Pick a topic and I will argue with you

[Owyn_Merrilin]

An argument thread and nobody has posted the argument sketch? Escapist, I am disappoint.

On topic: Nerd culture has become diluted in recent years, as evidenced by the fact that the thread got to two pages before somebody made the obvious Monty Python reference. Your move.

 

[JEBWrench]

Well, I'll leave a couple wisecracks to the OP for some of the stances, but for now, can you adopt the counter point to:

I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt?

 

[klaynexas3]

Hitler was largely a figurehead of the nazi party. He had a great many people in his party that shared his beliefs and were arguably more sensible. If it wasn't for him, one of them would have likely done the same things Hitler did.

While your other counter arguements have seemed pretty well done, I must say this counter arguement hardly seems countering, only saying others could have also been as influential as him to do the same job. Hardly a refute, more of a qualify.

 

[Storm Dragon]

Well, okay, one ground rule:

No paradoxes. Seriously, you guys will make my brain explode.

Aww... And here I was ready to jump in with "You started a thread on the Escapist forums in which you argue with people."

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Armored Core V would be improved by the removal of region locking.

(You don't have to answer this one if you value your time)

Now I'll admit I don't know what Armoured Core V even is, but I do know that different markets can have vastly different buying power. Your average American is in a much better financial position to buy a new video game that, say, your average South African. A company will probably want to grab as many markets as it can, but if they charge the South Africans what they charge the Americans, few will be able to afford it, and if they charge Americans the same as South Africans, they will lose a substantial aount of profit.

The logical thing to do is to charge different prices at the two markets based on the buying power of your customers, but then you create the proble of Aericans simply importing South African copies for still quite a bit less than what it would cost in America. At that point you have two choice; Either raise the price in South Africa to the point of losing customers, or region lock. I therefore posit that region locking keeps games affordable to people who would otherwise never be able to afford them.

Fair enough, except that the small playerbase of any region other than Japan, which has about the same prices as EU but is naturally locked by language anyway, practically breaks the multiplayer. Armoured Core V has a persistent online territory system that works well in Japan, but basically gives way to boosting and grinding everywhere else due to a predictable lack of players. Furthermore, you can import the game and play on that region's server, and Australia (part of EU) is not region locked within itself, allowing me to import a copy for even my own region at about half the price.

 

[Euryalus]

All art is subjective, and there's no such thing as an objectively good work of art

...And I don't hate myself for saying this just to see what you'd say!

 

[Saladfork]

You're day has been terrible. Just goddamn awful.

Why, no, of corse not. Today was a training day at work, so I got to sleep in later than usual and I ended up doing far less work.

It is impossible to argue for the censorship of profanity without some sort of logical fallacy (most common of which are the slippery slope fallacy and appeal to emotion.)

Most private settings expect at least some degree of 'decency' from the employees and customers that go there. If, for example, you were to go to a restaurant and proceed to bellow out your conversations at ten times normal volume, you would likely be thrown out for the impoliteness you are showing everyone else there. There are several different expressions of disrespect that won't be tolerated in the interests of keeping a pleasant place.

Now, profanity is, by its' very nature, rude. I think most would agree that randomly throwing it into your statements will throw people off at the very least. It usually implies either disrespect or familiarity with the person you're talking to, and when talking to people you only know in a professional setting, or people you don't know at all, the only way they'll think to take it is as disrespect, and like most such signs, will not be tolerated.

(laughs like grunt in ME3) He..he.he

Evolution was a horrible thing if the ancestors we evolved from knew that politicians would come out of the bloodline they would have stayed in the trees and played pranks on the other animals

also shrodingers cat principle is a very vital part of the thinking processes of quantum mechanics and the cat is simultaneously alive and dead and we are only capable of perceiving one set of localized quantum states, although i wonder what would happen if you filter into the equation the expansion of multiple dimensions from quantum theory would that mean that its simply one set of states in each dimension hence why were unable to perceive more than one?

late night sorry if i dont make sense

That arguement implies that being a politician is largely a genetic factor. Since there have been no attempts to find a 'politician gene' (a _______ gene is kind of a misnomer but I'll go with it anyway) so I will have to go with the null hypothesis on that.

The second part was a question, not a statement, but to the first, Schrodinger actually cae up with the cat analogy as a way to describe how ridiculous he found the concept to be (he wasn't a fan of it).

you have not equipped your browser with any ad blocking programs, and you have not illegally downloaded any copyrighted digital media in your life. you love the escapist website and wish to avoid getting any warnings or bans.

You, sir, are a cruel man.

I have a pop-up blocker which primarily serves the purpose of blocking unwanted ad pop-ups, so it could be said to be an ad-blocker.

The legality of downloading copyrighted aterial differs fro region toregion. Some actions I may have taken could be considered illegal if I had done them in other areas of the world.

Lastly, while I quite like most everyone connected to it, the website itself isn't particularily well-designed or anything. It serves its' purpose, I suppose, but it certainly isn't the model of efficency that I would consider 'great'.

All modern art is pretentious garbage made by talentless hacks.
(I actually strongly disagree with this one. I just want to see you argue it.)

I mentioned before that I believe that anything that can be done could technically be considered art. It would hardly be reasonable to decry Inception, or Planescape: Torment, or Nightwish's Last of the Wilds as pretentious garbage.

I have heard some arguments that all modern art is derivative, but that argument fails to acknowledge that all old art is derivative as well. Everyone is inspired by somebody else, at least to some extent.

Another argument I hear is that, while we do get the occasional gem, there sure is a lot more crap nowadays. What this argument fails to acknowledge is that there was a lot of crap in pretty much every period in history. The difference is that the crap gets forgotten over time, while the great stuff lives on; we're essentially cherry-picking from the entirity of history.

 

[NinjaSniperAssassin]

The Los Angeles Kings are the favorites to win the Stanley Cup once the NHL resumes, given that they turned in the most dominant playoff performance in recent memory and their entire cup-winning roster is back this season.

Also...

Daniel Craig is the best Bond.

 

[Strazdas]

my new favorite thread.

Argument: You have too much time on your hands.

 

[Saladfork]

I am not the single greatest person alive.

Greatness is, as is so many other things, subjective. If you wanted to be really technical about it, it could be expressed as a function, f(x)= x - z, where x is the number of cool things about you and z is the number of uncool things about you. Now, many of those traditionally considered 'great' (Napoleon, Bismark, Caesar, etc.) have had their lives studied rigorously by historians, which means that while x was indeed very large, we also find a lot of other things that didn't come up in public very much, like perhaps how somebody kicked puppies or was extremely racist or was a sadist or something, which increases z quite a bit as well.

Applying modern morality to these figures would likely result in a net loss of coolness, meaning that somebody who was completely neutral (f(x)=0) would be cooler by virtue of not being negative.

Now then, what do we know about you:
-You frequent the Escapist - That's alright
-You watch Zero Punctuation - that's pretty cool
-You like the PS1 - Retro gamer, that's alright
-You're Canadian - As one myself, I have to respect that
-You have no warnings on your account - That's good, you can be civil
-You're participating in a debate thread - Gotta respect that.

So that's all those positive things we know about you, and no negatives that I can find, which puts you as a pretty great person to us.

At least until we found out that you perform biopsies on stray cats or something.

The thing is, nobody is completely satisfied all the time. Taken to that infinite extreme, the person would be incapable of art. However since this person doesnt exist, everyone is capable of creating art in some capacity. If the majority of artists are well adjusted happy people like you say, how do you explain the fact that the most lauded artists of all time were tortured souls? If not causation, you must at least admit that there is a positive correlation between the depth of an artists pain and the quality of his work?

Well, I would first say that the correlation so far seems based off of anecdotal evidence. I've never met them, of course, but I've never heard any reports of Leonardo di Vinci, Michealangelo, Shakespeare or Hitchcock being tormented in any great capacity. That's not to say that you don't get people like that at all, like for example Poe or Van Gogh, but to say that they were all in intense emotional pain seems like a bit of a hyperbole.

YOu are one of the coolest guys on this site...

I'm sitting here doing a job that can easily be done while arguing with people on the internets at the same time, while trying to find an exercise schedule that I won't just stop doing two days in so I can lose the Freshman 15 I put on... two years ago.

Besides, there's no possible way anyone could be as cool as Daystar Clarion.

 

[370999]

At the time of me posting this, I have a higher post count then you.

 

[SonofaJohannes]

Goat milk tastes better than cow milk.

 

[370999]

For the record, lots of people in this thread confuse "discussion topic" with "random facts".

But people like to win

 

[Red Oni]

Games like Ethnic Cleansing, ZOG's Nightmare, and Super Columbine Massacre are loathsome works of garbage that were made only to spread an ignorant worldview or to offend.
(I could not agree more with the above)

 

[Kalamala7]

Okay, lets try this. Losing in Dwarf Fortress is fun! There's your argument. Have fun coming up with something to counter it.

 

[jdogtwodolla]

Everywhere in the world Football is way better than 'murrican Football.

 

[Hazy]

This circle is red. Red is a color.

Your move.

 

[Saladfork]

The advent of the intelligent mind is of necessity the end of significant evolutionary progress, as societal standards, rather than the ability to obtain food or any other genetic characteristic, now determine mating interests.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here. Are you saying that evolutionary progress ends with the advent of an intelligent mind? That an intelligent mind is what current evolutionary selection pressure favours? Or that modern society defeats the evolutionary process?

I am not the sexiest person alive.

Now, your move. :3

Hookay...

I see you're from the UK. Hey, accents can be pretty sexy.

I'd imagine you probably drew the pictures on your profile yourself, and if so, you're a pretty good artist (especially compared to me at any rate).

Besides everything else, though, you're a living person, which means that some people are going to find you sexy, no matter who you are (as opposed to dead people who have a rather harder job of it.... though not impossible). Seeing as you seem to be decently cool woman, I'd say there is a good case to be made.

You're actually quite clever, and your ability to come up with a reasonably plausible counter-argument to almost everything is fairly impressive. With all that wit, you must get all the girls. Or, at the very least, you can hold a conversation without boring all the participants into a stupor. Also, I'm willing to bet your intelligence is above average.

Being able to come up with counterarguments is hardly a difficult task. I imagine most people do it every day when they have to make decisions.

To the second, ever since I left high school I've never really made an effort to meet any women, so... I actually get none of the women, by virtue of not making the attempt.

Lastly, I've always considered intelligence to be something that can't really be measured by the likes of IQ tests. Not to any meaningful degree, at any rate. I figure that the difference between a 'smart' person and a 'dumb' person is the amount of thought put into their actions. I'm sure damn near everyone could point out the flaws in attempting to kill a bedbug infestation with fire if they just stopped to consider the action a little more.

Removing the two-line offsides pass (using the redline as a basis) in the NHL has led to more scoring chances.

/research time

Okay, as I understand it, you're referring to a rule that says that a defenceman can pass the puck over a significant portion of the rink to an offence guy and have it be a legal pass.

Such a pass would (if successful) put the offence guy in a good position to score, as the other team's offence would theoritcally be tied up at where the defenceman passed from, and thus create a scoring chance itself. Making such a pass illegal would eliminate that chance, and while making it harder to get the puck away from the net might create a scoring chance, if the defenceman is in a position to pass like that anyway, the other team is going to have a hard time getting it away from him before he passes off to somebody closer anyway.

Captcha: Vice Versa
What, do I have to start agreeing with people now?

 

[Souleks]

name an anime from this year better than Jinrui wa Suitaishimashita

Spoiler

you can't

 

[Saladfork]

You are an amazing person who posts great threads and everyone likes you. That's my stance on this topic.

Most of my threads go nowhere, are redundant and derivative and end with me confirming that attempting any poll on the Escapist will give you the mother of all sampling biases.

I also direct you to my earlier responses to 'you are cool'.

Oooo I am bookmarking this to read later, it shall provide plenty of luls.
Hmmm... Oh wow, I'm surprised no one has tackled this one yet:

God does not exist.

I'm interested in seeing how you deal with this one.

That is something that can never be proven.

See, if an omnipotent being wants to not be found, he's obviously never going to be found. Similarly, if such a being can create the universe in its' present form, then logically he would now enough about how it works to manipulate it subtly enough as to not be noticed.

Finally, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I say this:

You really have to change your underwear more than once a month.

If you wipe yourself well enough, then you only really need to worry about sweat, and if you stay indoors mostly and don't get too hot, you wouldn't even have to worry about that all that much. Even so, you might smell, but it's not really going to hurt anything (beyond your social life, anyway).

Besides, our ancestors would go for far longer periods of not washing than we would, and there don't seem to be many records of anyone complaining about the smell.

Addison Clark Vulcan is a terrible name for a boy. Its a girl's name! It has no sense of respectability or authority about it and hes just bound to become a target for bullies.

Perhaps you should explain the etymology to anyone who doesn't like it.

Vulcan, for example, means 'volcano', which I think we an all agree are pretty cool. It was also the Roman name for the god Hepheastus, who was the master smith of the gods.

Addison means Adam's son. A good name for a christian, I would think, and otherwise, still a neat literary reference.

Clark means clergy-man or cleric. I'm beginning to sense a theme here. Still... Volcanos!

You do not owe me $500, you cannot, should not, and will not deposit $500 into my paypal account. [email protected]

[sub][sub]kidding of course[/sub][/sub]

You, sir, are a wonderful person, and I feel very much honoured to have you on my thread. $500 is the least I could possibly give to someone of your stature, and I won't take no for an answer.

There's just one matter here; You seem to have broken the terms this thread's EULA, which I have clearly posted in plain site, in a differnt post, on a seperate forum, on a different website, in an enigma code, which states that, "By posting here, you agree to not use more than two commas per sentence."

I'm afraid I will have to fine you $499.99 for this offence, and for ease of calculation I shall remove this amount from my donation, but the $0.01 shall be yours do do with as you please... just as soon as you pay for shipping and handling.