Profile for Tehan
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Tehan |
| Member number | 5627 |
| Title | Apprentice |
| Postcount | 14 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
Recent posts
| Author | Recent posts |
|---|---|
| New Abortion Laws in General | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Tuesday, April 5 2005 02:14
Profile
Everyone here has made a great argument (with the slight exception in my case) and there are quite a few points to ponder. But pretty much anyone that is willing to read 11 pages of abortion debate has probably got their mind settled on the matter. Any borderline cases that are going to slog through the tome of abortion facts and opinions are probably not going to be helped by this, because there's people for both sides. But it's all good. The 'winner' of the argument is the one with the better arguments, and probably cares about it enough to take the time to put together the argument. I'd like to duck out of the argument before I trip myself up with my tongue again (there's something you'd pay good money to see) but I'd like to say that arguing on this has been, while not exactly fun (the subject at hand isn't the happiest) then, for want of a better word, satisfying. It forced me to gather up my admittedly scattered thoughts on the subject, which is never a bad thing. To get melodramatic, the world needs more people who care enough about topics to do something about it, even if it is just to try to convert the pagans on the nearest forum :) . Kudos to the lot of you. Ps. By the way, I'm still going to be keeping an eye on this thread, and I'm cheering for the pro-abortion-up-to-a-certain-point squad. What that point is will probably never be answered to everyones satisfaction. Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
| New Abortion Laws in General | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Saturday, April 2 2005 08:16
Profile
I mentioned Godwin's Law twice because I didn't get an answer the first time. Shutting up about it now. Anywho... To the question: I do think there's something wrong with killing a human. Something quite a bit wrong, in fact. But the point I'm trying (rather badly perhaps) to make is that I'm a little iffy on when a fetus becomes a human. No-one has, to my satisfaction answered the question as to when a fetus becomes a person. Probably because everyone has a different definition of a person, based on the soul, or genetics, or religion, or something else I probably don't agree with. And there's a world of difference between killing a human, and killing a group of cells. The point where one becomes the other is the central argument here. And the whole human-life=mouse-life thing was my sentiment that a human isn't by default better than an animal. Although the judging of better/worse is a whole other can of worms that I'd rather not touch. If I remember what I was thinking at the time of the original post, I was trying to unleash sarcasm upon the "abortion is wrong because it's taking life" argument. In case you couldn't tell, I use sarcasm quite a lot. That first half of the last sentence was sarcasm, for example. The worth of a life is always in the eye of the beholder. The impression I get from reports and statistics of slums and third-world countries is that life can be pretty damn cheap at times. I wasn't that clear before, I know. I always map out posts beautifully in my mind, spinning my thoughts into an argument that leaves people weak at the knees and agreeing whole-heartedly at what I say. But then I type it in, and it turns out to be pretty mediocre and at times self-contradictory. Ah, ego. Where would we be without it... Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
| New Abortion Laws in General | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Thursday, March 31 2005 23:46
Profile
There you have put your finger on the nub, crux and the overall sticking point on this argument. When does a fetus become a person? The point I was making is that while a fetus may be technically alive, it is not yet a person. And therefore making arguments against abortion based on it's-a-living-thing was the point I was taking through to ridiculousness in my minor essay there. I didn't put it too clearly though, did I? I should use sarcasm tags more often... And the whole human-beings-aren't-superior is best expressed by a quote from Men In Black: "A person may be smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals and you know it." The Human Race as a whole hasn't done that much that sets us above the rest of the animal kingdom. You don't see mice cutting down rainforests left and right or wiping out species faster that you can blink, except when we introduce them somewhere that can't handle them. Is Godwin's Law enforced here? Because I think we are getting very close. Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
| New Abortion Laws in General | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Thursday, March 31 2005 13:20
Profile
Before I forget, Ash Lael, please note that when I take one of the pro-life arguments, take it through to its inevitable conclusion and ridicule it, it doesn't mean that it has somehow become my opinion. Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
| New Abortion Laws in General | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Wednesday, March 30 2005 18:49
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quote:Because we're human, we're better than anything else on this planet? 'fraid I don't see eye to eye with you on that level. What exactly makes a human life better than any other type of life? Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
| New Abortion Laws in General | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Wednesday, March 30 2005 00:51
Profile
This topic is getting awfully close to Godwin's Law... but I'll throw in my two small units of currency. I am pro-choice, just to get that set in stone to start with. For those that want to stop abortion, you can't. You might shut down (or explode, for the more extreme of you) the clinics, you might criminalise the alleyway abortions, but people will still get them, only instead of sterilised equipment there'd be a bent piece of wire or something equally ghastly. Even if you force someone to give birth to a child they don't want, the fact that they are out of the womb won't suddenly mean they are keen to take care of it. Besides, the only people that would be present at an illegal abortion would be the aborter and the pregnant woman. The pregnant woman was the one that sought out the aborter, so probably wouldn't dob him in, because the pro-lifers have made her a criminal now. The aborter wouldn't dob himself in. The only way it'll reach the authorities is if the woman dies and you somehow track down the aborter. If that's your best-case scenario, you need to re-think things. For those of you who are arguing based on their religion, chill. The fetus is bouncing around happily in whatever afterlife you have, and the people that aborted it are having their souls go slam-bang into the big cludgie in the sky - if it turns out you're right about it all. And no, I'm not trivialising your religion. The next point the pro-lifers are using - the fetus is alive. Look at it squirm, it must be alive! Well, so's a mouse, and you aren't complaining about mouse poison and exterminators (at least, I hope not). You just coughed? Well, you just spat out a few million bits of bacteria, complete with unique genetic code and life. They're going to die now! How could you? Murderer! Blow up the kleenex factories! If you get around that by saying it's going to be alive some day, well lookie here, there's all these girls going around with eggs going unfertilised! Why not take it to extremes and make pregnancy mandatory once every nine months. Take it even further, and anyone that goes near microwaves or doesn't air their naughty bits periodically might be killing off their sexual reproduction cells! How dare they? Murderers! Blow up the tight-and-restrictive underwear factories! Okay, it may have gotten a bit stupid at points in the above arguements, but if taken to extremes that is where your arguements are going. My POV on abortion is this: It's the difference between instinct and thought that distinguishes things. The point where a brain stops being somewhere for the instincts to run things from and starts being where the person that moves the arms and legs hangs out. Find out when a fetus reaches that point and draw the line there. Before it it's a fetus, after it it's a baby. There may be a few bits wrong with that POV, but I'm young. I can fine-tune it. Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
| A3: The first party of explorers. in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Saturday, March 26 2005 03:48
Profile
quote:The kind only the most talented and demented of wizards can muster. 20,000 volt handbuzzers, anyone? Anvils above the door, mayhaps? Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
| Avernum V.S. Exile?? fill me in... in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Saturday, March 26 2005 03:33
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quote:Avernum is the new name for Exile. Avernum being the realm of the dead in somewhere's mythology (ancient Greek?) as far as I can remember. Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
| Help - A2 in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Saturday, March 26 2005 03:05
Profile
Serves you right for stealing from your fellow people of Avernum! Well, serves you right for stealing from somewhere so well defended, anyway. Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
| Other Realms in Avernum in Blades of Avernum | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Saturday, March 26 2005 02:43
Profile
Priest Spells are an extreme projection of the Placebo effect, if you ask me. Or just part of Magic that works differently because the priests think it should. Someone said that there are no ancient human ruins in Avernum, but in A1 there's an ancient human tomb north of Formello that opens on the first of something. And in the BOA scenario where you go through the underground river - you know the one I mean, it comes with BOA, taking wands to a fort, the Something Run... Anywho, when the Liche sends you down to the Very Deep Caves, complete with demons and Nightcrawlers (possibly worshipping the demons?), there's a portal that leads straight into Hell. Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
| Riposte in Blades of Avernum | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Saturday, March 26 2005 02:23
Profile
I'm pretty sure a riposte is when you hit the opponents weapon out of the way and skewer them in one nice, economical move. If someone/thing was attacking you with claws, an attempt to smack their arm up would probably embed your sword in their arm - not the effect you were searching for, I assume. On the same note, parrying a set of claws, which usually do not get that long, would be a small and tricky target to aim for. Although you could, again, bury your weapon in their arm. Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
| Character Traits In detail in Blades of Avernum | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Saturday, March 26 2005 02:10
Profile
The beastmaster trait just gives you the Summon Beast ability, I think you'll find. Pretty useless. Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
| How did you first find out about Spidweb's games and what is it first games you play? in General | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Friday, March 25 2005 22:12
Profile
I started with Exile 3, which I got off a demo CD somewhere. Played it, reached the registration chasm, and back then I was knee-high to a grasshopper and was receiving pocket money of a fiver a week, and in Australian dollars too. Explored every inch of the available space and made a huge pile of spirals in my room in Fort Emergence. Hard drive crashed a while later, lost Exile 3, and forgot about it. Skip forward a few years, and a friend recommended Avernum. I played it, spent ages pondering where I had heard the whole caves-under-the-surface storyline, went back to Exile 3 and re-established my lovely stone spiral collection. Good times were had by all but the troglos. Ah, the memories... Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |
| Speculating about Avernum 4's plot in General | |
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Apprentice
Member # 5627
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written Friday, March 25 2005 21:54
Profile
The whole Avernum 4 came out of left field, for me anyway - I was wandering over to see if there were any new BOA scenarios and I almost fell off my chair when I saw "After Geneforge 3 I will be working on A4" or something along those lines. Because so far, all the Avernum games have been predictable, for lack of a better word. Now, this will have a huge amount of spoiler points in it, so anyone that hasn't finished off the Avernum trilogy (soon to be quadrilogy) should carefully skip this post. A1 - group of adventurers get chucked into Avernum, so do what they were doing above and adventure. After a few goblin/nephil slaughtering quests, Micah wants help, and the slith slaughter starts with promises of great rewards. Grah-Hoth battle, to protect Avernum and the adventurers, finding an exit for obvious reasons and killing... erm... King thingy (forgotten his name, m'fraid) for revenge. A2. The Empire gets quite PO'ed because of the assassination, and they were already setting up base in the caves. Declares war. Our new PCs are soldiers, so they gather around allies and slaughter enemies. Recover crystals to get alliance, shut down teleporter to stop insane amounts of reinforcements flooding the caves, kill Garzad (sp?) because he's in charge of the Empire armies. Avernum fights off the Empire, so the next thing to do is... A3. Getting back onto the surface. Killing of monster plagues so we have a habitable home and then... cutting them off at the source to stake out a claim the Empire will honour. Although specific plot points may be surprises, the overall direction of the plot is always predictable. So A4 will be... what? No big armies after our heads, no demons trying to break free of prisons, we have a home on the surface and it's pretty tame now that all the plagues have been killed off/distracted by slaughtering each other. Of course, Jeff has been going down different paths lately - went from 'defend the homeland that is perpetually nice and fluffy!' of the Exile series, to two sides of the story of Nethergate, to the three factions of Geneforge and four of Geneforge 2, all of which have, to a lesser or greater degree, valid points to their arguements. So Avernum 4 is probably going to be quite different to the first three, because of the large amount of time before the plot was laid down in Exile. A4 is a clean slate for Jeff and he won't go more-of-the-same, you can count on it. Although, if he does try to do a re-hash slith war/vahnatai war/empire war/plague war, I am going to scream. Posts: 14 | Registered: Friday, March 25 2005 08:00 |