losian

To be fair, I think everyone had the same thought.

And what was their reasoning? It showed how their system is built upon metrics and advertising rather than anything vaguely genuinely useful to consumer yet is constantly presented as if it were?

Their whole shtick seems to be all this stuff that looks objective - recommendations from 'experts' that mean nothing, bestselling items that are paid for slots and manipulation, and they certainly don't care.. because every sale, crooked or otherwise, is cash in their pocket. There's no incentive.

One of the basic tenants is kinda like.. Say you bought a microwave of a certain brand, it happens to be made by a company that also sells microwavable food products. If you want to microwave another brand's food, you have to pay, otherwise it takes longer, or burns the shit out of your food, or undercooks it.

Logically, you bought the microwave, it should perform its task, period. Whatever you put in it should not matter, it is yours to do with as you wish. The company could also force competitors to pay them so as to not fuck up your food - it opens the door to a lot of shady bullshit, in essence, if we don't have net neutrality.

It's really the gist of it - should your ISP be able to nitpick what you access and how fast you access it based on what it is. If its Netflix they slow it down, unless Netflix pays them X extra. Is it another cable company's on demand service? Oops, slowed to a crawl, doesn't work. Imagine that. BUt you can use their shittier service for a low low fee, imagine that!

It's an attempt to block a conflict of interest that a company shouldn't be able to hold over their customers when the company has a near or complete monopoly. In reality, internet should just be a goddamn utility already.

Not that most people who believe in bigotry for bullshit reasons will be open to reason, but have you explained to your mom that the New Testament never said anything about homosexuality until 1964? It was added, yes that's right added. After hundreds of years people quite spontaneously decided to change the wording of translations accepted since the 1300s in some variation or another, ever so conveniently around the time homosexuality was being heavily stigmatized.

Funny, that, no? Edit2: Feel free to see for yourself: http://imgur.com/93uTA,mKJhN - I'm not sure if these are from that particular edition I found on Google docs, these are from, if I remember right, an 1890s one or somewhere around there.

http://www.clgs.org/arsenokoit%C3%A9s-and-malakos-meanings-and-consequences

The article itself is written by Dale Martin, a professor of religious studies at Yale who, as far as I can tell, is still a practicing Christian, just one who has actually read and studied the bible, but has also looked at some of the original greek.

The funniest part about it is that the greeks had pleeeenty of words for gay dudes, gay sex, and all that. None of those were used, and therefore in every Bible since the 1300s, when it was first translated into English, the New Testament never referenced homosexuality in either of those cases folks so often refer to - which are Romans and Timothy, off the top of my head. (EDIT: It's Timothy1:1-10 and Corinthians1:6-9, my mistake! I wrote this all at once and didn't double-check which two I was referring to for the translation point.) Leviticus is a different ballgame as that Jewish scripture, so that's easy to dismiss for obvious reason. Per the NT you either are 0% old testament if you're gentile, or 110%, it's directly contradictory, so pick and choose there, I guess? The interesting part about the words is that some scholars believe that maybe it was representative of a very specific type of sex, such as exploitative sex, or a very specific group.. or maybe it was a socially contextual word, like today's "bronies" or "hipsters." Will people know what the fuck those are in a hundred years, a thousand?

But anyways, I know logic never helps people who are in deep, but it's pretty damn interesting.. In fact, prior to the change in translation, the Bible was translated to say "the effeminate," so unless you're a super limp-wristed gay, you're less sinful than your mother on that one, most likely! Hooray for patriarchal historical societies!

For your use, an 1885 Bible on Google Docs, to prove my point: http://books.google.com/books?id=FfdEyVUHA70C&printsec=frontcover&dq=bible&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VrDmULikE4jDrQHXloBg&ved=0CGsQ6wEwCA

This stuff sure gets interesting fast! Just like that every major anti-gay remark in the entire Bible's New Testament is discounted or explained away much easier than you can explain away many of the most obvious contradictions in the bible.. gosh, that was easy.

EDIT: It's Timothy and Corinthians, my mistake! I wrote this all at once and didn't double-check which two I was referring to for the translation point. Totally my fault. The other instance, Romans, is referring possibly to dude on dude sexing, but you can read various greek translations to get some other interpretations and, furthermore, why would something so evil and sinful be mentioned once, in passing, and only in the context of the consequences of idolatry? That doesn't make any sense. Not that any of it does, but hey..

Wonderful AMA and great answers, but I just wanted to bounce a thought off your "regular people" remark. The truth is very few people are 'normal,' most everyone has weird and strange bestial desires, and I think we'd all be better off to a degree if we accept that rather than crucify and ostracize folks just because it becomes known. In every store or bank the teller might well go home and stick a giant rubber fist up their ass, and there's nothing wrong with that. We're all weird and perverted for the most part, pretending otherwise just leaves room for pariahs when someone is "discovered" in a compromising situation!