Housepig

I agree with that philosophy, insofar as it states that the only "good" is pleasure; as an Atheist, I believe that every action made by any human, whether unknowingly or knowingly, maximises pleasure and minimizes pain to the perpatrator only. What causes "Happiness" may vary depending on the person, but for the reasons already described, the majority of people are as happy as it is feasably possible for them to be. If they consciously acted on the pain/pleasure principle -- both direct and indirect; it is not hedonism -- they would, however, be theoretically significantly happier; though as the majority of people do not consciously think about most of they're actions this dose not happen; furthemore, most people, even if they did try to act on the principle I described, would interpret it litterally, be biased by religion or some other cause, or not understand it. Essentialy, people are as happy as feasably possible when they do not consciously think about the vast majority of their actions.

I think that the way people are grouped into political groups and all aspects of policies seen to be describable in one statement -- in the minds of many voters -- shows that most people are either not willing or not able to fully understand politics (I'm not claiming that I do, but I certainly will make sure I am before I ever vote). Which is why I don't support democracy.

Skillcapes certainly show a great deal of determination, but perhaps misplaced determination. I'm by no means saying that everyone who gets a 99 has a problem, but they skillcapes should not be revered; they show patience, but that would be better applied to something other than RuneScape. I think that skillcapes are something to proud of within game, but they do not represent any sort of ability, and people who take them to seriously are wasting their lives.

I remember when I was about ten, I jabbed a pen down my throat in order to make myself sick, as I wanted to be sent home from school; the sick went all over my clothes, and when I got home, I told my parents that some other boy (who I hated) had been sick on me. They found out eventually, and I felt really bad about that.

That's true, but if the assist system hadn't existed, Player B would have had to go and buy some Rune ore, and would (as few people would have been able to get it) had to pay a price dictated --indirectly, thorough supply and demand -- by the buyers. In my personal opinion, it also degraded and detracts from the value of skills -"what's the point in getting my levels up when I can just "borrow" someone elses?"

The Assist System is a rarely used feature of RuneScape, allowing low-leveled players to temporarily access the abilities that higher levels bring, while higher leveled players earn free experience from merely chatting to their friends. This may sound like a great idea, but it raises two issues: low-level players may not "deserve" to produce adavanced goods, and it reduces the length required to go to in order to procure advanced items, forcing the price of finished goods down below that of primary produce (of course, the GE is partly to blame for that too). What do you think: should skillers be able to make a profit of training, or should newbies be able to acess advanced items? I'll try to answer as many posts as possible.

It's hardly a major event-- nothing major ever really happens at my school-- but two when I was in Year 8, two of my freinds had a vinegar-drinking contest. They stole a bottle from the canteen and drank it in plastic cups. When they were caught, they had to clean the canteen after lunch for a week.

I always wear boxers, as anything else can be deeply uncomfortable. When I was young and innocent, I didn't wear any pants at all, but now I can't imagine wearing anything tighter than boxers comfortably.

I'm in my teens, yet I have never learned to either tie shoe-laces or ride a bike...

While the Industrail Revolution vastly improved the quality of life for people overall, we would be better of without it; the massive population explosion it caused will render our planet uninhabitable sooner or later. Recycling and saving power won't prevent anything; the only solution would be to cull 5.5B people. But that's never going to happen.

I think that if Jagex allowed players to swear, they would be swamped with players abusing it and swearing continously. This is, in my opinion, because the RuneScape community is rediculously immature. I may sound like I'm just whining about how things were better "back in the day", but the game never used to be marketed towards children; there always used to be children playing, but it was marketed towards adolescents. On the other hand, some of the words Jagex blocks are ridiculous. I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who takes offence at the word "damn" or "butt"; and the censoring of "my school" is pathetic, since nine of ten uses of the phrase are legitimate, making it an unnoficial exeption to the rule against avoiding the chat filter.

I really cannot understand the logic behind that, even if there is any. It's staggering to me how people will follow something that blindly if they have sufficiently warped minds. Of course, I can understand why you would want to believe in religion; I can understand how you can believe in faith-healing or other areas of the "paranormal"- but as most monotheistic religions worship the same god, what possible evidence is there to suggest that (s)he should in any way favour one particular group because of the way the choose to "worship" him/her. Interestingly, you believe in Catholic or Jewish healing but not that of other religions. Why those particular beliefs behind faith-healing? To give my personal opinion on the supernatural, I believe in none of it; I will admit, despite this, that on some occasions, with faith-healing, the delusion is so strong and the healed so passionately believes it will work that they are psychologically healed. In most cases, however, people merely attribute their recoveries to faith- which shows how religion explains gaps in human knowledge, but is ultimately unneeded.

It seems that you are basing the desired punishment on how "wrong" an action is. If you are religious, I can understand why you would do this, but personally, I believe that there is no source of absolute morals; every unbiased analysation of an event or action must be based on whether it causes (factoring in all levels of indirectness and all possibilities) morer pain than pleasure, or the opposite. The purpose of punishment, therefore, basing it on that theory, is to minimise the suffering already caused, to prevent more from occuring in the future, and to prevent crime- determined by a Government to constiute acts that cause more pain than pleasure, when not the factoring the commiter's own feelings into it- from occuring in the first place. Of course laws are not that simple there are no black and whites: sending someone to prison causes them to suffer, the other convicts (possibly) to suffer, it costs money, which has a vast amount of effects somewhere down the line; on the otherhand, it prevents the victim from feeling fear or being harmed again- but this barely scratches the surface. When it comes down to it, therefore, attempted murder causes less pain than murder, but-generally- was cased by the same desire and intention; they can philosophically be considered the same using the above theory.

I think it would be pointless; it seems strange that anyone who wants to dedicate enough time to get a Skill Cape would be unwilling to pay a few pounds a month to play the full game.

I do not believe in any God, afterlife, or "supernatural". To me, while evolution and other science cannot disprove theism, the idea that we simply do not know all the answers is alot more feasable than the idea of some sort of "creator". Interestingly, (I don't have a source for this but could find one) there is a negative corelation between religion and intelligence. In my opinion, this is because most people are brought up to belive in a God:their minds are, effectively, warped. It requires significant mental capacity to break out of this state of mind; as a result, the majoroty of unintelligent atheists were raised that way, and the stronger the religious upbringing, the more intelligence required to break out of it. This is only my theory, however. That's true, but religion was also created as a means of explaining the Universe: as science advances, religion declines. This is already happening in most of the Western World, but not so much (as far as I understand) in the USA.

1.What do you do on the game? I logg in to check my Kingdom or do the odd quest; unless there's someone online I want to talk to, that's it. I enjoy talking to people more on the Internet, as I can't be intimidated, I don't have to worry about whether I sound rude or whatever so much (I find this difficult sometimes), and I can talk without some idiot who I hang around with in real life (not sure why) ruining the conversation by acting like an eight year old. 2.What do you find more important, high skills or fun? Definately fun. I realy don't care about skills anymore, and I don't even enjoy playing most of the time. 3.When was the last time you had fun on runescape? The last time I logged on and talked to ny freind, about three days ago.

There was a little snow in late October (snow settled in Greater Londomn in October for the first time since 1935), but none settled where I live. It's forecast to be cold (for November) at the weekend, but still probably not cold enough for any to settle in the south-east.

I realy don't know what you're talking about, or what you mean by "bugs".

Sorry who are these people? only the sensible ones? who gets to decide? Well, exactly: there isn't realy any fair way of doing it; it could be based on intelligence, but that dosen'e take maturity or bias into account; it could be social class, but that is deeply "unfair" in my opinion. If there were a good way of doing it, however, I would support it. I am absoultely not in favour of that; as I have already said, I support the idea of the Government forcing things apon people for their own good, but only insofar as it prevents suffering overall (including all levels of indirectness). I believe that truly unbiased decisions, not influenced by any personal morals or beliefs, must be taken using only pain/pleasure to determine if they are "right" or "wrong"; there is are no ther absolutes in terms of philosophy. Unfortunately, this is almost unmeasurable; a competent Goverment would be "neccessary", even if evryone used these principles as their own instrinsic morals, both conscious and unconciously.

That was a very good essay. I personally, lost money by investing in sharks, but that was probably more to do with my feeble merchanting skills and negligable ineterst in the game than antything else.

The bullet points outlining socialism seem to describe a good system of government, or at least a good part of one, and one that is perfectly compatible with any form of Democracy. I'm not sure if I am differentiating correctly here, but when it goes to far and becomes Communism, wheer everyone is (theoretically) equal, it is (ironically) a highly unfair system: people are not equal by nature; they should not be so by status.

I think the question that should be posed is: How far should the government go towards protecting people from themselves? And that same arguement is used for things like heroin. What do you suggest in place of democracy? I would suggest a limited democracy, where perhaps only some people are allowed to vote, and where if a party wins an election, they get all the seats of the Parliament/Congress/ectr, so you don't get a situation where other parties get together and obstruct every law that is proposed. (I know this can happen in the UK; I'm not sure about other countries).This would enable more effeciant government. As for protecting people from themselves, they "should" do it to the extent when, overall, it prevents suffering, and no further; as I have already said, that seems to me to be the only way of rationally and unemotionaly judging extrinsic morality.

I think smoking should absolutely be made illegal. It's just another example of how democracy dosen't work to see how the Government are willing to pay for the healthcare of idiots who've smoked themselves to death, all because those same idiots would vote them out if they stopped them from smoking themselves to death. Not only does smoking cause suffering directly, but it wastes money on treating people. The argument from freedom is tired: that same argument could be applied to anything that dosen't directly cause harm to anyone else, yet you don't see herione being legalised. Furthermore, even if you were willing to be denied hospital access if you got lung cancer ten years later, and never smoked within 20 metres of another human (or whatever the distance is) you're argument of having a "right" to smoke would still be void: it causes suffering to those around you, and you have no more "right" to hurt them than yourself.

No.. stupid people should be allowed to vote. As should prisoners.. Well, I think that, idealy, people shouldn't vote, as making decisions of that magnitude requires significant mental capacity, which many people don't have; and because if everyone votes on the Government, the Government have to do what the people want, not what they need . Unfortunatley, though, power corrupts, and a Government that wasn't at least influenced by the people would act in a way not beneficial to the country. I think that the ability to vote should be earnt.

I personally hate the idea of "normality". While most people are more inclined to do something if others are doing it, it's the complete opposite for me. For example, when we had to read out speaches in school last week, I was nervous untill some people started refusing to do it; that made me more determined.