Castin's avatar

Castin

A member since

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Total posts: 2,627

Posted in:
Multi-Accounting and the COC
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@bsh1
I have no additional accounts and never have so my comment is completely pointless, but I am posting to say that if you do not hold a gun to Mike's head and demand that he allow links in Propaganda announcements I am not taking the trouble with another of your url's are we PRIMITIVES.
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Flamewarriors
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@RationalMadman
It's too early in DART's development for it to have a clear site "aristocracy" yet, imo.
No it is not.
If there are already Royals it may just be because DART imported DDO's aristocracy. But I don't think the site has its own fully developed aristocracy yet.
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Flamewarriors
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@Mharman
Only when the time comes, young sapling.
I was hoping for links to battles past so I might observe your form myself. Otherwise, I have seen no evidence to support the boast. Many would flatter themselves to be a Kung-Fu Master; few would be worthy of the self-flattery.
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Flamewarriors
Who were the Royals on DDO?

It's too early in DART's development for it to have a clear site "aristocracy" yet, imo.
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Whoah, what happened to Zeichen?
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@Analgesic.Spectre
Lol.

Wonder what the official offense was.
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Mini arguments for God's existence
It's understandable that because a theist started this thread and listed this theory as an argument for God, you two would treat it as a religiously motivated theory. And it is -- for the religious. Confirmation bias causes them to pluck ideas and theories from science that seem to confirm their preexisting theism. But they are not unknown to misrepresent the complete concept of the science when they do this.

I saw them do something similar with "the God particle". Physicists really should be more careful about these metaphorical nicknames.


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Mini arguments for God's existence
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@Goldtop
fine tuned =/= deliberately designed
Yet, that is pretty much the entire reasoning behind the term, "Fine Tuned"
It is the entire reasoning for theists. But when physicists use the term, it is as a metaphor, and you will hear it on the lips of physicists who are staunch atheists. Their response to it is not to theorize a creator but to theorize something like a multiverse. That is, they regard it as a question in science and they reach for more science to answer it. Of course, obviously not all physicists agree with the question, but enough do that it makes it into TED talks and the lecture halls of universities and whatnot.



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Flamewarriors
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@Mharman
Impress me.
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Is Repulsion At The Homosexual Act Bigotry?
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@Plisken
There is really no such thing as sexual identity
Elaborate.

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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
Ah, DART's first Christmas. We're doing all right. I toast you, DART. You have definite potential.
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Do you think D.B. Cooper got away safely with the money?
There was always something transfixing about this. A man calmly hijacks a commercial plane, expertly uses his leverage to collect $200,000 dollars, parachutes from the plane and is never seen again.

His relaxation and politeness remained curious throughout. He paid for his drinks, told the flight crew that if they were hungry he could include meals in his demands, and released all passengers the moment he got the money. The crew all described him as a gentleman. It's like something out of a movie, not reality.

He was very specific in his flight instructions. He told the pilots to fly at 115 mph, maintain an altitude of no more than 10,000 ft, to lower the wing flaps by 15 degrees, to keep the landing gear deployed, and to let the cabin remain unpressurized. He understood refueling needs and planned refueling stops. All that aside, he did jump out of a plane at night wearing only loafers and a suit in the middle of a rainstorm and cold conditions.
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This fucking site, part 2
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@drafterman
But you've had multiple complaints I've found worthy of consideration, like the case you made for anonymous reporting, or vulnerabilities in vote reporting policy. But you do have good complaints and less good complaints, and I think this is a less good one.

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Platform development
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@DebateArt.com
It would be good if posts could be red flagged by mods to show the post was found to be in violation of the CoC. As of now there's just a green check mark either way, and people associate green check marks with approval. Red flagged posts could also be a continuous demonstration to other users of the kind of behavior that should be avoided.

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AMS: The Legend Himself
Sigh. I miss my cat.
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AMS: The Legend Himself
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@KingLaddy01
Oh, I'm very glad he changed it back to that.
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How Do You Know When The Devil's Playing Tricks?
Seems more plausible for the Old Testament than the New.
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AMS: The Legend Himself
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@drafterman
Why do you assume nothing has been done already?

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Why can't I delete stuff?
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@bsh1
But presumably not in the case of personal attacks and offensive or inflammatory behavior, which are much more common than doxxing and constitute the majority of offenses that get banned.
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Talking to God
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@PGA2.0
I must've forgotten to respond to this, P.

let's say you had lived as a contemporary of Joan of Arc, a devout Christian who claimed that God spoke to her, telling her it was his will that she help lead France to victory against England. Judging her claim against the "blueprint" of the Bible, would you have believed her? 
I do not know enough of her story to make a decision at present. I have not done much reading on her or the culture of the time.
That's a valid answer. I don't consider it a dodge. Intimate knowledge of the situation is necessary to make an informed judgment.

You say you believe some wars are just, and I agree -- well, more like I think some wars start for reasons that are just. But do you think that God ever truly supports the sociopolitical goals of certain nations or powers, ever favors one side over another in a political conflict? He was known to do this in the Bible. Do you believe he takes sides in post-biblical history?

I used to have a friend who claimed to be a "Word of Faith" or what some call a "name it and claim it" believer. I struggled with his teachings for years, questioning them and praying about them and their truth content. Finally, after much prayer and answers, the Bible became clearer to me on such teachings and I rejected these claims. I did not see any witness of what he claimed believers should be able to do, yet he had claimed to have done some of these acts he spoke of. He believed that one day he would be able to go into a hospital and do what the first-century disciples did in healing the sick, and yes, even raising the dead. He also believed that believers should be the richest people on earth, yet he lived a pretty meager existence.
I'm not really clear on what the "Word of Faith" movement is. But why does conditional salvation mean it must be you who saves you?
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Why can't I delete stuff?
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@bsh1
Interesting. Mods would appear to be banning people for something the public cannot see.
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AMS: The Legend Himself
Jesus, is there no end to you guys mocking Rash for his autism? What he's done, he was punished for. Your grievances were heard and validated. You could criticize him for anything else -- his actions, his tendencies, his beliefs, etc -- but instead you must also go after one thing he can't control?
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Why can't I delete stuff?
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@bsh1
How can they delete their content while leaving a record that can be examined?
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Why can't I delete stuff?
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@Plisken
Now Plisk. We both know that's not possible within the confines of reality.
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Why can't I delete stuff?
After the 15 minute period, yeah, they're fixed for good.

A limitless deletion option might be a good way for people to provoke trouble and then erase the evidence. Other than that, I don't see why not.
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Any DART members here? Bueller....
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@Plisken
They have to get sick of all the DDO crap, I can imagine.
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Mini arguments for God's existence
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@disgusted
I'm a bit startled that you think I was talking about theist rhetoric, gus.

From the Stanford physics article I linked you:

Considerations according to which the laws of nature, values of the constants, and boundary conditions of the universe are fine-tuned for life refer to life in general, not merely human life. According to them, a universe with different laws, constants, and boundary conditions would almost certainly not give rise to any form of life (Lewis & Barnes2016: 255–274).
Theist rhetoric, I won't speak for. But I do try to listen to physicists.

Did no one look at the article? I thought it was pretty interesting. It does get pretty technical, but it does a good job covering all points and sides of the matter, including its worth as this argument for a designer.

Even if fine-tuned conditions are improbable in some substantive sense, it might be wisest to regard them as primitive coincidences which we have to accept without resorting to such speculative responses as divine design or a multiverse. It is indeed uncontroversial that being improbable does not by itself automatically amount to requiring a theoretical response. For example, any specific sequence of outcomes in a long series of coin tosses has low initial probability (namely, 2−N if the coin is fair, which approaches zero as the number N of tosses increases), but one would not reasonably regard any specific sequence of outcomes as calling for some theoretical response, e.g., a re-assessment of our initial probability assignment. The same attitude is advocated by Gould (1983) and Carlson and Olsson (1998) with respect to fine-tuning for life.Leslie concedes that improbable events do not in general call for an explanation, but he argues that the availability of reasonable candidate explanations of fine-tuning for life—namely, the design hypothesis and the multiverse hypothesis—suggests that we should not “dismiss it as how things just happen to be”(Leslie 1989: 10). Views similar to Leslie’s are defended by van Inwagen (1993), Bostrom (2002: 23–41), and Manson and Thrush(2003: 78–82).
And of course the anthropic principle, as I mentioned earlier:

We could not possibly have existed in conditions that are incompatible with the existence of observers. The famous weak anthropic principle (WAP) (Carter 1974) suggests that this apparently trivial point may have important consequences:

[W]e must be prepared to take account of the fact that our location in the universe is necessarily privileged to the extent of being compatible with our existence as observers. (Carter 1974: 293,emphasis due to Carter)
Our methods of empirical observation are unavoidably biased towards detecting conditions which are compatible with the existence of observers. For example, even if life-hostile places vastly outnumber life-friendly places in our universe, we should not be surprised to find ourselves in one of the relatively few places that are life-friendly and seek an explanation for this finding, simply because—in virtue of being living organisms—we could not possibly have found ourselves in a life-hostile place.
Ultimately my view, as of now at least, is:

fine tuned =/= deliberately designed

And, more broadly:

improbable =/= God did it
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Videos and Pictures
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@Goldtop
Without question. I always thought Juggle could've afforded pics pretty comfortably. They already had embedded videos. They really weren't into site development.

I'd rather have pics than videos, if it was a choice.
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The Wall of Member Quotes
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@RationalMadman
"Only the corrupt and/or foolish define their stance as what they want to get rid of. Only the genuine and/or intelligent define themselves as what they want to replace a system with that's better." - RationalMadman


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Videos and Pictures
This was one of the things that irritated me about DDO's interface. If we could post images here it'd make it about 40% awesomer. A nice boost.
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Videos and Pictures
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@Plisken
Not right now, no.

I so want to post gifs as images, instead of through a stupid link.
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On mental health
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@Raltar
The problem, as described by other members (and agreed to myself) is that a lot of the same drama which caused DDO to collapse was effectively imported to this website when a large volume of former DDO users came here (and some of them became moderators). "The Community" is composed of mostly people who see this as the place to chit-chat with other former DDO users, but aren't actually here for any interest in serious debates.
How can more serious debate activity be encouraged, without limiting forum activity? 

DDO also suffered pretty badly from dwindling formal debate activity.

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This fucking site, part 2
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@Raltar
Then I think it would have been a better idea to create a thread actually asking those further questions. I know I would have considered that worth reading.

The administration would not be obligated to answer in the same way it is in one of the "press conference" threads, but you are not voiceless.
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CoC change - adding the intent.
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@Goldtop
they could conceivably still harass you by following you around and addressing you in the threads you're in
No, that's not harassment, that's one of main functions of a public forum, to have the ability and capacity to argue another view, which you are now deeming as harassment. If person A makes a post and Person B argues the post, then Person A tells Person B to stop responding to those posts for whatever reason, yet Person A is free to go on posting, you're saying Person B is forced to give up their ability and capacity to argue a view just because some one else says so?

Every thread and every word posted here is owned by the forum, not the individual user, so whatever is posted is equally shared by all to respond in kind. No individual has the right to tell others what they can and cannot post to any given thread.
I don't think responding to someone's arguments is harassment. Following them around just saying things like "more garbage from the crazy fucking moron" would be, though.

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Episode XI: The Christmas Bonus
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@thett3
Thank goodness for that Thett character's thick waterproof chest hair.

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On mental health
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@Goldtop
It depends on whether or not we want to be treated like children or adults. This would allow folks like Poly to go back to her original format of doing nothing more than attacking people, but then if we got rid of the crazy people, that would no longer be a problem and the rest of the adults here could carry on. Any sane people that wanted to join up would see everyone is being treated like adults and the nutters get banned, which will help this forum prosper and grow.
You're absolutely right, folks like that would. That would be the kind of tradeoff a community would have to be prepared to accept if it permitted personal attacks. You'd see an environment that would become a bit more like DDO.
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CoC change - adding the intent.
Also, exactly how many "crazy people" would you have expelled here? What's your definition of "crazy"?
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Posted in:
CoC change - adding the intent.
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@Goldtop
Because we were talking about a hypothetical situation where personal attacks are allowed. In that environment, even if you block someone, they could conceivably still harass you by following you around and addressing you in the threads you're in, just without @ing you. Hence why REF had "harassment" as a bannable offense, I think.
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This fucking site, part 2
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@Raltar
Censorship is a matter of valid concern to the community. It pertains to the editing or deletion of your personal words and thoughts. But this is silly. The mods should not give silly complaints and valid concerns the same attention, imo.

I think this is spillover anger. I got nothing wrong with being angry, but if you're gonna be angry, be angry about something that matters.
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This fucking site, part 2
Really though, I can't believe you guys are complaining about a mod locking a questions thread. This is seriously the quality of protest you think is worth your time now? It's pretty trivial. If you make threads over things like this it can begin to degrade your credibility as sources of quality criticism, and make you look like you'll just attack any little petty thing out of spite.
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CoC change - adding the intent.
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@Goldtop
You can "harass" someone without @ing them. Just quote their posts in every thread and dish out the abuse.
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winter solstice
Putting an APB out on an escaped serial pedant, white male, presumably over fifty years of age, no visible tattoos, dresses in brown robe and conical hat, enjoys pointing to where the birdies fly like a big boy. Derives erotic satisfaction from treatise on tiresome details, approach with caution.
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Curiosity and questions for our Satanist member(s)
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@keithprosser
It's remarkably reminscent of Neitzsche.   According to wiki, 'Might is Right' is 1890 and 'Genealogy of Morals' is 1887.   It could be co-incidence, but i think it very likely Redbeard was recycling Neitzsche. 

The common theme is that Christianity is a weakling's philosophy, not a heroic one.  You may disagree when you finish your light bed-time reading - I hope you do!
Please, it's obviously a copy of the code of the Sith.

The resemblance is undeniable, yes. "Master/slave morality" overtones, much "become what you are" suggestion. I wonder if Nietzsche would have been entirely comfortable with the comparison.

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This fucking site, part 2
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@drafterman
All right that image was hilarious.

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Mini arguments for God's existence
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@disgusted
The universe is so fine tuned that 99.9999999999999999999999999999999% of it is fatal to humans. We must be so damned lucky for that fine tuning. In excess of 75% of the surface of our planet is fatal to humans.
The fine tuning argument was created by a comedian.
The fine-tuning of the universe refers to life, not human life.

You're thinking like a human biologist, not a physicist. Well, I think your instinct is to sneer at anything that appears to challenge your presuppositions, so perhaps it's unfair to say that you're thinking like a scientist at all.

The evidence for fine-tuning is well documented. It may seem like the universe is hostile to human life, and in a real sense it is, but one must take a step back and consider that if certain forces in the universe had varied just a little bit in either direction -- if some god had just blown a stray breath on the cosmic scales -- carbon would never have been created at all, stars would never have formed or exploded to create the critical elements, and the very structure of the atom itself would not be able to hold together so neatly.

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winter solstice
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@keithprosser
Breaking news, keith, thank you.
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Mini arguments for God's existence
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@Fallaneze
The universe is fine-tuned (scientific consensus).
This is the only one I find compelling to any degree. It really is uncanny. But it's been rebutted by arguments such as the anthropic principle.

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On mental health
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@Goldtop
I take it you wouldn't be in favor of personal attacks being permitted, then?

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CoC change - adding the intent.
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@bsh1
Should this issue be MEEP'd?
Which one.

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CoC change - adding the intent.
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@ResurgetExFavilla
Nope. Is that some inside joke or parody of the Terms of Use? The ToU seems to be a long list of detailed prohibitions that mean nothing and never apply in any real sense. It's like they exist to be ignored. I can begin to understand why drafter and some others are so frustrated with the idea of a pointless CoC. I mean, one of the rules in the DDO ToU is "no attacks against another member's opinion". What?
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During the process of evolution
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@disgusted
I'm open to answers, I'm not open to fairy tales. If fairy tales are all the godists have then that should tell them something.
If you think ensoulment is a fairy tale, then you literally just asked theists a question about their "fairy tale" and then said "no fairy tales". Do you not see how bonkers cray-cray that is gus. I mean wtf, I don't even

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