Your "Troll" mod was not because you said anything inaccurate. It is because we live in an increasingly emotionally immature society where the pleasantness of a thing is considered more important than the truth of a thing. It is the result of being governed by emotion and not reason. Whoever modded you "Troll" is like that. Sadly, many people are unable to calmly articulate their own opinion, so they need to "get back at you" in some way for offending them. After all, you didn't constantly say things like "well just my opinion" (something already understood) and "hope it doesn't offend anyone" (that is their choice) to kiss their asses and placate their desire to climb up on their high horse and cry about how terrible you are. Their self-importance and false sense of entitlement demand that you show such undue deference, you know.

Anyway, when you have real friends whom you love and respect like family members, and a satisfying social life, Facebook has no appeal. All Facebook offers that cannot easily be had elsewhere is the exchange of trivia with and casual attention from strangers or superficial acquaintences. The trade-off of losing so much irretrievable privacy in exchange for something so devoid of real value makes no sense. To those who are not starved for attention, it is all minuses and no plusses. The bandwagon it has become is also unappealing to those who are not herd animals, who don't find "everyone else is doing it" to be a valid reason to do anything.

I can certainly see how those who otherwise would have no satisfying social life might find it appealing. This merely constitues Facebook taking advantage of a weakness/shortcoming and exploiting it in order to make money. The disrespect they frequently show to their userbase and the obvious disregard of basic privacy concerns makes it inherently exploitative in nature. It's something that a healthy, happy person who is not needy would refuse to tolerate. Zuckerberg's contempt for his own users has been repeatedly established by his very own statements. This is someone people want to trust with so much personal data? It's absurd and indicates that many people have no idea whom they're dealing with, or simply no real discerning standards for themselves.

If someone has to data-mine and connect lots of different dots and perform all kinds of automated searches in order to find you, it is because you didn't want to be found. That's why such vast systems and huge databases were necessary to do something that is otherwise so simple. If you want someone to be involved in your life in some way, none of that would be needed.

I do agree with your premise that for people who have little else, this kind of attention may actually be welcome. Of course that is pathological, used as a terrible substitute for real fulfillment and real quality time with people who actually love and understand you. This should be obvious, but when lots of people want to legitimize something, the first thing they must do is create confusion and complicate otherwise simple things. When enough people do that, it can make the obvious seem controversial when really it is merely inconvenient (the gun control "debate" is that way - wow criminals don't obey weapons restrictions, who'da thunk it?).

Finally, I wonder: how many people would have had to face and overcome their personal social weaknesses if they hadn't had Facebook as a readily available crutch?

Anything to avoid being responsible adults, considerate of those around you, right?

You are confusing cause with effect (cf. my username). A lawsuit is the effect of the kind of non-freak-accident I was talking about.

By acknowledging the valid concern corporations have about lawsuit liability, you are also acknowledging that there are people who would not correctly handle a deadly poison with the respect it deserves. The point is not that it could result in a lawsuit, though that is true. The point is that it would not be a freak accident.

I have a good example for you to consider: bug spray. You know, that stuff that's so toxic that you can spray it on a filthy cockroach and the roach will drop dead?

When you have to tell someone that bug spray is poisonous and that ingesting it will harm them, well, you are no longer talking about a freak accident.

The AC to whom you are responding demonstrates why it is difficult sometimes for adults to have meaningful conversation. There are always small-minded people like him who not only do not appreciate it (which is their loss), but actively resent it and seek to interfere with it. They choose to be on the noise side of the signal-to-noise ratio.

I suspect that deep down, they have never learned to deeply appreciate much of anything because doing so generally doesn't fit into their ten-second attention spans. Rather than being "just their way of doing things", this is an inferior choice. They themselves know it, if only instinctively, and it comes out in the envious manner in which they try to disrupt others from enjoying it.

There are some sad, sad people on this planet, trying so hard to be self-important. Since they aren't finding real worth within themselves, they have to grasp for it in the outside world of other people. The only method available to them is denigrating someone else. It is too bad that they'd rather continue to act out such impulses, since they lack the introspection and the emotional maturity to recognize them as the character flaws that they are.

This is why drugs are not for everyone.

Lawyers are one of the few priesthoods left in Western society. The purpose of a priesthood is to guard information from the uninitiated, so that most people are dependent on the priests.

The Catholic Church of medieval times really hated the idea of a Bible written in the native languages of the laypeople. They preferred Latin, a language that was generally taught only to the clergy at that time. If there is ever a movement to simplify the law and remove the legalese, so that the average person could easily understand and apply it without professional help, you will see a similar outcry from the lawyers.

The difference between a lawyer and a doctor is that the human body is inherently complex. The law is only so complex because men have made it so.

That tactic is used in politics all the time, particularly whenever the desire is to expand government. Float an idea and pretend like there's any real debate about what you are going to do anyway. It gives the illusion of legitimacy. If there is a lot of backlash, do it over time in baby steps with carefully crafted excuses as justification; if not, just go for it.

It is proof that small-minded people want to blame (their concept of) God for what man has done.

I think I know what you want. You want a micromanaging God that doesn't ever let us make any of our own choices. That way nothing bad ever happens. That is a God you could believe in, with none of that messy faith stuff, right? Just like your other emotionally childish counterparts want a God-like Government that can take away all the guns because they are cowards, cowards love easy wrong answers, so they blame inanimate objects for what people do. That may be drugs, guns, video games, music, movies, you name it: these people are themselves so dehumanized and shallow that the human element is the very first thing they want to deny.

It ain't gonna work. Certain drugs are completely illegal in all circumstances. Guess what? They can't even keep them out of PRISONS. Perhaps a lot of people didn't know that? Maybe they hadn't researched the feasibility of this idea? No one who has looked into it thinks it's realistic. Lots of people who can't distinguish emotion from reason, who really don't know anything about the topic, think it's just great. What a coincidence. Maybe you could ponder that for a little while.

Now if you can grasp a general principle when you see one and realize that it applies to more than one thing, perhaps it will dawn on you that banning guns won't work either. It makes sense too. This shooting was done by a psychopath who obviously wasn't worried about dying and obviously wasn't worried about mass murder charges. Gee, I wonder if a weapons violation charge is going to deter him? Yeah, that DOES sound silly, now doesn't it? Good, the ability to face a harsh reality is the mark of adulthood.

I am glad you are not going to get what you want. The adults don't want to be stuck in your little playpen. Yes, 20 people were murdered. In fact the death toll was a bit higher than that. Is hating a troll going to bring them back? Is there, in fact, anything at all that you and I or anyone else could do to reverse what has been done? No, there isn't. But there are a lot of rash mistakes with long-lasting consequences that we could make. There are also lots of petty little ways that we could find reasons to hate each other. Do you think that either of those would honor the dead?

Speaking of small-minded people, I suppose it's time for them to call me names and express their impotent outrage because I said something they don't agree with. Knowing no better way, that is how they handle such things. It gives them a whole moment of feeling self-important before they come right back down to the life they have to live.

I think you could have a career in politics.

False dichotomy. You limit yourself by viewing it in such narrow terms. It leaves no allowance for beauty.

One can be intelligent and supremely joyful in this life. The bitterness and resentment are the prime reasons you don't see that yourself.

Yes I am responding late but perhaps you will read this anyway.

And, does anyone else see the (huge) potential problem with the perception that "if Google doesn't list it, it does not exist"? They don't need to be even further entrenched.

Well, he could start by not implicitly linking a few psychopaths who USE BOMBS AND MURDER OTHERS with those who go to church or have their own personal beliefs. He is not asking for evidence to satisfy his own inquiry. That would be a separate discussion. He's simply expressing his hatred and mockery of anyone who entertains beliefs he finds distasteful.

Blaming all religion (and he made no distinction) for the problems in Pakistan is like never eating food again because someone was choking.

This one is apparently wasted on him, but maybe you will appreciate it. I am not an atheist, yet I feel no need to mock, disrespect, denigrate, or look down my nose at anyone who chooses to be an atheist. To me that is a personal decision. If a person wants my input, they will have to ask me specifically. Otherwise, it's none of my damned business what they believe. I should treat other people with the dignity and respect they deserve no matter what I think about their faith or lack of faith.

That is what you are not seeing from the GP. He does not appear to be an atheist because he found no religion to be satisfying or believable. He appears to be an atheist so he can pat himself on the back for being better than all those "morons" who don't see things his way. What a miserable way to be. I assure you, no one who lives like that can be truly joyful and happy, not in any enduring sort of way. Their happiness depends on what other people do.

With organized religion there is some truth to that.

When an individual is seeking a way to express the more abstract parts of his or her nature, what is called spirituality, and finds that some of the best real teachers had one "persuasion" or another but tend to all say very similar things, as though they all saw the same things and put them in different terms according to different frameworks ... there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Ignoring the progress made by those who came before means you are doomed to constantly reinvent the wheel.

The trick any real individual understands is to not get caught up with any particular language or framework, to instead focus on what truly advanced people have seen or done. It's the difference between looking at the finger that points, versus seeing the heavenly constellation it tries to point out.

Obviously individuals who really grok this tend not to herd together in large congregations with bylaws and conventions and someone to take the meeting minutes. For the most part, that is for the insecure who need to be surrounded by the like-minded to feel validated. Thus anyone who seriously questions or objects is a sort of threat. I for one say fuck that.

The right thing to do is the right thing to do, even if that might give "our team"* something to think about.


* No, I don't think that way because it's mindless, but nonetheless it's all too common.