What if there is a yet undetected force, even weaker than gravity, but one that, over vast distances overcomes gravity. Distances like those between galaxies. A force which doesn't attract, but repells.

And that force drives the repelling of galaxies which we see today.

>>16455
I think that's more to do with the lack of any friction or air resistance in space that might prevent objects from moving away from the center of the universe.

Are bears. the missing link between man and dog?

If 666 is the number of the beast, does that mean that the Devil got trips?

A long time ago, I realized that life was far more complicated than it should of been through a simple game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. I came to this conclusion based on the fact that people sometimes switch Scissors and Paper around and also with the fact that people have changed the standard timing (another hand swing before throwing their hand or throwing it immediately after Scissors/Paper. Even with specific details, they sometimes manage to get it wrong unless fully explained in full detail on how the game is to be played, which feels like a waste of time.

I came up with this thought when I used to go to elementary, so pardon me if it seems like a pretty meaningless thing to base the over-complication of life, but that was enough for me and still is as I was right, much to my disappointment.

You know the whole "going back in time to create something before it really gets created so you can take all the credit" thing?

What if a really famous game, manga, etc. was the result of that? Maybe your favorite work is technically a ripoff of something that would have come out two years later, had this one not come out first.

Just a thought I had, not trying to incite an argument or anything...

>>16857
interesting idea.

Why does "effeminate" mean feminine (roughly), but "emasculated" means un-masculine (roughly)?

>>16994
Well, the definition of Emasculated is: "the removal of the genitalia (castration) of a male, notably the penis and/or the testicles."

So, I guess that might answer you question? It all has to do with penis.

>>16995

My question was more about why they both have the "e-" prefix, but it means something different in each case. If "emasculate" followed the same logic as "effeminate", it would refer to a woman who acts in a masculine way. Or vice-versa, "to effeminate" would mean to remove (parts of) the female genitalia.

Similar to how flammable and inflammable mean the same thing, I guess.

>>16997
Apparently it's one of the words where the "e-" has "little effect on the signification".

I got that from here: http://www.r0k.org/dictionary/e.htm

>>17000

Interesting, thank you.

That detective said that pickpocketing could be learnt in an afternoon. I wonder if I can learn it alone, in my house.

I was masturbating to a mindbreak-themed manga yesterday night when I was very tired. It was a frightening experience.

The usually trite writing seemed all too relatable, it's as if I was becoming a slave to my penis through overwhelming sexual pleasure. Maybe there's more to the genre than meets the eye.

Maybe this belongs in /mai/, but whatever.

For some reason, I've been comparing the whole idea of having a waifu to religion in my head. I don't even mean that as a bad thing really. If anything, I'm thinking having a waifu is more or less the ideal religion without all the retarded bylaws.

Granted, there's probably always going to be at least some ratio (in both) of lone nuts who take things too far into delusion to those with the common sense to know that their (Haruhi/waifu) doesn't physically exist, but if their (Haruhi/waifu) lives on in their hearts and minds and inspires them somehow or helps them get through the stress of daily life, etc. etc. then there's really no harm done.

Not much of a point to all that, but it crossed my mind, so I guess I just felt like putting it out there.

why don't zombies ever try to rape people or have sex with each other?
no really. the whole I concept behind reanimated dead bodies eating people comes from the idea that when brought back from the dead, they're incapable of thinking properly, so they just carry out the most basic human needs, which of course means eating, but why don't they sleep, shit or fuck? and why do they only eat humans? If I had to guess I'd say the rotting smell of fellow zombies keep them from eating each other, but why not animals? wheres the logic behind that? it's not like they eat them off camura and they never show it, they've pointed out this fact, and one zombie movie, survival of the dead, focused on this as they tried to force zombies to eat animals.

>>17154
The closest that I've come to that is the Crossed comics. They're not really zombies, though.

It's a western comic, so I'm not sure if you'd be interested in it.

>>17154
Hasn't the blood stopped circulating in a zombie? They are walking corpses after all. They can't have sex if they can't get an erection.

>>17159
You're trying to use logic on an illogical science fiction creature. Zombies can have erections if they can have super strength and super fast regeneration.

>>17161
Don't forget about the lack of Rigamortis.

An obvious and probably stupid thought that I've been considering: I can say that the sky is blue, and another person might agree, but we may be seeing completely different things. If one person sees what I see as blue as red, and is taught from birth that that is blue, he'll certainly not be lying by agreeing that the sky is blue, but we are in complete disagreement while thinking we agree. Just an analogy and I'm sure science has already proven that our eyes interpret certain wave frequencies in the same way, but hopefully my point is clear and makes sense.

>>17179

I thought of this too when I was in middle school after one of my teachers said he was colorblind and saw green as grey.

>>17179
I asked my teacher that in 6th grade (about colors of the sky, and pain) and she said that she didn't understand. If you're interested in this topic, it has a name: qualia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
http://www.iep.utm.edu/qualia/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/quinqual.htm

We can now today assume a numeric, object value to the colors we perceive around us with specialized technical devices, and we as well can analyze the relationship between rods and cones in our eye and see how a persons' relationship with colors can be affected through one defect or another.

A famous philosopher named George Berkeley used qualia (color, taste, pain, and so on) to argue that a sensible, functional picture of reality was dependent on the human mind, and following that, that our realities were primarily (if not totally) mental. His philosophy has a few flaws, but it's very easy to read and I find it amazingly exciting to read... if that sounds interesting to you, read one of these books by him:

* http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4724/4724-h/4724-h.htm#first
* http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4723/4723-h/4723-h.htm#intro

He talks about "Haruhi" some, but if you'd like, mentally replace that word with "nature" or "the world" or other such terms, as he uses it to refer to a non-personal force which unifies and gives source to a person's thought rather than to describe some kind of angry bearded man in the sky. So don't be scared off by that word if you see it! His language is quite antiquated; if possible, look past that and try to think heavily on his points. If nothing else, it'll be a good way to waste a bit of time. Hopefully that helps you think some.

Today I wondered if anyone has ever been banned from here.

>>17187
I've been banned from the IRC 3 times, each time by a different mod.

>>17187
There's been a few shitposters here, so I wouldn't doubt it.

>>17187
a few dozen, yes.
Sometimes people show up and spam the site with whatever shit they think is funny, and you just know they're never going to post anything coherent, so there's no question about it when it comes to banning them. on the other hand with people who just seem to be confused and not understand that we aren't 4chan, I prefer to just delete their retarded posts, and maybe give them a short ban of a day or few if they got really carried away.

Post edited on 24th Sep 2012, 5:28pm

>>17190
So you just delete whatever posts you don't like without a word?

No wonder this place comes off as such a dull, lifeless hivemind sometimes.

Oh well, guess there's always /jp/ for a change of pace. Really comes down to the question of preference, I guess. The utter chaos of near complete lack of moderation or the iron-fisted order of Nazi moderation?

>>17217
that's how things are here, filthy anarchist, love it or leave it.

>>17220
Believe me, I've tried the latter now and again.

But despite every non-4chan imageboard trying to distance themselves from 4chan, there's a certain little something they all still have in common. Pic very related.

Anyway, I honestly do kinda like it here, but if this was the only place I posted, I'd go batshit.

>>17221
>there's a certain little something they all still have in common. Pic very related

i don't understand

>>17217
yeah okay, next time some dickhead fin spams /mai/ with reaction faces making fun of the users, I'll just leave it. when /ot/ is flooded with prom photo threads, people will know who to thank.

>>17222
I mean imageboards are fucking addictive. Much like 4chan, I find it hard to leave and stay gone forever.

Sorry, wasn't sure if I was being clear there.

>>17223
kinda overreacting there

>>17225
fuck you, holy shit, what the fucking hell is wrong with you?! where do you get off saying I'm overreacting?! I'll perma ban your whole country you fucking cunt faced faggot! eat my shit and die motherfuckETR$$# nr4hegtsrg are45tr75t4eghrdgkf fds

>>17226
I'm really fast + strong and could totally beat you up!

>>17217
Of course. Whenever normality does as much as fart in our general direction we go ape shit. Even hardcore otaku have to be careful what they say here or else they'll get heckled off the board. Thats the whole point of Tohno-chan.

>>17234
In hindsight, I can't say I mind that much, just need a break from it every now and then, I guess. While I stand by most of what I said, sorry if the thread got derailed a bit there.

>>17221
Like around a week ago I went back to /jp/ to check on it because I haven't been there in forever because it got ruined by spam, people from other boards, and people so normal I question why they are there in the first place. It was horrible, some interesting things going on but the amount of trolls, normals, and complete assholes was overwhelming. It was like I just stepped into /b/ with a theme. I wanted to enjoy it and not care because they will always be there and always were but now it's just too much.

There's nothing really wrong with memes, as long as they're not popping up too much.

>>17248
Except that they are.

All human communication is just a complex of memes, in the sense of being units of cultural information subject to the evolutionary forces of being replicated and modified or being forgotten. The fact that this sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a period is a meme in the original sense of the term.

/tc/'s supposed hatred of "memes" in general is really just an attack on certain low-status memes that we, as a small elitist culture, deem unfit for survival and replication. It's all the same brutal Darwinian bullshit that has always made the world the hellhole it is.

One doesn't win at the game of evolution, O Monks; one only minimizes one's losses at the expense of others.

>>17251
>brutal Darwinian bullshit that has always made the world the hellhole it is.

citation needed. what is the alternative?

>>17237
What you have to do is just scroll past a lot of shit to find a small nugget or post good threads.

Not really rocket science, but I seem to hear it a lot when people talk about what boards suck.

>>17257
it's hard to find the motivation to swim through a sea of diarrhea just to read one or two decent posts

>>17259
Believe me, I know what you mean.


Tohno-chan is a nice break from the fake NEET bragging threads and shit posing as /jp/ culture.

>>17263
i think "/jp/ culture" is shit regardless of fakers and whatnot

that's why I'm on tohno-chan after all

>>17253

Never said there was an alternative. Doesn't make nature any less horrifying, now does it?

>>17186
tahnks!

You'd be a lot happier if you dropped the EPIC QUALITY IMAGEBOARD POSTER pretensions already.

It's not like any of us are.

I wonder if women who had double masectomies have to wear tops in public.

>>17413
I don't see why not. Flat chested women still have to wear tops.

>>17416
Some women who have had breast cancer and had their breasts removed wear tops that barely cover anything and show it off.

>>17417
this is the first I'm hearing of this

I don't think showing everyone your hidesous scars would be very nice.

Oddly, it's completely legal for women to go topless in public in my country (Canada). The feminists fought for years to get this right but I can't say anyone really does it. Typical feminists...

>>17492
why the hell people would want go topless in Canada anyway?

I don't want to see anyone topless on the streets, women or man.

>>17499
Seconded.

>>17501
I wouldn't mind topless men.

>>17502
I bet you wouldn't.

I'm sick of Orwell quotes. People from all over the political spectrum like to quip them, while imagining themselves as champions of truth and justice.

>>17536
Whats so bad about Orwell?

>>17540
Nothing at all, it just feels cliché.

I'm surprised that I didn't even notice that this was a new thread.

After watching Chuunikoi EP2, I realized that live action productions have a very hard time making cats unrealistic because, as it turns out, they use real cats.

mysticism is the rhetoric of unknowables

capable hawks hide their talons out of sight

Today I was pondering which one is the right way: enjoy small enjoyments often and suffer long, or suffer small sufferings often and enjoy happy and healthy life. Yes it's junk food and sweets against exercise and restraining your food habits.

Studying shouldnt be some kind of all-consuming battle. Other people deal with it okay and there shouldn't be any reason why you can't too. Its just that you're studying dumb instead of studying smart. There is no way you can expect to get a decent mark if you don't go to every lecture. It is easy to get a decent mark by doing 2 hours of study a day.

>>17733

I love sweets, junk food and fizzy drinks so I consume a lot of them and have done so for years and years. My teeth are now so ruined that they can't really be called teeth anymore. It's a real mess. However, I don't regret my dietary habits and don't intend to change them. I think that since this life is the only one I have I should take whatever pleasures I can from it. Every so often I will get extreme constant pain that lasts for days at a time. For me, this isn't enough to deter me from something I love.

The only wrong thing I consider myself to have done is neglect my dental hygiene, such as brushing teeth regularly. But I wouldn't change how I eat.

>>17733
While I have been trying to restrain myself from snacking and only eating when I am actually hungry - it's hard for me to resist when I face constant boredom and browsing the internet somehow fuels this habit. I've gone back to drinking green tea, maybe as a substitute for coffee.

Why not just smoke a cigarette every time you reach for the Twinkie or Ho-oh? You'll lose a hundred pounds before you know it.

Smoking is for normals.

Post edited on 18th Oct 2012, 5:41pm

>>17798

>>17799
Breathing is for normals

>>17798
Not him, but that's exactly what I've been doing over the last 15 years; now I'm starting to get really fucked up by it...

And so, I'm about to switch into e-cigarettes (Halo) which, apart from allegedly less damaging, come in several and tasty flavours (including sweets).

I should quit smoking...expensive habit.

>>17798
I would also lose much weight if I just cut my arms off. Stupid logic, why would anyone ruin their health to lose weight? (because purpose of losing weight is to feel healthier) And >>17799

>>17791
I think ruining teeth isn't the worst part of eating unhealthy. One just notices ruined teeth pretty soon. Maybe now it might feel okay but when you start to grow older, your blood veins will be filled with shit.

>>17792
I usually chew gum when get similar boredom feeling and I feel like eating, but I am not hungry.

>>17792
I need to stop also, it pisses me off so much when I do find myself snaking so much. Especially on Sundays which is the most boring day of the week to me. I just ate a bunch of popcorn out of total boredom and the depression of the moment since my head is flooded with terrible thoughts right now. It feels good when I actually do hold myself back though, like a huge burden has somehow been lifted off my back. It's a little thing that can make a big difference in my mood since feeling depressed and more ugly is just that much worse than feeling depressed not as ugly to myself.

Tohno-chan has been unusually slow recently. I ponder why.

>>17875
So it's not just me, then?

It's strange.

>>17875
I haven't noticed that much of a difference. I lurk here most days even if I don't always post. The other boards besides /ot/ and /so/ don't seem to get that much attention. Maybe we're all running out of things to say and talk about.

>>17875
we are all dying

Are you guys being sarcastic?

>>17881
Maybe.

>>17881
no

This website had been bothering me lately, and because my opinions are stupid and the stuff I like is brain-dead, I decided to stop posting about them and let the people with 'good' taste carry the site for a while.
I really didn't even think it would make much of a difference at first.

>>17885
My opinions on most things would be equally disliked most of the time so I also usually just keep my mouth shut here as I would anywhere else. I think I'm such a shit person that even this place would reject me.

I got to thinking about how people brake up with each other when one cheats on the other and it made me wonder.
Can you really say you ever truly loved a person if you're willing to completely brake off your relationship with them and never see them again?
If the person I really truly loved cheated on me or killed my mother or whatever, I'd be hurt sure, but I still wouldn't want to loose them. I'd just try to work past whatever problem we're having.
I might not have any experience with romance, but I don't think love is like a light switch you can just turn on and off.

>>17925
love is caused by chemical signals in your brain that can be turned on and off

>>17925
Usually when people break off when one cheats, they still love each other.

>>17925
If only it were like a light switch so that it could permanently stay off.

Life is nothing more than some bad joke.

>>17885
oh yeah, Decided to start posting again, whatever.

>>17927
If they still love each other, why would they brake up?

Post edited on 24th Oct 2012, 1:48am

>>17931
Because they don't see happy future together? Why would anyone in stay in relationship which just keeps hurting and problems seem unfixable? Like said, love isn't just switch you can turn off in instant.

>>17934
sounds like they don't really love each other in that case.

>>17935
How? Love isn't something which automatically removes all obstacles, hardships and makes world perfect.

>>17943
love can move mountains, it can overcome any obstacle.

What makes a work of art good?

>>17925
I'm sure you'd get irritated seeing your murderous whore ex-3DPD at the store with her arm wrapped around some other dude even if you still loved her. And limiting contact or displayed affection can certainly be controlled like a flip of a switch, even if the underlying irrational emotion can't.

>>17948
>What makes a work of art good?
First: what is art?

>>17954
A better question: what defines Art as an aesthetic experience?

>>17955
what do you mean by "aesthetic experience"?

>>17956
What Immanuel Kant might define as a heightened awareness of one's process of perception. Somewhat comparable to a 'altered state of consciousness' but not necessarily in the sense of taking hallucinogenic drugs.

>>17948
>What makes a work of art good?
The subjective taste of a ruling minority that wishes to indentify themselves as so. That is, if we are talking about paintings, music and such.

>>17954
>What is art?
Anything that a select group of people that think they know better wants it to be. This is as honest and true a concept as it may sound ridiculous.

>>17958
I was trying to make a joke but thanks for replying

The mistakes we have made in the past lead us to circles: we go back to the same point and make the same mistakes again and again.
And it's interesting to think about the concept of what we consider to be insanity.
An insane person believes that reality is what he experiences and sees.
He has created walls around him, imaginary structures that in his mind are the only reality. He isolates himself from all other realities.
And I would say that there's something selfish in that.
Now, it's also very interesting to think about some elements that characterize us all, absolute elements. Like the fact that we block things from our surrounding world.

Very interesting beings, don't you think.

Truth is not actually stranger than fiction; we just hold truth to a far lower standard of strangeness.

There are a certain class of philosophies, which tell we should not hold anything as true at all, because we can make mistakes in thought, and whatever we feel certain about, can easily prove to be one. There's a grain of truth in there, but it's impossible to doubt everything, as it is a form of the liar's paradox, it's a self-defeating idea. Notice that whenever we err, we err little, leaving the rest of our knowledge intact.

Maybe I'm fighting straw men.

>>18295
That is not philosophy. It is rhetoric, which is specifically what good philosophy should attack whenever possible. Socrates and Plato said of philosophy that there is a truth out there, and it is our job as philosophers to find it and bring it to light when possible, using logic as a framework and sensory information as evidence.

It is really strange to think that people actually exist. Maybe I've been too affected by games and anime and whatnot, but life seems a bit unreal whenever I go out, so when I think that things actually exist, I feel really surprised, since I feel as though I haven't experienced them at all.

I wonder how many tohno-channers don't have any mental problems.

>>18332

How many people have no mental problems? I doubt there are any.

Okay, maybe not 'problems'. Everyone has problems. Maybe mental illnesses.

I don't think I have any pathological mental problems. Never been to a psychiatrist though.

Utility poles must look really fucking sinister to someone who's never seen them. Endless rows of mutated, branchless trees connected by thin, black tendrils that hang menacingly over roads and buildings. Yet for us in the industrialized world, the creepy things just blend into the background.

High voltage transmission lines make me feel so secluded. Thousands of miles of pylons and wires stretch through forests and endless fields. And they don't break up at all. The wires are hundred- or thousand-mile-long objects. It's amazing.

There is an area near my place with them. Walking under them is... therapeutic.

>>18380
They never blend into the background for me, I always stare at them. They're pretty.

>>18381
I like transmission lines, too. There are a lot of them near my house. It's nice, but I never leave the house, so I never walk near them.

I also like scenes like the one pictured (enlarge it - it's big!). My entire "neighborhood" (If you can call it that) is like it. Isolated and dirty, and giving off a vibe of solitude. Just like me.

Post edited on 12th Nov 2012, 2:00pm

Transmission...transmission...

>>18385
They're bad for you. I've been in areas with so many of them that the flashlight on my multimeter lit on its own.

I should learn how to make chicken katsu.

>>18646
For a second I had thought that you had typed up "chicken kakusu".

All bagpipe and drum songs begin exactly the same.

First five seconds of each of these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q61XZZpIv0&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Epimq-8ytOU&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpKt5QxoXMs&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w655V4hZVe0&feature=related

I noticed this at the highland games but I didn't really think about it until I heard a playlist on someone's mp3 player. There were several different pipe and drum bands but all of them started out *drummmmmmmmmmTUM*... *drummmmmmmmTUM* *dying cat being pumped up the ass with a bicycle pump noise*

>>17925
Hmm, I've thought about this a lot. I see it as a control of your own emotions. Yes you are hurt even though you might still love them, but its a breach of trust. Why would you continue to date that person that ended up violating something so vital and central to your romantic world view such as monogamy? It's best to cut it off at that point and simply call it quits and consider the other person dead.

I see something like this with many other things that may define me as a person. If someone else ridicules what I like, or wants me to change, then can you really say they actually love me for me and not just my looks? It's also why I never saw the big deal with people trying to "fit in" by having sex with prostitutes just to say they're not a virgin. I have no problem with whatever the hell you do, just don't bother me because we just are not compatible.

see how easy?

I realize that it's only twenty-two days until the supposed end of the world. I've managed to substantially spook myself out. I read that the atmosphere might just drift away due to magnetic disruption from the sun and...that idea is terrifying.

Also, the whole Ponponpon back-masking thing.
>Let's die!
>The world is ending anyway!

And...yeah. I feel like a more insane Satou right now. Could a scientifically-minded Brohno debunk the atmosphere hypothesis for me? I just want to get some SCIENCE behind it.

>>18840
Actually, I just googled it, haha. Fears at ease, I'm a paranoid fool~ Sorry for wasting bandwith.

On the topic of fear...The idea of innocent-seeming things (such as the aforementioned Jpop backmasking) hiding sinister messages/symbols can both simultaneously fascinate me and give me the most black fear. Why is that? Is anyone the same way?

The idea of Kyary saying stuff like that to a bunch of Japanese tweens/American hipster otaku really horrifies me.

>>18841
I know giving advice to other Brohnos is often a futile measure, but for the love of Haruhi, please, stop taking drugs.

>>18841
It fascinates me to, I've always saw something twisted in the most innocent seeming things too before I even knew what subliminal messages and such were. For these reasons when I was little and my parents put me in front of the TV I always felt uneasy watching your ordinary American children's shows. I don't know what I saw, but to me there was always something wrong with them. I had no problems watching anime though even though the case was the same, so anime and many Japanese things stuck with me.

>>18388
Aren't there theories of magnetic fields from high voltage lines giving you cancer?

>>18869
At least the shit which makes you paranoid.

I realized why I'm clingy today.

I'm not clingy in the traditional sense - I'll try and put people at an arm's length if I can, but I cling to memories like there's no tomorrow. I'll try and relive them while lying in bed, often for hours, when I should be sleeping.

This is because I don't have many happy memories. I have "small memories". To elaborate, I have petty, shitty memories. I've never truly lived and had a normal life. It's interesting to realize this.

>>19079
Thanks for telling us.
We were all just waiting for you to post about your life.

>>19079
Same here, memories may keep me awake sometimes if it's not too many thoughts invading my head all at once. My good memories are so personal and stupid in the eyes of others I'm not even going to bother typing an example. But I can be out of the house and just go somewhere at the right time and I'm happy with the experience. Very little of my good memories have to do with any people altogether, it's more like people like my father and such have to be in them constantly since I can hardly go anywhere on my own. I take comfort in places and times with small events and important details tying them together. That's meaning to me.

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel as though the advancement of Personal computing technology is kinda redundant when everything out there becomes more and more demanding while setting the bar for minimum PC standards higher and higher?
makes it feel kinda pointless to keep spending money on 'upgrading' your computer just to stay at the same minimum required levels.
a crappy PC today might be ten times more powerful than a high end PC from 10 years ago, but it's still considered a crappy PC all the same just becuase everything is more demanding, and sure enough it'll be a worthless pile of scrap you can't even give away at a yardsale in another 10 years from now.
We've got bigger hard drives, but everything takes up more space now. Ram is more affordable, but now operating systems require more than before. we've got better internet connections, but websites have become more resource demanding.
I guess it's a natural part of advancement in technology, but it still seems weird for some reason...

>>19148
That's why I don't play PC games until they've been out for five years or so.

It really is, I always thought this my entire life I've been playing them. There would always be games you can play and games you can't. When the computer got upgraded I could play a little more but then most things were still out of the reach. When I got a new pc a long time ago with a Nvidia 9800GT and a quadcore processor running at 3.2 GHz I thought I was all set but no some games require a super computer to run smoothly. I can play everything but many newer games just don't run smoothly. I play mostly older games anyways so what I have now is fine for me though. Don't know when I should replace parts though to keep the pc going. Already had it for years and had to replace the power supply. But soon I think we really will hit a wall in computer technology. When the standard pc is so powerful there isn't much need to upgrade since it will come with a large 1 TB HD at least and a processor and graphics card so good it can run everything. But then when we reach that point they will start making computers more easily broken so they can keep raking in the money.

Post edited on 11th Dec 2012, 7:15am

>>19151
I bought my PC tower prebuilt ($800) a few years ago and came with a 1TB harddrive, 8GB of ram and a quadcore, but the guys still make fun of me for it and call it shit.

>>19152
I have a computer with a 500GB hard drive and 4B of memory

>>19148
I think that people are getting worse at optimizing their code, but it's not a problem for most people since new hardware is continuously being pumped out. But for those of us who can't afford new CPUs and graphics cards every other month (or use a laptop), we're out of luck.

I hope someday we reach a limit on hardware speeds, which will force programmers to learn how to code properly again.

>>19155
I typed up a rant about how programmers these days are terrible and have piss poor coding with very little optimization to none, but I ended up not posting it. I also forgot most of it.

>>19155
I shouldn't have to buy a new processor just to view a website run by retards who have no self control with flash or scripts.
I'm looking at you Danny cho and your piece of shit figure.fm!

High-level programming languages let a single person write a program in a day that used to take a month for a team to write. But all of this is off-topic.

>>19164
The whole board is off topic, who cares?

oh wait, it's Otaku Tangents now...

>>19164
You mean technology is becoming more advanced as time goes on? That's a shocker.

>>19173
It isnt always the case. Ask the people in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman empire about technology. I dont think its a stretch to say something similar could happen if our communications infrastructure was destroyed and there was no more internet.

>>19173
I think what he means is that higher level languages may be slow, but they allow you to get stuff done faster since they're much easier.

But that doesn't mean that both interpreters/compilers and the programs that run on them can't be better-written.

The advancement of computer technology (at least the kind for personal use.) feels like running on a treadmill. you'll always be barely keeping up to the current levels while never really getting anywhere no matter how fast you run.

>>19176
RAM and processing power becomes cheaper so Microsoft release a new OS that uses more resources and every company comes out with new bloatware...

I just upgraded to the latest iTunes btw. I've never had any complaints about this program before but the new interface is terrible.

If you work on personalising windows 7 and Vista UI to look like Windows 95 then it usually runs a lot faster.

Basically, more OSs are using more memory to make things look pretty(translucent windows, docks, multiple "desktops", fade transition backgrounds, wiggly windows, etc etc) Which is basically what consumer electronics exist for now.

Meanwhile Ubuntu can do all the visual stuff Windows 7 can do (and more if you want) while being able to run without freezing up any PC with hardware from pre-2008.

>>19217
I've been doing that to save battery power on my laptop. I just wish it didn't make so many programs look awkward, since they're mostly tailored to work with Aero.

I'm still using XP and I highly recommend it.

>>19177
So true, you just can't completely keep up. There is no way I am upgrading (more like downgrading) to Windows 8, terrible OS that probably also consumes a shit load more pc resources whilst being even less functional than a traditional all desktop focused OS. Hope Windows 9 will be back to normal again.

Also I have heard a lot of news about the new itunes update, I never update my itunes so I don't know what it's like but almost everyone is saying it's horrible. What is it with all of these updates ruining everything? That's almost all they ever do these days for most things.

>>19220

Me too. Well, I have XP in a VM on Linux Mint just in case I want to run a game or something that Wine can't handle. Still, for an 11-year-old OS, it does pretty much everything I need it to do.

>>19221
Yeah I hate updates unless they're actually adding something usefully.

almost everyone in Lucky Star is left handed, wtf

>>19249
Really? I didn't know. I didn't eve know that there were any south paws on that show.

Do console companies plan the slim version of a console first, but release a more inferior one just to make more money later?

>>19262
you serious?
They use the best technology availability at the time(more or less), then when the parts get cheaper and smaller, they release cheaper and smaller versions of their consoles.
and fyi, slim versions aren't always better than lunch versions. In the case of ps3 for example, the original versions were the best with each one after being a downgrade.

>>19249
>>19256
Yeah, only Patty and Konata are not (and Konata's ambidextrous).

I thought for a bit that left-handedness is common in Japan (if you've ever written Japanese in the traditional orientation you notice your hand may drag through the wet sumi if you're right handed) but no, statistically Lucky Star is incredibly unrealistic.

>>19264
I had read that left handedness is quite disencouraged in China and Japan and children are forced to write right-handed only(this last seems more common in China), also heard from left-handed foreigners natives were oftenly amazed by how they were even able to write hanzi/kanji with the left hands at all.
And while it's true what you've said about writing in traditional orientation, as a left-handed person I feel the direction of most horizontal strokes is quite optimized for right-handers, as it's easier to keep stability when moving towards your arm rather than away from it.
Now it makes me ponder why did they stick with stroke orders which favour the right handed but writing orientation that favours the left handed. Some deep zen yin-yang shit, man.

>>19263

Yeah, I wouldn't know anything about that. I just assumed like the companies would do that because I never really understood why they would release a "better" version of the same console. I guess I thought that way because of the 4 versions of PSPs there are. 1000, 2000, 3000... and Go..

I've been noticed Chinese people are treated as sort of below Japanese and Korean people. And lets face it, they are.

Society is just a series of hat changes, no ideology matches reality and even the most purportedly liberal person will approve of making certain people the underclass.

When people are allowed to vote for leaders, they always seem to vote for the ones that will give them free stuff from the government at the expense of other tax payers. Does that mean democracy is a form of implicit socialism? Either it is or I'm just a cretin who doesn't know what he's talking about.

>>19312
That's how I vote and it's just simple self-interest, not socialism.

>>19309
The most liberal people seem bent on making themselves the underclass. Well, here in the US at least, where the most liberal people are middle class and saddled with white guilt. Whether this compulsion would stem from trying to assay their crippling white guilt or from longing for a more "authentic", less privileged life, I'm unsure. Probably a healthy mix of the two in most cases.
This is my impression, at least. I'm hardly educated in the subjects that relate to this.

I had amassed approx. 4000 e-books. Now I've deleted about half of them, but still a lot remains to get rid of. According to my estimations, I won't read more than 500 books in the next ten years.
In a way, this makes me sad. There's so much I'll never know. I'll have to prioritize my learnings, decide what's important and what isn't.

>>19409
>In a way, this makes me sad. There's so much I'll never know.
This is why libraries make me sad. It reminds me of how worthless I am.

If there's no friction or air resistance in space, why can't a object with a propulsion system gradually and continuously accelerate faster and faster and eventually travel faster than light? What's holding it back?

>>19560
I heard that mass increases (slightly) with speed, so the faster you're going, the harder you become to propel.

But I haven't studied physics in years, so I don't really know.

>>19566
I think thats the correct answer (i only did high school physics though). As you continue to add energy to an object travelling near light speed, the object "stores" this energy as an increase of mass rather than an increase in velocity. This can be understood from the famous Einstein equation e = mc², ( energy = mass * speed of light squared ) in this case becoming m = e/c². Energy and mass are just different forms of the same thing. When you pump more energy into an object to make it go faster that energy is translated into mass. -some dude on yahoo answers

>>19560
Stephen Hawking did a documentary several years ago about this kind of thing. I think it was Stephen Hawking's Universe, but I can't remember. It covered stuff like this and was very interesting. Go check it out.

http://vimeo.com/17477895
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/other-shows/videos/stephen-hawkings-universe-time-travel-starship.htm

As you approach the speed of light, some shit happens and the time around you slows down. Like a clock on a plane going near the atmosphere will have a different time to a clock that was just kept on the ground. I can't remember relativity theory that well.

Post edited on 25th Dec 2012, 8:47am

I wonder if people were actually honest and sincere in the old days or if people have always been cynical pricks and thought that the horrible things they did were done 'ironically' for shits and giggles.

>>19706
They were done because it couldn't be helped.

When people rail against "the rich", does it occur to them that they themselves (and their families, friends, etc.) are included therein too?...

>>19713
Most people who hate the rich don't view themselves as rich by comparison, even if they're rich by comparison to people in third world countries, or even the poor/homeless in their own country. they just don't think about or care about those people.

Why do they assume a line is a collection of points? Clearly, where two lines intersect, a point is created, but was the point of intersection already there? We cannot even talk about that point, without giving a description of it, so why assume it's something basic?

>>19960

Short answer:
So the line has no thickness.

Longest answer:
1. So the definition 4 in Euclid's Elements has some sense, since previously he only stated that the ends of finite lines were points.
2. So we can conceptually arrive to the general function L of any given straight line, by which the very 2-dimensional object can be understood as the subset of points of the plane that results from the cartesian product of the real numbers with themselves, and which relation is given by that very function y=L(x) (i.e. L={(x,y)/y=mx,m∈Q} ⊂ R^2). In consequence, by such new aproach and definition, it can be later proven that the line, just like any n-dimensional trajectory and finite collections of dots, is a zero content set on his space (i.e. something without any "thickness" indeed, be it area, volume or nth-hypervolume).

The more you know...
Note that this does NOT imply that the line is a sequence of points (not even infinite) and that believing such thing would be a nonsense, since no continuity (the main property of a line and any given trajectory) can be obtained by putting in discrete order, one right next to the other, a bunch of things with no extension at all (namely: points). Thus, another property is needed to complete the line with only points; not even density alone can do it, since Q is a dense set alright (i.e. there's always a rational between any two given rationals) but there are constructible numbers which hence should be in the (real) line but can't be reached by quotients (e.g. √2). What is needed to complete the continuum, and which makes line the universal representation of real numbers, is the least upper bound property, thus acknowledged and set in stone as THE real numbers' Completeness Axiom.

Post edited on 10th Jan 2013, 10:08pm

Reflection is not rotation, somewhat counter-intuitively. This fact still makes me uneasy and frustrated: I'm certain about it, yet somehow I still feel a slight sense of falsity.
Someone should make a game, where certain teleports not only translate and rotate you, but also reflect. For you, it would appear you arrived to the mirror image of the world you started in. Where you had to turn left, you would have to turn right, &vv. For others, the weapon which was in your right hand, would be in your left hand from then. Both effects would be reverted by passing through that portal once again.

>>21072
>Reflection is not rotation, somewhat counter-intuitively.
And that's why intuition (let alone feminine intuition) isn't worth a dim.

You might have figured it out already. However: you think of it as a rotation because, "intuitively", you can very well rotate a papercut to such effect in the 3D space where you and me belong alright; but that's not the case with the 2D figure or graphic of the function you're really dealing with: for a 2D entity, to do such thing as "flying away and landing the other side" would be like... dunno, sorcery, bullshit, opening its chakras with LSD or some shit. Despite reflection being a rigid transformation, it's impossible to get a mirror version of a 2D figure with any composition of 2-dimensional rotation functions; it's like how, in 3D, you can ideally spin any way you like without compromising the integrity of your body, but I'd like you to tell me how to turn you bilateral left side into your right one and vice versa without something like magic, as you already kind of pointed out yourself.

However, there was another guy who failed to see that flying papercuts cannot constitute a 2D formal proof for anything: Euclid, when trying to prove the proposition about congruent triangles, if I remember correctly.

Why did people ever think domesticating elephants for warfare was a good idea? Seemingly every second battle involving them ends up with the enemy faction scaring the elephants via horns or chariots and ends up with them going completely berserk, trampling all over their allies. Really now.

Browsing depressing forums like /so/ will not help you. It will not make you stronger. All it will do is poison your brain. Surrounding yourself with other people who agree and encourage your pessimism and self-wallowing can only do bad things.

I read in a book about logic, that two objects are equal, when their properties are exactly the same. (Russell seems to have agreed.)
I'm not sure if we can accept this definition, as it is self-referent. Let there be two objects, A and B. In one of possible worlds, A and B match in every property, except for "being equal to A", which holds for A, but doesn't hold for B. Conversely, we cannot conclude A=B, before assuming A=B (as "A=_" is a property by itself), making any inference of object equality trivial.
So Wittgenstein was right, equality is not between objects, but between formulae; equality is a metalingual relation.

On a slightly related note, the Morning Star is not the Evening Star. If I said "Today at 4AM, I saw the Evening Star.", you would correct me, as you should, indicating the two cannot be interchanged.

Considering how powerful modern day computers are, and how advanced ai is becoming along with our understanding of other cultures and their languages... why can't machines produce proper translations worth a damn yet?

Is it really so hard to make a program that can understand the context of words in a sentence based off the other words in the same sentence to create a translation rather than just translating each individual word on it's own? Is modern day computing technology really incapable of analyzing a combination of words and determining the most logical meaning of those words for a different language?

When someone uses a straw man argument, stop reading immediately. He either has bad logic, didn't research enough, or wants to deceive you.

Those that go out of their way to appear intellectual or educated to others, particularly on the internet, are generally insecure about their own cognitive abilities (and for good reason). To be clear, I'm not bashing this thread, as only a couple people here are really guilty of this.

>>22675

Being insecure and having self esteem issues doesn't really have much to do with one's cognitive abilities.

>>22683
What are you even going on about? I only mentioned insecurity in regards to intellectual capacity, not self-esteem as a whole. The point I was trying to make was that people that like to portray themselves as highly intelligent/educated tend to be:

A) Of near-average intellectual ability and wisdom
B) Insecure about it

This is saying nothing of their security or their self-esteem in any other 'area'. The idea is that legitimately intelligent people (as opposed to those simply putting up a facade) don't feel the need to keep proving or reaffirming their supposed intellectual talents to everyone else, especially to strangers over the internet.

>>22688
if you are going to open every post you make with "What are you even going on about?" you may as well just become a namefag, it sticks out like a sore thumb ever to someone of near-average intellectual ability and wisdom like myself.

>>22694
That's literally the second time I've ever used the phrase, and the third time I've seen it on the site to my knowledge. Are you actually so upset about my calling out your strawman arguments that you're going to resort to whining about something as trivial as that?

Post edited on 8th Aug 2013, 6:18pm

>>22694
I'm one of the guys who said 'What are you even going on about?' recently, and that was the first time I said it in a while on T-C. What are you even going on about is a fairly common phrase anon, not like everyone who says it is the same person.

Post edited on 9th Aug 2013, 1:51am

>>22688

>The idea is that legitimately intelligent people don't feel the need to keep proving or reaffirming their supposed intellectual talents to everyone else, especially to strangers over the internet.

And I'm saying that's a bullshit generalization based on nothing but your own imagination (or at very best your own limited experience). Considering where you are I think explaining it with self esteem issues is a rather safe bet.

>>22705
>limited experience
I'm curious as to what makes you think your own experiences are less limited than mine. I've been a hikikomori with far too much time to spare for a good decade now. It's nothing to be proud of, but I've seen more than enough "pseudo-intellectuals" (for lack of a better term) pushed and called out on their facades over the years to be pretty confident that they're not even a fraction as educated as they believe themselves to be. There are exceptions to every rule, and I'm sure there are more general 'self-esteem issues' to take into consideration on TC than other places on the internet, but it doesn't make the site immune to the type of shmuck I described above.

Again, I'm not bashing the thread. I've participated in it prior to this myself. Some people (two?) just seem more intent on talking about themselves than actually discussing or pondering anything.

Post edited on 9th Aug 2013, 1:26pm

What do you think /tc/?

Can we think without language?
What's the purpose of silence?
Do we need bodies to love (or live at all)?
Where does truth lay (language or the world)?
Where does true love lay (the thought or the world)?

"Maybe any serious communication between two people is useless. Even when they're outright lying, people only hear what really want to hear or what they're capable of hearing, which often holds very little resemblance with what is actually said..."

I've found this to be probably the most important and persistent problem within the human condition. Not injustice, not violence, not the failure of any meaningful category but the problem of them really computing at all. The problem of communication. The problem of language, as an alleged bridge between one and the others, between one and the world. And I sincerely feel utterly lost about it; I thought the only thing that could bring some hope was anonymity, but I was utterly wrong: I'm usually just as misunderstood in these kind of places as I am everywhere else; and I guess the same goes for the others: I do not understand you either (how could I possibly?). We're all echoing the same chants on each one's heads and imposing them on others each time we allegedly identify with someone else, be it a living person, an author or a character. This is just damned sad and disheartening... allow me to finish the previous quote:

"I've been wondering... whether love is something I'm really capable of."

...or what could it mean at all, other than the soliloquy of the waifu. I don't know what I want to be but I just know that I don't want to be like this anymore. I don't want to be this "human" thing anymore, as it persists to be, because:

"I can't tell what is real"
----Paul Weston ("In Treatment")

And just deciding nothing is... well... left me in this place, where I'm bounded to fall into nonsense, into nothing, into this artifact of me babbling myself to death.

Is there anybody out there?
Who are you?

>>23117
The fact that people can not fully understand each other doesn't mean there is no value in communicating or that human relationships are worthless. Its still worth it, even Shinji accepted this in the end.

Life is a joke.

>>23121
How nihilist.

>>23126

Not necessarily. I agree with >>23121 but it doesn't mean the joke has to be on you. Taking life seriously is a surefire way to make yourself miserable. You're supposed to laugh along.

Repeat after me: Breasts and uteruses and penises are not sexual. Sociology distinguishes between biological reproductive organs and sexual acts. Breasts may be considered a sex signifier on female-coded people, but they are not actually for sex. Society makes them about sex by emphasizing the purpose of breasts in titillating men, but in actuality breasts are just lumps of fat and muscle that excrete milk. Penises, likewise, aren’t there just for sex: people with penises use them to pee. And people with uteruses who have periods often like to make jokes about how they want to violently remove their uteruses, because they seriously suck. Notice what all these body parts have in common? That’s right. They are not about sex.
--- Texts From Walpurgis Night

To think that this was written by a woman left my mind in blank. To realize she's a lesbian put me back together.

>>23181
That isnt anything groundbreaking, everyone learns that stuff growing up.
I might as well start writing down really basic observations and stamp my name on it, so jizzbags online will quote me and maybe earn me some dosh.

>>23183
that wasn't the point but ok: give it a shot. I'll read you shit.

>>23131

Funny, I picked up some random compilation of Oscar Wilde's plays when I was at the library a couple weeks ago and...

I was on the point of explaining to Gerald that the world has always laughed at its own tragedies, that being the only way in which it has been able to bear them. And that, consequently, whatever the world has treated seriously belongs to the comedy side of things.

Always nice to randomly find your thoughts expressed in literature. In a way better manner of course.

>>23187
Tragedy and Comedy are twin children of Poetry. Haruhi knows who's the evil one though.

----------
"I don't know if this is a comedy or a tragedy, but in any case is a masterpiece" ---Haruhiard

>>23190
>haruhiard
well that was unexpected

why are people from earth always called 'humans' in scifi when pretty much every other race is named after their home planet?

>>23268
The same reason people from the USA are called "americans" when pretty much every other nationality is named after its home country, I guess.

>>23268
Don't aliens call us earthlings?

>>23268
Because it emphasizes the fact that they are non-human.

>>23269
What else would you call people from the united states of america? u.s.a.ers?

>>23272
In both spanish and portuguese there are common words, roughly equivalent to "unitedstatian", to describe US nationals. It would get messy should United States of Africa ever materialize, but then, so would "USA".

>>23269

Oh for fuck's sake.

America is not a continent. North America is a continent. South America is a continent. Together, they are called "the Americas".

"America" by itself is a country. Its people are called Americans. These words don't mean anything else. Please let this retarded "durhur but Canada and Mexico are part of America too!!!!1" factoid die already.

Fucking hell.

>>23275
So then, "British" only refers to the English then?

>>23276
Yeah pretty much. You wouldn't call something Scottish "British".

Or at least I wouldn't.

>>23276

The terminology there is more complex and FAR more contentious. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_British_Isles. In any case, it's a totally different context. The closest equivalent would be referring to a person from the Republic of Ireland as British just because Ireland (the island) is part of the "British Isles".

Would you really call someone from Canada an American? No, because they'd think you're a moron. "American" unambiguously refers to people from the United States of America.

>>23275
>America is not a continent.
Never said it was.

>"America" by itself is a country.
Merriam-Webster partly disagrees http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/america

Bit of a language tangent, but it is of note that in spanish and portuguese "América" is indeed a continent, no nitpicking about the plural "s" either.

I dream about a women-less world.
I really, really, really do.

I'd rather live in a world where sex and masturbation harm your health than one where swabbing the inner year does.
My hopes for our transhuman future is precisely the development of a new ear which not only is not harmed by the act, but which presents a greater sensibility to the soft cotton touch, being able to elevate us to an yet unknown state of pure climax, sensual experience and intimacy both with oneself and the world; twice, once for each ear. Also, no yellow-ish wax, it looks gross. Maybe everyone could chose what color their wax would be.
Not only that, but the vulgar contortions and abrasions of penetrative sex would be replaced by the gentle and pure resting on your lovers' lap as s/he tends to your ear, then you his/hers, and yet again from the beginning for the other ear. A lot more symmetric too, that's good.

>>23343
that'd be pretty gay

>>23343
I wouldn't go that far. I dream of a world where they all simply act like and identify as regular human beings, instead of a self-entitled faction that both plays the victim and accepts favoritism in the same breath.

>>23347
Now this guy, he's got the right idea.

Just like dinosaurs and fern forests had to disappear in order to become the oil and carbon we use, women should go extinct so their insidious presence can be completely overwritten with their image in our heads, which is the actual fuel for our dreams and nightmares of love.

>>23350
Both women and men are pieces of shit.

>>23356

Always good to see somebody who is smart enough to forget about misogyny and fully embrace superior misanthropic beliefs.

>>23350
Oh so us smelly neckbearded master race can shuffle around like mindless zombies doing nothing but aging until the inevitable decline and erasure of the species? Yeah sounds great I'd love to live in a world with no internet, electricity, or food.

I can get on board with entering 2D but this shit's pretty mindless.

>>23357
I really hope you're not implying that believing that women shouldn't receive special treatment for simply being born female qualifies as 'misogyny'. I see enough of that dreck outside of TC.

>>23361

Nah, it's you who actually distinguishes between men and women. Human beings are all equally shit regardless of their gender.

>>23362
Swing and a miss.

I'll agree that humans are all shitty, but I don't think you're grasping what you're even replying to. An individual person's opinions on each gender has absolutely nothing to do with how they're treated as a social class.

If you get into an accident and some paramedics hall you away in a ambulance without your permission, couldn't it be considered a form of kidnapping? Could it not also be considered a form of extortion when they bill you for services you didn't ask for or were unable to refuse? (like if you were knocked out)

>>23358
So it was true, Shinden: you really suck...

The point was precisely about finally fulfilling love with technology, replacing flesh with number, towards becoming ourselves something better than panting, aging and idiotically breeding beasts. Power and knowledge belong to men; women, as such, are mere troublesome sex toys and incubators that bleed on the Moon's command: they're way too "natural"/animalistic, thus a burden for posthumanity; so the point is to eradicate them and substitute them with dolls, AI, eugenics and such, rendering gender roles as entirely social, as a first step to abolish our disgusting biological condition. To live up actual love stories, we must first aim it towards actual characters and finally become actual characters ourselves.

Not my own thought, but I felt like sharing,

Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you won't do anything with it.

I feel like that song about the fox was written by a furry. It's possible that the person asked what sound it made on some message board and got joke responses, then made a song out of it. Then again, I'm pretty much just making a bunch of stupid guesses.

>>23393
What song is this?

>>23397
That popular song called The Fox (What does the fox say?).

Some people take it as satire. I was just taking it from a serious point in that last post, but I dunno what to think of it. It's too much effort to actually put thought into that though.

Asked Cleverbot about my thesis.
Didn't help much.

I wonder how hard it would be to sneak popcorn into a movie theater. Popcorn that hasn't gotten stale during the trip there mind you.

>>24133
Buying the popcorn at the movie theatre?

>>24133
You can hide the popcorn in your anus/vagina or just swallow the whole package without opening it and going to the bathroom to retrieve it in the middle of the film.
Works for coke, why shouldn't it work for popcorn?

The Taylor Swift song "You Belong With Me" could be interpreted as Death lamenting someone deciding not to suicide. Or, as Life stealing someone away from Death. Here are some excerpts that support this interpretation.

>You're on the phone with your 3DPD, she's upset
>She's going off about something that you said
People tend to get upset when someone announces suicidal ideation.

>'Cause she doesn't get your humor like I do.
This suicidal person clearly has gallows humor

>Dreamin' 'bout the day when you wake up and find
>That what you're looking for has been here the whole time
>If you could see that I'm the one who understands you
>Been here all along, so why can't you see
>You belong with me?
>You belong with me
>Walkin' the streets with you and your worn out jeans
>I can't help thinkin' this is how it ought to be
>Laughin' on a park bench, thinkin' to myself
>Hey, isn't this easy?
Self explanatory. Especially, the "hey, isn't this easy?" A desire to take it easy more than anyone else has ever easyed it before is a possible reason to kill yourself.

>And you've got a smile that could light up this whole town
>I haven't seen it in a while since she brought you down
>You say you're fine, I know you better than that
>Hey, what ya doin' with a girl like that?
Suicidal people tend to get happier when they make plans to kill themselves. The song's subject clearly rejected suicide, and is now miserable again. Death laments the subject's choice to "date" Life.

>I'm the one who makes you laugh, when you know you're 'bout to cry
Same concept as above. Gallows humor. Suicide is funny when you think about how sweet it's going to be.
>I know your favorite songs, and you tell me 'bout your dreams
She knows you listen to The Cure.
>Think I know where you belong, think I know it's with me
Death is increasingly showing her controlling demeanor.

Post edited on 12th Jun 2014, 6:12pm

>>24135
buying food from a movie theater? you must be mad!

>>24142
I guess I am. I find that it has a larger selection of loose weight candy, shit's expensive though.

Something I noticed on my drive home today.
All cars come in colors that can be divided up into 5 groups. White which is the one I noticed the most of, black and other really dark colors, silver/grey and similar looking tones like really light browns. There's variations of red and finally the very rare 'other' including yellow, pink, green, or multiple colors. For the most part it's like they made cars with modern shooter games in mind.
It's sad but there's absolutely no personality to most cars on the road unless they're somehow related to a business.

>>23364
The paramedics took you away in their ambulance and provided you with medical treatments 'in good faith', therefore it isn't extortion.

>>24152
Then they shouldn't throw a fit when you can't afford to pay their unreasonable fees.

Been trying to find some fair points of view about fathers' lust for their daughters (not the other way around, which is usually referred to the Electra Complex), but all I've found is christian rants (and poems!) against it plus a bit of erotica. Scholar Google results seem to focus on cases of rape and psychological treatment of the victims, rather than offering a purely analytical view on the lust itself. Maybe I should go look at the university's online catalog, for this isn't taking me anywhere.

>>24160
Give me some search words and I'll look it up.

>>24160
Try Laius complex. The object isn't specifically gendered but the phenomenon's probably the same.

What the hell does "edgy" mean, exactly, in the context of otaku imageboards and why is it abused ad nauseam as an insult?

>>24171
Sort of like chuunibyou syndrome. Someone young who thinks they're dark and unique and got the world all figured out.

>>24171
It's another unwarranted way to call you pretentious.

You make a post that shows certain knowledge, and some people who do not have that knowledge hurt in their pride and react calling you a fake.

Notice that the people who do know about the matter and legitimately disagree with you, do not use such roundabouts and directly refute your claims instead, or at least start discussing them in appropriate terms.

If you don't have some activity or hobby you enjoy, if you do nothing enjoyable each day, you are effectively only waiting. Perhaps you're not depressed, but you aren't happy either. You don't actively seek to make anything occur in your life, so the next event to break the monotony will occur for reasons outside your control.

But what will that event be? You can't tell. What you can know is this asymmetry: there's no guarantee of any good events in your future, but there is a guarantee of a bad one (and high likelihood of more than one). Before you die you will probably become sick many times. Perhaps the next event will be a bout of food poisoning - you'll be vomiting into a toilet bowl wondering what the point of such suffering is when you don't really enjoy anything in life anyway. Maybe the last event will be a cancer diagnosis, or the emotional suffering that generally precedes a suicide.

So relearn how to enjoy the things you used to, or search for some new hobby you like. It can be watching anime, playing video games, bike riding, cooking, anything. If you don't, life is only monotony interspersed with periods of suffering.

>relearn how to enjoy the things
Sometimes it can be as simple, other times it's not. I do believe it's possible to experience a (possibly) life changing impulse, but it's insanely hard to act upon it in seclusion. That's from personal experience, anyway.

Sometimes I do wonder how healthy people can revolve around so little, when they have the means to rule the world.

>>24171
'edgy' is something that attempts to take unthinkable risks and push boundaries. Something almost rebellious meant to offend and invoke strong emotions in people. Problem is nothing professionally made that claims to be or tries to be edgy ever really is, it's always calculated and planed by a team of professionals who are taking anything but a risk. For example, call of duty thinks it's being edgy when they have you gun down innocent people at an airport or show a child being blown up. These are little more than crys for attention from something as generic as can be, which is what most 'edgy' things ultimately amount to. This is applicable to people as well. When called out on it many will simply act like pretentious pricks and claim no one understands them or the things they like; Much like emo/goth kids or even beatniks. As >>24172 stated 'edgy' things are typically something popular with adolescents desperate for a sense of individuality.

I wonder if conspiracy theory videos are made by individuals, or if there are organizations dedicated to their production.

Videos like http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xac4ao_the-arrivals-pt-03-children-s-mind_redband
for instance.

What's the point of getting a girl's number when you don't know anything about her? I see it a lot in tv and film but do guys really expect a girl to fuck some random stranger she's never seen just because he called her on the phone?

>>24425
>do guys really expect a girl to fuck some random stranger
They actually do that. Never heard of a one night stand?

>>24426
yeah but with a phone call you have no idea if the guy is some old ugly fatass.

>>24427
I'm fairly sure "getting a girl's number" means hitting on her in a bar/party/whatever and convince her to hand over her number so he can get in touch with her. I don't know, maybe everything's on facebook now.

Today, I think I had a revelation.
I think normals like talking to each other because they do things that give them a sense of accomplishment. And thus, they have things to talk about.

I don't like talking to people because I have no accomplishments and therefore nothing to say, and so talking to people uses up time I could be using to try and do something that makes me feel like I'm a sack of shit. However, because I am a sack of shit, it takes me an inordinate amount of time to do something and inevitably fail. And then I have nothing to talk about with people because I can't do anything.

Another day waiting to die...

>>24624
I don't really think "It's all boasting about your various achievements." is a very encompassing view of why people would talk to each other. Probably a kernel of truth to it though; when I last met some of my old acquaintances from school times they mostly discussed some real esoteric tech research one of them was doing for some fancy university title thesis and various get-rich-quick schemes.
But eventually things did turn to the dreaded "So what have you been up to?" which deflected things to a pleasant conversation on the latest news in Chinese cartoons, physics, and hot 2hu tips after some slightly shocking concern over me "not doing anything with my life." (Were they always the kind of people to worry about stuff like that?)

So I guess my latest singular sample of anecdotal non-evidence on social interactions in "normal people" partly does confirm that having to prove something about your undeniably high societal status and wealth might well be a very common part of the formula, but also that reasonable and potentially enlightening discussion about things and not people is likely at least somewhat commonly had.

Everyone agreed we should meet up again. Haven't seen or heard anything of anyone in well over a year once again.
Maybe next summer will be one of those. Or the one after. Or maybe not.

Hard to keep track of how many it's been lately. Maybe that was actually this year for all I know.
...
How old am I really?
Don't think about it. Just go play one of them video games or something.

I can't stay interested in things.
Inevitably, after a few days of doing something, I get existential about it and wonder why I'm even doing it and I lose interest. If I look up discussion about something online, this happens immediately. I think looking up stuff online ruins my interest mostly because I see all the other related things people recommend and I get overwhelmed by how arbitrary my choice of activity is.

I downloaded Touhou 13 yesterday and this already happened.

>>25224
Man, tell me about it...

I can't even remember the last time I finished a game / book / anime. I just lose interest way too fast these days. Everything's just so pointless.

Of all the kinds of people on Earth, the nouveau riche might be one of the worst.

>>25323
Thank god the increasing social inequality of our times and the decline of the middle class mean that those will get rarer and rarer as time goes by.

Why are pedophiles considered to be automatically evil? It's not like they had a choice in what they feel attracted to, I feel like it's similar to being gay.

You aren't doing anything wrong by just being attracted to children. Yet if you told normies you're a pedo, even though you would never try to act on it, majority would likely want to send you to a prison.

>>25340
Because Ford Drivers do not understand the difference between pedophiles and child molesters. They see the two as synonyms, and refuse to believe that it's possible to have a sexual attraction without acting on it (particularly if the person in question is male).

Psychologically speaking, the events that lead to being a pedophile are no different than the ones that create homosexuality (being born with an abnormal sexual orientation)- but trying to explain any of this, no matter how calmly or simply, will just get you labeled as a child molester or a "child molester sympathizer" in any situation involving Ford Drivers.

>>25340
Contrasting with homosexuality, maybe it's a PR problem more than anything. And understandably so I suppose. Removed from religious motivations it seems insane that anyone would think it a good idea to limit the freedom of adult people to have whatever kind of relationship with whatever other persons they want to (as long as none of them are against the idea) based on ultimately arbitrary notions of gender-appropriate behavior.

But factoring in all the complexity that comes with counting in non-adult people, right in the middle of the most rapid phases of development humans go through, with potentially huge individual disparity in relevant physical and mental maturity at all points, it's just nowhere near the same amount of clear-cut. So there's little chance for a really cohesive movement on the side of anything related to pedophilia to form. "Maybe don't vilify and dehumanize people based on thoughts they have that you find disturbing, because having thoughts and feelings isn't the same as acting on them." just isn't that catchy.

I suppose NAMBLA for one takes a stronger more dramatic stance than that, but even then they don't have any easy answers either, and when people get so emotional about THE CHILDREN—understandably, perhaps—calling for a complex and nuanced discussion on how any law on things like age of consent ultimately has to be somewhat arbitrary and any judgment, sex-related or not, should always be based on the individuals involved in any given case... I mean, on the face of it that premise sounds quite reasonable to me personally, with my European hyperlibrul mentally ill completely removed from reality faggot values. But man-boy, am I glad I'm never planning to try my hand at representing any part of NAMBLA's views in any official capacity, because I would obviously only be saying any of it because I want to, nay, I MUST RAPE THEIR CHILDREN.

Of course the numbers being probably notably lower (But I don't really know. Nor do I know that anyone really knows, due to the baggage of the mere question.) than homosexuality probably is also a big factor in pedophilia remaining so alien to culture at large. And I'm sure trying to build a cultural community around repressing sexuality—especially for non-religious reasons—would be a much harder proposition than one focusing on affirming and expressing a formerly maligned and forcibly repressed flavor of sexuality.

I guess it's just a dauntingly nuanced issue shadowed by a high perceived risk of CHILDREN GETTING HURT with the negatively affected a relatively tiny and fiercely—whether largely unjustly or not—vilified minority. A world where there remain a non-trivial number of people who think the color of your skin determines your moral character probably isn't collectively ready to even consider the existence of a shadow of a possibility of treating pedophiles like humans instead of monster-shaped targets, much less challenge any norms on what should be considered harmful, or indeed that non-harmful behavior could even exist within the sphere of pedophilia.

>>25340
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmo

>>25340
>>25342
That people think attraction to and raping a child are synonymous might actually indicate that they have problems themselves. I mean, do they find it difficult to keep themselves from raping other adults? Their assumption indicates so, and that they assume everyone else has such difficulty.
I think this is what goes on in the mind of a normal:
"If I couldn't ever have sex consensually I would want to rape someone. If I could get away with it, I would do it. I am attracted to adults but if I attempt to rape one they will tell the police and/or fight back. Pedophiles can't have sex consensually, and children can be raped with less fear of being caught. If I were a pedophile I would probably rape children, so I think most/all pedophiles are child molestors."
This kind of thinking is why wise men in the past invented the idea of divine punishment. Because normals only avoid crime because they fear punishment, and they are driven by base instincts.

>>25340
Well in Canada it is up to the judge what is illegal and what isn't because "imaginary people are people too". That was literally the Supreme Court verdict banning lolicon. So far only a couple of people have been charged/convicted for it and they were all really asking for it (one was a reservist at work, one commissioned 10000 shota pictures with his credit card, and one tried to bring dozens of movies and doujinshi across the border). I am not a pedo or a loli viewer so I should be OK, but if they ever try to arrest me for it I will sooner kill myself than go to court/prison. I keep poison pills in my pocket everywhere I go for that purpose. Granted, I'm a bit paranoid but I have social anxiety already without being accused of what many consider the most heinous crime.

>>25356
He wasn't even talking about loli laws or politics or whatever.

>>25357
Yes, but that law is a direct consequence of people thinking that pedophilia=child molestation. The law is essentially banning people from expression of pedophilia in any way, regardless of whether it actually hurts people. It is also worth noting that the law includes literature.

>>25356
Not the same situation where I live, but I like to imagine I'd stand firm and calm and persuasive in the face of any obviously ridiculous accusations like that.

Kind of to a point where it looks megalomaniacally insane upon introspection. I would demonstrate to the people of the world how wrong they all are! Once and for all! For I am the most level-headed and cleverest thinker of all!
...
Anon, if they ever enact laws like that where I live, you have to mail me some of those poison pills before I say anything the entire rest of the human race will regret.

>>25370
My poison pills are just 15000mg of caffeine so you should probably be able to get some.I would like to imagine I would stand tall under ridicule, but really pedophiles are by far the most hated demographic and a simple accusation is a death sentence, never mind a conviction.

>>25383
>15000mg of caffeine
I wonder what taking that would feel like...?

>>25401
It would probably be a pretty painful death

>>25401
Internal bleeding, heart attack, seizures. Not so good.

While women are urged to wear heels for beauty standards, they are not pushed to use these or those heels in particular within their range of consumption. So, despite its rienced coercive origin, there is a component within the use of heels that falls legitimately within the scope of personal choice, or (just like the reader before the author) of taste before fashion as an empowerment of the individual and the recapture of some freedom. However, heels, among other historically renowned examples of women's footwear, have the indisputable feature of preventing them from walking too far or too fast: to weaken a degree of mobility and power that they'd perfectly have if not using them. Thus, beyond their cosmetic function and their problems within that scope, heels are a clear example of the possibility of means of control being effectively disguised as means of expression and thus, in general, of the fully functional but essentially fraudulent status that even the most common signs can reach...

All this except in Kill La Kill, of course.

>>25527
I think you're forgetting about cars. Women aren't restricted from traveling anywhere anymore than men are. It's just something for formal wear, not meant to be an everyday thing. Formal wear is always going to be impractical. In the real world women who are going to be on their feet a lot rarely wear stuff like that. It's no where near as common as anime/game/tv/movie make it seem. As with many tropes in those media it's only there because it looks good. Women don't all feel forced to wear them anymore than men feel forced to get sixpack abs simply because all the guys in the movies have them.

>>25527
Haven't seen Kill la Kill so maybe that makes the above moot, but are you seriously saying heels are a sign of male patriarchy?

>>25529
>Haven't seen Kill la Kill
Don't bother. It's nudist propaganda for casual anime fans.

>>25530
He's saying that they handicap themselves, but by controlling the situation they appear/feel more attractive or "cool" for lack of a better word. Like peacocks.

>>25532
Awesome way to put that, actually. Made me laugh.

Is being dishonest with yourself or others justified when some ideas and philosophies are just more intuitive and get better results?

Like, knowing what we know today, it's likely that free will does not exist, but the illusion of it is just so strong and visceral, that trying to think and act against it is counterproductive.

Or as less esoteric example: People who think, or are led to believe, that they stand for freedom and liberty, will have a much happier and productive life, even though in practice their actions don't reflect their views.

Is it justified to extend these 'personal' lies to society as a whole, for the same purpose?

>>25548
I would say so. Just looking at historical examples can clearly show the benefits of some degree of "free will".

I think the genesis for "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" comes with an increasing mental weariness to unproductive tinkering that you tend to acquire as you age, making you more inclined to use "tried and true" methods.

A while back, I was going through learning Adobe After Effects for a project, but found myself frustrated that I was not picking up the interface after a few go-arounds. Everything seemed unintuitive and unexplained. Just as I was about to go back to Sony Vegas, it occurred to me that when I was a teenager, Sony Vegas and other tools were equally unintuitive and unexplained, but I just messed with them until I found a solution. So I waited until I had a vacation to pick to dedicate my time to messing around with After Effects with Google by my side, and now its slowly becoming second nature.

I also have this conflict with GIMP and Photoshop, in that I always use GIMP because I am familiar with its quirks, but its hardly ever failed me and it is more cross-platform than Photoshop, so I find sticking to it to be worth the time-sinks in various particularities of the software.

I feel this experience highlights the necessity of experimentation, which people often try to bypass with an increasingly dated knowledge of a skill. And the more you hold out, the rougher the paradigm shift will be when and if you finally try and challenge it.

I watched some videos and testimonials about how it is to be "high-functioning autistic" or aspie and whatnot. From all I saw, it seems like being a perfectly average person growing up in the highly competitive, alienating and information-overloaded postmodern world, rather than any neurological or cognitive group-specific condition (apart from always using an extremely victimizing and apologetic rhetoric). They really have to try harder with that autism spectrum popularization efforts of them, cause honestly it's a bunch of crap.

>>25729

>>25733
Yeah, that's a legit autist, not an aspie moron.

There's something staggeringly beautiful about De Morgan laws.

They turn me on.

>>25751
It's their inner symmetry.

>>25729
Presumably these video testimonials are filmed by professionals in a manner that allows neurotypical people to relate to the individuals in question. This means mitigating the presentation of symptoms, whether by coaching or skilled filming and editing. It should not come as news to you that people permanently wear a "perception filter" that excludes some sources of information and privileges others. To publish the video without any photoshoppery will simply present a source of information that offends the viewer's perception filter, negating the purpose of the video.

>it seems like being a perfectly average person growing up in the highly competitive, alienating and information-overloaded postmodern world
>They really have to try harder with that autism spectrum popularization efforts of them, cause honestly it's a bunch of crap.
In the first you seem to be acknowledging the reality of their experience and in the second you seem to be denying it. Are you suggesting instead that they ought to be campaigning for a more sedate world to live in?

>>25771
I think he's saying that there's a disparity between the message and the content of these videos.

>>25771
No: in the first I acknowledged such gloomy lives as all of us contemporary citizens' general condition; in the second I bashed the videos presenting those hardships as aspie exclusive problems and pushing their image of a group with special needs. I don't disbelieve autism, I disbelieve aspies propaganda.

Here's one of the videos, so you can judge by yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm4LmMph1n8

If 2d breaks the 4th wall, does it become 3d?

>>25800
no it becomes 6th.

If heroin is so bad, why is it called hero win?

>>25894
It's heroine originally, like female hero.

>From the Ancient Greek ἥρως (hḗrōs, “hero”, “demigod”).

The ine suffix just denotes it an alkaloid - caffeine, morphine, mescaline, amphetamine etc.

Love isn't really that different from being hungry, but no one makes songs about people being hungry.

>>26490
I think that I've heard a Vocaloid song about hunger, but that was a long time ago so I'm unsure.

>>26491
There's also a book called hunger/sult.
Hunger is easily satiated, at least in most places, so it's easy to forget terrible it is.

But why do people feel the need to make more love songs? Are they even trying to add something new? Really, I've always thought that the melody accompanies the lyrics and theme, but it's actually the other way around: the lyrics are simply there to make the music sound better, not to convey a meaningful message or feeling. Love songs are nothing more than rhyming words and a melody, and it's no better than singing scubbedy bubbedy slabbety wabbety.

>>26493
I know one with a meaningful message: rack city bitch, rack rack city bitch, 10 10 10 20s on yo titties bitch...

Nevermind, I got nothing.

Post edited on 12th Mar 2015, 2:34am

Blind people don't see blackness, they just don't see shit.

I got to thinking about that in comparison to death.
The concept of nothingness is so lost on us that we can't understand it, or just flat refuse to believe it.

>>26490
There's an album by psychostick that's almost nothing but songs about food and hunger

No wonder my motivation is so shit.

>>26556
Not even passion?

>>26568

I'm no stranger to convoluted language in philosophy, but Heidigger seems to be really taking the cake with his Essays in Metaphysics. I've been following alright, I feel, but it's a real chore to read through some of this shit.

>>26556
This venn diagram bugs me because the bubbles on the opposites can't be combined without atleast one of the other attributes.
Consider that you could be great at something the world needs and not be love or get paid for it.

I think my life was more interesting when i didn't have a job and was neet. endless "free" time and no money led to creative efforts to entertain myself.

But in saying that, the constant burden of worrying about my future is lifted. Now I just need to figure out what to do with myself.

>>26600
I'm in the other boat at the moment. I'm dying to get a job. Nothing is fun any more, all I can think about while whittling away my time on games and anime is how unsure my financial future is. Sucks the fun out of everything.

>>26606
>I'm dying to get a job. Nothing is fun any more

That sounds like me. I've applied for jobs but I'm still scared. I mean, what am I supposed to do if I get a job? Shovel dirt around, pass groceries though a checkout and shit like that? I don't know.

>>26600
And I'm in the third situation of having a mind-numbing job that doesn't pay enough to actually move out. So I work all day hating my job then watch anime all night while this feeling of helplesness eats away at me.

Testicles are outside of the body because body-heat kills sperm right? So if you dunk your junk in warm/hot water for a few minutes before getting freaky would that negate the need for birth control?

>>26580
Is doing this just a way to say "yes" or "I agree with this post" nowadays?

>>28007
word son

>>28006
The question Im more interested in is why the sperm making machinery didn't simply just evolve to work at a higher temperature

>>25353
Scum normies being unable to conceive of the idea that sexual arousal does not translate into "I want to do this. I should do this if I'm ever able to" isn't that hard to imagine. I've seen loads of statements and sentiments that seem to indicate it from some of them.

Do transformers get car insurance or life insurance?

Is the only way to remain with pure intentions to have the mentality of a herd-like farm animal?
Existentialist emptiness and corruption abound

Why do people come back from baby changing stations with the same baby?

Why do people like Steve Jobs so much? People act like he's some revolutionary hero who changed the world and idolize him as such. Far as I know he was just the face of a company that produced overpriced fashionable electronics designed for morons.

Is death the end? What happens to our personalities, our memories, our thoughts, our feelings, our experiences and our sentience when we die?

>>30141
I don't believe in gods in the traditional sense or an afterlife, but I do sometimes wonder if our consciousness is like an electrical field or something and our mind lives on after our body dies.

>>30141
They simply die with your brain, presumably.

I would like to believe in the concept of a soul or something similar, but I honestly doubt anything like it exists.

Do ojousama exist in reality? Just about every anime character type has it's real world counterpart it's based on, but are ojousama actually a thing? I've never seen or heard of one outside of anime. Real world rich people are fucking lame.

>>30575
That's what I mean though. I know real people aren't as two dimensional as anime characters in personality, but you can still draw some parallels to the type of people they're based on, be it book worms or tomboys. With ojou vs real world stuck up rich skanks they're miles apart. It makes me wonder what ojousama are actually based on.
Real world rich women are slutty cunts who get shit faced drunk at parties around the world, and take part in drug fueled sex orgies with strangers while breaking every law in the book, knowing they'll get bailed out by daddy. How did it even become a thing to represent rich women as eccentric 18th century style debutantes? I'm not complaining, but it is a pretty big leap.

>>30577
>that aren't really present in the west.
Aren't most ojou in anime represented as being foreigners though?

>>30574
>>30576
Technically yes, they do. I'm relatively sure the ojou-sama laugh comes from the stereotypical French laugh "oh hon hon hon" (Male example; 3D Warning - https://youtu.be/0Mz88TYuBn4) which is why it's almost invariably a western-looking person. It's also possible this was a common thing decades ago (Female example; Wizard of Oz; 3D Warning - https://youtu.be/btPfmWrS6AY) and it just extrapolated from there to represent rich people who look down on others.
>>30575
You're partially right. A lot of stereotypes are based upon constant anecdotes and a lot of people are quite one-dimensional in their behaviour. Tsunderes are very much a thing in real life, for example.

If Spice and Wolf was set in modern times, Lawrence Kraft would be a truck driver.

>>30675
So American adaptation of Spice and Wolf would be... Smokey and the Bandit?

>>30675
Maybe, but your average truckers don't buy or sell the products they move. They just get paid to move things for a transport company. Said transport company meanwhile would be contracted by people like Lawrence to move his products for him. It's not unlikely though that he would buy his own truck to transport his own goods, but those trucks are expensive as fuck unlike a wood cart. Those trucks cost as much as houses, so it's more practical to pay for the transit so you can use that saved time to arrange other deals.

How often do they drain pools in Japanese schools? Is this like a weekly or monthly thing? Never really thought about this till I got myself a house with a pool, but draining and filling a pool can be a real pain in the butt. The cost of all the water needed to fill one can be pretty high depending on your location.

>>30701
You are supposed to use chemicals and natural additives to control the scum, and cover it in the fall and winter months from debris.

draining and filling a pool to clean it shouldn't be necessary, I wonder if the Japanese don't use filtration or chlorine?

>>30701
our perception of japanese school life is probably pretty skewed. i doubt students get locked in the PE shed or attacked by youkai in IRL japanese school nearly as often as anime would lead us to believe. the pool cleaning thing might be overemphasized

I was just now thinking about the trolley ethics problem. The one with five people on one track and one person on the other. It occurred to me, the obvious answer isn't to take the track with the one worker, it's to stay on the track with the five workers. Five workers means the people on that track are five times more likely to notice your trolley and get the fuck out of the way. The one guy on the other track might not hear/see you due to whatever he's doing and doesn't have a buddy or two with him to say "hey dude, a trolley is coming to fuck yo shit up bra, mights wanna move ya know". I guess part of the issue involves having a level of trust in your fellow man, you trusting them and them trusting each other to have their backs. Besides, if one or more see the trolley and run without helping the other workers, their death is on that dipshits hands not yours. What's he gonna do, say something like "yeah sure I ran, but like, well, shit, you should have gone down the other track and killed Jerry over there, you jackass." ?