Randomness thread, part two.

[oskar]

Islam was an instrument of war from the very beginning. That's what apologetics don't understand. It's not a perversion of islam to enforce sharia with a weapon, it's the very expression of islam. The perversion of islam is to bend the quaran to mean that we can be accepting of gays, that a muslim can leave the faith at his choosing and that non believers are to be treated with respect.

The reality of the situation is that islam is a breeding ground for murder and war like no other ideology today and as such it demands ridicule and contempt, not respect. You have tolerate the people who practice it. You can be in utter contempt of a faith and not hate the people. Many muslims are wonderful people who I don't mind sharing a country with, but their faith is utter filth. It is dangerous and undermines modern society, and we need to distinguish that.
There is nothing redeeming about being a man of faith. It is stupidity. This is not news. We are better off without faith and we know it. The sooner we dare to say it out loud, the better we will be off in the near future.

[OngBonga]

That's no different to saying Christianity is intolerant of gays. Well actually most Christians are tolerant of gays. The problem isn't Christianity, it's the people who chose to be bigots and hide behind their religion.

I'm not intending to be an apologist for Islam. I just don't consider it any more fucked up a religion than Catholicism. Religion in general is a problem, not any one in particular. Blaming Islam is just wrong imo. Islam is a scpaegoat. The blame lies with the evil people who are manipulating people's beliefs and faith. You think Islam is filth because that the way it's portrayed. I'll bet your average Islamic scholar considers Christianity to be filth, or atheism to be filth... because that's what's drummed into their heads.

It's all bullshit. Blame those who make things happen.

[oskar]

red herring

You would have had a point 80 years ago when the catholic church was jerking off hitler and mussolini. Today it's a shadow of its self, and that's good and that's why nobody cares. Islam is the subject.

[OngBonga]

Oh right so it's all ok because all the Catholics have been doing since WWII is diddling young boys. They haven't been blowing shit up.

The vast majority of Muslims are just normal people trying to live what to them is a normal life. We've got no right to critisise a peaceful lifestyle. The men aren't all wife beating suicide bombers. Most of them go to work and devote their life to supporting their families. Just like most Christians, or most sun worshippers. It's wrong to blame their religion for the sorry state of the world. The blame lies with those who use religion to further their agenda.

[boost]

Ong, I think you're coming from the right place-- there are tons and tons of great Muslim people. And most all religions have atrocities under their belt. However, it is clearly incorrect to simply equate every religion to every other religion in terms of potential and realized harm. For example, if we agree that Christianity and Judaism are both responsible for the deaths of innocent people, then given this criteria we can deduce which is worse, better, or whether they are equally bad. Clearly the latter is by far the least likely. Of course we can apply any relevant criteria we wish and I think you'd be being disingenuous if you weren't willing to hazard a guess that Islam is the "worst" of the major religions if we formulated some way to weight all the criteria.

[rong]

Depends on the timeframe, no? Every dog has it's day. Go ask a bunch of Arabs in the crusading times which religion was causing all the problems.

[spoonitnow]

I have this great new website called nobody gives a fuck dot com. You should check out the section on Islam.

Anyone here a fan of Ted Nugent?

I've been reading books by Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) recently, particularly on the topic of having systems vs. having goals, and they're [surprisingly?] extremely good and have really helped me to pull together a lot of ideas and things I've been trying to improve my quality of life and make my work less stressful.

[OngBonga]

Ah so that's where you get all your opinions about sexism and rape from.

[MadMojoMonkey]

If Islam is as bad as all that, then wouldn't the fact that a majority of the people in the world are Islamic indicate that there should be a whole lot more of this jihadist BS going on?

The numbers indicate that a very tiny %-age of Islamic people are at all interested in blowing up.
(Perhaps a red herring, but it is worth noting that a certain %-age of all societal groups likes to blow stuff up at least a little bit, from time to time. You just wait, the Amish potato gun offensive is coming.)

The word "Islam" means "peace." Best smokescreen ever?

I don't think it's wise to allow Islam to be defined by people who are not Islamic. As ong pointed out, people group together and vilify other groups all the time. It can be very hard to get good info from inside the group.
(How drastically has our view of Russia/Russians changed since the 80's?)

Taking a position of hate isn't helping anyone in the world. If your true motivation is to prevent death and loss of freedoms, then let that be your focus. Feel the hate for villainy, but let that emotion guide your reason, and remember that the problem is bigger than any single villain.

***
FWIW, this BS about drawing cartoons of Mohammed is really getting under my skin. It's such a petty, childish game with murderous stakes. It's not cool to ignore the problem and be oppressed from our freedom to express ourselves. It's not cool to poke someone with a stick over something they're sensitive about. However, this killing over cartoons nonsense is so wtf?!

I mean, it just makes so little sense on the face of it that I just don't believe it. Whatever is actually going on, people aren't engaging in guerrilla warfare, endangering their own lives, over merely a cartoon. Something with deeper psychological significance in going on.

[spoonitnow]

I don't think it's wise to allow X to be defined by people who are not X.

Come on, you're smarter than this.

[rong]

Well mmm, I guess this, which a Muslim Facebook friend posted kinda gets at what you're referring to in your last paragraph:
https://medium.com/@asgharbukhari/ch...r-26aff1c3e998

[oskar]

If Islam is as bad as all that, then wouldn't the fact that a majority of the people in the world are Islamic indicate that there should be a whole lot more of this jihadist BS going on?

Even if they're not blowing anyone up there's a lot of female circumcision going on, honor killings, arranged marriages, stoning. There's a lot of BS going on. Homosexuality is punishable by death in five countries. All of them islamic. Same with adultery. If this religion takes over you get booted back into the middle ages. We have seen this time and time again. And to say that bad people instrumentalize islam for evil things. How is that not the only purpose of a religion?! To make people dumb and weak and gullible so you can manipulate them.

[a500lbgorilla]

Well mmm, I guess this, which a Muslim Facebook friend posted kinda gets at what you're referring to in your last paragraph:
https://medium.com/@asgharbukhari/ch...r-26aff1c3e998

This world is a weird ass place. This reminded me of a comment that follows the same vein but is the exact flip. How NK loves this sort of stink-lines propoganda for furthering its goals.

https://np.reddit.com/r/asianamerica...x3j7?context=3

[MadMojoMonkey]

Come on, you're smarter than this.

No YOU are!

***
I think I meant this:
I don't think it's wise to allow X to be defined solely by people who are not X.

***
Agreed that religion is stupid, but we're in the minority 10% of people who think that.

[wufwugy]

Religion is more a tool for harm than the source of harm. The source of harm is mostly just a lack of resources and/or fair treatment or the perception of such

[a500lbgorilla]

But there will always be a lack of resources. Economics teaches that mans greed is boundless. And biology teaches...

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

[wufwugy]

The bolded is quite an assumption and I think has been demonstrated to not be true. We live in societies with rapid growth of plenty with subsequent reduction of population growth or reversal towards scarcity

[Renton]

As it relates to the human race, that seems like a groundless claim. Starvation and misery levels have plummeted since the industrial revolution, and will probably be all but eradicated by 2050, and would probably have been eradicated already if it weren't for leaders lacking in knowledge about basic economics.

[a500lbgorilla]

But Religion teaches that we are in the End Times. So don't go betting on that 2050 mark.

[Renton]

The only area of the world with widespread starvation is sub-saharan africa and that is largely thanks to the free food everyone sends there, ironically, which has boosted the population growth.

[a500lbgorilla]

[wufwugy]

kinison screams like 70s-80s rock sings

[wufwugy]

the only picture anybody needs to see to know that environmentalists are fucking dumbasses





also the best proof that capitalism works, because now a bunch of dumbshits have the total luxury to make it their life's work to fight for something that will not affect their stated goals by a fraction of a fraction of a fraction

[wufwugy]

i fucking hate idealism. partly because im an idealist and all i know is all the problems it creates for me. partly because what matters is utilitarianism, and all idealism does is screw things up

[a500lbgorilla]

I'm a shitist. Everything is shit. Luckily, I love poop jokes.

[wufwugy]

forgive me for i have a spell of anger and ease of tongue

subsidized education is the bane of western civilization.

[a500lbgorilla]

Oh yeah, education is shit.

[rong]

I was far happier when I thought I knew it all.

[wufwugy]

Oh yeah, education is shit.

can't tell if you're serious or facetious

because it's common to think education is a good idea but the system doesnt do it well.

im not about that. im about the colossal waste of resources and capital education outside of specific job utility is, as well as the dysfunctional society it creates. ever notice how people who are home-schooled are pretty well adjusted but almost without exception everybody who went through the public system is expert at being overly critical of themselves and others?

[wufwugy]

I was far happier when I thought I knew it all.

pray tell what you're getting at

[oskar]

But there will always be a lack of resources. Economics teaches that mans greed is boundless. And biology teaches...

I think Ernest Brecker put it best:

What are we to make of creation in which routine activity is for organisms to be tearing others apart with teeth of all types - biting, grinding flesh, plant stalks, bones between molars, pushing the pulp greedily down the gullet with delight, incorporating its essence into one’s own organization, and then excreting with foul stench and gasses residue.

[aubreymcfate]

[a500lbgorilla]

Mmmm, ain't that some shit.

[wufwugy]

fuck language. i try to explain myself and my world with language but it all just amounts to is a giant steaming heap of dogshit that narrates my life

[a500lbgorilla]

And here my favorite thing is the bee, a honeybee. And a honeybee goes out and finds the nectar and he comes back, he does a dance that communicates to the other bees where the
nectar is, and they go out and get it. Well some scientist who is clever, like B.F. Skinner,
decided to do an experiment. He put the nectar straight up. Way up. Well, in a natural
setting, there is no nectar where they’re all straight up, and the poor honeybee doesn’t have
a genetic program that is adequate to handle what he now has to communicate. And you’d
think the honeybee would come back to the hive and slink into a corner, but he doesn’t.
He comes into the hive and does this incoherent dance, and all my life I’ve been dealing
with the human equivalent of that honeybee. And it’s a very important part of
human organization so the noise and the reciprocation and so forth of all these people who
have what I call say-something syndrome don’t really affect the decisions.

Buzz buzz buzz

[Jack Sawyer]

Apparently, they solved LHE. For reals this time

http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca

http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/8/751...rogram-cepheus

[OngBonga]

As impressed as I am, when they say poker is harder to solve than chess, they're talking out of their arse. Just because all the information is on the chess board, doesn't make it easier to solve. Something like a thousand billion billion different chess positions for every atom in the observable universe. Good fucking luck solving that. I don't even think a computer can count to that number, let alone store the information in a database.

They're solving chess backwards. They've solved it up to 6 pieces, including kings, while a decent % of 7 piece endgames are also solved. But I'd expect NLHE to be solved decades before chess is even half solved. They won't solve chess in my lifetime. I don't feel the same about NLHE.

[rong]

pray tell what you're getting at

It was just a flippant response to rilla's education comment, although probably true as well. What I mean is, initially you're only problems are your own and a littje education solves them, then you learn a bit more and become aware of the rest of the worlds problems, and if you have a heart you think about then and maybe have a rough idea of how you think they could be solved and perhaps don't care about some, then you learn more and realise that actually the only way it works is for a whole bunch of people to be fucked, that's just the way it is, the way it always has been and the way it always will be, and that's a depressive conclusion, especially in comparison to the perspective I had back when it all seemed simple and solvable. Ignorance is bliss.

[rong]

So many typos, dam phone!

[rong]

This is a far better take on the whole jihadist / war on terror situation:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...-twisted-logic

[a500lbgorilla]

http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca

Links on this page are so dead they might as well edit Charlie Hebdo.

[a500lbgorilla]

As impressed as I am, when they say poker is harder to solve than chess, they're talking out of their arse. Just because all the information is on the chess board, doesn't make it easier to solve. Something like a thousand billion billion different chess positions for every atom in the observable universe. Good fucking luck solving that. I don't even think a computer can count to that number, let alone store the information in a database.

They're solving chess backwards. They've solved it up to 6 pieces, including kings, while a decent % of 7 piece endgames are also solved. But I'd expect NLHE to be solved decades before chess is even half solved. They won't solve chess in my lifetime. I don't feel the same about NLHE.

[OngBonga]

That would really slap me down if all 52 cards were used for poker. As it is, only the first x amount of cards in any given shuffle are relevant.

[OngBonga]

Also the chess number is significantly bigger than 52! We're talking 10^120, which is just insane.

[a500lbgorilla]

Maybe 52! * imperfect info makes it harder. Especially since you can't see the tint of a man's sunglasses when you're an algorithm.

PS Did I just out british you with the QI link?

[a500lbgorilla]

Christians these days.

[OngBonga]

Maybe 52! * imperfect info makes it harder. Especially since you can't see the tint of a man's sunglasses when you're an algorithm.

PS Did I just out british you with the QI link?

It's not imperfect information. There's only so many hands villain can have, and only so many actions he can make. Even NLHE has an upper limit to how many different actions a villain can make.

Are you aware just how big a number 10^120 is? It's not that far off 52!^2.

And no you didn't out British me by linking a fat gay man shuffling a deck of cards.

[a500lbgorilla]

And no you didn't out British me by linking a fat gay man shuffling a deck of cards.

The Crown would be ashamed to hear this.

[OngBonga]

The Crown would be ashamed to hear this.

Oh dear, I wouldn't want to upset a family of German reptiles.

[wufwugy]

Christians these days.

I feel like the day this person has a heart attack is a day for applause

[a500lbgorilla]

Repitilian germans, I think you'll find.

[OngBonga]

Repitilian germans, I think you'll find.

Touche sir.

I couldn't be arsed to google that to get the squiggly thing on the e.

[a500lbgorilla]

I feel like the day this person has a heart attack is a day for applause

I love the joyous cackle at the end when she gets hammerslammed with the truth.

[OngBonga]

Fucking hell those bitches cackle like witches.

[OngBonga]

I love the joyous cackle at the end when she gets hammerslammed with the truth.

lol

[wufwugy]

The Crown would be ashamed to hear this.

How dare you w0t m8 the man. Now he's gonna get his hooty tooty point n shooty and turn you into gobble stuffs for slippy tube mouths

[a500lbgorilla]

GLORY

[wufwugy]

beginning sounds ripped off of a final fantasy victory music

[a500lbgorilla]

beginning sounds ripped off of a final fantasy victory music

Calling the glory of Man United a fantasy? Who's w0t matin' now mate?

[a500lbgorilla]

It does sound like that too

[wufwugy]

I feel like this is the one I'm thinking of

[a500lbgorilla]

Never played Chronotrigger. My RPGs were Final Fantasy Tactics/FF7/FF8.

[wufwugy]

you missing out son. chrono trigger, ff2, ff3, and shining force 2 are all time greats

[wufwugy]

oh and secret of mana. those five games are all anybody needs to become perfect at all things

[OngBonga]

Jesus wept that man utd song is fucking dire.

I'd happily forgotten about that. Fuck you rilla.

[a500lbgorilla]

[a500lbgorilla]

Women; am i right, lads?

[wufwugy]

i will never understand anybody who doesn't understand proper muzzle and trigger control. maybe it's second nature to me because my dad ingrained it in us, but i'd like to think it's because im not a total fucking dumbass

[spoonitnow]

i will never understand anybody who doesn't understand proper muzzle and trigger control. maybe it's second nature to me because my dad ingrained it in us, but i'd like to think it's because im not a total fucking dumbass

Yeah I'm totally with you on this. I've seen guys seriously get their asses beat for that shit, and it's probably a good thing.

[Galapogos]

i will never understand anybody who doesn't understand proper muzzle and trigger control. maybe it's second nature to me because my dad ingrained it in us, but i'd like to think it's because im not a total fucking dumbass

I'm from a country and social group where no one gives a shit about guns and a couple years ago I found myself firing some guns for the first time ever at a range. I did a lot of stuff that was dumb (not as dumb as her) but I was still surprised with the little bits of retardation that occurred due to no experience and no time in my life thinking about guns beyond when I was 6 years old.

One of the weirdest things I did was I continued to pull the trigger on a 9mm well after I had emptied the clip. A couple of the other guys in the group did it too, our friend that took us said that's actually not uncommon at all.

[oskar]

[a500lbgorilla]

Eh, that kids kinked elbow.

And then wholly fuck that guys wep sweep.

The fundamental law of guns: only point them at something you're willing to kill.

[OngBonga]

Point it at Clarkson you fucking tit.

[wufwugy]

The only rules anybody needs to know:

1) if you point at something, you mean to kill it
2) if you touch the trigger, you mean to kill what you're pointed at

[wufwugy]

a little more in depth:

1) always point at the ground. always
2) always hold trigger finger straight and outside trigger guard. like such

Both on display