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8pm GMT The session is 3PM Retech Time

Until it has been proven a human is capable of grieving, to a degree that I am satisfied as fufills the nature of the my interpretation of the word, my career as a mass murdering physcopath will not be stopped. Now change the word Human to Pig and we have you. Also you have pretty much abandoned the concept of Objectivity at this point by saying 'I refuse to believe', so congrats on that. Ah I see. So Martial Arts Specialists are higher up the food chain than normal humans? Well, the Battle of Shiroyama more or less proved that the Machine Gunist was superior to the Martial Artist, so clearly Machine Gunists are higher up the food chain than Martial Artists. So now we have established that Might is Right we have more or less entirely departed from the realms of Objectivity and are now deeply steeped in the realms of Subjectivity and Killing all who oppose us. I congratulate you Mather, rarely do I encounter a Human that can so easily be lead into the slaughtering room, and I didn't even have to lay a trail of sweets.

I particuarly like the 'We are above pigs in the food chain' argument...Especially next to 'Intelligent enough' argument. In the first place Pigs are easily as intelligent as Dogs, if not considerably more so. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/10angier.html (Also check Wikipedia) In the second place, put a Human and a Wild Boar in a room and the Boar has more chance of killing the Human than the Human does of killing the boar. So your food chain argument is rather dependant on Humans having technology easily available. In the third place, Monkies and Dogs have been eaten across the planet at various times...And in combination with your other arguments you are definately taking a Western-Centric view of what it is morally ok to eat. I am just generally amused by your arguments...its like watching Gilbert and Sullivan...

I am rather at a loss to your argument... Lets say there was a 'Poet' (*Winks at Ieyfura*) doing 'Poetry' on the internet, with someone who had, in the past, said they would like to do 'Poetry', and the people who are watching have said they like 'Poetry'... I am failing to understand how 'Poetry' is therefore Objectively Wrong...even within your system of Objectivity, which is riddled with Subjective judgement. So you think that it is not an insult to eat someone for your survival? Or perhaps you merely think it is ok to shoot a pig and eat it because you don't believe that it has the judgement, opinion or skills the validate its continued existance? You know because showing someone a picture of something is MUCH worse than shooting them in the face and then eating them.

Jeeves Assuming sarcasm...but historically that was due to the subjective interpretation of Christanity. The Pentagram is typically a symbol of protection AGAINST the dark, rather than the symbol OF the dark. At least that is the subjective interpretation of the Pagans =P

tl;dr: We might as well be attempting to quantify whether 2 is better than 3, or whether 5 is morally corrupt. When we talk about an action we are talking about an Objective Fact. When we talk about Morality we are talking about Subjective Interpretation. If we say that 5 if morally corrupt because it disrespects 2 because, in digital display, it is the opposite of it, then that doesn't make 5 morally corrupt. It can only be morally corrupt if we say, subjectively, that being opposite something is disrespectful. Even though 5 and 2 being opposite, when displayed digitally, is an Objective Fact. (This is a simplified argument since it would be more or less impossible to explain such a complex interaction, in ways that were irrefutable, in a brief format. It is NOT to be used to argue against me.) On a ligher note: (Picture doesn't move, looks like it might, but it doesn't =P)

I fail to see how. We disrespect plants and animals when we eat them, when we force them to labour for us (horse-plows for instance)...We disrespect other humans when we don't do exactly what they expect of us, and they disrespect us when they expect us to do things we would be uncomfortable doing. Nature disrespects us when it requires us to do things that we find uncomfortable as well. For instance we may come to the conclusion that we are disrespecting animals/plants by eating them and thus not consume them, however if we come to that conclusion then nature causes damage to our bodies as we slowly starve. In addition to this even if we do not consume animals/plants we are still murdering a vast number of bacterial life forms every moment of every day. They, in turn, are attempting to consume/murder us in order to survive. We could, of course, make the argument that Plants/Animals/Bacteria are not equatable to human lives, though this would be a Subjective decision based on no Objective evidence, which would invalidate the Objective Principle. We could also argue that things we do which are neccessary for our continued survival are exempt from matters of respect/disrespect, though again this is a Subjective decision without any ground in Objective fact, it is merely Sophistry as we attempt to reconcile concepts. The Objective Truth requires us, either, to accept that we are being Subjective in our approach by marking out certain concepts which are not Objective but which we treat as Objective because Subjectively we consider them truths...or we must cast as wide a net as possible with every term, thus treating animals, plants and bacteria as equal to humans. Respect is a subjective interpretation of events...For instance we might consider that it would be disrespectful to murder someone, however if they had asked to be murdered then what justification do we have that it is disrespectful? Similarly, if a person wished (sorry Ieyfura, will do this as quickly as possible) have sex after they have died, what justification do you have as to the disrespectful nature of the act? We could also consider that a person may feel something is disrespectful at a time, say a person conducting an autopsy on a loved one despite their wishes that it was not done, but later feeling that they were wrong due to the fact that good came out of it. Now, we can either consider that the Objective truth is the overarching truth, aka that the original action was not objectively wrong due to it being Objectively right later on, however this interpretation leaves the possibility that the Objective truth is mallable, which contradicts the very nature of Objectivity. Or we can consider that Objective truth is only correct during a specific time frame, which runs into much the same problem as above. The difference being that we can say that something is Objectively true from Time A to Time B. Though this adds a level of subjectivity due to the truth only being truth at the whim of time. In either case the Objective Truth is not actually Objective. We then consider that if there is a set of Objective(or Absolute) Moral principles then we can negate the contradiction explored above with the notion that things are wrong for now and all time. We then reconcile people disagreeing over this by the idea that other people have Subjective principles which are Objective incorrect. Though how we justify what is Objectively correct is ultimately a function of what we Subjectively percieve to be correct, which lands us back where we started, so this third route is also not Objective. As such we must eventually arrive back at the original point, the point that we must accept somethings as Objective Truths, even though they are Subjective; the key here is remembering that our Objective Truths are not actually Objective Truths in the literal sense, but are Subjective Objective Truths - Truths that are correct as long as certain conditions are filled. Thus your 'Objective Truth' that disrespecting a person is wrong is only Subjectively correct, which breaks down when applied to a wide number of people, such as applying the 'law of the internet' would require. For instance I know that there are people on this forum who feel insulted by the discussion of Homosexuality, I know there are people who feel insulted by the discussion of Furries, I know there are people here who feel insulted by the discussion of sex in general. We are disrespecting all of those people when we discuss those topics, but they, in turn, are disrespecting us by their close-minded, though not neccessarily wrong, approaches to the conversations. I feel somewhat annoyed by people who feel insulted by the discussion of Homosexuality, but I do not (or try not to, having fluted moral principles is difficult to maintain in practicality) consider myself to be Objectively superior to those people, nor do I fully accept the idea that Homosexuality is a correct form of sexuality...I like the idea that it is, but there is no way to know for sure. Similarly I do not accept that Heterosexuality or any form of sexuality is 'correct'. Yes there are certain benefits and disadvantages from each form of sexuality, particularly the Subjective enjoyment or distaste of the individual; I would not advocate that you went out and had sex with another guy on the assumption that you would definately enjoy it...Although there is a strong chance that you would because the hormones and chemical stimuli are released no matter what form of physical stimulus you use, though there are most probably discreet differences caused by how much you want to be there, your attraction to the other person, ect, ect. But all the benefits and disadvantages are measured Subjectively, nominally by the person committing those acts. As such, our attempts to quantify an Objective Truth are fundermentally flawed in that they are dependant on Subjective responces of individuals. For instance we might consider that procretation is a good measure for how much better Heterosexual behaviour is over Homosexual behaviour, though this starts with the Subjective judgement that procreation is good. In a truely Objective sense there is no real way to quantify Moral Actions because Morality is an abstraction created by Humans/God/ect. We might as well be attempting to quantify whether 2 is better than 3, or whether 5 is morally corrupt. When we talk about an action we are talking about an Objective Fact (to a varying degree): This person(Who is a collection of organisms, which are made up of Atoms, which are made up from Subatomic Particles, which we think are the fundermental building blocks, though we may be wrong) is using their arm (see previous bracketed section) to pick up (see semantics) this apple (see chemical break down of an apple, ect, ect, ect) Whether the person was morally right or morally wrong to pick up the apple is not quantifable in an Objective sense UNLESS we accept a Subjective Truth as an Objective Truth, as stated before (probably several times by this point, I am trying to cover this from all the possible angles so that this doesn't develop into one of those protracted debates that annoy me). So yes, Subjective Judgement is not Objective Fact.

"Please don't discuss whether discussing something is morally distasteful, we find it morally distasteful." :rolleyes:

Sorry Ieyfura. I am actually talking about whether Mather can justify making vast moral judgements on people he has never met. To me, Necrophilia really doesn't matter one way or the other...I fail to see why I need to make a broad moral judgement on how other people live their lives/deaths, and I simply find it offensive that someone can spout hatred and intolerance whilst claiming to be objective.

Metaphorically: Subjective Potentially: Subjective Any religion that: Subjective 1) In the first place having sex with death is not objectively wrong. In the second place a metaphor depends on interpretation. There may be other reasons why someone is having sex with a dead body, besides wanting to have sex with death. Summery: While having sex with a dead body might offend you, that does not make it objectively wrong. 2) In the first place that something is disrepectful does not make it objectively wrong. In the second place your sentence does not even make the assertion that it is wrong, it makes the assertion that it might be wrong in certain circumstances. Summery: Objective truth either is or is not, it does depend on subjective conditions. 3) In the first place something that disrepects religion is not inherantly objectively wrong. In the second place, there are other religions that do not uphold the sanctity of death, and others still that hold that having sex with a dead body is morally acceptable. Summery: Your statement is based on the condition that only religions that agree with your perspective are correct and therefore only they need to be listened to. So now we have established that your reasons are not objective, but rather are entirely subjective.

And Mather came down from up on high and smote the non-believers, for his words were true, his cause just and his conscience clear. This man, who none could compare to in terms of moral integrity, was the man who could judge all without fear of being wrong for God himself had chosen Mather, his face had shone upon him and his counterance was bestowed. And Mather did go forth with his law of the internet, for he looked and he saw that it was good. What I have always hated about centralised law making is that one person, or one group of people begin enforcing certain things with absolute moral certitude. Who are you to judge others Mather? You make up these laws and you cover them with euphamisms 'Oh but most places already enforce this law', 'Oh but it is only a continuation of another law', 'Oh ethically this is wrong it must be abhorred.' Is it not enough to simply accept the internet exists? To argue for changes to the internet in your own country? Why do you have to go around trying for force your beliefs on other people? What gives you the right to tell me how to use the internet? To mediate MY use of OTHER PEOPLE'S resources? How does it hurt you in any way? This is the most baffling thing is...who are you fighting? I use the internet a fairly large amount...I don't suffer from random attacks of gambling, or pornography...Falador Tavern hasn't been subjected to random attacks of necrophila, so far as I am aware... Your attack against the great evil of the internet seems to be against people making their own communities, their own websites and, most of all, against other people's lives. All you are advocating is a moral charter to justify your intolerance, so congratulations Mather, you are well on your way to starting a religion.

Aye. Purely as advanced notice (well, also as a launch point to discuss schedualing) I am probably gonna move crossroads earlier in the week (Monday or Tuesday and Saturday). At present my schedual is(if it doesn't say anything after it then it is a lecture): Nothing on Monday 2-3 on Tuesday Britain and Ireland in war and peace since 1800 Wednesday nothing Thursday 11-12 Britain and Ireland, The Cold War Seminar 2-3, 3-4 Cold War Friday... Information Literacy 10-12, 2-3 Britian and Ireland Seminar, Cold War 3-4, Information Retrieval 4-6 Ought to be much fun....

I think Mather has the right idea. What we need is a group of unelected, unaccountable, officals, to protect us from the elected, unaccountable officials that currently control the various portions of the internet.... The main problem I see is that it is unenforcable, except by random acts of vigilantism....or, to put it another way, digital violence. Now, as brilliant(oxymoronic) as the idea of anarchic law enforcement is, I don't think it would improve the condition of the internet. Furthermore... very few of the laws are actually enforcable in any real sense UNLESS you happen to be monitoring the Internet...Say I sell the internetz to a random person via msn...Unless that person happens to be internet savy they will not be able to report it....in addition supposing they did report it, what action would be taken? "Dear everyone, I was conned by Bob231 on MSN, please take care of him for me." In the first place there is no guarentee that whoever is reporting it isn't a troublemaker. In the second place creating an MSN account requires very little effort, similarly other web based accounts. In the third place hacking someone's account and then sending something from their account. In the forth place, what are you going to do once you have made sure it was them? "Hello, local law enforcement, we have conducted our own investigation, breaking several privacy laws in the process, please arrest Bob231, his IP is this, and he lives here." Or maybe some sort of attack on their computer, or calling up their ISP and telling them of the terrible terrible crime they have committed and cutting them off from the internet... We could also argue what if you break one of the laws and happen to live in the Netherlands (or insert a country here with age restrictions lower than in the document...or higher, for that matter), then the local law enforcement may not enforce the law...which brings us back to where we are at the moment. The practicality of the task is beyond silly, it is unworkable, unenforcable and unneccessary. The internet may not be perfect, but all of our attempts to 'fix it' are just likely to make it worse...

Unenforcable, over-zealous, dangerous, offensive, unstable.... It has zero chance of reaching wide scale enforcement, which makes the entire idea unworkable. As a side note, gravy is not a stimulant. :shock:

Its no good Nex, Mather won't be impressed by your British style sarcasm =P And Futurama Don't be sexist. Some women like video games, some men hate video games. Gender sterotyping is what kept women out of the job market for so long, and what stop them from voting for 1/250 of a decillenia more than men. If the internet is supposed to be so free why is it we all have to do everything the Norwegian way? Answer me that!

Your just jealous Nex :mrgreen:

1) Death/permenant injury verses irrevocable loss of important item....I would do for most people, dependant on how heavy the object was, how massive the flames were, how thick the smoke was, how far it was from the door, are there any combustables in the building, ect, ect. 2) Using Violence to speed up events...No. It is a silly idea that violence would ever speed up events in the long term. I would much prefer to be 10 minutes late (preferably I would have left half an hour-an hour early anyway) than to be dead/arrested for accidently murdering someone (self-defence yes, however I could always accidently kill a passerby). Violence does have the ability to bypass certain obstacles, but it tends to create more which either need to be dealt with by more violence, or by spending very long periods of time explaining/suffering punishment. Added to that there is a good chance I would end up with blood of my clothes, which would provoke questions, and if the person I was with cared a jot for my safety would ask questions and subsequently be worried about me doing something like that again. 3) Near certain death/death of others verses irrevocable loss of an important item...No. If I dive in then there is a very very good chance I will die, further it may provoke others to jump in after me to rescue me. It all brings us back to 'What would normal people do' If we judge things on how we, personally, would react, then we fail to understand the rest of the world.

I can't really see another interpretation to put on that. You statement means: Either you care that you have sex....or you don't. Either sex is an intergral part of the relationship....or it isn't. I suppose you could mean 'Grateful for having sex' but I guess I would be grateful to anyone who wished to choose me...I wouldn't neccessarily take them up on that offer (I wouldn't neccessarily take up the guy I love on the offer of sex either, the circumstances related to it are very complex) but I would still be grateful. Romance requires a certain degree of care about people's well being, and a certain degree of sexual interaction...thus distinguishing it from prostitution/forced relations (aka not caring about well being at all) and from friendship (aka not caring whether you have sex or not, though arguably friendship relies on you not having sex in most situation...though I guess some situations - for instance having sex with someone to prevent your friend from dying...Or having sex to keep warm in the middle of the arctic...or something, idk. Its all very complex, hence why I don't have an interest in finding a concrete defination.) however quantifying those amounts are impossible. A human may do terrible things to 'protect' another human, such as people who lock their would be partners away, or people who stalk others because they believe that the other persons life would be better with them. Assuming they also had a sexual attraction then this would fall into the Romance catagory although it is not something we readily associate with romance. A way to eliminate that would be to add the pre-requiste of reciprocal feelings, though we then venture beyond the realms where any one person can understand the concept...It requires two people to be in agreement and not to have an ulterior motive, which is impossible to prove beyond any doubt. It also ignores the fluid nature of emotion, and the changing nature of the world in general...We may 'love' someone for a period, but then stop 'loving' them, or have our feelings modulate in responce to their actions. So ultimately we are left where we started. Would I risk my life to make someone smile? No. Transient feelings of happiness verses my life....my life will win in almost all circumstances. Exceptions would be if those transient feelings protected other life forms, or if my death meant something besides making them smile. Would I risk my life to save someone in the Tavern....Probably? There are exceptions of course, RPG for instance, technically involved with the Tavern but not someone I would risk my life for in a scenario. I would be willing to do a lot of work to make people happy, I would even be willing to put myself in mild amounts of danger (Holding hands in public if they are a guy probably falls into this catagory)...however I would not be willing to put myself in open and clear danger for excessively trivial reasons (Jumping from a fifth story building to give them their favoriate shirt). If there was some great and noble quest to gain honour or possession or some such, which the other person desired, and I could understand how that thing would make them happy, and could accept that there were long term benefits to doing whatever this thing was (and not merely transitory benefits) then I would put myself in the unknown danger...possibly great peril...in order to achieve that end. Doing something merely because the other person wants it is not romance but slavery...I can understand the attraction of making the other person happy even at detriment to myself...It is something I do extensively...But there are substantial limitations on that. I would further add that, if we happened to be 'in a relationship' and you tried to make me smile by, say, leaping across the bonnet of a moving car, I would be immediately worried about you more than I would be happy. I would generally say most people would respond in the same way, unless they don't really care about you in a serious way...or they don't actually understand the danger that you were in...or potentially because they feel elated only by virtue of not feeling so gut wrenchingly pained as they were a moment before when your life was in imminate danger.

In that case I am in a romance with everyone I have ever known and every member of the Tavern. My point in the post was that Sex is typically ASSIGNED that role, and so, to have a meaningful conversation, we have to accept that role. Elsewise we might as well all be speaking different languages because we wouldn't have any reference points in common.

The term 'enjoy' is not discreet enough to indicate romantic interaction. Or to differentiate between romantic or erotic interactions if we do choose to put inference on it. How we 'feel' when we are around other people is a matter of personal interpretation, so whist I enjoy being around a wide varity of people, it doesn't mean I am secretly romantically or erotically involved with all, or indeed any, of them. Further differentiating Romantic affiliation and Friendship is more or less impossible without the Erotic element, at least in conversation and social interaction. In personal experiance it is very easy to do. (We can also talk about the rather complex effect Erotic relations have and how they complicate the boundries, or indeed ignore the boundries, but that is vastly complex and not hugely relevant) At the end of the day we can take three approaches: 1) Nex is romantically interested in this girl, but not romantically involved, as of yet. (The view everyone aside from Mather started with, I think) 2) Nex is romantically interested and romantically involved with this girl. (One of our possible interpretations of Mather's view) 3) Nex is erotically involved with this girl. (Another one of our possible interpretations of Mather's view) (I think the conversations about sarcasm got mingled) Personally, I have no strong feeling about how Nex decides to live his life. He knows that he can talk to me, and I will ask questions to get a deeper understanding of the situation before I begin talking about his life (Though it would seem that he wasn't interested in our opinions anyway). As to Ieyfura's point: Discussions about emotions are fraught with misunderstanding...added to that they can't be communicated in any meaningful way For instance you cannot describe them to another person and have the other person know what you mean. All that can happen is that they draw from their own lives and try to approximate your words with their feelings. On top of that emotionally there can be a vast number of similarities between friendship and romantic love. The most common way to distinguish between them (and most inaccurate maybe) is 'Do you desire to have sex with this person?', ergo the non-physical aspect is also sex. This is partly due to the various types of friendship, for instance friends you have a drink with, friends you tell your deep dark secrets to, friends who give you lifts, 'friends with benefits', people who you would help in a fix but you wouldn't consider hanging out with, colleagues...It is a hugely multi-faceted subject and is not well defined in any sense of the word. As stated above Erotic interaction is not the end all and be all of loving someone, nor is self-sacrifice for that person, or any other factor. It is, however, something commonly associated with having a partner and, as above, is used to differentiate between friends and romances. In short; very complicated thing people don't understand, sex looks like the answer, it isn't, life goes on. :thumbup:

Cause the only difference between being friends and being 'with' someone is sex(and kissing potentially). Everything else is more or less wrapping...for instance having a meal with someone is not inherantly romantic. Presenting romantic gifts, yes, that is different, or doing things that are highly intimate, bathing together for instance...But, for the most part, there is only one major difference.

TWSS

I enjoy lingual manipulation, it is not my all consuming desire to turn everything into pun/innuendo or some other wordplay. On the other hand: That's what she said!

Or, more accurately: Mather is more Carnally Inclined than you. Archi is more Intellectually Inclined than you. People often see their own inadequacies as deficency in other people... I would suggest you go less judging and more reflecting, then I wouldn't have to judge you as I have done here (and find it distasteful). This is being English =P