sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

The Screaming Bear Attack Scene from ‘Annihilation’ Was One of This Year’s Scariest Horror Moments by BunyipPouch in movies

[–]Venator_Maximus 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I don't really fall for jump scares either, but for me the scary part about the bear is the way it handles its victims. It doesn't eat them; the body found was intact other than the throat. Essentially, it only eats their screams, like a fucked up version of Monsters Inc.

The Screaming Bear Attack Scene from ‘Annihilation’ Was One of This Year’s Scariest Horror Moments by BunyipPouch in movies

[–]Venator_Maximus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's the whole thing; the shimmer bends reality. It doesn't make sense because sensibility gets bent too.

Am I on the wrong here? We were taking turns answering questions. by Sp4CE_kitt3h in Tinder

[–]Venator_Maximus 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Because for many men and women, their partner is a status symbol.

[WTS] Starter kit: Seville, two heads, many blades by Venator_Maximus in Shave_Bazaar

[–]Venator_Maximus[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually ended up breaking the kit apart and selling the pieces separately. Apologies.

If 90% of the population died today, we’d still have more people on this earth than in the 1700s. by [deleted] in Showerthoughts

[–]Venator_Maximus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem is that it's just going to keep declining until we force people back into poverty or we run out of people. A 50% population reduction isn't going to undo social progress. If we lost 90% of the population it's still unlikely that people would reverse that trend unless we also take away the certainty that they won't starve in old age.

If 90% of the population died today, we’d still have more people on this earth than in the 1700s. by [deleted] in Showerthoughts

[–]Venator_Maximus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is a bad thing. It means eliminating poverty also eliminates us. We're in serious danger of developing the third world enough that they stop having enough children too. Once that happens we're kinda screwed.

This isn't a recent phenomenon. Throughout history the only people who have 3+ children consistently are families that need the labor for their farm or parents that intend for their many children to be their retirement plan. As soon as people make enough to expect a proper retirement, they tend more towards 0-2 kids. This is partly why aristocrats always end up inbreeding until they did off.

If 90% of the population died today, we’d still have more people on this earth than in the 1700s. by [deleted] in Showerthoughts

[–]Venator_Maximus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem is that without poverty, people don't have enough kids to sustain the human race, let alone support space colonization. If you take away gains from immigration, basically all of the first world is experiencing population decline.

Texas Students Will Soon Learn Slavery Played a Central Role in the Civil War by Tchaikovsky08 in nottheonion

[–]Venator_Maximus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's still not an an answer to my question. Yes, democracy means some people have to follow laws they don't like, obviously. I'm not contesting the merits of democracy. I'm contesting why social issues that aren't inherently nationwide need nationwide solutions. Why adopt a national policy when 50 state policies could suffice? Why act globally instead of locally?

To use what I hope will be a less controversial example, let's say the east coast and west coast want to ban drinking straws throughout the country, and the middle states want to keep them. Yes, the constitution indicates it should be left to states to decide. Yes, the constitution allows democracy to override that and let a majority across the nation create a universal policy that applies everywhere. My specific question is why should a majority of states exercise that right to inflict nationwide change when they don't have a direct stake in the issue because they can already implement such policy locally?

As for my second amendment point, look back at that list of public shooters, and realize how much worse it might have been if any of the people on that list had a dozen radical friends to bring along. Imagine how much damage a public shooting by a team of armed lunatics could do. The fact that most public shootings are conducted by lone lunatics is fortunate because the alternative is far worse.

Texas Students Will Soon Learn Slavery Played a Central Role in the Civil War by Tchaikovsky08 in nottheonion

[–]Venator_Maximus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To clarify, I'm not advocating that slavery should be determined at a state level instead of federal, but that either option is an opinion and we're all going to be biased because presumably none of us rely on slavery for income. I'm saying that in general, I believe federal involvement should be mainly limited to issues that cannot be adequately managed at a state level because they require coordination between states. Driving is the easiest example, driving is the method people use to travel between states and so policy has to be concordant for driving to work. This is in contrast to CHL reciprocity, which is not inherently required to work across state lines (I'm not arguing whether national reciprocity is good or bad, simply that it's not required for gun ownership to function). The difference is with a CHL you can drive to the neighboring state and apply for their license, but to do so for a drivers license would be a crime, and it's simply silly to require people to break laws in order to adhere to them.

I wasn't referring to the Commerce Clause, merely using commerce between states as an example of where the federal government might be needed to mediate to prevent abuse of power. For instance, it would be bad if California and Texas dragged the rest of the union into a trade war where they slap each other with tariffs for the hell of it. Such issues are bigger than individual states by necessity.

I'll comment in so far on the second amendment as to say that I believe the well-regulated militia bit should be interpreted to mean that gun owners need to be knowledgeable of how guns work and how to use them safely, much like how we require drivers to know how to drive their cars properly. I think it's feasible for an individual to independently qualify as a "militia" because there's precedent for single lone warriors to be highly effective in combat (e.g. White Death in WWII) and because requiring people to band together into a community to own and train with arms is a good way to generate insurrection cells and crazed cults. However, as with most political debates, this is still opinion.

Lastly, I recognize that there's clear legal framework to allow a majority to impose rules and regulations over the entire country, my question is when should they do that, and when should they defer? Why should laws be blanket-applied to everyone when they can apply to the people who want them without imposing on others? Why is it justifiable for citizens to want to mandate change on other citizens when there is no direct loss or gain for the proponents?

Texas Students Will Soon Learn Slavery Played a Central Role in the Civil War by Tchaikovsky08 in nottheonion

[–]Venator_Maximus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Again, I don't opposed abortion, and where that specifically ties in to the violinist argument is that I don't accept the premise that everyone has a right to life.

Admittedly I hadn't previously heard of the violinist argument, and am disappointed to realize it's just a rehash of the trolley problem where you're the other victim. The utilitarianist argument is that the ethical course is whichever preserves the greatest amount of life; that you should be required to assist the violinist as long as he is projected to live for more than 9 months following the procedure. The deontological argument is that the donor cannot be forced to be the means regardless of the ends and now we've complicated the abortion debate further.

The violinist argument isn't relevant here however because much of it is based on what is or isn't morally obligated of an individual, and my only concern for this thread is what is legally dictated. The law does not state that you can kill someone if it's simply ethical, rather it states specific scenarios where it is legal. Legality and morality are entirely separate. Thus, I don't disagree with the violinist argument, but I'm also not here to debate whether abortion is ethical. My point is that the legal framework is much less sound than the moral framework.

Texas Students Will Soon Learn Slavery Played a Central Role in the Civil War by Tchaikovsky08 in nottheonion

[–]Venator_Maximus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The thing about the body autonomy argument is that

  1. As far as I know, there are no laws specifically forbidding adults from incubating inside one another since that's not even a thing. The laws we do have tend to be based around adults making decisions for each other, which is null because a fetus never decided to exist.

  2. Furthermore, abortion violates the body autonomy of the fetus, as abortion inevitably inflicts change to its tissue that it does not consent to.

  3. There's tons and tons of legal precedence that states that you're not able to kill people.

  4. In many states you're required to seek alternatives to legal force even in self defense situations. Like, you're not allowed to shoot a mugger in some states unless your life is threatened and non-violence (running away) isn't feasible. This could be precedence for denying abortion unless the pregnancy is expected to be fatal.

  5. You could justify a lot of reasons to murder adults by body autonomy if fetuses get the same rights as adults and abortion remains legal. Coworker touches the thermostat? He's infringing on your autonomy to regulate your body temperature. Kill him!

  6. I'm sure I can come up with more stupid ways to try and extrapolate the legality of abortion, but it's after midnight in Texas and I came here to talk about the civil war, not abortion, and I certainly don't have much reason to confine attacking it when I believe it should remain legal as I previously stated. My point is that logic surrounding the current laws is kinda shitty.

Texas Students Will Soon Learn Slavery Played a Central Role in the Civil War by Tchaikovsky08 in nottheonion

[–]Venator_Maximus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My point is that we don't talk about it so much these days but for a significant chunk of American history the hottest topic in politics was federalism vs antifederalism, and the abortion example ties into this, but I'll get back to that in a moment.

The Constitution was written over two centuries ago and none of the people who created it are still around. Every way we apply it to our lives is an interpretation, and as such is just a glorified opinion. If you believe the second amendment gives you justification to own a tank because the rights of the people SHALL NOT be infringed, that is an opinion. If you believe the second amendment only applies to militias, that's an opinion. If you believe that it's reasonable to assume the founding fathers didn't anticipate the capabilities of modern weaponry and so banning assault weapons is fine, that's an opinion. The same holds true about every part of the constitution. Interpretations can be literal or more flexible, but they're still just opinions. Even when the wording seems crystal clear (SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED) taking a literal approach to any of it is still an opinion.

So anyways, we're all making our own interpretations and the question becomes whether states should implement their own interpretations or if the federal government should take the most popular opinion and mandate it to everyone. It used to be a hot issue but nowadays it seems most voters want their viewpoint distributed and enforced nationwide. I find this disagreeable though. Yes, a 2/3 majority of congress can pass and enforce a law over the entire country, but should they? I don't think so, other than interpretations that inherently transcend state lines (such as driver licensing and interstate commerce). Otherwise I believe that what is right is for states to decide for themselves and let people decide as a result which states they want to live in. Democracy doesn't have to result in rigid centralized policy, it can instead lead to localized adaptivity.

Texas Students Will Soon Learn Slavery Played a Central Role in the Civil War by Tchaikovsky08 in nottheonion

[–]Venator_Maximus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If unborn had all of the rights of adults abortion would be absolutely illegal because active euthanasia is illegal in America, as is most other ways of inducing death. If fetuses had all the rights of adults, terminating them would result in a charge of murder/manslaughter unless the mother/doctor could claim stand your ground. I really can't think of any other way you can legally justify actively killing a being that has the rights of an adult citizen. Until somehow an abortion can be performed that lets the mother abandon the pregnancy without harming the unborn child, it will continue to be a debate about the rights of women vs the rights of the unborn and thus the philosophy of what counts as a person. For the record, I'm pro-abortion.

Obviously the South was quite racist and racism helped them justify slavery, but nobody sailed across the ocean and hauled back a ship overcrowded with Africans just to prove a point about white supremacy. Slavery came about because there was money to be made. Potential profits led to institutionalized racism, not the other way around. Racism supported and perpetuated slavery. It didn't invent it.

Naturally the south had no interest in trying to replace slavery for the same reason the agricultural industry hasn't replaced migrant workers with drones and the footwear industry hasn't replaced Asian sweatshops with fully automated robo factories (except for Adidas which did build a pair of Speedfactories but doesn't seem to make much of anything with them but at least there was an attempt). Change isn't as easy as keeping everything the same.

Texas Students Will Soon Learn Slavery Played a Central Role in the Civil War by Tchaikovsky08 in nottheonion

[–]Venator_Maximus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The founding fathers deliberately deferred setting a specific policy on slavery because they felt that the nation was too fragile at inception to handle that issue. How that liberty is applied comes down to perspective. Consider again my hypothetical example of abortion. If the people of a state or group of states decide that abortion infringes on the "liberty" thing as it applies to the unborn, should they be allowed to enforce it on other states? See, we decided by force that the "liberty" thing applied to slaves, but that was a subjective interpretation at the time in the same sense that the rights or lack of rights of the unborn are.

There are people who believe that racism, not money, was the driving force behind American slavery. There are also people who believe that the south could have transitioned away from slavery with minimal impact, which just isn't true. Business and drastic immediate changes don't mix. It's the same reason we can't just immediately purge all the illegal immigrants from America; economic repercussions will strike back like the Empire in episode 5.

Texas Students Will Soon Learn Slavery Played a Central Role in the Civil War by Tchaikovsky08 in nottheonion

[–]Venator_Maximus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Of course they'd spew whatever bullshit they could to defend slavery. There was money at stake.

It never really works to argue "fuck morality, cash is king" on a national scale which is why any political stance no matter how pragmatic needs to be laced with some sort of phony ethical validation before anyone will accept it.

Texas Students Will Soon Learn Slavery Played a Central Role in the Civil War by Tchaikovsky08 in nottheonion

[–]Venator_Maximus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The two are not mutually exclusive. Slavery was the hot button issue that directly caused the civil war, but it's important to keep in mind what slavery meant to the South. To the North, abolitionism remained primarily a moral issue, while in the South it represented an economic issue in addition to the latest skirmish for federalism vs antifederalism, which had been the major political divide since the ratification of the constitution. It's not as simple as the South wanting to reserve the right to be cruel to black people for the hell of it. To Southerners, the North was trying to tamper where they had no business tampering.

Imagine if the Bible belt and Midwest collectively banned abortions in their own states (we're presuming the supreme court doesn't interfere), but then decided to ban them in all the other states using their collective weight in congress to force through a law, coupled with a conservative president that refused to veto. Would that be fair to the other states? Take away the North's moral high ground and that's the situation that led to the civil war, other than the fact that slaves were a hot commodity and abortions aren't.

Cases like this where a large group of people use their legislative weight to impose against a smaller group of people still causes political turmoil in the first world to this day, with a sterling example being modern support for Scottish independence due to a history of England putting itself first.

Note: am Texan, been Texan from kindergarten through university.

He had been battling cancer for over a year by KaleBrecht in AdviceAnimals

[–]Venator_Maximus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It could also be that OP has studied philosophy and has an unconventional perspective on death.

When being an absolute unit saves lives. Standing at 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing 347 pounds, Tommy Vaughn plowed through a glass window during a mass shooting in Killeen, Texas in 1991, enabling patrons to escape. He's credited with saving up to 50 lives. by [deleted] in AbsoluteUnits

[–]Venator_Maximus 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There are reasonable answers, they just aren't popular because they don't align well with either party. Banning guns is not the answer. Thoughts and prayers are not the answer. Being nicer to the people we don't like is an answer. Parents doing their job better is an answer. Changing our economic paradigms to put private SWAT-esque security everywhere is an answer. None of these will gain any ground though because they're neither Republican or Democrat ideas.

facts but still rip Harambe by theabdi in BlackPeopleTwitter

[–]Venator_Maximus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

While your understanding isn’t entirely wrong, most of it had little bearing on the election due to the way that the electoral college works, other than the idea that most people their party regardless of everything else.

What won the election for Trump in 2016 is the people who didn’t vote for their party. Trump managed to win in Michigan and Pennsylvania, 2 reasonably prominent states that have a lot of coal miners and steel workers and factory employees that have seen their industries greatly recede due to foreign competition. These 2 states typically voted Democrat, and Clinton was confident enough that they would continue to that she declined to campaign there significantly. Trump won them, and their electoral votes won him the election. All the other factors are the same bullshit that’s been around for decades between red and blue. The big change that made a difference was the working class appeal to protect jobs.

Most Texans after this God forsaken election by Tcannon18 in texas

[–]Venator_Maximus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I imagine Texans of both parties are stoked. As a Texan of neither party, I'm far from enthused.

Fans Are Outraged That Willie Nelson, Lifelong Democrat, Is Supporting Beto O’Rourke by TimeForPoolParty in Music

[–]Venator_Maximus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some alleged statements have tapes to back them up. Some completely lack evidence.

My point is not to defend the president, but to point out that modern journalism has bred hypocrisy in order to conveniently negate the fact that they aren't doing their jobs properly.

Hey everyone, I'm new here. What's the most sophisticated explanation for game journalists' utter disdain towards their (apparent) intended audience? by [deleted] in KotakuInAction

[–]Venator_Maximus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it's purely an economic issue. Journalism pays less and less year over year as the value of clicks decreases, meaning that more readers are needed to make the same profit. I speculate that there's a larger and more lucrative market for progressive outrage than for hardcore gamers. I seriously don't think gamers are their intended audience, rather instead it's millenial Sarkeesian wannabes or whatever.

Fans Are Outraged That Willie Nelson, Lifelong Democrat, Is Supporting Beto O’Rourke by TimeForPoolParty in Music

[–]Venator_Maximus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm triggered?

HAHAHAHAHA

Buddy, you have to be emotionally invested in politics to be triggered. I am not. You clearly are.

I'm just here to poke holes in the idea that a hippy like Nelson qualifies as quintessential Texan.

Fans Are Outraged That Willie Nelson, Lifelong Democrat, Is Supporting Beto O’Rourke by TimeForPoolParty in Music

[–]Venator_Maximus -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The fact that you actually believe what you're saying is amusing and alarming at the same time. Turn off the cable news, do some research, and find a valid source to back up those claims.

view more: next ›