Gwazi Magnum

Normal?

Halo said I think the definition of normal has already been flogged to death in this thread, so I won't go there again.However, should someone try to be normal? That's more interesting.

Being normal's boring though... :P

Seriously though just the wording there try to be normal implies there's already something about you that is currently not letting you be normal. One of the thing's that's aided humanity so much is it's variance and flexibility, we have our soldiers, our scientists, our artists, our child care workers, our programmers, our teachers, our cooks, our doctors etc. And except in the rare case of drafting or only getting _______ job because your parents Intimidated you into it people tend to be happy in all these different fields. Our species cover's a vast array of skills and professions and excels in all of them.

Variance and difference although being one of humanity's greatest fears (any High School culture demonstrates that clearly) is also one of humanity's greatest allies and reasons for succeeding. There's also been a lot of effort/work done to change places like the education system to work with, help and encourage more minds of people and students rather than killing their creativity. By extension this also hold true from a social standpoint, accepting said differences academically but then condeming them social and telling them to do X and act like Y is going to have the same effect. People not seeing or reaching their full potential.

Halo said tl;dr: In principle, yes, be a non-conformist, as Derv and Protagonist outlined. However, in reality, sometimes principles have to be loosened to actually get the best and happiest outcome, because principles are black-and-white and reality is not.

That's in order to get social acceptance and be liked by most people, not any actually growth or gain.

I'm honestly of the opinion that people simply need thicker skin and be able to handle the criticism and be who they want to be. No matter who you are you will get conflict and criticism, and to change the very person you are because you can't handle it might as well be calling defeat on life.

It's not the people who are different who should change, it's those who are fearful of it. It's the people who outcast, discriminate and destroy the self-confidence of those who are different and unique that are bring us down and limiting our species potential, not those who are different.

Star wars Canon NO MORE!!!

I should also note, I know George Lucas is far from innocent in how he treated Star Wars, but it was at least his own creation.

With Disney now in charge (Especially with starting actions like canceling 1313, Making Leia a "Disney Princess" *barf*) that I'm more willing to simply discount what they do as "Well that's Disney, they're just being assholes about it". Granted we got some cases like Tron, Pirates of the Caribbean and Hayao Miyazaki movies where Disney either knew to stay out of it, or actually make it something mature/cool and not shove their "family friendly, family lessons" garbage in it.

But with the current track record of how they've treating star wars waiting specifically I'm waiting until the movie is out and have seen it myself before deciding if I personally am treating Disney's actions as canon for Star Wars or if they are to be dismissed and I simply go along with what George Lucas and the rest of the EU left for us.

The Earthlings a film that opened my eyes

mdk said Does it matter how domination came to be? Humans dominate the globe. It's ours. We'll do with it as we please; we'll be nice to animals when it's convenient (that's why we're all about saving the spotted owls, and care less for all those endangered fungi), and we'll eat them when we're hungry. Facts of life. If the only counter-argument is 'food will taste bad if you're mean to your food,' that only reinforces this point.It's not true, btw. 'Kobe beef' is a marketing myth; cows don't taste better when they're slaughtered happy. They're machines which convert grass into protein, and we're machines that convert protein into poop. Apply feelings to the process in whatever manner best suits your ideology, then cook to medium-rare and enjoy.

It wasn't a "Food will taste bad" argument, it was a "Diseases and spread and food can be far less healthy" argument.

Also, as human's it's important we remain conscious of our environment. Even if something may not help us directly it may benefit the environment and ecosystem. So by helping it survive/keep going we are benefiting from a better environment. This also goes in reverse though as Brovo highlighted, if we simply let things like deer's run rampant they'd over populate and ruin everything, so hunting them (to a limit) benefits both us and the environment. It's a balancing act, one that humanity is best off taking note in better understand and not simply going for the result that gives immediate satisfaction.

State-Church Separation

Ok there's really nothing I can add to that last part which gamer hasn't covered except for one thing and that's Pornography.

I look at porn like this, is it harming anyone? No.
-> Note: I mean actually harming, not offensive in situations like "You watching Porn offends me".

Porn is also simply appeals to sexual drives/hormones which we as a human species evolved to have.
There is nothing wrong in taking pleasure in one of the main things that makes us human and alive.

There isn't any bad effects to porn (Except obsession, but this applies to anything that exists), and I don't count any thing like "It puts ______ in weak/lack of power position" or anything like that. It's Porn, there's many kinds of it that's meant to appeal to peoples kinks and interests. If anything, porn's helped people be smarter/wiser about their sex lives cause it acted as a way to fill their curiosity, release their sex urges and in cases where Sex Ed is lacking, somewhat educate themselves on the topic.

And note this is all coming from someone who has never bothered to watch porn growing up cause I never found much reason to personally. So I'm not even going at this from a "Don't you touch my porn!" perspective. :P

State-Church Separation

Brovo said
Considering I do it by accident sometimes, I'd call it more of a deeply entrenched character flaw that literally warps one's perspective of the world.

I admit I've been reading enough of your posts the delivery style has even started to rub off on me.

The Earthlings a film that opened my eyes

Brovo said Except that we define what services us. We hire people to service other people all the time.

That's a planned/purposeful service though. Most wild animals did not evolve to serve humans.
They may indirectly (or directly by human means) end up being a service (ex: Hunted Deer = food, Dragonflys = eats Mosquito's) but it wasn't their made or designed purpose to be a service to us.

Brovo said And all modern pets and farm animals have been bred to serve our needs and desires.

I already said I agree with this part though... :/

The Earthlings a film that opened my eyes

I realize that.

I was simply highlighting there wasn't anything that came down and said "These animals only exist to serve humans". The idea that animals only exist for humans would be an idea/purpose that humans made/invented, and is definitely not nature's intention (especially since Nature has no intention, nature simply exists).

If you refer to species we specifically bred for ourselves then it does hold more weight. Those species specifically were made for the purpose of serving humans, but not all animal species over all.

Normal?

What's normal? Well it ain't me I'll tell you that right now :P

Partly for what Alkeni said, I also have asperger's but mine got to the point where the only person to ever find out (who I or someone else didn't tell) was someone who himself had aspergers. My lack of being normal also just has to do with... I don't get along with most people, I don't relate to them, I don't understand them, my interests are no where close to there's. Or maybe that's just the kind of normal I've been exposed to. In my area most people just want to chill, have fun, go home, sleep, have fun again. Whenever anything somewhat complicated comes up (moral questions, debates, interest in a science or technology) etc. they not only try to avoid it like the plague but somehow snap and get mad as if the people who do enjoy these things are assholes for taking the time to expand their mind rather than simply looking to chill out with others everyday.

Now, what actually makes normal though? I say it varies culture to culture, but it's basically the most typical/average mentality, interests and behaviour of the culture and area. And usually this becomes the culturally accepted way of acting/behaving simply because it's what most people understand, identify and relate to. Some culture's may embrace being different and not be afraid or hide from people not normal but rather embrace them, but there are also many cultures who see people outside the norm was something scary, weird, threatening and something to be afraid of and vicious towards.

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And it seems the topic of High School also came up so I'll address this as well.
High School is an exception, but at the same time the avatar to the rule of culture and being normal.
Human's are naturally curious but also social and fearful creatures. They seek to be accepted to matter what, and they are afraid of what they don't understand.
Hell look at any religious war, crusade, witch burning or simply paranoia/fear of things like D&D is demon worshiping, video games make murderers etc for examples of this.

They find a group, they stick with the group and become vicious to the rest in both fear and an attempt to reach the top of the power scale.
You've got the normies, those who subscribe to the culturally accepted behaviour and are the majority. Nothing too special, nothing too interesting, they just make the bulk of the community.
Then you got the popular people, those who are close enough to normal people that they are accepted and like, but also possess characteristics that they do not possess (or not as strongly) which puts them above the others.
Typically in High School with them being teenager's they value things like attractiveness, sports, sex, and anything that's simply fun and requires little thinking to be more relatable and valued. So you get the people who love to party, do sports, be cheerleaders and then fuck all night long on top.
Then you got the unpopular people, those who may either simply not subscribe to the normal culture, or those who possess characteristics they do not like. In High School sense this is normally something such as Intelligence or Maturity (It either Intimidates them or inconveniences their ability to simply relax), a skill that gains them more recognition/praise from adults and others that leads to the jelliousy of the other kids (High grades, good with computers), or simply a hobby/interest that most people don't subscribe to and find as weird (Warhammer, Magic, D&D).

The general rule of thumb still applies outside of high school, but what becomes valued changes.
Suddenly in the working and post-secondary education world, Intelligence, Advanced skills, maturity etc becomes the most valued charactertistics (Normally because this leads to better jobs, more renown, more money and power etc.) and suddenly High School's whole culture turns upside down. Those who were normally picked on for their skills and mindset become valued and on top, and those who were valued for simply throwing a ball and acting tough find themselves with not as many tools, so their popularity takes a hit.

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Ok, that went on longer than I meant for it too... :/

TLDR: Normal is the most common/typical behaviour and mindset in the community.
Subscribing to this makes you normal, relating to this but having something different that said culture values makes you more popular.
Not subscribing or having skills either unvalued or seen as fearful/intimidating makes you unpopular.

The Earthlings a film that opened my eyes

I skimmed the video, and it honestly isn't that disturbing.
Try watching a video of a dog being skinned alive, and then left to suffer afterwards then get back to me.
With the people responsible all having fun and joking while doing it mind you.

Brovo has a point in that we really should not be surprised the quality of our food gets bad when we treat it bad. It make sense both from a health and moral stand point to treat these animals better.

Protagonist said Saying that "Humans are cruel" isn't a truly accurate statement. It implies a differentiation between humans and other organisms. It's not that humans are crueler than other organisms, but that nature herself is much crueler than what many people would anticipate. For that matter, generalizing humanity is kind of a hard thing to do. If you've met one ant, you've met them all. However, the human brain facilitates minds as wildly different as Adolf Hitler and Buddha.And back to other organisms, many animals regularly commit acts of cruelty that would be unthinkable to most human cultures.

This is all true, but there's a key difference.

We humans evolved to the point to have a higher intelligence, skills at rationalizing, decision making etc.
Most animals operate on very basic impulses, eat, drink, shit, sleep, breed, repeat.

Humanity has grown far past that, and unlike most wild animals we actually have the means and ability to reduce the suffering if we wish too. But we choose not to, which speaks a lot for our kind.

Protagonist said Now, I for one believe that animals exist for the sole function to provide for humanity. As such, your average dairy is not a pointlessly cruel endeavor, and ultimately the right of humanity. However, something like forcing pit bulls to fight each other to the death and then electrocuting the loser is no longer utilization of resources, but throwing fuel into the fire of sadistic urges.

We evolved from the same ancestor's they did. Nothing exists solely for the benefit of anything else.
We all came into being my chance and natural selection. We humans just happened to get lucky and be the only species on our planet to obtain sentience.

We're just as much part of this world and nature as everyone else, and at the moment we've been doing a pretty awful job is both keeping it alive and treating it well for having created us.
Now granted, food chain and survival. We are the predators, those species are prey. It simply works that some animals do serve a purpose to us to help feed us (and if we went all Vegan and ignored this not only would be lack a lot of nutrition but the food cycle would be messed up and populations of animals would run rampant) but that isn't their only purpose.

Which reminds me, next time you guys sink your teeth into any kind of meat (or plant for that matter) know you're eating a relative both descended from a great, great, great, great, (add many more great's) ancestor. In other words, you're eating your relatives all the time. :P

What the hell happened to Spam?

ShonHarris covered the Guild Fall pretty accurately.

However I should note the site was off for a few months, not weeks.
And spent a few weeks on an alternate site before this one got up and running.

By that time the majority of members had thought the site was dead for good and left or simply found other communities.
Off Topic and Spam although suffered big blows themselves actually took the least of it, it was mainly the roleplayers who simply start RP's and never bothered to get close with the community or keep informed on Guild happenings that vanished.

Nothing on the site is back to the same strength of how they used to be though, we still have far less members than before.
But the members we do have were at least the more loyal and active ones.