DefinitelyNotARobot

If you had to put into a percentage, how much of "this" life you think you have experienced, what would that number look like? If you're honest with yourself, it's not going to be that big. In fact, it's going to be infinitely small, because you don't know ANYTHING about "this" life. You haven't even felt 0.0001% of what there is to feel. Have you felt what it's like to watch your whole family get killed? Have you felt what it's like to get raped? Have you felt what it's like to get shot, stabbed, burned? Have you felt what it's like to fulfill all of your dreams and loose it all in a night? Have you felt what it's like being a literal slave, working hard hours in the sun, while your master is relaxing on his porch, drinking a cool lemonade juice? You're talking about the final boss of the game, when you haven't even played through the intro yet.

Also, fuck the Oblivion horse armor, I think the Creation Club is a much worse crime against humanity. It's basically the horse armor DLC on crack.

@Leo Gura Definitely. If you compare the amount of weapon types and armor in Morrowind to what you've got in Skyrim it's a stark contrast. Nothing that can be fixed with mods, but the problem is that this process of simplification doesn't limit itself to the amount of content, but also to the foundation of the game. It's relatively easy to mod in new content, but not so much with entirely new mechanics, as this will cause compatibility problems with the base game and other mods. The issue now is that they've become aware of how big the modding community has become, and part of their strategy seems to rely on modders to fix their game. Every Bethesda game I've ever played had a "community patch" mod which does a lot of bug fixing for the game. How come nobody at Bethesda ever looks at these mods and goes: "Maybe we should fix these bugs in the base game?". They don't seem to care one bit. I don't see how such people will care enough to try and experiment with new game play mechanics altogether. So my prognosis is that we will get the same game with a different skin. Perhaps I'm wrong, I'm going to judge the product off of the product itself.

And this can become an issue with how people are using words, you are right, but it can also reflect an issue with a preexisting definition, which is my point. There was once a controversy with a YouTuber that was caught watching deep-fake porn of friends. People were genuinely calling him a rapist. That is obviously a problematic use of the word. However, if someone were to step in and propose a new word that captures the "involuntary" aspect of rape and the "boundary crossing", while not being as morally loaded as the actual word, I think it would be fair. In a sense, deep-fake porn has certain qualities that are similar to rape, but to actually use the word "rape" here feels like it's misconstruing the actual severity of the case, and as such is a rather misguided use of the word. Something can have similarities to rape without necessarily being rape. This one issue is actually reflective of both what you are saying (people are misusing, abusing and weaponizing the word), while simultaneously being reflective of a potential limitation of our definitions. That's what I was saying earlier when I said that multiple definitions can hold varying degrees of truthfulness simultaneously. At a certain point we have to sit down and draw lines between these varying definitions and perhaps come up with new words. Definitions aren't commandments set in stone. They need to be honed and attuned to the challenges our environment provides. This can't happen if you simply deny/ignore another person's definition, which is precisely what is happening between the opposing sites of this conflict. "THE" Jews don't exist. Israel is a Zionist state, prior to being a Jewish state. Different Jewish people will have a different relationships to Israel. There are different doctrines and individual perspectives that make it much more difficult than Israel being the "State of the Jews". Painting this image actually drowns out the voices of all the Jewish people that don't identify with Israel. Again, you assume that they do it simply because they don't "like what is happening in Palestine". It's true, the word "genocide" can be used in such a way, and in a similar way the word "Jewish state" can be used in a propagandized way. My point is simply that these words can be used differently, by different people, in different contexts, which should be obvious. If someone that has never read the definition of a "genocide" calls what is happening in Palestine a genocide, it's going to be different from a scholar using this word. The problem there is that you can't divide everyone up into two categories. There aren't those that use the word the "right" way and those that use it the "wrong" way. Your usage can be "inaccurate", without being outright "wrong". It can be "precise" without being completely "true". Discourse has to be had about the limitations of this word, which is precisely what is not happening since people are busy screaming "It's a genocide! NO it's NOT a genocide! NO NO it IS a genocide! NO IT'S NOT". It's unproductive.

Just wait until TES6 releases in 2096. You will be speechless by then (mostly because you'll probably be dead).

You don't know what gratitude means until you've lost it all. 😉

It would probably not be a singular number, but a range of numbers. I'm not sure if most people will ever get close to a 10, as most people would've probably killed themselves at that point, so it also kind of depends on how you define a 10, or rather on how far you want to stretch this scale, as you could take it infinitely far. Like how would you even compare watching your mom get raped vs being stuck in the worst trip you've experienced for an eternity? I think that it's something that can't be assessed outside of a retrospect. Sometimes bad things happen and they end up making you stronger. Sometimes seemingly good things happen and they end up creating some of the worst consequences and the most suffering for you. Imagine fulfilling all your dreams in life, but then everything goes wrong and you loose it all. You might answer this question differently based on the stage you are at during all of that. So whether a life of suffering is a well lived, depends on what YOU do/are capable of doing with that suffering. It could serve as a solid foundation for a beautiful life, but it also could represent the rottenness of your foundation, which keeps bringing everything you try to build back down.

That's the definition YOU accept. Someone could say that the "intentionality" part is limiting, because an "atrocity is an atrocity independent of whether it is intentional or not". Actions or policies may lead to devastating consequences for certain populations, regardless of explicit intent. That's one way to disagree with the official definition. I generally agree that this these talking points are being weaponized, however, dismissing all uses of "genocide" as purely manipulative might oversimplify the complexities of these view points. Is part of the reason some Israelis want to paint the image of "the Jewish state", because it allows them to call their opposition anti-Semitic? Sure. However, that isn't to dismiss the majority of Israelis, who will say this not in an attempt to manipulate anyone, but simply because they believe it to be true.

My bad, I didn't get the "orthodox" part.

That's fair. I think one of the problems is that there is no universal definition of what a "genocide" is. There are definitions in the dictionary, there are legislative definitions, but people are unable to find any common ground. So it's not simply about finding proof of a genocide, but also about understanding how people define this word and what points they can make to support their definition/what points could be made in the favor of other definitions. Different definitions will have different degrees of truthfulness, but generally speaking, it's possible for multiple definitions to hold some degree of truth simultaneously. So it doesn't necessarily have to be a genocide or NOT be a genocide, but it could fall into a spectrum in between. At that point we run into a similar problem as the word "rape", as "rape" can mean "Someone jumped out of a bush and hit a woman with a rock and assaulted her", but it can also mean "Some guy forced himself on his wife when she didn't feel comfortable with him doing so". These cases are obviously different in their degree of "bad", but we still apply the same word, which comes with its own faults.

@Vrubel Of course. The amount of children a couple will have depends on factors such as education, access to birth control, your socioeconomic status, religious beliefs and dogma. Is this true? I believe the Jewish population has increased only by like 5-6 million people since WW2, which is not that much considering that 11 million Jews survived. In fact, the global Jewish population has only recently hit a level similar to pre-WW2, which was around 16-17 million Jews. They are yet to fully recover their numbers. Contrast that with the Palestinian population which has grown almost 30 times its size in the same period.

For example: "Oh no, look! The population growth rate will start declining according to theglobalgraph, it must be that the Palestinians are being prevented from having children!" I can just use this singular statistic to try and draw whatever image I want to draw. By itself this is of little meaning, because it completely ignores how the future of this conflict might affect the future of the graph. If Palestine "won", maybe we would start to see this figure rising? This is obviously concerned with the future of the population growth, while the graph the op provided shows us the past total population, but my point isn't concerned with the content of this particular graph, it just serves as an example.

@Scholar My point is simply that one figure isn't significant enough to get a deeper insight into this issue. We don't know how this conflict has affected this number. We can speculate and say that if there was a "real" genocide, this number would be lower, but we could also speculate and say that this number would've been higher if it wasn't for the "existence" of this genocide. It's all speculation and that's what I'm pointing towards. The OP could've provided a broader range of stats and figures and connected them into a broader point, but this one stat holds no weight on it's own.

So? Who is to say that they wouldn't have been at 3.5 million people by now if it wasn't for the situation between Israel and Palestine?

That makes sense. To me this idea sounds dystopian, as I can see a future where the majority of people might only have AI as a friend because it basically serves as the perfect "yes-man". But when I think about it it's probably an unavoidable part of AI and as such, instead of worrying about it, we should take measurements to make sure that the AI is equipped to handle such a relationship without hurting the person in the long run. In one reality it's going to enable peoples social anxiety by allowing them to vanish into their safe space, in another reality it will actually be able to help people make friends. I hope that that's the sort of reality we're moving towards.

It's so funny because we are "not perceiving the now"... right now. In a sense you could say that us "not perceiving the now" is as close as you can be to the now. We can't see it precisely because we ARE it! IT is too intimate. To try and experience it is to cut it apart into an "experiencer", "experiencing" the "experienced" through an "experience". You loose yourself in the different facets of experience and loose sight of the broader structure which the very act of "experiencing" is pointing towards (or rather pointing from).

You could ask the same about the human body. Why have humans evolved to look similar in certain ways, while looking completely different in others? See that it's not just a "social" phenomena, but something extends to how your very body is built? Your body is a mirror of other bodies, but it doesn't mirror every aspect of these bodies. It's not necessary for a baby to mirror everything in order to survive, in fact it would be counter-productive because it removes the element of change. Have to much change though and you get rid of the element of consistency. You could simply not exist as a limited form without consistency. Imagine a universe where every single atom is different from any other atom, absolutely no consistency between any two atoms. You could not have the kind of universe we're in right now. Didn't say otherwise. A mirror spontaneously mirrors the room, because that's how it's built. Again, a mirror doesn't think about "masking itself as the room". It just reflects the room, because they're inherently connected to each other. What I am talking about is a similar phenomena. You are inherently connected to other people and the act of "mirroring" them is a completely spontaneous phenomena that arises out of our shared nature. Precisely!

BTW what I'm talking about isn't necessarily coming from a desire to fit in, it can come from other factors like fear, love etc. If someone fears the police they might try to suppress their accent in the presence of a cop for example.

@Princess Arabia I'm not talking about trying to fit in in a social way, but more in a neurological way. Babies learn how to talk and walk by mirroring the people around them, and similarly you mirror the people "around you" (I'm not talking about them being physically around you, I'm also including someone in a video, because your deeper subconscious doesn't fully recognize the difference of a "real" person and someone talking to you through a video), but the baby obviously doesn't think of it as "trying to fit in". It's just that our brains are inherently social and are designed to fit in naturally. That's why it's so difficult to maintain a level of independent thinking. We "steal" how we think and talk from others and thus we have to move beyond how we think and talk if we want to know ourselves. You obviously won't start talking in a Chinese accent when being around a Chinese person, I'm not saying that you're necessarily trying to fit in to such a degree, neither am I saying that you are "thinking" about fitting in in that moment. What I am saying is that your body is subconsciously exaggerating a preexisting trait (your accent) in order to be more similar to the people you're engaging with (no matter if they're actually there or not).

It has to do with energies and tension in the body I think. I once did a yoga retreat in an ashram and after like 3 days I noticed my voice start to change from all the relaxation that I was experiencing. I was way deeper than usual, because I was talking from the belly rather than the chest. You can notice your voice change slightly during the day, based on the situation you're in. It makes sense to imagine that something similar is true for the broader situation in your life. Same with my Russian accent. Most people don't recognize which accent I have, or that I even have one (genuinely the only two groups of people that ever do recognize it are women with a Russian fetish and people that hate Russians), but when I'm around Russians it starts to come out stronger. I think humans just prefer to talk the way the people around them talk. It's coming from a place of wanting to fit in with those around you. At least that's what I think it is for me.

I didn't get that sense from this bit in particular. The only way "I" can fall away, is if "I" was something to begin with. Reality is a whole bunch of nothing. It never settles with any particular form, the "I" that fell away was one of these nothing burgers. However, the true "I" can't be reduced to nothing, as it is already that. It is already nothing and will remain true even if nothing is all there is. Chances are that your prior definition of "I" simply broke away, but don't stop there.

It IS everything living and moving through you. What do you think was typing the words? It was EVERYTHING, restricting itself into SOMETHING. When you type "I am God", it is God pretending to be a human typing "I am God". These are Gods words, even if they are not the purest representation of the truth behind "I am God". They are the truth filtered through infinite layers of conditionings over conditionings, karma over karma. So both perspectives are correct. "I am God" isn't always the perfect representation of the truth, sometimes things are the clearest when they're left unsaid, but the words technically still remain true.

The problem is that you're not trying to "face your fear", but instead are trying to "get rid of it". You are already thinking about it from within your fearful mindset. You buy into the fear and you want it to be gone, but the only reason you want it to be gone is because you believe in it to begin with. If you believed that it was just random nonsense, you wouldn't assign much meaning to it. But to you, it's not just "random nonsense". You believe it to be a fundamental aspect of your reality and you want to get rid of it in order to fundamentally change your reality. It wouldn't change anything. You would just find another thing to be fearful of. The only way is to face the fear. Face your emotions. Face your thoughts. Face yourself! You are the source of this fear. You are the thing that has to be investigated here. Why do you NOT trust in God? You think God is some kind of malevolent force that will punish with eternal suffering for... what crime exactly? What "evil" thing is it that you want, which would prompt the "wisest", "most intelligent", "most loving" and "most forgiving" force in existence to think that you are so evil that you deserve to burn for all of eternity? What could a tiny, little human do, to upset God to such a degree? You fear stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of God. Hell is very much real, but it's not what you think it is and you are not just going to go there because you somehow made the literal creator of EVERYTHING upset. To think that a human has so much power over God, to a point where they can make God genuinely want to punish them (as if God was following human logic which is to punish criminals), is human centric bs. We think that we are so important in the grand scheme.

"OH MY I AM GOD This is it!!" You are welcome. 😉

@Princess Arabia There is truth to that. It depends on what angle you are looking at it from. From a romantic sense... Yeah. I guess it's the reverse of "Don't ask a fish to teach you how to fish.", which guys will bring up from time to time. From that perspective, women have a capacity to understand men in ways, that men aren't capable of (unless they're gay idk). I personally think the whole idea of "not asking fish to teach you how to fish" is flawed, as humans aren't fish and dating isn't about killing and eating the opposition. I don't think it's about "men not understanding men" or "women not understanding women" or "men not understanding women" etc etc etc. I think it's about the fact that people simply do not understand people very well. This goes for both men and women. Men don't understand men and they don't understand women. Same goes for women. There wouldn't be all these debates about what it means to be a "real man" or "a feminine woman", if people understood themselves. Not a lot of people are interested in that.