Gwazi Magnum

Suicide, Tragic or Selfish?

Turtlicious said
Of all the things on god's green earth that didn't happen, this didn't happen the most.Like... What? How would you even for a second think people would believe this?e: Like I know this is the internet, but you can not seriously expect us to believe you on your word that you were in a 5-some, prostituted by a teenager, and then witnessed an axe murder. That is stuff that makes the news, or police reports. That is a story with very identifiable and trackable paper trail, and just screams absolute lie from the rafters.

I'd like to highlight that stuff like that do not have a 0% probability.
Very little? Yes, low enough I would not take Act's story here and go around referencing it as if it's fact. I'd need hard proof before I do that.
But when simply for the sake of a a discussion, one which will not have any impact outside of the mindsets of those taking part I'm willing to act Act's word for it.
Plus regardless of if the stories were true or not I was willing to address Act's argument and treat it on it's merits, not the history/emotional responses that would accompany it.
As long as the participants are able to keep such emotional bias outside of the arguments and reasoning the harm should be minimal.

Additionally, I'd like to highlight this is the Internet. A community full of people who stay anonymous. and especially on forums are looking for community's to accept them and have a new identity in cause their real life is either hard or won't accept them and on top of that people tend to be more open about bad experiences online than in person. So please note that when online you are both more likely to run into people who have bad experiences than you are in real life and they are also more likely to talk about them.

Now, listening to my own words about separating bias/emotion. I would personally rate the story was rather unbelievable/unlikely. On top of that I would not defend it with an argument such as "You can't disprove it!", that is a huge logical fallacy. But there's nothing gained in trying to tear the claim apart/disprove it assuming it is fake, if anything Act risks having the arguments made have less weight if Act chooses to hide behind them too often for the argument being made. Though I've already said that assuming it is true I hold a strong respect for Act, and I assume it goes without saying that if said story is false my view/opinion of Act would drop drastically. But like said, there's nothing to be gained to trying to tear it apart without knowing 100% for sure that's the case.

TV Show Suggestions/Favorites

(Sorry if some of these you've already seen, our last talk on shows are too long ago for me to remember the specifics that easily)

Out of the shows you listed, the closest I can honestly suggest is Doctor Who.
I would suggest Code Geass, but you were the one who introduced me to that. :P
On Code Geass though, if you haven't already I would suggest Death Note.
It's like Code Geass but instead with a book that kills people, the main character goes evil (which leads to interesting plot choices), a lot of religious symbolism and less detracting to typical school life and such, focusing far more on the main plot/story in front of you.

Now from what I can guess you'd like from knowing you through several Guild discussions.

There's Clannad if you're looking for an anime that be entertaining without any reliance on violent, acting, hentai etc (and apparently makes even though as nail marines cry, I haven't finished the anime myself yet though. So I haven't gotten there yet to be able to confirm or not though).

Also there's the now airing show Cosmos (which I'm going to watch tonight once I'm done catching up on internet stuff). Basically I know you have an interesting on complicated and mind engaging topics, we've talked/debated in several of them. Cosmos is one that goes all into evolution, science, the universe/galaxy, how we all started etc. If you have even a passing interest in science it's an amazing watch.

Suicide, Tragic or Selfish?

Note in general before I start.

I'm seeing a number of "It's against God" or "God says so" comments here, and I'd like to remind those that are that not everyone here in atheist.
If that is your reasoning then so be it, I was one religious and I get it. But just be aware that if your goal is to convince others of your standpoint that arguments relating to God aren't going to get you anywhere.

So Boerd said
That does not explain the inconsistency in your philosopy. Here, use my take on the examples as an example of ideological consistency.Suicidal mother: Is bad because the mother is causing enormous life shattering pain.Bigot: Is bad as the bigot inflicts pain to make himself feel better.Relationship: Unlike the family, all parties are entered by choice and as such may leave by choice. You cannot simply decide one day you are not my biological parent. The incredibly strong bond between parent and child is so much stronger. I can get another girlfriend, but I only get one mother.

Like Brovo already highlighted, you can also find other suitable's for a parent relationship.
He himself mentioned he would not be phased at all if his mother died, and although I'm no where close to that I'm also at a position where it would hurt to lose my parents but it would not be life shattering. Being boldly honest the biggest change for me would be losing the support of a parent and largely being stuck in the world on my own. I would hurt a bit from the loss of my parent, but they also are not anywhere close to the strongest bonds/relationships I made with people in my lifetime. At most I'd need a month or two to recover and I'd probably be out there again, and if this was a case of suicide such pain would of lessened, because at least then it's not a case of they died unfairly to something they didn't deserve or want, it was something they wanted and made the conscious choice to do. They're happier dead and honestly that would help me rest more easy with it being something they wanted.

And in one last reference to the comparison above in regards to relationships. To this day I find myself hurting at times from the situation I detailed above, but I still fully admit I was selfish for at any moment (even if for only 2 days) I made it drag on any longer than the other person wanted. But in the end, their choice, they wanted to leave. Who honestly am I to tell them they can or cannot?

I will grant you this, I acknowledge that me and Brovo are part of a minority in how we feel to our parents. Most people have very strong/close bonds to their parents, ones are are unarguably stronger than most if any other relationship they have in their life. So we are coming at this from a different view point (double in that you're saying God's against it, but me and Brovo are also both atheists).

However in response I do ask this, if you had a friend who was terminally ill, not well and honestly wanted to end their suffering and die peacefully would you let them?
If yes why is a family member any different? Don't you want happiness for them like your friend? If no, then we're a bit more of a disagreement here. One I'm still open to try debating if you wish, but one where it may also be wise to simply say to agree to disagree.

ActRaiserTheReturned said I can say that After being given to five strangers for gang bang "fun" at the age of seven, being seduced and used in broad daylight by a teenage boy at around the same age, then being forced to watch as the teenager who seduced my much younger mind is literally chopped to death in front of me with an axe, that I would not, even as I live now in my current state of uncertainty, look into the future and see that I wasn't there.I"ve had moments of depression.

Due to the nature of internet text and it's lack of tone of voice and real-time clarification I'm having trouble telling if this is hypothetical or examples you've actually faced.
Either way it all depends on the individual though, some people react to/handle things better than others. If you in fact went through this yourself then you posses an incredibly strong will and strive to push forward and it's one I applaud you for. But it is not a strong will that everyone will have, some people would simply snap and be broken. It could destroy them and make them unable to enjoy life.

ActRaiserTheReturned said I have some bizarre posts of mine where I'm not feeling too good, and I say weird, Emo Gothic bullshit things. I've had moments in my life where I just wished I wasn't alive anymore.

We've all had those moments.

So Boerd said MagicMagnum was the original target and iirc, he said suicide was alright but racial slurs were not, and I think we can all agree that is silly.

Ah, I can see where we may of had a miss-communication, or better yet where I may not of clarified well enough.
Forgive me, despite my tendency to go on and on with things at times I'm still not the best at always articulating or getting my point or thinking across.

I was trying to argue that suicide was an individual choice, while racial slurs were an attack on another person.
And say an attack on an idea for the purpose of coming to a better consensus on a topic, but an attack whose only purpose is harm.

Suicide is not done for the sake of harming others (and if it ever is... then that person is mentally unstable and I would agree needs help, not to be allowed to kill themselves).
Note however, is this is all assuming it's being using in meanings such as "Lol! You disgusting faggot!".

If this is more how they've been adapted to simple words (ex: Nigga, among two black people) this argument is abolished entirely.

In the end though I'm not trying to argue anything like racial slurs are worse than suicide... But this was probably a bad example/comparison for us to use to begin with as it was bound to lead to confusion, derailment, etc.
I was simply trying to highlight/address that one is a conscious choice over one's self, life and body and the other is a choice with the intention of harm on another.

Vaccines?

Hansa said Hey guys, it's funny to find a thread like this! Not that I wanna ruin the thread or anything, but I'm actually a medical student almost done with my second year. In Norway that pretty much means I've gone through all the pre-clinical subjects. I had immunology earlier this year, so I have a lot to say on this matter. Sorry, just had to get that out there. You see, what a vaccine does is introduce an inactive version of a microbe into your bloodstream. This is often a fragment of the microbe, like a part of their membrane. This activates your immune system and triggers it to produce special white blood cells called 'memory cells'. Your immune system being activated after the vaccine is the reason why people often get a bit ill the day after a vaccine. When your body has stored memory cells in your blood, you are immunized against a specific microbe. This means that if you ever get exposed to that microbe again, you are very likely to be able to have a fast, effective immune response in your body, killing off the infection. Now you know how vaccines work. I do not see how the above mechanism can lead to autism. You probably don't either.

As a disclaimer before I start, I agree with you. I believe the anti-vaccine movement is a load of bullshit (I may sympathize with them in one or two ways, and agree that vaccines should be under more strict testing, but vaccines have more than proven themselves to be very safe and effective save for one or two cases). But the main argument I've heard from those who say vaccine's cause autism wasn't really addressed here. The common claim I hear from them is mercury, that the mercury causes brain damage and causes autism.

Hansa said If we vaccinate all children against a disease, it simply stops existing! So when you vaccinate your child, you are protecting them from a really bad disease, and you're protecting all other kids and future generations. This is the big reward i mentioned.

Not quite...
There are some cases such as the flu virus where it never dies, it simply evolves/adapts. Basically view humans as the prey and the flu was the predator. Humanity's 'evolution' was the vaccine, it gained a defense mechanism against their predator, so now the predator either goes extinct or is forced to adapt, and becomes a virus better able to bypass the vaccine. It's why flu shots become a yearly thing for many people.

Suicide, Tragic or Selfish?

So Boerd said
But so what? Accepting the premise that being an "attack" somehow alters the situation, what does it matter? The hypothetical mother is still knowingly inflicting more pain. I do not give a damn what your intentions are, I care about the consequences. There is simply no comparison in the level of damage suicidal mother causes vs dumb bigot.

I'll bring back an example I used rather recently.

You're in a relationship and the person you're with wants to end it. You love and care for the person, and you don't want to see them go. That's a completely understandable and normal human emotion/reaction to have. However, to then use that as a reason to go "Please don't go!" and keep them somewhere they don't want to be would be selfish. The leaving you is painful to you, and it will no doubt hurt you when they leave. But it's their choice be in the relationship and you are in turn hurting them by keeping them where they don't want to be (and note I say this having once been the selfish prick who did this in a relationship).

Just change the wording here to be on suicide, yes it will hurt to see the person kill themselves. But it's their choice to their own body and life, and you are in turn hurting them by telling them that they can't.

Vaccines?

Kaga said
>Magnum's mother believes vaccines cause autism.
>Magnum never received any vaccinations as a kid.
>Magnum has autism....

I feel like this should've been proof enough to her that there's not a connection.Or, even if there was, why would the risk of autism even matter if you were already autistic?

XD I agree it really should of.

But to be fair there's a couple element's at play here. To start with I made a slight miss-wording. I don't have no vaccines. Just very little, a number of these little also being one step 1's in what were meant to be multi-step vaccines... and not being completed I doubt those first step ones count for anything. So there was a minimal amount of vaccines in me that she could make the link with.

Secondly, I wasn't diagnosed until I was three years old. Which was a bit after she stopped giving us vaccines, and her reason for not just giving me the vaccines afterwards then was she was worried it would make my autism even worse.

Also she doesn't think that vaccines are the only cause to autism, just that it's a cause. She agree's that other things like genetics and environment also plays a role in it. Which however makes the Penn & Teller argument above even stronger because that was assuming all autism cases were the result of vaccines, and that's not even the case if you admit stuff like genetics and environment can cause it a lot of the time.

I know it's a bit late to make this observation but...

The site undeniably lost the majority of it's activity from the several months the guild was down.
Some just assumed it would never come back and left, others found other communities in the time and stayed there, other's decided to blame Mahz for it and leave because they felt the mod's were incompetent (Which they were not by any means. Hell I outright snapped/raged at those who started yelling at Mahz for the issue).

However, I wouldn't be surprised to see it slowly drop over time afterwards as well. Exams and such not included.
I mean many people would of joined the site again and found many of their old friends are gone reducing their want to stay.
Overtime I image this would weed out more and more people who just didn't feel it was the same without ______ being there.
That's just theory however, I could be totally wrong on that.

Suicide, Tragic or Selfish?

So Boerd said
Tell me which is a worse pain. Random stranger calls you naughty words, or you find your mother hanging in the living room. Go ahead, TELL me the stranger is worse.Both cases involve exercising bodily autonomy in a way to make themselves feel better and others worse. Only one is soul-crushing, and it ain't the old coot yelling at you from his pick up window.

I'm not arguing the latter is more painful.
But if the mother wanted to end her life that's her right, it's her life to do with as she wants.

The Nexerus said
Neither trespasses upon the letter of the rights of another.

That's a similarity, but can you spot the difference?

One is unnecessary hateful actions to another for the sole purpose of hurting them.
The other although harmful to others who care, is an individual making their own choice that they're happier dead than alive and doing what they feel is best for them.

Suicide, Tragic or Selfish?

So Boerd said
Good, now that you dropped the idea suicide is not selfish I can go on to break this Loki fallacy of incomparable pain.Suppose a bigot is depressed at how the world is going. Can he do "whatever he wants with his own body" and use his mouth to yell racial slurs against black people and will you "respect that"?

There's a huge difference between hate speech and right over ones own body.
It's a rather obvious difference... :/

"You're a Fake Geek!" and Sexism among Geeks/Nerds/Etc (us)

People have a terrible tendency of thinking that giving the discriminated against group better treatment will somehow fix the issue.
When in fact it only worsen's it cause you set up the stigma that they're people to be treated special.

Largely like the girls Seravee mentioned who will say stuff like "Let me in the guild, I'm a girl".
If I ever had someone say that I'd probably give them a mini lecture like "So? You were born with a vagina, good for you. I don't care if your female, male, trans, lizard person or the fucking queen of england. You want in the Guild? Show that you'll be a valued and productive member of the community".

Blunt, I know. But I don't much care for people that try to use something as uncontrollable as their sex as a vantage point.