The Ranting/Debate Thread

[Kusanagi]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

*HOLY SHIT this was buried.*
*Well, okay not really, but still, January 8th was the last post? daaaaaaaaamn.*

So, I was talking to my friend the other day, and the topic of Dane Cook came up. Apparently, according to my friend, he rips off a good bit of his material. Not as bad as Mencia, but still quite a bit. The example he used to prove his point was

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vs.

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.
Now, personally, I don't think he's ripping off Dat Phan, but what do I know, right? So, what do you guys think?

Also, it raised an interesting question: How would you define a rip-off? Are there different levels to it?
Also, is a rip-off necessarily a bad thing? Is there a 'good' rip-off?

 

[Copper]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

I've heard Lewis Black and Denis Leary do similar routines and in my opinion, Leary's is better. I love his f'ing NyQuil rant. But I digress.

It's getting very difficult to *not* rip something off these days. Hollywood, I'm looking at you. I'd say what makes a good rip-off would be if it either is a parody (ala Weird Al) or improves upon the original. Although, I suppose at that point, they stop calling it a "rip-off" and start calling it a "remake." Or something.

 

[DarkFire1004]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

The two clips weren't really that similar, in my opinion. I guess I'm just too lenient on comedians, but honestly I don't really care for people ripping jokes off of other people. If someone tells you a joke, chances are a professional comedian's already made something similar. The Mortal Kombat thing just seemed... Well coincidental isn't the right word, but it's the first word that pops into mind.

Plus the thing with comedians is their delivery. Who is anyone to say that you shouldn't like a comedian because he steals jokes? If a comedian stole a joke from another one, but made me laugh harder at it, I think I'd rather listen to the guy who stole it. Why do you have to have creative property over JOKES? They're fucking jokes. You're comedians. Your job is to make people laugh, not whine about someone stealing your jokes.

And no, you can't use the whole, "WELL WHAT IF YOU DISCOVERED THE CURE TO CANCER AND SOMEONE STOLE YOUR CURE AND GOT THE CREDIT?" Obviously that's different, numbnuts. That can mark your place in history. That shit actually makes a difference in the world. That's IMPORTANT. Jokes are not. Of course you could say that some comedians are noted for their jokes. Alright, that's true. But I'm just trying to say that if a guy who stole the joke makes it funnier, then I say let them. Yeah, they're making more money than the guy they stole it from, but that just means more people found them funnier. Also, this reminds me of the whole "If someone stole your work, you should be flattered" thing.

Oh, and I'm not defending Dane Cook or anything. The Dat Phan version was funnier in my opinion. I just don't like it when people get pissy over who should claim ownership of jokes.

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

Like Dark said, those two clips weren't really similar at all. They both were telling different stories and both happened to reference Mortal Kombat, which is a popular culture thing. Something their audiences would recognize and find amusing.

 

[Wonderboy]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

This is a fucking joke...

 

[Kusanagi]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

How is this a joke? My friend and I had a disagreement, and it raised a couple of questions in my mind that I thought I'd share with the rest of the forum.

 

[Wonderboy]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

My statement that a debate about jokes was a joke, was a joke...

 

[DarkFire1004]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

Wonder, in this thread, you put your srs faic on. There's no joking here.

 

[Nunu]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

Wonder, in this thread, you put your srs faic on. There's no joking here.

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

The whole point to science isn't chance. It's experimenting to figure out things that work and things that don't work. It's a study to separate the two and thus form conclusions to how we should act. There's no chance to be had.

With chance, you have to make a choice in hopes that your decision was the right one. Whereas with science, the decisions are not about hoping for the rights or wrongs, they're merely about understanding each decision. The more we learn of the facts that come from the decisions, the more chance goes away.

Now I didn't assume Nunu believed or didn't. I just made a general statement. You're obviously assuming I was singling out Nunu. You're also assuming that I'm attacking anyone who has faith.

I must stress a reminder that you should have no reason to feel threatened (if you believe). Myself, other atheists or even Christopher Hitchens; we aim for those who do want to shove their belief down our throats.

Although, I will totally agree that Christopher is one heck of a pompous in the matter. xD

Now I wouldn't mind taking this debate to private chat or something, just to get it out of this thread. I'll leave that up to you two.

Vuki want to continue the debate, Nunu doesn't want it continueing in the funny thread. So dig up this old beasty.

Now much of this debate seems to be coming down to chance, and how science is supposed to eliminate that. It's impossible to completely eliminate chance from your life. There is no way to scientifically detect when some drunk idiot is going to smash you with a car.

Now, in the actual fields of science there is still chances. Anatomy says that a person's heart is on the left side... but science has also proven that there are people out there with the heart of the right side of the chest out of chance. There are also things that science can not really proove, like how the universe actually started, or how the dinosaurs died. There are plenty of theories, but there is no solid proof on what actually happened.

It's also pretty much impossible to determine what goes on after death... until you die.

And even gathering all the facts and data one can, there is always a chance, a thin or large percentage, that something will not go according to plan.

 

[Newbie]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

Absence of evidence is the only evidence of absence there is. How do you know when you need to buy groceries? When there isn't any food. How can you tell there's no food? THERE'S NO GODDAMN FOOD.

On the other hand, it has been previously proven that the food exists, so the argument is not entirely equatable.

The other thing is that all of science is based on rough guesses. There are very few scientific laws, and many of those rest on the shoulders of a previously unprovable particle that we are now testing to see if it exists.

I personally see no reason why you can't be rational and spiritual. It's only when you insist on adhering to the oldest copy of the rule book that you make problems.

 

[OAMP]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

Yall are havin' a science talk without me. Bah, I don't want to go diving through all the backlog x.x

 

[Exofluke]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

Vuki want to continue the debate, Nunu doesn't want it continueing in the funny thread. So dig up this old beasty.

Now much of this debate seems to be coming down to chance, and how science is supposed to eliminate that. It's impossible to completely eliminate chance from your life. There is no way to scientifically detect when some drunk idiot is going to smash you with a car.

Now, in the actual fields of science there is still chances. Anatomy says that a person's heart is on the left side... but science has also proven that there are people out there with the heart of the right side of the chest out of chance. There are also things that science can not really proove, like how the universe actually started, or how the dinosaurs died. There are plenty of theories, but there is no solid proof on what actually happened.

It's also pretty much impossible to determine what goes on after death... until you die.

And even gathering all the facts and data one can, there is always a chance, a thin or large percentage, that something will not go according to plan.

Sounds good to me.

First of all, you're confusing chance with chaos. Things have a tendency to play out the way you wouldn't expect. Imagine though, for a moment, that we understood all the facts behind every function that is to take place. Where does the chaos take place then?

The only time chaos has it's way, is when it's not understood. However, we have a one-up on things like blackholes or supernovas. We can figure them out. That allows us the advantage to predict and thus get-by them. Ultimately, it's facts that gives us the ability to predict. The more facts we get, the more we can control.

However!!! It's also us that can create chaos. One word defies prediction: choice. We have that freedom, to choose... unlike nature functions (blackholes, etc.) we ca choose.

So the best way to explain this:

Imagine if there was only one life form who has the ability to choose; thus using science to make out facts.. etc. Now chaos looses. Chance is gone when that one person figures out the facts. The now can predict everything, because there is no other form of function that can choose.

*not checking for spelling errors*

 

[Quartz]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

At the risk of derailing this slightly into being about Determinism..

Assuming you had all information ever to the extent that you could predict things that are currently held to be random and unpredictable, you would be able to predict other humans behavior as well. The human brain isn't some magic free will box, it's a biological machine that gives output based on its input. If you know exactly what all the input is and how the brain processes it, then naturally you would be predict the output. The choice you're referring to is in essence an illusion. Whatever choice you make, it's due to what seemed best to your brain at that moment. If you replicate the circumstances exactly, it would always give the same result and you would make the same choice.

(For double fun, you could extend the principle to everything and say all things base their actions off their interactions with what's around them, therefore all future behavior of everything is also predetermined and predictable if you know all the variables.)

Obviously, this is all hypothetical since anything close to the level of understanding I'm talking about is beyond the reach of humans. Plus, I could just be wrong. The joys of not being omniscient.

 

[Exofluke]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

At the risk of derailing this slightly into being about Determinism..

Assuming you had all information ever to the extent that you could predict things that are currently held to be random and unpredictable, you would be able to predict other humans behavior as well. The human brain isn't some magic free will box, it's a biological machine that gives output based on its input. If you know exactly what all the input is and how the brain processes it, then naturally you would be predict the output. The choice you're referring to is in essence an illusion. Whatever choice you make, it's due to what seemed best to your brain at that moment. If you replicate the circumstances exactly, it would always give the same result and you would make the same choice.

(For double fun, you could extend the principle to everything and say all things base their actions off their interactions with what's around them, therefore all future behavior of everything is also predetermined and predictable if you know all the variables.)

Obviously, this is all hypothetical since anything close to the level of understanding I'm talking about is beyond the reach of humans. Plus, I could just be wrong. The joys of not being omniscient.

I do want to extend my point by agreeing with Quartz, in that we won't ever get to the point of predicting human choice.

Think like

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or

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.

 

[Quartz]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

I do want to extend my point by agreeing with Quartz, in that we won't ever get to the point of predicting human choice.

Perhaps I should have added an accurately qualifier to that, since you can predict human behavior to an extent without superhuman knowledge. Also, I wasn't talking about just human choice when I said that level of understanding isn't possible.

Plus, you seemed to totally miss my point. >.<

 

[Exofluke]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

Perhaps I should have added an accurately qualifier to that, since you can predict human behavior to an extent without superhuman knowledge. Also, I wasn't talking about just human choice when I said that level of understanding isn't possible.

Plus, you seemed to totally miss my point. >.<

You're making your case based on the idea that we know all?

I'm suggesting that we won't know all because of human choice (gotta add that to my first post). I do think that humans (or life forms equal/greater than us) will have the ability to choose otherwise.

For example: assuming we can predict, what of the individuals who know that they are being predicted? Can they not choose otherwise to break the prediction?

 

[Quartz]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

You're making your case based on the idea that we know all?

I'm suggesting that we won't know all because of human choice (gotta add that to my first post). I do think that humans (or life forms equal/greater than us) will have the ability to choose otherwise.

For example: assuming we can predict, what of the individuals who know that they are being predicted? Can they not choose otherwise to break the prediction?

I'm saying that any given decision a person makes is the result of everything that factored into it and if you perfectly replicate the exact circumstances that created that decision, you will get the same result. Everything is determined that way regardless of whether somebody is capable of predicting it, and thus choice is an illusion caused by not knowing all the variables that went into making that decision. Whichever choice you make, you were always going to make that choice.

The prediction part was a side note that was pertinent to what you originally said about choice. If you somehow knew all the variables that went into a given decision (Knowledge of somebody predicting you would be a variable) and how the brain processes those variables, you could accurately predict the decision. It's not possible for a person to know all this though, that kind of knowledge is beyond human ability.

 

[Exofluke]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

I'm saying that any given decision a person makes is the result of everything that factored into it

Correct. However, you're missing the fact that the "factors" may not be 100% conclusive. For this argument, I would suggest that "conclusive" is the result of all known facts. People can act without facts, thus proving my point.

In response to the rest of your first paragraph: are we in the matrix then?

how the brain processes those variables

Right, now in order for us to have a good debate, you're going to have to show "how the brain processes those variables". It's funny, because at our current knowledge... we still don't know such a thing.

These debates can only go so far. The result of such an extension is due to lack of knowledge.

What I've suggested is core. I'm suggesting two ways of life:

1. Cause & Effect
2. Choice

Cause & Effect applies to everything, expect us life forms have the ability to choose. Choice defies Cause & Effect, because we can examine the functions due to cause and effect. Examination can show decisions that would alter the norm (of cause & effect).

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: The Ranting/Debate Thread

Free will my ass. Every "choice" we make can be traced back to external stimuli combined with our brains' internal workings. Occam's razor.