YES! I take that as a great compliment! When you're learning a language you're usually so awful that native speakers notice you're foreigner and compliment you for your efforts: "You can speak English very well!" The actual measure of competence is when you become good enough for people to start thinking you're a bad native speaker instead of a merely good non-native one. So, thanks! :-)

By the way:

You're contradictory. ;-)

Yes, plain English, no doubt. Too bad it remains meaningless English at that.

But that's the sad thing about "defenders of the Truth" such as you really. They are always so CERTAIN of their certainty that everything and everyone is an enemy or a misguided fool from which Truth must be Protected. And thus offense, dismissal, ostracism, even persecution arise.

Me, I content myself in being a simple "seeker of the truth", always asking "how?" and "why?" and ready to change and already having changed dozens of time in my life. I pity defenders really: they miss so much...

By the way: ethimologically "idiot" means the person that keeps repeating the same patterns again and again. What does it make of someone who keeps using "You're an idiot" as her standard reply? ;-)

LOL, aren't we defensive? :D

Actually, I'd prefer a peer-reviewed journal article published in a respected academic journal and confirmed by independent researchers, but in an emergency a Slashdot post will do. ;-)

Wow, you have an interesting way to not answer. I guess that's because you cannot. You have an intuition, and it's more or less inarticulable, so you work around it in circles instead of facing it directly.

Here's a hint: our minds (and I don't mean simply "brains", I mean minds) are defective. Look "within yourself" for any real answer and you're looking into a shattered mirror full of shadows, false starts, invalid conclusion and fantasy intuitions and perceptions. Base yourself on those and you're deluding yourself under the veil of Maya. That, basically, is all there is to it.

See, this is an excellent example of what I mean! You've provided a nice black box, "awareness". But here's the question: how does "awareness" work? Open the box and show me what's inside, step by step, then I might be convinced. Otherwise I'll take it to be a synonym of "MAGIC!!!", in this exact way, with capitalization and exclamation marks:

"The simplest most logical solution (...) is that god is the sum total of MAGIC!!! in the universe."

With the added benefit that it even sounds better! :-)

The problem is that the solutions usually take the form of a black box with a name tag attached that's supposed to solve the problem. I personally am a big fan of classic philosophy and advanced theological thinking, they're simply awesome. But the solutions they arrive at always rely on some bit of mystery that you must take at face value, otherwise things don't work.

Free will is a prime example. Whenever you try to crack it open and figure out how it works you end up with a deterministic formulation. So you only have two options really: either you assume there is this free will attribute no matter how nonsensical it looks when observed under the cognitive equivalent of a tunneling microscope, or you give up and assume that free will is a perceptual error, and then moves to the much simpler problem of figuring out why we instinctively believe there is such a thing when it makes no sense.

Another good example is the classic theist concept of the prime mover as God, which in turn is a pure one without moving parts, that somehow is at the same time will, and goodness, and power, and law, and knowledge, and action, and planning, and outside of time and space, and containing time and space, and ourselves etc., all of this more or less just because. It all sounds amazing, and it indeed is, but when you stop, take a step back and look at it critically you're really left only with a big question mark, and a question mark, no matter how incredible is the sentence that comes before it, isn't an answer.

So it isn't that those thinkers didn't arrive at solutions. It's just that they're bad solutions. But I agree that most science fanbois would benefit immensely from actually knowing those answers so as to at least not go around reinventing the wheel again and again and again...

Precisely! And for the same reason there were no Capitalism regimes, ever!

As Galileo used to say to those who told him the Moon was perfectly spherical because there were an invisible substance filling the valleys: "Yes, the invisible substance is there, but on top of the mountains, making the Moon's surface even more rough!"

They could have a level scale for every different content. Let's say you start a character at "snow region" and does all its content, thus becoming a specialist at surviving there. You'd be a "snow specialist level 10". But your knowledge doesn't transfer to deserts. Or forests. Or dungeons. Or alien worlds. Or dream dimensions. Etc. etc. etc. So whenever you want to experience a specific new content you start that kind of content at level 1 and have to progress to become proficient at that.

Then comes a new forest expansion. It could extent the "forest" range to 20 or whatever. So you create a new player and want to experiment the new content, you go to the original forest region, get to 10, then sidestep directly to the new expansion, continuing from 11.

Alternative options: do it based on creature types, or magic types, or whatever really.

In short, there are ways to make things works so that you can expect to experience old content and new content without having to advance through 80 levels of unrelated stuff or being jumped to level 90.

Because here in Brazil the government underfunds everything military or related due to the fact that since two decades every civilian government we've had was composed of people who were enemies and/or were persecuted by said military during our dictatorship, and hence deeply, deeply dislike them.

ABIN in particular is a joke. They have no actual technological prowess nor are they going to develop any. Maybe on the very long-term they do, but right now nope, not a chance.

This means you operate at stage 4 in Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning:

"Conventional morality is characterized by an acceptance of society's conventions concerning right and wrong. At this level an individual obeys rules and follows society's norms even when there are no consequences for obedience or disobedience. Adherence to rules and conventions is somewhat rigid, however, and a rule's appropriateness or fairness is seldom questioned. (...) In Stage four (authority and social order obedience driven), it is important to obey laws, dictums and social conventions because of their importance in maintaining a functioning society. Moral reasoning in stage four is thus beyond the need for individual approval exhibited in stage three. A central ideal or ideals often prescribe what is right and wrong, such as in the case of fundamentalism. If one person violates a law, perhaps everyone would—thus there is an obligation and a duty to uphold laws and rules. When someone does violate a law, it is morally wrong; culpability is thus a significant factor in this stage as it separates the bad domains from the good ones. Most active members of society remain at stage four, where morality is still predominantly dictated by an outside force."

While Snowden is probably at stage 5:

"The post-conventional level, also known as the principled level, is marked by a growing realization that individuals are separate entities from society, and that the individual’s own perspective may take precedence over society’s view; individuals may disobey rules inconsistent with their own principles. Post-conventional moralists live by their own ethical principles—principles that typically include such basic human rights as life, liberty, and justice. People who exhibit post-conventional morality view rules as useful but changeable mechanisms—ideally rules can maintain the general social order and protect human rights. Rules are not absolute dictates that must be obeyed without question. (...) In Stage five (social contract driven), the world is viewed as holding different opinions, rights and values. Such perspectives should be mutually respected as unique to each person or community. Laws are regarded as social contracts rather than rigid edicts. Those that do not promote the general welfare should be changed when necessary to meet “the greatest good for the greatest number of people”. This is achieved through majority decision and inevitable compromise. Democratic government is ostensibly based on stage five reasoning."

Way to miss the point.

Neither. But having concrete knowledge is better than having vague suspicions, for it at least allows for some change to happen, even if just a tiny bit of change.

Going against the petty interests of a minor group in favor of the broader interests of humanity is the kind of stuff for which one's remembered as an hero down the line, including despite one's personal faults.

As a non-US citizen I most certainly disagree.

No loot, but he gives lots of XP.

Thanks!

If there's a button to refresh the captcha I click it once to see what happens. If it reloads only the captcha then I take my time filling the form and when I'm finished click it once again, fill the captcha and submit. If however clicking the captcha reload button reloads the entire page, then notepad, reload page, copy-paste, submit it is.

These two "algorithms" have allowed me to experience much less pain and frustration than I otherwise would have had.