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I heard the lizard people can regrow appendages well into their thirties.

I have laughed at things in the past and been told very straight-forwardly 'That's not funny.' Sometimes this reaction is constrained to just a strange look.

This confuses me every time. I think I just find the unexpected or different to be a lot more fun than some people and putting labels like 'bad' or 'good' on events seems like a waste of thought-power when laughing and waiting to see what will happen next is so interesting.

The point at which a topic becomes Serious Business is a mystery.

I can think of many exceptions to this. Laughing at EVERYTHING, or thinking that there is no such thing as "bad" or "good", makes you a sociopath.

Can I argue with that? Just a little?

First, I think you can believe in good and bad and still laugh at everything. You can be crying your heart out and still be laughing... you can be angry as fuck and still be laughing.

Second: calling 'good' and 'bad' arbitrary labels can be a sign of sociopathy... but I think it can also be a sign of the postconventional person. As  Thaddeus Golas said:

"When your consciousness is open, any action you take in reference to evil has no more significance than digging a ditch to channel floodwaters from a house." - in The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment

Which, don't get me wrong, is a fair bit of significance. In fact, it is all there is.

Well if you laughed at everything there wouldn't be much time to get anything done. And you'd probably end up with a punch to the face eventually. Of course there are situations where you have to take into account the viewpoints and feelings of others into account before letting loose but it's exactly those situations - where a lack of awareness (or everyone else's lack of humour?  ) has led to akward social interactions. Is there a distinction between sociopathy and oddity or are they just the same thing at different degrees of severity?

On the topic of 'bad' and 'good' - possibly a discussion for a different time but I merely meant that a lot of the time when people are getting wound up about something it has already happened and it can't be changed so really one's own reaction to the situation is the only thing you have control over. Why waste mental energy stewing over it?

I have laughed at things in the past and been told very straight-forwardly 'That's not funny.' Sometimes this reaction is constrained to just a strange look.

This confuses me every time. I think I just find the unexpected or different to be a lot more fun than some people and putting labels like 'bad' or 'good' on events seems like a waste of thought-power when laughing and waiting to see what will happen next is so interesting.

The point at which a topic becomes Serious Business is a mystery.

Hey, two years and an expansion pack down the line Diablo 3 is a fun dungeon crawler.

Granted, I hope that it doesn't take that long for Destiny to realise it's potential. There seems to have been a wave of games coming out recently that have promised a lot more than they were able to deliver. Titanfall springs to mind - again a good idea for the base of a game but it never quite felt 'complete' to me.

I actually like Destiny.

Admittedly, it does feel a little disjointed and empty at the moment but the core mechanics of shooting aliens and seeing little numbers plink off them is fun. All three classes seem unique and relatively balanced and co-op play is a lot of fun.

The problem is that the social features are woefully underimplemented so if you don't already know a bunch of people playing then it probably gets a) hard and b) lonely.

Also once you reach the soft level cap it turns into a bit of a grind. I am hopeful that Bungie gives the game plenty of support though. If they can do what Blizzard did with Diablo 3 and take a good base game with a few problems and then fix/improve things regularly i'll be happy. Only time and patches will tell I suppose.


I think a lot of the problems are stemming from people going into the game with a range of different expectations. I wanted a fun, co-op space shooter and Destiny is filling that role admirably.

I live in the UK - it would be fun to meet some people some time.

[Personal religion]

Personal religion or the evolution of me.

So one of the greatest things my parents ever did for me was bring me up in a strictly religion-free household. I wouldn't even say we were 'atheist'. It just wasn't a topic that came up. As I got a little older and started going to (Church of England) schools I was introduced to Christianity, mostly through singing hymns and saying the Lord's Prayer once a week during assembly. This was all pretty outside of anything my 5-11 year old mind cared about though so I didn't think of it.

Right then, at this point i'm getting a little bit older and more self-aware. From somewhere (probably books) I had been hearing about the sort of fancy-pants religion that most tribal people have in books - you know the type, a god of rocks and a god of the trees and the sun god etc etc. I thought this was a pretty cool idea and made up gods for all kinds of things. The God of Sheds, God of Exams, God of Pianos... the list goes on. Aaanyway so i'd heard that if you pray to God then they basically do what you want them to, right? So I pray away to the God of Exams and lo and behold the outcome doesn't differ from what i'd expected sans prayer. My whole belief system comes crumbling down around me! To be honest it was more like religion slash pokemon - just making up gods because it was fun at the time.

So that wasn't such a big deal. But I got a little older and start crashing blindly into puberty. The internet comes along!  What a wonderful combination that is. SOMEhow I end up reading these weird new-age occulty forums that talk about stuff like crystals and the mayan calendar and dreams and all kinds of shit. I was big into this for quite a while (although less the crystals, i've never understood that one). I'd make a dream diary and learn what my birthdate was in the Mayan Calendar and do lucid dreaming trying to find a spirit guide and all that schtick. I can't remember anything particular that turned me off this path, mostly just reading the forums and thinking how sickeningly nice and accepting all the people were. It made my skin crawl.

Pass a few years, i'm probably.. 17. I'm playing some DnD online and some crazy is yammering on about being a Pope. He points me to POEE and I lurk for a while, eventually getting a copy of the Principia. "This book makes no sense!" I think. But for some reason I leave it nearby. A few days later I read it again. And again.

So i'm starting to think that maybe there's some sense in the crazy ramblings and decide to check out Illuminatus! (not an Official(TM) Discordian work, I know) This book is even crazier! But I read it again anyway. To this day it's my go-to book for long journeys because I find that each read brings some new bubble of thought to the forefront of my mind.

Then university starts and I am too busy drinking and working to be thinking too hard about some kind of religion. Anyway, I am now four years into my degree now and i've started reading what you guys spew because sometimes it makes my brain tingle like it did the first time I read the Principia. I've realised that throughout my life I was looking for some point in life - somewhat like the way Christians say to atheists "Well if you don't follow God's teachings how do you have morals/why don't you just jump off that building right now if there is no point to life?" <--- that actually happened.

I've realised though that Discordia - or my interpretation of it - stuck with me for these most recent years of my life and evolved into a personal creed. Nothing is true, everything is permitted. Sort of. I take the viewpoint that life is one clusterfuck of people that don't have a damn clue what's going on so you may as well sit back, smile and enjoy the show.

In the first few pages of Illuminatus! we hear FUCKUP(or Leviathan?) narrating the introduction of the book whereupon the world is described as a travelling, millenia-old circus. That is a fairly close representation of the way I see the world right now. And this thought has brought me more happiness than any other belief system I have dabbled in. If you can look at the world and laugh it makes you feel like a fucking zen master.

So.. yeah.

[bunch]

I'm going to posit that the myth of the BBC falls under that category as well.

so, it's my understanding that this is, in fact, a myth. (based on research studies that i've heard about)
that gets me wondering why it is born out in porn, then.  i mean there's some porn with white guys that have massive cocks, but not a ton. (big, to be sure, but not massive)  there is, however, a bunch of BBC porn.
is this because the market doesn't want to see white guys that are extremely endowed?  does it make white porn watchers feel lesser if it's another white guy so well hung, but if it's a black guy they can shrug it off because, "well, he's one of them"?
that's all i could figure.

Holy shit, right up until I read your reply I was trying to think up myths involving the British Broadcasting Corporation. It was confusing.

This is fucked.

So, apparently, is his friend.



...I'll go back to my corner.

'And then there wasn't even that any more.'

I thought I was being clever by picking Illuminatus! 

I don't make enough controversial statements.

Aren't maps orientated the way they are because the first people who were drawing them were the Europeans and everyone likes being on top?

Thanks for the thoughts,

Like I didn't say, I realise that I have my whole life ahead of me, and that I can mold a lot of it to fit me. Its just that recently (and like Cram said, influenced by films/rants etc.) I have been looking into myself and I can see the parts that are all twisted up into 'I wonder what everyone else thinks about me?' and 'Will this make me look cool?' And I can see that I shouldn't really be thinking that, but I still do.

Like most of you guys said, I think, it's a matter of changing your perceptions so that The Machine begins to work for you.
But damn that's hard.

Why don't you try it and find out?

I'm 17 now, just about to take my A-levels. I do well, I get into the university I want, get a degree, get a job. Welcome to the rest of my life.
I was at a party recently. Kids with dyed hair and catchy tshirt slogans. What are they going to be doing in 10 years? Most of them, I think, will be sat at a desk, thinking back to those good times, wondering where everything changed. And you say 'Well they have the choice to do something different.'

Do they really? Sure you can have green hair now, you're 17! you are just learning how to express yourself. Green hair after university? Good luck getting a good job, friend. Good luck having a comfortable life. You can be different, as long as you are different in Their way. As long as you are the same as everyone else, you can be different.

Back to the ratrace. Remember your first day of school? Wasn't it amazing? There were all these people, and a nice lady to tell you exactly what to do. There's no point in not doing what she says, she's smiling! Sometimes she might give you some colouring to take home and bring in the next day. As soon as you get home, let's sit down and do that work! You love colouring, and look how your parents smile!

Now you are 10, the work is a bit harder but hey, you've been doing what they tell you for five years, why stop now? And after all, they obviously know what's best... they get PAID to do this kind of thing.. and they are so old and wise. Sometimes theres a kid that might do something reactionary, maybe that kid was you. 'What do you mean you didn't do what I told you? Your parents are going to hear of this!' Not the parents. They are so disappointed. And everyone knows. The WHOLE CLASS. You'll probably never be able to go to school again because of the embarrassment. No way are you going to do that again.

17 now are you? Well done, you got all the way through, and even carried on when it 'wasn't compulsory.' But everyone knows that's a lie. It's compulsory if you want to have any kind of life at all, desperately searching for that Easy Ride.  You might be thinking to yourself that some things the teacher says is wrong. You definitely don't enjoy doing all that work they tell you. But you suck it up punk, otherwise you're going to fail your exams. That's right, FAIL. And you'll be worse than those people who didn't even get here. You'll have wasted our time and yours.

So you get the results, you worked your ass off. You are at the University you want to be at, doing the degree you want to do. Everybody's telling you that you are Free. Fucking yeah. You are free to have the most fun you possibly can, and meet new people. You might even like some of them! If you are really lucky, you might even learn something that actually interests you.

But those years... they've flown by. You have a degree now mate, what are you going to do with it? You are a full-blown adult now, you should probably grow up. Don't be immature! Get a job; we need more monkeys at the typewriters: Othello hasn't quite been finished yet.

Oh who's this again? I remember you from my whole life. You were 'teacher' before, you've changed a bit. I have to call you 'boss' and you won't teach me anything any more. Still though, you tell me what to do, and what to think. It's a good job I accept this otherwise you'd have to tell the WHOLE OFFICE. I'd probably never be able to go to work again because of the embarrassment. Anyway, my whole life people have been telling me that this is what's going to happen. There's so many of them... and they said it so loudly. Who am I to speak up against them?