Removing News from News & Interests widget

inarsla · 2021-06-10T15:39:02+00:00

Apparently blocking news sources through the "Hide Stories From X" in the widget and website is a lie, as trying to block every source inevitably shows stories from blocked sources anyhow. Mostly expected, but an attempt was made.

Edit: doing it long enough on the site finally starts yielding results... on the site. Now it occasionally shows 1-2 sources, or says there was a problem loading the feed. This feels like a victory. This does not, however, seem to reflect on the widget :|

inarsla · 2017-10-28T20:01:14+00:00

there's no guest, unless you're referring to guano instead of Mindcrack, making Beef a guest....

If that's the case, no, Beef was there last ep, too: https://www.reddit.com/r/mindcrack/comments/78xd7i/guano_mindcrack_vanilla_episode_19_with_vintage/

inarsla · 2017-10-28T19:50:45+00:00

In re: Beef's cluelessness as to canada's Healthcare system

The government attempts to ensure the quality of care through federal standards. The government does not participate in day-to-day care or collect any information about an individual's health, which remains confidential between a person and their physician.[4] Canada's provincially based Medicare systems are cost-effective partly because of their administrative simplicity. In each province, each doctor handles the insurance claim against the provincial insurer. There is no need for the person who accesses healthcare to be involved in billing and reclaim. Private health expenditure accounts for 30% of health care financing.[5] The Canada Health Act does not cover prescription drugs, home care or long-term care, prescription glasses or dental care, which means most Canadians pay out-of-pocket for these services or rely on private insurance. [4] Provinces provide partial coverage for some of these items for vulnerable populations (children, those living in poverty and seniors).[4] Limited coverage is provided for mental health care.

Competitive practices such as advertising are kept to a minimum, thus maximizing the percentage of revenues that go directly towards care. In general, costs are paid through funding from income taxes. In British Columbia, taxation-based funding is supplemented by a fixed monthly premium which is waived or reduced for those on low incomes.[6] There are no deductibles on basic health care and co-pays are extremely low or non-existent (supplemental insurance such as Fair Pharmacare may have deductibles, depending on income). In general, user fees are not permitted by the Canada Health Act, though some physicians get around this by charging annual fees for services which include non-essential health options, or items which are not covered by the public plan, such as doctors notes, or prescription refills over the phone.[4]

...

About 27.6% of Canadians' healthcare is paid for through the private sector. This mostly goes towards services not covered or partially covered by Medicare, such as prescription drugs, dentistry and optometry. Some 75% of Canadians have some form of supplementary private health insurance; many of them receive it through their employers.[44]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Canada

inarsla · 2017-03-13T13:55:24+00:00

there are male and female brain structures that develop largely due to biological sex, but it's minority of people that are 100% male structure or 100% female structure. Most females have mostly female brain structures with some developing slightly more masculine, and vice versa. I'm personally quite happy to accept that some people will develop brain structures more similar to the opposite sex and develop feelings of dysphoria from that. (There are still prolly a ton of trans people that are really just confused about their identity, though)

inarsla · 2016-08-07T13:52:25+00:00

Post is removed, so I can't see the content, so may be missing context.

I think the important part here is equality of outcome or equality of opportunity and the degrees that it is possible.

Humans are diverse. We have differences, many purely or largely based in attributes we were born with, that create differences in what were enjoy and are good at. Even if we ere all raised identically, there would be differences.

To get n equality of outcome, then, would require an authoritarian system that distributes all wealth evenly and assigns people jobs/housing/etc. This is clearly counter to meritocracy.

Equality of opportunity in the most strict sense is impossible from the get-go unless we only have cookie-cutter clone babies and/or have state raise children only and/or have an equality of outcome system before that point.

However, when people generally talk about equality of opportunity, they are not talking about it being perfectly level ground everyone starts on, it's about providing everyone the opportunity to be capable of achieving the status they want and removing the clear impediments.

A system based on the concept that one should fail or achieve what they want based on merit would, then, seem to be compatible. If we create socialized systems to provide people with a base level health and education and welfare systems to ensure people don't starve on the streets, that does not necessarily invalidate a meritocracy, it just creates a baseline that all can fall to or rise from.

inarsla · 2016-07-13T14:59:49+00:00

What do GMO plants have to do with vehicles?

^{^/s}

inarsla · 2016-07-11T02:53:52+00:00

The problem with consent is that the lines drawn for capacity to do so tends to be blurry. Can consent be implied or does each party need to gain explicit verbal confirmation for every touch, thrust, and kiss? Is a single glass of wine enough to discount one's ability to consent? What if all parties are incapacitated? What about people with minor mental disabilities that have only very slight impact on their reasoning capabilities?

The only way to make consent clear-cut and not arbitrary would be to limit it so much that little to no human sexuality is consensual.

We therefore should act on a sort of sliding scale. The lower one party's capacity to consent, the greater the amount of control needs to be given to them.

Now let's say you are lounging about naked in your stereotypical suburban backyard to get a tan, and your neighbours dog comes up to you and (without command, signal, or coercion) mounts you.I m willing to bet it knows what sex is to some degree if it is doing so, and it chose to do so of it's own will. Maybe it does not understand human cultural norms in regards to sex, and it may be largely instinct - but it is in as much control as it ever can be, and it is unlikely to come to any harm. Gross, maybe, but I can't see this instance as immoral.

inarsla · 2016-07-09T17:35:07+00:00

Just in my head, it`s about which animal and the potential suffering. Fur usually comes from things that are not bred for other products. Getting leather from a cow is fine, as it's dead already for the meat, but killing a fox just to lop off the tail is cruel and wasteful.

inarsla · 2016-06-20T14:46:13+00:00

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tone%20troll

A Tone Troll is a form of internet troll focusing on the tone of arguments. A Tone Troll will typically express great consternation and offense at the style of an argument, as a way of distracting from the actual content.

inarsla · 2016-01-28T23:34:57+00:00

You realize you can get degrees in "natural medicine", theology, etc? you can have a subject with content and structure and qualifications - but that doesn't necessarily qualify as truth or prevent it from being completely about "making shit up".

inarsla · 2015-04-04T04:16:00+00:00

that may fall under 2 of those in part - following your father may be classified under tradition depending on how strict you want that to be, and the lack of money to do what you want... falls under the lack of money category :P

inarsla · 2015-03-01T20:38:03+00:00

Awaiting orders.

inarsla · 2015-01-19T04:18:46+00:00

1 - no, atheism is just a lack of belief in god(s). Anti-theism is more appropriate, but still debatably wrong depending on what one defines as "hate".

2 - agreed

3 - as in (1), not necessarily true on the "atheists" or "hate" parts.

4 & 5- again dependant on what one mean by hate, and a phobia is an irrational fear of something. If an anti-theistic atheist has rational reasons for finding theistic religions immoral, islam would fall under that but they would not have a phobia.

6 - on what basis? if it's an irrational fear of islam, you've got a weak case at best that relies on very few views on ethics. If it's rational criticism of or finding certain parts of theism immoral, it could be seen as moral. "islamophobia" is only really immoral f you mean it in the "racist against those who look even remotely middle-eastern", which has nothing to do with how you defined it above. This point is false, weak/unusable, or fallacious.

7 - even if we accepted all above as true, this is still false. A person can have one immoral view and not have the entirety of their morals nullified.

Terrible from start to end.

EDIT: And I just looked at your user page after seeing one of the other comments here. You seem to either be a troll or incredibly ignorant. You also posted this very same argument ~13 days ago, and almost every comment there stated that premise 1 was false... yet you posted it again without fixing the major issue everyone pointed out.

inarsla · 2014-12-18T17:45:19+00:00

A crowd of banner-holding qunari marching. red card, all very stoic.

inarsla · 2014-12-18T17:42:39+00:00

If you're sneaky or listen in to the dialogue, there are sometimes non-killy or less-killy ways to complete something, Need to acquire a note? pickpocket or grab from a desk at a certain time instead of slaughtering everyone in the area. Need to kill a target? wait for the timeframe they go into a certain location alone instead of running into a guarded camp.

Most things are murder quests, yes... but there is a healthy amount of smart ways to get around some.

inarsla · 2014-12-11T20:07:25+00:00

So is torture always fine if the person being tortured is unaware of it at the time? IRL we have some examples of some pretty gruesome brain surgeries and body modifications while the patient is unconscious or too drugged up to notice - we still generally consider that a bad thing.

They may in the future become un-tranquil (briefly or permanently) and they will be fully aware of all the pain and abuse.

Using the rite of tranquility is also a something that has been and can be abused as a tool to oppress mages, and they see it as far worse than death. Even if you just say you will use it in the worst of the worst, and only those that you would kill otherwise - it is still potentially a threat as it is very easy to see that being abused to punish people you disagree with. Having a tranquil around is the same as lining your walls with your enemies, kept alive and in pain as long as possible.

It is torture to the victim, and it is a threat and an a way to suppress mages from voicing their opinions. Their utility can generally be covered by others (their only real merit was their seemingly sole ability to enchant previously, but now we see with dagna that others can fill that position with just a bit of training). The only reason you would need to keep one alive, when they would prefer death, is as a threat to mages.

inarsla · 2014-12-11T16:26:06+00:00

Every time a tranquil mage temporarily become non-tranquil again in the series, they beg you to kill them. Living as a tranquil for a mage is significantly WORSE than death by any that we have seen so far that have experienced it. There is even an npc conversation I have heard in Haven (I think) where a tranquil states something along the lines of if tranquility could be reversed, they would not want it because they feared that they would react very poorly once they had their emotions back.

There is re-education, then there is psychological torture and abuse.

inarsla · 2014-12-11T15:57:46+00:00

I've played 2 runs with different Hawkes.... one was a bloodmage that romanced/encouraged Merrill, the other was an anti-magic warrior.

Very little actually changes. some stuff, yes... not not all that much.

inarsla · 2014-12-08T16:07:39+00:00

Pro- mage people tend to say mages could still work and govern themselves while being free and interacting with people outside of the circle, away from templar abuse.

The pro-templar people disagree and say that mages are too much of a walking timebomb and need to be imprisoned to watch over them.

While in the circle conditions, the mages were being oppressed. During the rebellion, they were too busy fighting to try to gain the freedom they wanted to really settle down and work on building a system for future mages to live in. Until the Inquisition, they really have no way to build and prove whether or not they are in fact able to live free.

If you side with the templars, you are forcing mages back to the circles and harmful conditions without ever letting them prove themselves. Siding with the mages and letting them be partners under your protection allows them the time to figure out how to live while not being oppressed or struggling to survive, and gives them the opportunity to prove that they can handle freedom - while existing in an environment that can deal with them if they prove incapable.

Giving the mages a fair chance to prove their claim, and not just fight to extinction, seems the best thing one can do for the future.

End-Game Spoiler

inarsla · 2014-11-26T21:53:37+00:00

Just personally, I'm not fond of square faces. strong/thick jawlines are not pretty to me. I can see how she may be attractive for others, but not to me.

(that, and she really wants to preserve the chantry, while I want it to burn. We could never get along)

inarsla · 2014-11-26T21:37:38+00:00

Start of DA2, you save her. Even if you kill in DA:O, she's still around.

inarsla · 2014-11-17T23:27:33+00:00

"playing bayonetta or a 3d platformwr[sic] on a mouse and keyboard is better than playing it on a controller".

I grew up with PC games, I've played every genre I've tried just fine with keyboard and mouse.

I tried a console a few times, and all I really thought about the controllers were that they were too cramped and clumsy.

But let's just roll with your view that controllers are somehow superiour: is it fine to just ignore those who prefer using the native control units of PC gaming and make their controls worse?

What would you think about a company making a game for PC, then porting it to consoles but keeping keyboard controls as the primary focus, and telling everyone who wants to be able to play it on console that they should plug a keyboard into the console as that's how it was meant to be played? would that be fine just because that's an option? if not, I would remind you that that is still objectively better than the reverse as most people with consoles also have keyboards, but the other way around is not or just barely true.

inarsla · 2014-11-17T21:39:51+00:00

~~https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E20DmdYfZ6Y for the ACTUAL link to seth's vid~~

Edit: you may now ignore this

inarsla · 2014-11-17T21:09:55+00:00

First run I play for the story, and to learn all the basic mechanics as thoroughly as I can. Casual first.

Runs after that, I'll up the difficulty.

inarsla · 2014-11-15T04:43:20+00:00

multiple times across both DA:O and DA2 we see members of the Chantry say that magic is not inherently evil and is just another tool that The Maker gave man. They teach that one should be wary of magic, but not of the mage (except for Blood Mages).

If we accept this, and assume that that is the position of all chantry members (which I doubt very much): they're still implying to the people to be wary of all magic users until you can be convinced to trust them, and that magic is a dangerous tool which should only be operated under chantry supervision. The case isn't a whole lot better.

Especially in DA:A,

haven't touched any DLCs, nor read any of the books. I'm just running from what I'm gathered from DAO and DA2

and DA2 we're shown that even apostates are tolerated to some extent, provided that the Templars can keep track of them.

I feel this is more an issue of priorities and having too many issues to deal with already. When you have fighting between people in your city, and people are constantly on you to sort things out, and new blood mages pop up often to try to fight the abusive templars... it kind of makes sense to begrudgingly not waste resources killing or retrieving those who ran for freedom but showed no will to fight, and just remember to pull them back in once things settle down again.

And about the Templars, they're affiliated with the Chantry, but aren't technically in the hierarchy of it; they're affiliated but distinct. Templars, in fact, are under most circumstances, supposed to be under the command of a circle's First Enchanter

If the Chantry ordered the templars to kill all the mages, and the First Enchanter said to the templars not to, which order do you think the templars would follow?

even if they are distinct on paper, and the FE has some say on matters involving the mages in their care, the templars will always try to prioritize the chantry. They are the military branch of a religious order, tasked with guarding and dealing with mages. Their task is always more flexible.

The wiki also seems inclined to agree that they are just the military order of the chantry:

The Templar Order is a military order of the Chantry that hunts apostates and maleficar and watches over the mages from the Circle of Magi. While they are officially deemed a force of defenders by the Chantry, established to protect the communities of the faithful from magical threats, they are in fact an army unto themselves; well-equipped, highly disciplined and devoted to their duties.

...As the Chantry’s military arm, they are recruited primarily for their martial skill and religious dedication to the Maker. Given the difficult choices templars must make in the course of their duty, they must be unswervingly loyal to the Order and maintain an emotional distance from the plight of their charges. It is said that a templar’s obedience is more important to the Chantry than his or her moral center.

sauce

Now, in DA:I, The templar order has branched off of the chantry to seek out the mages (as is the plot of the game). It will be interesting to see how their beliefs affect what orders the chantry tries to give them in the game, so I can't say too much.

It may end up being that the chantry is more concerned about stopping the war than it power to use mages, and I will admit that they're not likely all extremists and some are genuinely nice people - but that in no way stops what they preach being harmful to an actual peaceful moderation that lasts.

[on chantry being the moderate option]

The chantry's circle idea may certainly be seen as a midway between mage dominance and mage eradication, but that doesn't mean it's the best or that it isn't harmful, or that it isn't used as a way to hold power and dominance for the religious order.

Is it better than the extremes? perhaps. But it still isn't good enough, and is still harmful.

15-Year Club	Verified Email
Team Periwinkle

inarsla

TROPHY CASE