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Comment Re:Customer service? (Score 1) 928

When installing software and are 'forced' to 'agree' to many paragraphs of legalese before the OK button will become clickable, do you tick "I agree" and think "I agree" or do you tick it whilst thinking "I'm only clicking 'I agree' because I've discovered that that's what's necessary to proceed to the next installation-step?"

When people cheer for a tinpot dictator, do they think "this guy is awesome" or "I'm only cheering because I've discovered that's what's necessary to avoid getting killed"?

Internalizes helplessness isn't about being deceived, that's called stupidity. Internalized helplessness is about saying "I agree" no matter what you think, because you don't think "I disagree" would go well for you. You're treating having to jump through hoops to use a software you've already purchased as a fact of life you can do nothing about. Your spirit has, in however small way, been broken; you've begun to accept the will of various institutions and forces of human creation as defining the very parameters of your life.

You're not rejecting the idea of helpless subjectdom, you're embodying it. And so do Americans as a whole, more and more every year, as the powers that be continue slipping out of their control and consequently carry their tasks out without any real oversight, to the point of insanity and beyond. That won't end well.

Comment Re: Why? (Score 1) 92

Many situations require the encryption of SSL without necessarily requiring the authentication of SSL. This is the case when the risk is more from something like accidentally or casually disclosing sensitive information and there is little or no risk of intentional attack, but where there are liabilities for routine exposure. This scenario isn't really a job for SSL, but what else do we have to work with?

Comment Re:It is their fault. (Score 3, Insightful) 342

It's all the ones that are useless to serve or be eaten by humans that are going extinct.

The problem is, most animal species are useful in the same way as nails in a wall are useful: sure, you can remove one or two without any apparent ill effect, but keep taking them off and the roof will fall on your head.

Ecosystem is a machine, and while it can adjust to a part going missing or operational parameters changing that capacity has limits. Kill enough species or warm the world enough and you trigger a domino effect. It won't be the end of the world, but it will be the end of our world.

But of course the temptation to take just one more is too much. It just goes to show that human brains and mindset aren't actually fit to handle our current level of power. I wonder if this is the Great FIlter.

Comment Re:Customer service? (Score 2) 928

Creating a PR incident like this will not go without notice.

Yes... but what will the effect be? Will people avoid Southwest Airlines? Can they (afford to) avoid them? Or do they simply avoid any criticism since they know that will invite retaliation?

I think the US is already past the tipping point, where stories like this won't cause a backlash so much as accomodation. People can only be treated as helpless subjects of the powers that be for so long before they internalize the attitude, after all.

Comment Re: Pft (Score 1) 962

As to ending up in jail or dead, nothing I did was illegal. He brandished a weapon at me and I showed him I had a bigger one.

Escalating a fight when you don't need to is stupid and, in most places, illegal.

As to your second point, I looked for a point in it... and couldn't see an actual argument in it. Please rephrase.

Nuclear war is a bad thing, since it'll kill you. Promoting behaviour that leads to it is stupid.

As to your third point, I have millions of years of natural selection humming in my veins. I am not some skittish herd beast. I not a rat. I am not a rabbit.

No, you're just some dude with serious impulse control issues and delusions of grandieur.

I am a homo sapian. A man. I'm the ape that cracks atoms and marks his territory on the moon.

Claiming credit for other people's achievements is not the least bit impressive.

Come at me.

Why?

Comment Re:Occams Scalpel (Score 1) 962

You are of the opinion that nothing bad happens to men and it always happens to women.

Nope. I'm just doubting the OP.

You are doubting the OP solely on the basis that the OP is a male, since that's the only information you have about him. That only makes sense if you're of the opinion that nothing bad ever happens to men.

Comment Re: Pft (Score 2) 962

That is how a man deals with a threat of violence.

If he wants to end up dead or in jail, yes. Smart people simply speed away from the dumbass who's chasing a car on foot, and maybe report him to the police.

Men don't ask for that. We protect ourselves. Up to the point of going to thermonuclear war. Literally.

And you see this as such a desirable result that not only do you not seek to change your ways, but you actively recommend others to embrace them?

Dude, Broforce is fiction.

Toughen up or bow out.

Grow up or die. Next crazy dude you humiliate might come visit you with ten friends. Natural selection only has so much patience for your bullshit.

Comment Re:Pft (Score 2, Insightful) 962

You realize that there's more difference between your average man and your average woman than between your average NFL linebacker and your average man, right? (seriously, compare the stats some time - height, average bench strength, etc). You do realize how commonly women are raped and abused by men, and how they might happen to be more sensitive to the implicit or explicit threats of violence from someone that they're highly unlikely to be able to fight off?

You know, if you complain about violence against your group yet dismiss violence against another group as inconsequential, you aren't likely to get - or deserve, for that matter - much sympathy, especially from that other group.

This is something many feminists - and other rights groups as well - seem to be unable to comprehend: you can get most people to back equality. You can't get them to back a power grab. No matter how justified you believe yourself, if you dismiss everyone's pain but yours then of course they're going to dismiss yours, and rightly so.

I'm tall, 182 centimeters, and I still once had a guy literally pick me up and carry me back to his apartment when I tried to walk away from him.

And I had a guy pull a knife on me. But that doesn't matter since I'm a man, and thus don't have a woman's sensitivity, right? Testicles make me immune to fear and pain, thus violence and threats against me don't count. Only real human beings like you matter. I can bloody well just "stop being a sissy", since unlike you, I don't have feelings. Someone attacking you is a tragedy, but someone attacking me is of no importance because, after all, I have a penis.

Sexist creep.

Comment Re:The problem is... (Score 1) 190

Do you support unilateral disarmament too?

Smallpox isn't a weapon. Smallpox is a disease. Should someone be stupid enough to re-introduce it to the world, it will circle back and hit them, too. So the only thing destroying live smallpox samples does is reduce the chances of a catastrophic screw-up.

Comment Re:let me correct that for you. (Score 1) 619

If Communism never actually existed, then what the heck was the deal with USSR, China, E. Germany, Vietnam, North Korea, Cambodia, et al.? There are a lot of nations that insist they are following some Communist ideal, why would the non-practiced version be any more valid than the one these countries actually implemented?

North Korea insists it's "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", does that mean it really is a democracy?

Propaganda and reality rarely have much to do with each other.

Comment Re:This propaganda is worse than 2003 Iraq fiasco. (Score 2) 667

I suppose I'm discussing with some ukrainian "patriot".

A Finn who saw the scars your attempt to conquer our country left on innocent people. And now you're doing the exact same thing again - you prop up a puppet regime and have it request help. Only your puppet got ousted, so now you're going with plan B: russian troops posing as rebels.

Uncle Sam wants to fight "bad russkies" and he wants to do this with your hands beacuse it's cheaper.

You're wasting your time. Everyone who has the bad luck to live next to Russia knows the truth about you.

I'm a Pole - that's why I'm freaking out.

And Otto Wille Kuusinen was a Finn and Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian. Good luck on your chosen career.

I want no part in this madness.

Then stop working for a madman.

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