It's damn few people who know or are marginally interested in the historical context of these days, never mind why they exist now. It's just a day when the advertisements all feature turkeys and family get-togethers, so you buy a turkey and have a get-together.
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What would you rather do then? I do see what you mean - but I don't know how you'd rather things were done. I have my own little ways of celibrating things like Samhain and Yule - because god knows that only one or two other people I know might do things the same way - but the vast majority of people will eat their turkey at Christmas, their chocolate at Easter and so on.
But in the end, what is a holiday for? Or at least what is a holiday with meaning for (such as Christmas or Easter... not your average summer vacation). The best you can hope for is that people remember eachother and care for even the smallest of moments - even if they don't know why they're doing it.
How would you have it be?
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I would rather holidays meant something. Things like eating home-cooked food or being with your family can be done any day, and honestly should, people use holidays as an excuse to be assholes in the meantime all too often. You ever seen a Catholic Lent and Easter? That means something, they're in direct communication with their God, expressing sympathy and gratitude for all he's done for 'em. Ever seen a Day of the Dead celebration- a real one, not one of those elementary-school knockoffs? Paper-mache skulls aren't just an alternate-culture substitute for jack-o-lanterns, that's the day when the ****ing dead come out and chill with their families, and the towns have a big ****ing party for 'em. It's really ****ing bizarre if you didn't grow up with it (and especially if "dead coming back to life" means "Night of the Living Dead" to you, like it does me), but it has meaning, there's a reason it's that day that doesn't have anything to do with companies trying to sell you ****, and it's an experience genuinely worth having.
And some holidays, they just shouldn't exist now. Thanksgiving... what business do British people have celebrating that? It doesn't have anything to do with them. Hell, it really doesn't have anything to do with Americans anymore- it's a harvest festival (and a very specific one, there are plenty of other harvest festivals for cultures that still know what a harvest is), and these days when anything we eat comes from some anonymous location thousands of miles away when it's still growing season, there's no such thing as a harvest anymore unless you live on one of the few self-sufficient farms left around. Thanksgiving only lives on as a day the meat industry rakes it in, and pasting up something that looks vaguely like a turkey or hat with a buckle on it means there's something on sale today.
I'd rather our gas didn't just come from the pumps and our dinners from the stores. I'd rather there was a reason we lived our lives the reason we do more than just that that's the way irritating voices on the airwaves say is the right way to do it. I'd rather people knew why, or at least gave a rat's ass. You wanna know the reason everything's so ****ed, why Bush is waging wars for Halliburton at the expense of all of us and everything you eat and wear was essentially made by slave labor and a ridiculous percentage of the country here won't eat enough today while we're throwing out excess food by the metric ton and nobody gives a ****? That's why, and it won't be long before we're all thoroughly screwed because of it. What were the figures on how long the current oil supply will last again? Oh, wait, nobody cares. Won't be our grandchildren who have to deal with it, it won't be our children, it'll be us in the not-so-distant future who'll be back to the goddamn Dark Ages, and nobody cares, nobody wants to hear that anything they do means something. Especially not that it doesn't mean life'll go on as ordinary and there'll always be a happy ending like we keep getting told.
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Originally posted by Warlock
And so far every country on the planet has done that in one form or another, your point?
Probably that not many other countries celebrate it.........
oops, that's been said. I don't have any real argument over Thanksgiving, just think that more should be done to recognise the impact on the natives.
From what I've read (not much albeit, mostly a Bill Bryson book) the same stands for Australia & aborigines. but that's another argument I can't be arsed with.
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
I would rather holidays meant something. Things like eating home-cooked food or being with your family can be done any day, and honestly should, people use holidays as an excuse to be assholes in the meantime all too often. You ever seen a Catholic Lent and Easter? That means something, they're in direct communication with their God, expressing sympathy and gratitude for all he's done for 'em. Ever seen a Day of the Dead celebration- a real one, not one of those elementary-school knockoffs? Paper-mache skulls aren't just an alternate-culture substitute for jack-o-lanterns, that's the day when the ****ing dead come out and chill with their families, and the towns have a big ****ing party for 'em. It's really ****ing bizarre if you didn't grow up with it (and especially if "dead coming back to life" means "Night of the Living Dead" to you, like it does me), but it has meaning, there's a reason it's that day that doesn't have anything to do with companies trying to sell you ****, and it's an experience genuinely worth having.
And some holidays, they just shouldn't exist now. Thanksgiving... what business do British people have celebrating that? It doesn't have anything to do with them. Hell, it really doesn't have anything to do with Americans anymore- it's a harvest festival (and a very specific one, there are plenty of other harvest festivals for cultures that still know what a harvest is), and these days when anything we eat comes from some anonymous location thousands of miles away when it's still growing season, there's no such thing as a harvest anymore unless you live on one of the few self-sufficient farms left around. Thanksgiving only lives on as a day the meat industry rakes it in, and pasting up something that looks vaguely like a turkey or hat with a buckle on it means there's something on sale today.
I'd rather our gas didn't just come from the pumps and our dinners from the stores. I'd rather there was a reason we lived our lives the reason we do more than just that that's the way irritating voices on the airwaves say is the right way to do it. I'd rather people knew why, or at least gave a rat's ass. You wanna know the reason everything's so ****ed, why Bush is waging wars for Halliburton at the expense of all of us and everything you eat and wear was essentially made by slave labor and a ridiculous percentage of the country here won't eat enough today while we're throwing out excess food by the metric ton and nobody gives a ****? That's why, and it won't be long before we're all thoroughly screwed because of it. What were the figures on how long the current oil supply will last again? Oh, wait, nobody cares. Won't be our grandchildren who have to deal with it, it won't be our children, it'll be us in the not-so-distant future who'll be back to the goddamn Dark Ages, and nobody cares, nobody wants to hear that anything they do means something. Especially not that it doesn't mean life'll go on as ordinary and there'll always be a happy ending like we keep getting told.
It is, as they say, for some people (too many people) that ignorance is bliss.
As far as I know though, I've never met a British person that celebrates thanksgiving.
Apathy is a ****ing curse and it gets worse with every generation of mindless drones that are left to sit in front of the T.V while the parents are in another room doing **** all. It's a curse that leads people to believe that they don't have to do anything about problems that this whole race have because "someone else will deal with it".
Do you have a newsletter and can I subscribe to it?
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I ***** here at a rate proportional to my frustrations at finding an adequate movement to stem these sorts of things, which is pretty much exponential, so if that counts, yeah. :D
And I think there is an increasing nervous sense of it growing nowadays, just because it's so bloody obvious, but it's in a very small group of the usual suspects and a lot of it's misdirected, so I don't trust it to help us in time. The problem is- what do you really do about complete and total apathy? You can't, as a general rule, shock people into awareness- they're too jaded, and if it such tactics worked the SPCA would be more than a fringe group by now. You can't reason with people who don't care- they'll just continue not caring. Going about the riot method to get attention has been blunted since the late 60s, and now that it'd have to compete with ****ing reality shows... Basically, only way I see is to keep going on and hope people engage at some point or other, start listening. And that... well, bleh. I'd really rather pick up some good street clothes and go stomp some cops or something, but those days are gone, I guess...
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
I ***** here at a rate proportional to my frustrations at finding an adequate movement to stem these sorts of things, which is pretty much exponential, so if that counts, yeah. :D
And I think there is an increasing nervous sense of it growing nowadays, just because it's so bloody obvious, but it's in a very small group of the usual suspects and a lot of it's misdirected, so I don't trust it to help us in time. The problem is- what do you really do about complete and total apathy? You can't, as a general rule, shock people into awareness- they're too jaded, and if it such tactics worked the SPCA would be more than a fringe group by now. You can't reason with people who don't care- they'll just continue not caring. Going about the riot method to get attention has been blunted since the late 60s, and now that it'd have to compete with ****ing reality shows... Basically, only way I see is to keep going on and hope people engage at some point or other, start listening. And that... well, bleh. I'd really rather pick up some good street clothes and go stomp some cops or something, but those days are gone, I guess...
Tonight on "Generic TV Station 3" the all new, amazing "When Riots Go Bad"
I know what you mean, reality T.V really is the direst and most pointless creation since, actually, there is no since.
Big Brother. Watch 12 people live in a house. WOW! Watch as these 12 ****ing morons with nothing more productive to do with their time cook clean and argue. Or alternatively, go outside and do something with your life, interact with REAL people, do REAL, EXCITING things such as WALKING, EXERCISE, CONVERSATION.
Or how about the nauseating Pop Idol (American Idol) which shows just how ****ing disgusting these millionaires, who become celebrities just through putting people through a grinder on national T.V, really are. They take a process that's abhorrent to me anyway (plastic packaged music) then show the guts of it, the personal agony of shattered hopes, on T.V. Then people wonder WHY we live in a society where noone has respect for each other, where people are scared to talk to their neighbour, where people are afraid to walk their own streets. A lack of compassion and respect for each other is bred on the T.V screens and it makes me sad.
I haven't watched T.V much at all since I realised a few years ago that I squandered my childhood in front of that ****ing box.
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Actually, I'm not entirely familiar with reality shows later than roughtly Temptation Island. Accidentially caught the tail end of an episode, swore off TV since. Still download Family Guy episodes off the network once in a while, but that's about the extent of it.
But yeah, you pretty much got it. Pretty much says it all when the highest entertainment ratings go to watching people get debased on live TV, with the repeated assurance that what you're watching is real humiliation and suffering. Gotta wonder about the mentality that makes people willing to go through all that just so they can get some attention and a short-lived illusion of importance. Brings to mind the Roman Colosseum, really- how long you think before we start getting some gladiator action on FOX?
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Oh God, in watching Temptation Island you got to witness T.V at its lowest ebb. Lets take a group of guys with fiancees, put them on an island with models that are paid to seduce them (hookers?) and watch the absolute heartbreak of their better halves as their resolve crumbles in three seconds flat. I'd call it car crash T.V but it's far worse than that.
The Roman Collosseum idea is actually pretty good, especially if it was a bloodsport, most certainly the most cost effective way of ridding the world of these greedy, arrogant, self centred, opinionated, attention seeking ****wits that think that five minutes of fame is their right.
I find it weird that someone like me, that tends not to get riled up by much, can get so frustrated by something that people enjoy, but it's not entertainment, it's a sedative masquerading as something worthwhile.
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You'd have a hard time ridding the world of them, they're much the same portion that believes every speech that comes out of the White House and that commercials really work on.
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Sadly it seems that idiots are a lot more prolific in breeding than the reasonably more educated masses.
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Who says intelligence is genetic? It at least appears to be more of a matter of using what you have properly than having a lot. Genius also seems to involve effort and dedication to a single goal or subject, and that is the kicker. Who wants to exert themselves, when you can work on putting an ass-groove in the couch?
Look at the way things are promoted today. Leisure and convenience are vaunted as the highest goods, the things to which all aspire. After watching a couple decades of ads for things that'll peel carrots for you, make it easier to do your work, things that will aid you in taking a ****, who'd be interested in anything that sounded difficult or complicated? We're in an idiot-proof culture, and that inevitably lets the culture become that of idiots.
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I agree with the intelligence not being genetic, though it's fair to say that a more intelligent parent is going to try to raise their child to have some degree of intellect. I know my parents read to me from an early age and I attribute this to my confidence with the English language. I know I'd try my hardest not to let my child (if that were the case) be another idiot too, but sometimes they just are (like my brother, the biggest waste of space I've ever known) and there isn't a lot you can do, other than trying to teach them the difference between right and wrong (something fundamental, but it's shocking the amount of parents I've seen that neglect it).
I couldn't agree more about the conveniences too, sure it IS nice to have a job and sometimes it's nice to buy something to make life a bit more fun, but the extents of laziness that people have reached now are ridiculous. Do you really NEED to drive around the corner just to go to the shop and back in broad daylight?
I personally believe that the human race have reached this far THROUGH complication and difficulty because it drove the need to become more intelligent, as they say "Necessity is the mother of invention", unfortunately it seems we've reached a point where we're stagnating.
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I hate how america litery takes over everything, culture, land, resorces.
Many countries are being "invaded" by force, sold weapons, and wost of all culture is being destroyed.
Americans are just brittish convicts, and not much has changed.
Power, is allways in the hands of people who abuse it. The american government, gorge bush, (wtf!!) and others.
They'll literary destroy the world in the next 50 years.
just wait.
I realise that there are many good people in america, so i do not direct this at you.
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I thought this had moved on from America bashing now?
I also thought that the Aussies were the convicts and the Yanks were the Puritans. Leaving us pure and wholesome Church of Englanders (ha!) with a whole island that we could run around and divorce whomever we like on.
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Um... Masachusetts was Puritans, Georgia was convicts, basically everywhere else were corporations. Except for Pennsylvania, which was the colonial-era equivalent of hippies. Guess which area was first to stop being some hickish backwater.
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Fair enough, don't really know much about American history and it was never even looked at in school. My guess is the hippy one :)