Zonorhc

My family has its share of freemasons. I even went to a school that had deep masonic roots. Never really got into the whole thing, myself.

This is a thought that occurred to me during a one-hour lecture I had earlier today about the development of the eugenics movement in Europe. This is not a thread about Nazism or racial superiority in any way. If your intent is to turn it into one, then kindly leave. [hide=Firstly, a brief, sketchy background]Prior to the rise of social Darwinism in Western Europe in the 19th century, there was little stigma against the intelligentsia, or, in fact, against nonathletic people in society. People were not ridiculed for being slightly rotund as they are today. In the early days of Darwinism, it looked like Europe (and, by extension, humanity) was on the up and up. Europeans had their empires, life expectancies were rising, the middle classes were prospering. But hang on, moving within the city, to work and such, essentially forced professionals to see the squalor of working-class neighbourhoods. Why, if Europe was so prosperous and clearly the dominant race according to Darwinism, were there slums full of poorly educated folk? Then we made up something called statistics, in order to better observe trends in what was seen as a degenerating society at home. This was helped along by the rise of state-subsidised welfare programs, like health care and education. Bureaucracy helped track people. Nobody liked the statistics they were seeing. Darwinism caused a drive to remove the undesirables from society. This was well before Hitler's time, and well before even the first world war. It started in Britain. There were asylums built outside the cities to house the feeble-minded, who were defined as such because they were unable to progress through this new-fangled standardised testing thing in schools. It was seen, through statistical observation, that there were many more of these feeble-minded people who came from working class backgrounds than middle-class backgrounds. Of course, that's a function of the working class being much larger than the middle, but we have to ignore that for now, as hindsight has a tendency to be 20/20. There was a problem, according to statistics. Wealthier folk were not reproducing as quickly as poor people. This was a Bad Thing. Ridiculous observations from practices like phrenology were coming up with results that the population was much less "healthy" than it was previously thought to be. The mentally ill, the academically challenged, the sickly, the poor, alcoholics - all seen as a blight on society and degenerates spoiling the race. There was a popular view that these people (by definition, largely working-class) had to be prevented from out-breeding the wealthier, more intellectual middle class, whether through mass sterilisation or outright euthanasia. This was a widely accepted view - it was proliferated by novels such as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and even applied to the "degenerate" upper class, as observed in Bram Stoker's Dracula. The population was sickly, and young men were often too "unfit" to serve in the Boer War at the time. There was, over the course of years, a slow drive to improving the health of the population and producing a superior human being by popularising physical activity. There was a desire to produce young men who could perform as the Prussian soldiers did in their war with France. German gymnastics, sport, et al, were to be used to produce this superior breed of human - athletic and strong. This was a view propagated by the intelligentsia - among them, doctors and writers. It was not a view restricted to history's Bad Guys. Max Nordau, a Jew, was a Darwinist and a strong supporter of eugenics, later becoming a Zionist who wished to create a strong body of young Jewish men to rule Israel or some such. This eugenics movement would later see developments such as the Olympic Games, and early 20th century Germany's cult of the body.[/hide] The thought is this: How can we, purportedly civilised members of a 21st century society, decry the evils of the eugenics movement, while still praising physical prowess and wealth and stigmatising those who choose to focus solely on academic or intellectual pursuits? This praise of the body and athleticism as the mark of a "more desirable" human being is, in fact, an outgrowth of the eugenics movement which first made it such a big deal. Is it possible that the eugenics movement has embedded itself so deeply into Western mindsets that we still see such mass admiration of physical prowess, particularly in sporting competitions, while similar, but non-phyiscal competition is looked down upon by the majority?

That looks more like a giant trash can then a dream car tbh :P. Squat and ungainly it may seem, but I don't see anyone else's dream car being able to survive re-entry and still be able to crush heretics and aliens beneath their iron treads. Seriously, that is my dream car. Well, dream ride. I can dream.

My dream car goes far beyond what your pathetic Earth cars can ever hope to be.

Some Lebs at the train station were talking about rolling me on my way home. From fighter practice. I had a borrowed broadsword on me. I couldn't put it in a bag. Yeah, I got home alright. I think they decided not to. Stupid as they may be, most people will actually have second thoughts about trying to rob someone in a long black coat carrying three feet of sharp steel half an hour before midnight. Not wanting to be brought in on assault, attempted murder or murder charges, though, I wouldn't actually have used it. They didn't know that. I would actually hate to use it on a living person, because that gets incredibly messy, and the bloke who lent it to me would have made me clean and polish the bloody thing. As for cars, anyone who wants to steal mine is welcome to. The insurance costs more than the damn thing as it is.

Quit while you're behind.

Did you read the OP? Point stands.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That is all.

Frankly, I'm surprised that the people at Games Workshop haven't shot drop pods full of lawyers at Blizzard's offices. Probably because the GW people are already swimming in cash and couldn't give less of a damn. That still doesn't make it right to shamelessly rip off their ideas. What's the bet that when the Zerg units are revealed, they'll look even more like Tyranids than they already did?

Uh, Jack who? No seriously, never heard of him. But I take it that was an insult... As for those people saying "You can either be a gamer or a rapper or druggie!!" :roll: That's not my point, you guys twisted my words. My point is why do you want a value system that praises laziness/leisurely activity over a culture that promotes capitalism and self success? Every country has nerds, and people that fun of nerds. The latter can't be helped but when it comes to the "nerds" would you rather have a culture that encourages them to become scientists and work for companies like Intel or Apple or would you rather have a culture that encourages all computer savvy people to stay at home and play WOW? Like I said, if you looking at the top 10% of the intelligent population, would you rather have them go to universities/business or would you rather have them all become professional gamers :roll: Yeah, let's just forget that a recent study shows that gamers are actually highly desirable recruits for all sorts of positions on the corporate ladder. Sorry I can't provide a direct link to the article, but the only way I'm going to do that is if I pay money.

So I take it you're another one of those people who hates Bush for no good reason? God forbid that someone should say he's not a complete idiot and failure of a president, because then they're a Bush lover and want to lick all his black shirts clean.

From here. I am somewhat disappointed. Does Blizzard really have a problem with coming up with anything original for Starcraft? The Thor looks like a Space Marine Dreadnought in overall proportions. As far as layout, it looks almost exactly like MAD TA's Karganeth. The B and C concepts look almost exactly like Tau Broadside suits. The Reaper looks like a Space Marine with a jump pack. As someone on another forum pointed out, the Viking looks suspiciously like something from Robotech. The Banshee looks like an Orca from the Command and Conquer series. Oh, and the Cobra looks like rip-off of an Eldar Wave Serpent. Apparently Blizzard wasn't content with ripping off the Tyranids with the Zerg, or doing the same for the Eldar with the Protoss.

Because US youth culture sucks. It's true. It's what happens when you're not legally allowed to booze up at 18.

Kill him. My top three picks for methods of execution for this case are: arsenic, crossbows, and a hungry bear.

You have Oblivion. All desires you have, all you ever had, and all you ever will, have been fulfilled.

So are you another one of the tinfoil hat men who hate Bush without any admissible personal reasons for doing so?

There is something wrong in the West when it stigmatises and sometimes demonises gaming, while in places like South Korea, hot chicks will swarm all over you for being good at Starcraft.

I can't believe nobody has suggested that you learn to walk on your hands. Come on, people.

Suspension is going too far for something like this. At the most, they should be looking at a detention, because let's be honest, it probably wasn't actually meant nor taken as a "sexual" touch. If you really wanted to get these kids into trouble for something that quite frankly amounts to horseplay, then you could possibly have them on detention for striking another student. I wouldn't suspend a student if they slapped another student. I'd give them a stern reprimand, a detention and if it's a repeat offence, contact their parents directly. These kids are going to be labeled sex offenders for the rest of their lives because of some stupid parent or a DA who just wants a long string of convictions to his name.

Your judicial systems suck.

... O_o Saying Guild Wars is like RuneScape is like saying a tank is like a chihuahua.

There's nothing wrong with a series that doesn't run all the way up to a seventh installment, as games tend to these days. =)

The face looks much better on the original 1800x2700 image. You'll have to download it off dA to see. As for the background, you could say I've been influenced somewhat by Daniel Dociu.

What's your source?

My girlfriend and I were bored: Full view (deviantART link) Comments? Criticism? Ideas on what I/we should work on next?