Awesome! I kinda wondered what the next logical step for video games would be. I thought it would actually be something renewed: games stored in solid state memory similar Nintendo cartridges, except being able to hold terabytes of game data.

You misunderstand me again! Either you're trying to get me riled up or there is a language issue here. No one said women are taking over the world, this thread is about how the law and society treats women as perpetual victims, and men as perpetual aggressors. My argument is, that is never going to end. This is a simple guide on how to protect yourself from an abusive woman. I love women too, but feminists are another breed entirely. How could a man respect a woman who hates men?

Last edited by flymike91, Tue 2 Aug 2011, 07:36.

I have optimism for a lot of change in the world, but this is one issue that is never going to turn around. Feminism has made it acceptable for men to be completely emasculated and belittled.

Look at sitcom TV shows: A dumb, fat, blue-collar guy with a petite, logical wife (throw in 'makes more money' for sitcom gold) and his three kids who are all good little geniuses who despise every utterance of their father and obviously learned to deal with the retard in the house from their mother. + laugh track = the commercialized demise of man.

^ignore (as always)

Are you having a party before you leave for boot camp?

You know what they say, if it's that ugly it better be damn quick.

What was I saying about his being the wrong place to expect support?

Last edited by flymike91, Sat 30 Jul 2011, 05:54.

practice test, as in to study for the test beforehand.
http://www.military.com/ASVAB
The test is not designed to pass or fail, a higher score means opportunities for higher paying jobs in the military, while a barely passing score would limit you to menial labor or bullet sponge.

Last edited by flymike91, Fri 29 Jul 2011, 20:51.

any proof of that?

You're forgetting something.
All military recruits are required to take the ASVAB test (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery). When I was enlisting in the Marines I scored a 97/100, my sister scored a 98
You can take a practice test online, I bet that everyone here would score above 90.

Quote :

The ASVAB currently contains 9 sections:
Word Knowledge (WK)
Arithmetic Reasoning (AR)
Mechanical Comprehension (MC)
Automotive and Shop Information (AS)
Electronics Information (EI)
Mathematics Knowledge (MK)
General Science (GS)
Paragraph Comprehension (PC)
Assembling Objects (AO)

Quote from Electrik Kar :

There's a difference between integration and being invisible. Multiculturalism is what it says on the tin... multiple cultures. How much that ends up being just a homogenised soup or how much of the differences are retained between cultures I think is a very local thing, dependent on numerous factors.

You have a good point, that is something I've been finding hard to reconcile. Really that argument for integration comes more from trying to keep a moderate stance on this forum rather than my personal views. Hang me if you like, but in practice I would probably put a stop to most immigration to the US, legal or otherwise. We do not have any responsibility to allow more immigrants that cannot match the highest levels of contribution of a natural citizen. For instance the US is in need of engineers, so we allow certified engineers to come and help us make more advances in science and medicine. The first problem I see is that recent immigrants are different from those before in that many more hold casual to extreme anti-American sentiments, especially immigrants and refugees from Mexico and the Middle East. Obviously not all hold these ideas, but a percentage do, and they can cause great harm. Would you allow someone to live in your home who you know hated you? Just today another Muslim American army member was caught preparing for a bomb and shooting attack against fellow soldiers at Ft. Hood, where Major Nadal Hassan killed 13 soldiers and wounded 30 others two years ago. That is what happens when Western culture and Muslim culture 'bump against each other', again not every day but enough for me. Immigrants should try as hard as possible to not make any ripples, as you say it, be invisible. The people who are letting them into the community should not have to make unwanted concessions to the people they allow to live amongst them. They shouldn't have to pass laws banning Hijabs, the height of minarets, the volume of loudspeakers issuing the Islamic call to prayer, etc because the immigrants coming in should know that the community doesn't want those things and be sensitive to them.
The second argument is more pragmatic. Any population growth in the US is unsustainable. We literally cannot afford to have any more people come in and draw on social welfare programs, or get any money from the government, including public education. Our government is broke and getting more broken every day because the number of people who take from the gov. is surpassing the number of people who contribute to the GDP. Also runaway spending in both parties but that's for another thread.

JJ
For the most part you missed my point. You're talking about multiculturalism on a global scale, I'm talking about specific countries and communities within those countries.

Quote :

The logical end to my argument is a culture that accepts there are different subcultures co-existing because of how history is developed, even though their moral might not fit your own.

The co-existing is not going so well, is it? Any strife caused by immigration and multiculturalism cannot be said to be the fault of the people who were there first, because they don't have a responsibility to let anyone from other countries live in their communities. That means the immigrant group has to adjust their morals to the existing community or not immigrate.

Quote :

Mainland Chinese are given rights to live in Hong Kong, just that there are so many chinese people we have a selection procedure, namely we accept the elite first and the thers second.

There are funding and social service provided to immigrants and if we can't accept them all, it is just because we are a very small place with already a lot of people, something your country doesn't have to worry about.

That's just not true! America can no more accept hundreds of thousands of penniless immigrants than Hong Kong can. You know very well how broke we are. Our system for immigration should be more like yours: based on college-level aptitude tests or net worth, proving a skill or investment they can bring to the country. Illegal immigration should be stopped entirely and by force if necessary.

Quote :

That's is because your kind see their culture as inferior and can't actually learn from them when you can't see yourself on level terms. There is much the west can learn from the Chinese/Indian/Muslim world view. And so far the west is still far too self consumed to consider that an actual alternative.

the flaw in your ideology and system exposed and your country is living off debts to us.....maybe after your ego is shattered you will start to learn what the rest of the world has to offer.

Yes, countries that have many human rights abuses are not equal to countries that allow relatively few. I don't consider the Western first world with its system of law and order on level terms with countries like Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Sudan, Mexico, Columbia the list goes on. Do you consider the society of Hong Kong to be equal to these? And as I already said, the immigrants from those countries have already chosen their alternative: they didn't consider their societies to be equal either. What policies can we adopt from these countries to better Western society? Sudan encourages slavery of non-Muslims, and it is from these kinds of countries that the US, UK, France and especially Scandinavia accept many immigrants and refugees. What the rest of the developing world has to offer is a lower standard of living and a political and cultural environment that created it , that's why they come to the West and not the other way around.

Last edited by flymike91, Fri 29 Jul 2011, 16:51.

no no no you have it backwards. What have the Muslim immigrants contributed to the existing residents of Dearborn that they can ascribe value to and didn't have before? The existing townsfolk already gave them something of great value, a place in their society and a chance to live in the culture they have established, and are comfortable with. Taking over that society and replacing it with their own is not what I consider equal terms, nor should it be considered true multiculturalism.

It worries me that so many have decided to live in one place for reasons I've already stated, but also because it triggered a white flight. Americans should never feel like they're dominated by a foreign minority group in their own towns, because that's disrespectful to the people who are allowing them in their communities at all. It wasn't right when colonists did it to the Native Americans and it's not right today.

I don't know any more about Dearborn than what I've read, but it seems to me like it would be difficult for a white person to get a job in the service or food industry when more and more businesses are owned by and cater to predominantly Muslims, making it more difficult for non-immigrants to make a living. Obviously the previous residents of the town, who were descendants of Italian and Polish immigrants, hired Muslims and made it possible for those new residents to form businesses, but because Muslims seem to provide for only their own I can't see them being so welcome towards, say, Mormons if it so happened that they started moving into town by the thousands. If I'm way off base and it actually is common for a young white guy to get a job at a falafel shop, please correct me. Otherwise I don't see moving into a town, displacing the white population and creating a microcosm of the Middle East in Michigan an example of integration.

I read in Newsweek that some Americanized Muslims in Dearborn feel that the arrival of more conservative Yemeni and Palestinian immigrants has started to divert their goal of creating an Islamic community that was at once truly Islamic and American. From how you describe it, it seems like the Americanized Muslims actively try to Americanize newcomers so maybe that is a temporary and reversible trend. Also if dearborn really is as american as you describe it, where radical and anti-Semitic views are discouraged, then I guess I can't have a huge problem with it. Having never been there, I'm just making some assumptions from my personal opinions and I'm relying on you with first hand experience to tell me if there is any truth in my perceptions.

Last edited by flymike91, Fri 29 Jul 2011, 07:29.

That was vague, I meant rise to the challenge of integrating with the citizens of a host country. And it is a challenge, no doubt about that.

omg they bombed dearborn!?

seriously, I choose my words carefully and I meant it when I said I am not my government any more than you are. And you know I meant within our borders so don't split hairs with me.

Quote :

by making anything he/she says sound aggressive and condescending.

It doesn't take a political agenda to make you sound condescending.

come on you're being extreme. The best way to avoid disease would be for potential parents to get affordable genetic testing to know what the risks are. Thats probably the best solution you could realistically expect, because few people, no matter what their convictions, would voluntarily create a child if they knew the chances would be high for genetic disease. Plus, no euthanasia required.

Quote from JJ72 :

There were a time when the white people live in the mid levels on HK Island, and chinese people can only leave in the slums of Kowloon, which is exactly the geographical segmentation and that you suggest is the trend. At that time chinese people cannot enter bars, higher class restaurants and it was an era of racial divide.
However because culture interacts and evolves, that segmentation today has almost been totally broken down, and it is a prove that minority groups not venturing outside their own territory is just a temporal state, the stigma that we had for each other is something that can be toned down overtime.

Of course it toned down, the British left Hong Kong to the point where their descendants only make up a fraction of a percent of the population.
As for the mixing of cultures from different parts of China, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between those cultures as they would seem very similar to me, just like you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference right away between a person from San Francisco and a person from Los Angeles. Putting together many people from both of those cities would probably not cause considerable strife or segmentation. Do you see where I'm going?

The logical end to your argument for multiculturalism is that peace and equality will only exist when cultures have completely mixed to produce a global homogeneous culture and appearance, something I would be VERY against as I foresee society falling to the level of the lowest common denominator, not as other cultures rising to the standards set by the most advanced societies. Why? Because it is easier to fall than to rise.
Again, the way people decide to live in their own countries is none of my business (I am not my government), but when they immigrate to the West they must be expected to rise. If the West wasn't considered a better place, they wouldn't immigrate here.

I think it's odd and maybe you can explain a discrepancy I see in your argument: You mention that ethnic Chinese were dominated by the British in Hong Kong and forced to live in slums. Now the tables have turned and mainland Chinese are not given the right to live in Hong Kong with you, another Chinese person, and are forced to live in arguably the 'worse' area. The segmentation I see is actually much more severe than anything in America. I would liken it to people from the South not being allowed into New York because they're considered lower. Making yourselves separate from your own natural countrymen is something even I don't understand.

Quote :

Culture find each other and culture clash.....we use to raise war about it but after that we seek understanding.

I see that understanding as mostly one-sided: Western society accepting and accommodating to minority cultures and not getting much out of it except more hatred and isolation from the very groups that are supposed to be "celebrating our differences" with us, but instead are building little countries of their own within the US, UK, France, etc. They want all the good things associated with living in a first world country without having to put up with the things they don't like about it, like the people who already live there.

Last edited by flymike91, Thu 28 Jul 2011, 21:11.

Anyone surprised that it didn't go off the right side of the scale?

looks like the country roads in the UK are a lot like in Texas, flat and pretty straight. I really miss tearing up mountain roads.

Quote from AndRand :

I dont think Texans would approve that

this and everything else, well said.

These developers need to realize that even if they perfectly simulate the car by the numbers (car will spin out at X speed at X angle with X input, on and on) It will never feel real without visible and realistic weight transfer and tire models. For instance it is entirely possible to flip a road car on dry flat pavement due to weight transfer and tire grip, but you would never know it playing FM3 or GT5.

This is probably one of the worst places to make this announcement BTW.

whenever I see people playing BF2 (PC) at the internet arcade, it's just them wandering around a desert map with a sniper rifle, occasionally blowing people's heads off from miles away. The matches I played on the console were pretty similar, but not as boring, with closer battles and even some cqb action. Nevertheless I'm very excited for this game, as should you no matter what you play it on.

Quote from RiseAgainstMe! :

http://reason.com/assets/db/07 ... d06350cf1ddb5942ef5ad.jpg

huh. so how's that different than what it is now?

The difference is that few people actually go through that process, and thus have not proven themselves as I said before. If US citizenship or the right to work in the US is not worth waiting for, then it must have not been worth that much to them anyway.

uh this is a weird post order but you're right RA in your post below, I'll try to keep things straight. I don't know about Hong Kong, but US immigration in the 21st century is not exactly defined by legal immigrants, as you well know.

Last edited by flymike91, Wed 27 Jul 2011, 21:14.

@JJ
I have Choctaw indian blood in me. My ancestors immigrated over the Bering strait during the last ice age, how far back do you want to go? You're right that events over 100 years ago should have little bearing on life today. White people are the current majority group of North America and Europe for as long as anyone or their great grandfathers have been alive. Groups before us like the Native Americans failed to protect their culture and their sovereign land with disastrous results. If they had been able to, they would have killed every last European to defend themselves from what was to come, and in my eyes that would have been justified. We have a chance now to succeed where they failed, using laws instead of arrows.

I know that Hong Kong is a free capitalist zone within China, created because of a long-lasting treaty with the British Empire which ended in 1997. The people there live considerably better than in the mainland, which is why immigration from the mainland is strictly limited. I would argue that I know a lot more about immigration than you, seeing how Hong Kong is 95% ethnic Chinese. It is nothing like London or New York where there are entire districts where almost no non-immigrants live.

In fact, I think Hong Kong has a very sensible immigration system.

Quote :

Capital investment
Under this category, investors from outside must have net assets of no less than HK$10 million (US$1,300,000) to which he/she is entitled throughout the 2 years before submitting his or her application.

Skilled immigrants
This is a quota-based program that seeks to attract highly-skilled persons to settle in Hong Kong. An applicant does not need to obtain a job offer in advance before entering into Hong Kong on a "skilled immigrants" transfer. Two sets of points system are used to evaluate applicants. These are the Achievement Based Points Test and the General Points Test.

Family class
Permanent residents can sponsor family members to immigrate to Hong Kong. The family member sponsored by the Permanent Resident must be either "their spouse, or an unmarried dependent child under the age of 18, or a parent aged 60 years or above".

If the US or England was so stringent with immigrants, there would be no problems associated with multiculturalism as every immigrant would need to prove that they want to belong in the host country, either with money, skills, or family ties.

Quote from JJ72 :

But really how often do you hear minorities performing their cultural practice of such extreme (which might not be entirely accept in their own modernized version of the culture) after they have migrated to a new country?

Not every day, but when it does happen, it chips away a little more at the trust and acceptance people have for those cultures. Cases of genital mutilation and honor killings in the US make headlines, as do events like the Ft. Hood shooting, underwear bomber etc. It doesn't take the entire immigrant population to undermine the trust of the majority, a few horrible events can make people not want to accept any more.

Quote :

Your theory entirely rejects the idea of culture as a changing entity and that is the biggest flaw.

Those especially egregious acts are for the most part eradicated, you're right. But hatred towards the West is ingrained and especially tenacious.

Quote :

I think it is very ironic that The forefather of USA was indeed immigrants, they came, they kill everything, claim it is their land and now accuse the later comers for much lesser annoyances?

One of the first things those immigrants did was pass several laws to limit future immigration. California tried to pass laws restricting interstate immigration during the Dust Bowl. And believe me, if the Native Americans had known that Europeans would take over the entire continent, they would have slaughtered them when they had the chance. Native Americans were not as peaceful as they are portrayed today, often going into mortal combat between tribes more than once a month over stolen horses, stolen wives, and messages interpreted from nature and psychedelic drugs, taking back scalps each time, but thats another story. The point is that the US has not been as welcoming of immigrants as you want us to be.

Quote :

When you hold such high regard about the law of USA, I will remind you it is just a very glorified system of bullying common people into submission not by the use of force, but by economical and political domination by a selected few.

Are you really from China?

While diversity may be growing, the idea that someday all cultures will live together in peace, equality and harmony is demonstrably untrue. It is more likely (and is the current trend) that cultures will separate themselves and live in places where their minority culture becomes the majority in a certain town or district of a city, purposefully living apart from western culture. If they want to live in areas where they are more isolated from white people, they should live in their own countries instead of expecting us to accommodate them both culturally and economically.

DWB cannot accept that complete and total cultural relativism as an ideology is flawed. Some cultures systematically practice things like martyrdom, underage forced marriage, rape, genital mutilation, honor killings, cruelty to animals, women and children, yet he will argue that all of these practices are equal to Western society which practices rule of law and has the most complete and humane justice system yet devised that allows none of those incompatible practices for example in the West, a child's hands will not be severed for theft, whereas this is considered normal in parts of the world. That is just one example.

All people are created equal in Western society's rule of law, yet minority groups are now considered extra equal and get special protections from the law and legislation that non-immigrants don't get. Look at London, which gives everything and then some to immigrants for free, yet is known for high levels of Islamic extremism. No matter how much you want to live peacefully and equally with diverse cultures, they must want it more than you. The fact that many immigrants refuse to even learn the language of the land proves that they have no desire to integrate with the people of their host country.

DWB made a point that people must respect the law of the country they live in, yet turns a blind eye to 12,000,000+ people in America for whom their first act upon entering the country is to break its laws. That shows a lack of respect in my eyes.

Psych, I'm back in