The liberty club

[Al]

"Second issue concerns the condescending, arrogant, racist and chauvinistic view that some people know what is better for them than others."

This doesn't appear to make any sense. Perhaps you meant that it is people assuming they know what is better for another person than does the person concerned. Is this what you meant to say is "condescending, arrogant, racist and chauvinistic"?

[hr]"Life is a horizontal fall"

[the weight of echoes]

The reason cliches are cliches is usually because they are true. I'm not bothered if they've already been said.

Harm and beneift aren't subjective terms: smoking is harmful and addictive and has no positive benefits whatsoever, apart from the fact that it looks good, which is important obviously, but it's better to pretend to look good than actually look good, because it's more superficial. Therefore it's better to pretend to smoke than actually smoke. So what if things make you happy? Why should that count for anything? People enjoy lots of things that don't ultimately make them happy. I think it's more that some things are beneficial in the short term but harmful in the long term, not simultaneously harmful and beneficial, which doesn't make sense. If anything can be shown to be harmful, it's pointless having laws that allow it.

I've not claimed to be free of the "follies" I supposedly highlighted before, and openly admit that I'm not. I just think it's a good thing at least to want to be free. I'm being neither condescending, nor racist (where did that come from?) nor chauvanistic, only arrogant. I'm putting forward some views, which I believe to be true. I'm either right or wrong, and because it's not possible to believe something and not believe it to be true, all opinions are arrogance. Just not all opinions are true.
"How arrogant to assume that one knows best not just his own wishes but also the wishes of others!" I'm not talking about my own wishes - my wishes matter as little as everyone else's. The only arrogant thing is taking me seriously. Students are children and should behave like them.

[puzzled]

[s]the weight of echoes wrote on 21:52, 6th Dec 2002:

If anything can be shown to be harmful, it's pointless having laws that allow it.

Er not sure on that one, what about divorce (often harmful on the children), abortion (pretty harmful to the unborn) and finally that most dangerous of activities, which has been proved to result in death, living.
That fact that something is addictive doesn't necessarily make it harmful - in the case of tabacco it is the fact that the other crap, that comes with the addictive nicotine, kills you which makes it harmfull.

Students are children and should behave like them.

We may often behave like them, but by no measure are we.

[Thackary]

As I'm sure you're aware, echoes, most things in life cost money.

The Sinner costs money because although it exists in "cyberspace", and there isn't a physical version of it, it still needs to be stored somewhere. The people who own the computer where it is stored charge money for this storage, which is fair enough.

In order to provide the service that the Sinner offers, it needs to finance itself, as I'm sure that James' pockets are not bottomless. By charging money for people to advertise, the Sinner both manages to cover its costs, and also helps its sponsors spread their message to a wider audience.
As the Sinner maintains its free speech policy, why should there be any restriction on who can pay for a banner advertisement?

Anyway, for the amount of effort that James has put into the site, surely it's only fair that he gets some fiscal return for all his hard work and effort that has gone largely unnoticed?

But as for you, echoes, I think you may be one of the fat and lazy people who expect everything to be provided for you free of charge, and without you contributing anything.
What will happen when your dole money runs out and you don't have any more of other people's cash to spend?

[wyrd]

puzzled wrote:

"Er not sure on that one, what about divorce (often harmful on the children),"

um, am I the only child of divorced parents who finds that particular example just a little bit pointless/wrong? Divorce in itself is not harmful - my parents' divorce was basically the end (or at the very least, hope of parole) from the hell/uncertainty/limbo both they and my brother and I had lived in through their various separations/reconciliations (between 1987 when I was 6 and my brother was 5, and August 2000 when we were 19 and 17 respectively). Sure, the way they handled it may have been 'harmful' - it was particularly nasty the way they kept trying to make things work 'for the sake of the kids' then separating, then getting back together, and so on. The worst part was how long they managed to *put off* the divorce - the way they managed to sustain over a decade of arguments, fights, and both parties trying to get my brother and I 100% on their side (and blame the other one for anything that went wrong, ever) got a little messy. I'm sure you can imagine. But it wasn't 'divorce' (blamed for so much, isn't it?) that was the problem. It was the complete lack of one. Even if they had divorced earlier I imagine it would be the things I mentioned above which would have had an impact on my childhood either way, rather than "oh my god, suddenly my parents aren't married (!)". Just a thought.

So in what way is divorce "often" harmful to children? Rather than all those factors which *can* *cause* divorce (but, believe me, can also go for a very long time without doing so).

Sorry, I know it's off the topic of the thread, I'd just rather people would think about examples like this, which are cliches, of course, but nonetheless generally seem to be assumed to be true for no spectacularly good reason. Overly emotional drunken rant over.

[S.P.I.G]

Possibly off topic but I just thought, considering the last post, that it would be a good time to show my appreciation of James Baster and all of the hard work that he puts into the site. Thank-you James, you must put a hell of a lot of your free time into this site and I respect you for it. In many ways you're a better man than myself. When I get back to St Andrews at christmas, remind me the next time I see you to buy you a pint...

[The Kaiser]

[s]puzzled wrote on 22:59, 6th Dec 2002:
Er not sure on that one, what about divorce (often harmful on the children), abortion (pretty harmful to the unborn) and finally that most dangerous of activities, which has been proved to result in death, living.

In what way has living been proved to result in death?

[James Baster]

[s]S.P.I.G wrote on 08:12, 7th Dec 2002:
When I get back to St Andrews at christmas, remind me the next time I see you to buy you a pint...

Thanks, man. Glad you like enjoy it. Hows your time away going?

[hr]
[s]Its nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout 'Oh, random-flucuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!' or 'Aaargh, primitive-and-out-moded-concept on a crutch!' - Terry Pratchet, Men at arms[/s]

[puzzled]

[s]The Kaiser wrote on 16:59, 7th Dec 2002:
In what way has living been proved to result in death?


Well, no matter how long a person lives, all the evidence points to death happening in the end.

[The Kaiser]

That isn't a proof.

[S.P.I.G]

James - not the best time ever but it's ok. I'll be back in good old St Andrews next week:)

[puzzled]

[s]The Kaiser wrote on 22:12, 7th Dec 2002:
That isn't a proof.



Not normally, but due to the prolonged nature of our observations and the fact that no one has yet managed to be imortal, all the evidence points to the hypothesis being true. This may not be enough to satisfy the mathematicians out there, but for most other disciplines it would surfice as proof surely?

[The_Farwall]

[s]puzzled wrote on 01:30, 8th Dec 2002:
Not normally, but due to the prolonged nature of our observations and the fact that no one has yet managed to be imortal, all the evidence points to the hypothesis being true. This may not be enough to satisfy the mathematicians out there, but for most other disciplines it would surfice as proof surely?

See, I was originally going to go with the 'statistical proof' argument. The 'everyone who has lived has died' proof. But when you think about it, statistics would show that, while the majority of people that we know have lived have also died, there is also a significant number of people (ie the current inhabitants of the world) that have lived but have not yet died and what way do you have of showing that they all definitely will?

Of course the flip side of that is that you could never actually show that any one particular life does not lead to death. True, someone could live for an unnaturally long length of time but the only way to show that their life never lead to death would be to observe them for an infinitely long length of time. Which isn't possible so it isn't possible to show that they would never die.

What I'm trying to say is that it isn't possible to prove that life always leads to death but equally it isn't possible to disprove that life always leads to death either.

[hr]
[s]If all this wisdom is true,
then I doubt it could really have come from you[/s]

[Prophet Tenebrae]

I suppose if you want to be obtuse on the matter, then yes it might well be a hard one to prove. Of course, if you stopped being a dickface you'd just accept rationality and shutup about it and let me get back to sleep.

Lol.

[The_Farwall]

[s]Prophet Tenebrae wrote on 02:58, 8th Dec 2002:
I suppose if you want to be obtuse on the matter, then yes it might well be a hard one to prove. Of course, if you stopped being a ******** you'd just accept rationality and shutup about it and let me get back to sleep.

Lol.


If you want to be wrong, as usual, Tenebrae, then yes, you might write crap like that. I wasn't the one who decided to bring 'proofs' into the conversation but I believe that I've shown, using the most rational of reasoning tools, logic, that this isn't 'a hard one to prove', it's impossible. If you want to point out a flaw in my argument then maybe I'll listen to your inane babling but I don't believe that there is one and you don't seem to have anything relevant to say here.
As for 'shutting up and letting (you) get back to sleep', I wasn't aware that I wielded such power over you but if I do then rest assured that I won't be shutting up any time soon.

[hr]
[s]If all this wisdom is true,
then I doubt it could really have come from you[/s]

[Oli]

Is there something going on between Farwall and Tenebrae that we don't know about?

Is the tap tap tapping of Farwall's keyboard proving too loud for Tenebrae's sensitive ears? Perhaps one of them should move to another room.

Or perhaps I've got the wrong end of the stick (indeed the wrong end of town), and we need to learn more about Prophet's habits before casting aspersions on his night time activities.

An habitual Sinner poster - there's a new one. Yet another counsellor needed for yet another nonsense condition.

[Saint Sal]

Lover's tiff, perhaps? *ever hopeful*

[hr]We are indeed drifting into the arena of the unwell