^_^
Ok, so let me try remembering one more time what was discussed at yesterday's meeting. I may have the order and such mixed up, but that doesn't seem so important. If you think of anything else please add it. I want this to be a sort of journal of the topics we've discussed. Ok! Here I go...
Things started off with me bringing up the poll I mentioned previously in my journal about how the rest of the world views the US. In the poll there was a part where they mentioned that many Americans believe America is the best place in the world to live. From this we asked who agreed. Gareth mentioned he wanted to live in Australia, at which point we went off into a discussion about box jellyfish (AHHHHHHHH!!!) and whether it is possible to live from one of their stings. I think we finally decided that Adam and I were arguing two different types of box jellyfish (?) but either way those things are creepy as heck. Imagine an invisible creature that lives in the water and can kill you. Not cool. Chris said he would live just about anywhere outside of the US. (poor unloved US) Angela and Adam seemed perfectly content staying in the good ol' U.S. of A. I said I wanted to live in Europe because it has a different feel from America, with the different cultures and such. I think we decided to each his/her own on this one.
From there we went into why other countries dislike America so. This sparked a conversation about how we have changed as a nation from when we bombed Japan, to Vietnam and now Iraq. We debated whether or not we have lost our humanity as far as war was concerned, and sort of decided that wasn't the key issue here. Chris brought up the change that the media has gone through from war to war. Originally we just had the government telling us what was going on, so it was, "Yay we are winning! Keep at it oh mighty leader!" Now we see dying children, actual bodies and destroyed towns and the over all public opinion of war in general has decreased. We also went on to point out that originally America did not want to get involved in the affairs of other countries the way England did. We eventually had no choice but to get involved when we saw what was going with Germany. The United States then destroys Germany and Japan and sees, hey. Now they are better off for our involvement. We need to make it our duty as human beings to go and save other people.
So from there Adam brought up the following comic from Penny Arcade: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/03/23 We discussed Jack Thompson. Apparently he is this lawyer from florida who tries to sue video companies for violent/sexual video games. (Like GTA) I guess for the new GTA game the company tried to preemptively sue Mr. Thompson so that he couldn't sue them during the release of the video game and delay the release date. They lost of course, but he then counter sued them. Anywho, with this topic we went into discussing whether a rated M video game is worse than a rated R movie. In the end we decided that yes it is, because of the involvement factor. Where as movies just involve sight and sound, video games involve sight, sound, feel and responsive behavior.
There was a discussion about parents and how some people don't mind letting their kids watch violence or sex because they figure they'll find out about it eventually anyway so what does it matter. Like parents who take their kids to see the Ded Bob show. *tsk tsk* This re-instigated last week's topic about whether we should genetically alter people to not be able to have kids until they take a pill. We said maybe people should have to prove themselves, like by a test or something, in order to get this pill that lets them procreate. Someone brought up the fact that if we did that people would have no fear of having children and everyone would just go around having sex with one another. Someone else countered by saying that STD's would then spread like wildfire, but we could stop that by saying if you have an STD you can't get the pill. It was a very interesting discussion. I was very against the idea of changing people genetically to not have kids. To me our ability to have children is part of what makes us humans, no more then that, it's what makes us living beings. What if all the factories that made these pills were destroyed? We'd really be S.O.L. then, wouldn't we? The alternative we said, was maybe at the age of 10 people would be given an injection that stopped them from having kids, or something like that. When they passed the test they could get the antidote. Like I said, interesting discussion.
We then some how got onto the topic of The Flash, and Chris brought up this hilariously funny rant. I am going to post it separate on another entry so it can be in the hypospeak journal for all times. ^_^ From there we started going off and talking about role playing stuff and the like. That was interesting too, in the way Adam, Angela and Chris were talking about different ways of viewing magic. Something about the world acting against you to do things that are not possible, so in order to cast magic you have to over come the anti-force of the universe? One of those people would be better off posting about that, but it was still rather interesting to listen to.
So I'm sure I'm missing some things, but as a "day after" post I don't think I did half bad. Yay patience! ;-p Like I said before, please please people. If you remember something else I forgot to include add it! I'll love you forever. <3 And pretty please with a cherry on top, help me with coming up with topics for debate night. This week I am going to be insanely busy, so help is much appreciated. Any who, so I love you all dearly, and I hope to hear from you! Look forward to the rant if you haven't already read it off Chris's journal.
~Meow =^.^=
Things started off with me bringing up the poll I mentioned previously in my journal about how the rest of the world views the US. In the poll there was a part where they mentioned that many Americans believe America is the best place in the world to live. From this we asked who agreed. Gareth mentioned he wanted to live in Australia, at which point we went off into a discussion about box jellyfish (AHHHHHHHH!!!) and whether it is possible to live from one of their stings. I think we finally decided that Adam and I were arguing two different types of box jellyfish (?) but either way those things are creepy as heck. Imagine an invisible creature that lives in the water and can kill you. Not cool. Chris said he would live just about anywhere outside of the US. (poor unloved US) Angela and Adam seemed perfectly content staying in the good ol' U.S. of A. I said I wanted to live in Europe because it has a different feel from America, with the different cultures and such. I think we decided to each his/her own on this one.
From there we went into why other countries dislike America so. This sparked a conversation about how we have changed as a nation from when we bombed Japan, to Vietnam and now Iraq. We debated whether or not we have lost our humanity as far as war was concerned, and sort of decided that wasn't the key issue here. Chris brought up the change that the media has gone through from war to war. Originally we just had the government telling us what was going on, so it was, "Yay we are winning! Keep at it oh mighty leader!" Now we see dying children, actual bodies and destroyed towns and the over all public opinion of war in general has decreased. We also went on to point out that originally America did not want to get involved in the affairs of other countries the way England did. We eventually had no choice but to get involved when we saw what was going with Germany. The United States then destroys Germany and Japan and sees, hey. Now they are better off for our involvement. We need to make it our duty as human beings to go and save other people.
So from there Adam brought up the following comic from Penny Arcade: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/03/23 We discussed Jack Thompson. Apparently he is this lawyer from florida who tries to sue video companies for violent/sexual video games. (Like GTA) I guess for the new GTA game the company tried to preemptively sue Mr. Thompson so that he couldn't sue them during the release of the video game and delay the release date. They lost of course, but he then counter sued them. Anywho, with this topic we went into discussing whether a rated M video game is worse than a rated R movie. In the end we decided that yes it is, because of the involvement factor. Where as movies just involve sight and sound, video games involve sight, sound, feel and responsive behavior.
There was a discussion about parents and how some people don't mind letting their kids watch violence or sex because they figure they'll find out about it eventually anyway so what does it matter. Like parents who take their kids to see the Ded Bob show. *tsk tsk* This re-instigated last week's topic about whether we should genetically alter people to not be able to have kids until they take a pill. We said maybe people should have to prove themselves, like by a test or something, in order to get this pill that lets them procreate. Someone brought up the fact that if we did that people would have no fear of having children and everyone would just go around having sex with one another. Someone else countered by saying that STD's would then spread like wildfire, but we could stop that by saying if you have an STD you can't get the pill. It was a very interesting discussion. I was very against the idea of changing people genetically to not have kids. To me our ability to have children is part of what makes us humans, no more then that, it's what makes us living beings. What if all the factories that made these pills were destroyed? We'd really be S.O.L. then, wouldn't we? The alternative we said, was maybe at the age of 10 people would be given an injection that stopped them from having kids, or something like that. When they passed the test they could get the antidote. Like I said, interesting discussion.
We then some how got onto the topic of The Flash, and Chris brought up this hilariously funny rant. I am going to post it separate on another entry so it can be in the hypospeak journal for all times. ^_^ From there we started going off and talking about role playing stuff and the like. That was interesting too, in the way Adam, Angela and Chris were talking about different ways of viewing magic. Something about the world acting against you to do things that are not possible, so in order to cast magic you have to over come the anti-force of the universe? One of those people would be better off posting about that, but it was still rather interesting to listen to.
So I'm sure I'm missing some things, but as a "day after" post I don't think I did half bad. Yay patience! ;-p Like I said before, please please people. If you remember something else I forgot to include add it! I'll love you forever. <3 And pretty please with a cherry on top, help me with coming up with topics for debate night. This week I am going to be insanely busy, so help is much appreciated. Any who, so I love you all dearly, and I hope to hear from you! Look forward to the rant if you haven't already read it off Chris's journal.
~Meow =^.^=