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People take actors and Hollywood elites and place them on a pedestal and in turn they feel as if their opinions matter more then the average person. Of course when people use common sense and stand up to the wishes of the elite, shock is the resulting emotion.
What I find truly sad is how these over-paid, out of touch prima donnas feel the best solution (like usual) to a problem is more government intervention and control.
Damn that sucks... LOOOOL, if I describe it i'll ruin it, I'll see if I find it on youtube.Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiespruce
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vzpm6hKe4c
Shitty quality, but it works :)
Great, megaupload.com's been taken offline, all due to "copyright infringement". I use the site all the time to get apps and all sorts of homebrew. :(
Hey Sheath!Quote:
Originally Posted by sheath
I'm a little late to jump in, but you do qualify your Federal Government as an incompetent? (Wellll, Steven Harper isn't the best as well, no offense. XD) :P
Well, y'know me a bit; remember when I said to you that Texas is a State that makes me curious for some reason!
Had no idea about the opinion Texans had about their government. XD
Oh well. ^^"
Screw SOPA, I should say! :mad:
Yup, this definitely suck!Quote:
Originally Posted by The Jackal
Well, just hope they down take down 4Shared and Mediafireee ! :o
Oh, don't count me as an exemplary Texan by any stretch. There must be a reason growing up here has made me figure politics never amount to anything good or beneficial. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by GameX
So you're sayin' I shouldn't trust you when it comes to your politics opinions, if I'm right? :PQuote:
Originally Posted by sheath
Well, in Quebec, I dislike politics, Steven Harper actually. XD
Guess we shouldn't start a discussion on politics or Texas here anyways. ;P
Allright, let me shoot one last question for now:
What you like the most and the least about Texas (Perhaps replying in a PM would be better, if you have the time to do it) ? XD
If a friend would have moved to Quebec/Paris/Sydney/Whatever, I'm sure Quebec/Paris/Sydney would have caught your interest. ;)
I agree, Stephen Harper hasn't done anything to help Canada. Also, Harper hates Newfoundland, and does his best to make it a living hell for us.Quote:
Originally Posted by GameX
What do I like most about Texas? Well that would have nothing to do with politics. I was able to run around unsupervised for most of my childhood in my neighborhood in San Antonio. This has caused me to prefer vacations in secluded areas without technology of any kind. Not that I know what a vacation is. I learned martial arts in San Antonio and a few smaller towns I have lived in here as well, and learned that all schools are mixed martial arts in the process. That is actually a really bright spot.Quote:
Originally Posted by GameX
I should also say that this is one of the few places in this country where being a christian isn't going to automatically exclude you from most social things. But, and this is a big but, most of the "christians" here can be even bigger idiots than those who aren't. Also, I should say that in public school in San Antonio I didn't know anybody who thought one whit of anything beyond their own prestige and popularity.
The universities here are just as stuck up and self involved as anywhere else, but have almost no reason to be that way. The public schooling here is beyond pathetic in every possible respect. So, I haven't bothered to figure out if there is any merit at all to Texas politicians. ;)
I'm a lifelong Texan born and raised, as well. I'd like to take a second to express my viewpoint on what is certainly a controversial state, from the perspective of someone who has no plans to ever move out of the state. Unlike most other well-educated Texans online, I don't harbor hate towards my state, as I truly love it. I think it's a beautiful state with a ton of potential. I also think it's currently in a state of flux during, what has turned out to be, an unusually long generational transition.Quote:
Originally Posted by sheath
The baby boomer population is the greatest population expansion in recent history. At all other points in history, the majority of the population had to support a vast minority elderly population as they slowly, for lack of better terms, died off. The Baby Boomer population, due to advances in science, as well it's general size, didn't follow this trend, and a new generation of young americans is struggling to support an equal sized aging population, for a longer period of time than ever before. Under the normal model of generational change, the power of the older population in the political sphere waned as they died off. Again, this hasn't happened in today's America.
This is not a condemnation of the baby boomer generation - they were a product of their times. But they, as a whole (not necessarily on a case by case basis), are largely lost in the modern world. Thus you have an older population that is making decisions without really recognizing the modern day implications.
This is a problem with the entire country, currently. It's a very harsh view to take of our country, but it's my informed, and blunt view. If nothing else, the last 2 days should bring to quick attention the general knowledge gap that exists between those who have been in power for too long, and the so-called Internet Generation.
With that in mind, I think the effects of this generational change have, for a wide variety of economic, political, and social reasons, become greatly echoed in the state of Texas. Today, there is a pretty clear divide between the Internet Generation in Texas, and the baby boomer population. A typical 27 year old guy in Texas is likely to be the same sort of 27 year old guy anywhere else in the country. This isn't to be totally ignorant of a very real, minority population of real die hard biggots, but only to get the point across that the type, and size, of the biggot population in Texas amongst the Internet generation isn't really that different from any other state.
Where the real difference is in how ignorant it's baby boomer population is. To be sure, the vast majority of Texans are not bible thumping retards, but there is a disproportionally large number of them here, mainly amongst the baby boomer population.
There is a grim hope for the future of both this country and my state, and that is that, soon, very soon, the baby boomer population will vanish. It'll do so in a more rapid fashion than normally, as baby boomers reach the end of the maximum human life expectancy. This will, unfortunately, have incredible financial effects, but the upside is that it'll also bring along great, almost sudden social and political evolution. I think the effectiveness of the protest the last few days is a defining moment for our generation, and a real sign of just how quick, and sudden this change will be.
So that I don't end on a wholely negative point, I'll also say that I have great hopes for both my state and country in the future. As an adult, who is self sufficient, but still in his late 20's, I say that I have quickly come to understand somethings about how the world works, that have reshaped earlier, idyllic views I had when I was younger. But I've also become a bit more willing to take a stand and act to shape my country. I think this sort of revelation is beginning to happen amongst many youths. And I believe that a lot of the economic and social problems in this country can be overcome with a simple embrace of new ideals and a changing of the guard.
It was written by numerous investor types, one of which was the head of the SEC in the late 90s, that the US economy was bound to crash as the baby boomer generation moved their retirement funds from mutual funds to more retirement friendly bank accounts and whatnot. And so it has been.
That doesn't explain the absolute nonsense going on in every aspect of the local and federal government(s) though. Well, maybe it does since bureaucracy functions solely on power, and money is power.
Ooh, I'd like to answer this as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by GameX
What do I like most about Texas? Well, probably Texas culture. The entire state has a global identity, and, being from here, taking it all in as I have, I've come to take pride in our state culture. Too often people confuse the state stereotype of being full of bible thumpers as being synonymous with the culture here, but that's incorrect. Texas culture has a bunch of nuances, which, for the sake of brevity, I will refrain from dwelling on. But of these nuances, I'd have to say the biggest would be the ability to take in a beautiful, relatively safe, friendly atmosphere at leisure. This is a state with a lot to do. You can go to Austin, and take in a wondeful party atmosphere, where free music plays live every night, and then, a few hours later, take in an incredibly active fitness lifestyle. Texas is a state where you can take in sprawling deserts, mountains, plains, marshes, endless caves, forest, and the ocean, all within hours of one another. There's something to be said about being able to hop in your car, and drive for 4 or 5 hours without seeing a city or large town. I also have an affection for the accent here in Texas, I have to mention it. The Texas drawl is a wonderful accent, it combines a pretty speaking voice with an air of manliness at the same time.
What do I hate most about my state? What everyone hates most about my state - redneck dumbasses. Yeah they exist. Yes, they're a minority. Yes they're increasingly unpopular in Texas. But you still run into them. For the most part, I ignore them, but they're still here, and they're still annoying.
Bingo, but this actually ties back into the dynamics of media and public opinion. Money has always been power, mainly because those without money couldn't buy public opinion. It's hard to drum up support for an issue when TV and Radio don't cover it. I hope everyone noticed today how SOPA and PIPA's protest had basically zero TV support prior to 48 hours ago. This has been an extremely transparent example of agenda setting, and it's caught people's attention. I think the MPAA and RIAA did irreversible damage to their public identity this week.Quote:
Originally Posted by sheath
That's why the Internet, suddenly and dramatically, has become a game changer. Normally, drumming up opposition to a bill that had this much backing from lobbyists took months, even years to culminate. The last few days have been unprecedented. Without ignoring the year of outcry in the tech community which lead to the blackout, the general public went from unaware to mobilized in the span of 24 hours. Part of why all this is so stunning is how easily it seems the lobbyists were defeated.
I'm even suspicious of that victory though, and it is a victory and not to be ignored. I just saw megacorps like Google getting involved and then all of a sudden mega-websites across the web were joining in.
Google had a MASSIVE hand in the revolutions in Egypt and the Middle East last year, I know they have a political goal.
Google is mainly a tech company made up of educated individuals. Though they undoubtedly have a stake in the matter - mainly that they don't want government imposed regulation on what they can or can't list in their search results - I think their support was mainly intellectual, not corporate. Thats why Wikipedia choosing to black out was so important - it legitimized the cause. It's a lot harder to say the blackout was corporate when you have a site like wikpedia - which hosts an extremely large community, is non-profit, and made their decision unilaterally in a very democratic fashion. You can go read the debates on wikipedia amongst the general users, moderators, administrators, and anyone who wanted to discuss wikipedia's course of action, because they're all archived on wikipedia. It was very transparent. The blackout was a decision arrived at not by a few megapowers, but through a long discourse with internet users world-wide.Quote:
Originally Posted by sheath
I'll say this, though, on the subject of politics: If the myth about Democrats being receptive to the needs of the common man, and being against big corporations hadn't been smashed in recent years, it absolutely should be right now. The vast majority of supporters for the bill are Democrats, due in no small part to Hollywood being one of the party's biggest supporters. Hollywood gave the democratic party $91 million last election.
Selfish pigs, both the republicans and the democrats. Both parties are corrupt as fuck. They're mirror images of each other. Same shit, different flavor.