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Displayed name	Thuryl
Member number	869
Title	...b10010b...
Postcount	9973
Homepage	http://thuryl.desperance.net/blades.html
Registered	Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00

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A couple of pro-life articles in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 25 2005 20:13 Profile Homepage #12 quote: Originally written by The Creator: Attacking healthy cells is a malfunction of the body. Is that what you claim is happening in the womb? It's a "malfunction" only in the same sense that a rechargeable battery eventually running out of recharge cycles is; it'd be better if it didn't happen, but that's easier said than done. If the immune response were successful, then obviously a spontaneous abortion would occur, and if that happened in every pregnancy we wouldn't be around. The need for the conceptus to actively neutralise the immune response is a workaround that's necessitated by the way the immune system works. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
¿Newbie? in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 25 2005 20:07 Profile Homepage #15 For Mac, just type Option-Shift-/ -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 25 2005 20:04 Profile Homepage #102 quote: Indeed. But that wasn't what I was arguing. To clarify, I don't care about potential people (such as eggs and sperm), I only care about actual people. A skin cell is not capable of growing into a new human being by itself. It would have to have things done to it until it became a one-celled embryo. At that point it becomes a child and should be given the rights of one. In particular, the right to live. Ontology alert. At some point we're going to have to start arguing over why certain rights ought to hold under certain circumstances. Personally, my ethical system doesn't include the concept of absolute and inviolable rights; to me, rights are, at best, convenient rules of thumb, the observance of which tends to do more good than harm. quote: For my own answer, I would ask 'by what resoning would you say that it IS part of the woman? Personally, I wouldn't and I don't. I merely said that many people on my side of the argument do. I'm trying to get out of the habit of speaking on behalf of others, I really am. quote: A newly formed embryo qualifies as an individual organism, by any definition of organism you care to throw at it. It qualifies as a member of the human species by any definition of human species that you care to throw at it. It therefore qualifies as an individual human being. Does it qualify as a person? Would you care to tell me what the difference between a human being and a person is? More rights-based talk. I'm getting uncomfortable defending a position I more or less agree with based on an ethical system that I don't, so I'm going to start arguing in utilitarian terms. Now, I think it should be obvious that if you kill an infant before its nervous system has developed, or an adult who's asleep or unconscious, you don't directly cause them any suffering. (In fact, even killing a conscious person isn't necessarily going to cause them that much suffering, depending on how quickly you go about doing it). Killing them is wrong (if it is wrong) because of the harm caused to others who care about them, and because of the potential future benefits that may have accrued to them and that they are now deprived of on account of being dead. On the other hand, you've also prevented any future suffering they might experience, and any harm their continued survival may have caused others is now done away with. Overall, whether killing a given individual is wrong or not depends on the overall effect on everyone who's directly or indirectly affected by their death. Now, the world, as it is, is overpopulated; if there were fewer people, on average they'd be better off. In the case of abortion, the mother is presumably better off having it than not having it (or she wouldn't have chosen to have the abortion), the conceptus isn't any worse off than if it were never conceived in the first place, and there probably aren't too many other people who've formed emotional attachments to it before it's even been born, so in most cases nobody else is seriously affected. (You could argue that the father could be affected, and you'd have a point, although I rather suspect that in most cases of abortion the father either approves of it or is nowhere to be found. Still, if he has a particularly strong objection I can see circumstances under which that ought to be taken into account.) -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
How Long Must We Endure This Interminable Wait?!? in Geneforge Series
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 25 2005 17:36 Profile Homepage #38 quote: Originally written by hawk king: 3 hrs 58 wait make that 59 minutes 45 seconds till midnight ahh the agony <thud> brother dimitri calls ambulance to deal with heart attach Wait, wait. You're Waffle Guy's brother? Wow. That explains a lot. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
The Universe in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 25 2005 16:31 Profile Homepage #61 quote: About Thuryl's contention that theoretical physics is rarely directly verifiable, I'd agree except for the adjective 'slightly'. Accepted theories simply fit the observations better, but I don't know of any cases where the accepted theory works only slightly better. It's generally night-and-day, bang-on versus way off. Or else the theory is not considered a serious contender. Okay, I should probably rephrase myself. Different theoretical physical models fit our observations much better than each other in some ways and much worse in others. In general, any given model will explain a few things really conveniently and stumble badly on a few others. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Needle-Exchange Programs in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 25 2005 14:30 Profile Homepage #10 quote: (Quick query to Australian members of this forum: I heard once, and I may be remembering this wrong, that in Australia some hospitals have a room for drug users, and next to this room there is a rehab center? It's been a while since I heard it and I don't remember it specifically. Is there anything remotely like this over there?) Not quite. There was a proposal a while back for "safe injecting rooms" where IV drug users could inject in a supervised environment, with rehabilitation programs available. They weren't going to be in hospitals, though. The proposal never came to anything, at least in Victoria; not sure about other states. One problem with needle exchange programs is that in practice they don't always exchange needles; addicts just drop their needle anywhere and pick up a new one from the needle exchange without handing the old one in, and then sometimes people step on the old needles. Considering that the risk of contracting a blood-borne disease from a needlestick injury is pretty remote (less than 0.1% for HIV; higher for hepatitis B, but there's a vaccine for that anyway), I'd say it's an acceptable tradeoff. [ Friday, March 25, 2005 14:30: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 25 2005 14:18 Profile Homepage #89 quote: Let me ask you a question. Are you against slavery? Do you believe that the issue of slavery is a moral position? Are laws legislating that particular moral position appropriate? What you've said is that it's appropriate to legislate certain moral issues and that you'd be in favor of that. I would not support laws banning slavery if I believed those laws would not significantly reduce the amount of slavery going on, and would make the treatment of existing slaves worse due to the necessity for secrecy and the fact that owning a well-treated slave would be punished just as badly as owning an ill-treated one. It's much like the calls to ban child labour in developing countries. Nobody thinks it's actively good for children to be working 80-hour weeks, but banning child labour won't put a significant dent in the amount of child labour going along; instead, the "in for a penny, in for a pound" mentality will kick in, and children will just be made to work in even worse conditions. quote: BTW in your example I would not be forcing the woman to act morally. If she were acting morally, she wouldn't be going to the back alley abortionist. But maybe I missed your point. Maybe you meant that by making abortions illegal it will in fact make things worse, so I sould be satisfied with the status quo. I did say "attempting to force". My implication was that such an attempt was doomed to fail and would likely make things worse. A central tenet of most ethical systems is that regardless of how good your intentions are, if the results of something you want to do are likely to be disastrous then you shouldn't do it. Look at the criteria for a just war, for example; one criterion is that there must be a reasonable prospect for victory. Frankly, you might well do less overall harm by scaring women away from having abortions through bombing abortion clinics than if you actually succeeded in making abortion illegal. quote: If abortion is illegal far fewer women will have abortions. Again, this is a point of disagreement. quote: Lets say that one day we developed the technology to grow humans in vats. Would that mean that embryos were human all of a sudden? That a foetus needs a special environment in which to live does not mean they are not a person. A person might have an accident and require the special environment of life support in a hospital in order to survive. Does that mean they aren't people anymore? Let's say that we developed the technology to grow an entire, fully-grown human being from any one of your cells: a cell from the lining of your stomach, a cell from a hair follicle, any cell at all. This isn't completely unfeasible in principle. Now, would this mean that every cell in your body is now a separate person? I think this shows that attempts to define personhood in terms of potential future development are something of a dead end. quote: Even in the case of rape (where there is no choice), the fact that the mother was brutally assaulted does not give her the right to then go and harm an innocent third party (i.e. the child). Why not? We accept this right in other areas of the law. Stolen property, for example, is confiscated and returned to its original owner, even if its current owner is completely innocent of any wrongdoing and relies on the stolen property for survival. In the case of pregnancy arising from rape, a woman's reproductive tract has been criminally misappropriated; the fact that an innocent party is now making use of it does not mean that its original owner has any less claim to it. quote: We weren't using it as a standard for pesonhood, just individuality. It is an organism that has different DNA than any part of it's mother's body. Therefore it is an unique organism. Unless, of course, the conceptus is a part of the mother's body, as some who support legal abortion argue. They have a fair point, too; its blood supply is continuous with its mother's, for example. And as I established in my previous post, unique DNA isn't enough for it to be considered separate from its mother's body. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
RPGs in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 25 2005 04:26 Profile Homepage #50 The way I see it, if a game is best played by selectively ignoring the rules, it has too many rules. To elaborate, to the degree that rules-lawyering is possible within a system, some players will take advantage of it. Given that rules exist, players are well within their rights to insist that they be applied, and applied consistently; therefore, sometimes it is best for rules to not exist. A purely arbitrary decision can't be argued with, and in some cases that's a very good thing. [ Friday, March 25, 2005 04:32: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 25 2005 04:21 Profile Homepage #71 quote: Following the argument that human life begins at contraception and that a fertilized human egg is sacrosant and has to be protected by all means, morning after drugs would have to be prohibited. It is a small step from there to banning all contraception, arguing that the prevention of pregnancy denies a potential fetus' right to live. And it's a small step from there to banning people from not having sex. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 25 2005 00:07 Profile Homepage #68 For one thing, they're used at a point when you don't actually know whether you're pregnant or not yet. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 24 2005 23:01 Profile Homepage #63 quote: I can't live in a test tube either. :P Being able to live without support does not define you as an individual. Having your own DNA would probably be a better measure. Interesting you should bring this up. In a funny piece of synchronicity, that creation/evolution article you linked to on the other thread mentions that due to a process of rapid mutation, the B lymphocytes of the immune system have significantly different DNA sequences from the rest of the body's cells (and from each other). I assume this doesn't mean you're about to start campaigning to give B lymphocytes the right to vote. In fact, the "unique DNA" standard is even curlier than that; by the time you reach adulthood, virtually all the cells in your body will have accumulated mutations and DNA damage sufficient to make each of them subtly different from every other. Obviously, your cells aren't all separate people, so unique DNA alone won't wash as a standard for individual personhood. [ Friday, March 25, 2005 00:26: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 24 2005 22:57 Profile Homepage #61 quote: If abortion is made illegal it doesn't force women to do anything except allow their children to live. That's all. There are plenty of alternatives to choose from if you are really interested in choice, some of which are actually financed liberally by the government. Furthermore, why is it someone else's fault if you hurt yourself in the process of killing another innocent human being? It seems to me that this rather misses the point. Surely, acting morally is about what you, personally, can in fact do (including what you can in fact do to change the behaviour of others) rather than about what you want others to do. And therefore, isn't it fair to say that you have to take responsibility for all the reasonably foreseeable consequences of your own actions, including those that resulted from the enactment of a law you supported? To put it briefly, it may not always be moral to attempt to force others to act morally. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Character Traits In detail in Blades of Avernum
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 24 2005 20:28 Profile Homepage #2 I don't know exactly what Cursed at Birth does either, but I recently went through Bahssikava with a Cursed at Birth fighter and didn't notice significant performance impairment. Considering that it gives a decent boost to the rate at which you gain levels, it's not bad. I haven't tried Completely Inept in a party meant for a scenario, but I just tried adding it to a fighter, tested him out in the HLPM's arena and again didn't notice any particularly harmful effects. Also, you forgot to mention that Divinely Touched gives you the Regenerate, Call Spirit and Divine Aid abilities (each usable once per day). I mostly use nothing but negative traits with my parties now (Cursed at Birth and Sickness Prone for my fighter, Sickness Prone and Brittle Bones for my spellcasters), resulting in them being level-gaining powerhouses (as long as I make really, really sure my spellcasters never get into melee). How does everyone else use the traits? [ Thursday, March 24, 2005 20:35: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Pet peeve in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 24 2005 19:28 Profile Homepage #19 "Alright" is the standard form in Commonwealth English, I believe. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
is there a way to make an item to telaport you'r party ? in Blades of Avernum Editor
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 24 2005 16:45 Profile Homepage #8 Coordinate input would work pretty well, I think. Basically you'd need two consecutive Numeric Input domains in your script (one for x-loc, one for y-loc). Two problems would be party placement (which is a problem with any sort of teleportation) and the fact that the player would need a fair idea of their starting coordinates (it'd probably be a good idea to actually tell them the lead character's current location before the first Numeric Input.) [ Thursday, March 24, 2005 16:46: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
is there a way to make an item to telaport you'r party ? in Blades of Avernum
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 24 2005 16:45 Profile Homepage #8 Coordinate input would work pretty well, I think. Basically you'd need two consecutive Numeric Input domains in your script (one for x-loc, one for y-loc). Two problems would be party placement (which is a problem with any sort of teleportation) and the fact that the player would need a fair idea of their starting coordinates (it'd probably be a good idea to actually tell them the lead character's current location before the first Numeric Input.) [ Thursday, March 24, 2005 16:46: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
How Long Must We Endure This Interminable Wait?!? in Geneforge Series
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 24 2005 12:42 Profile Homepage #15 quote: Originally written by Icshi: A few months after I played the first Geneforge game, I woke up in the middle of the night trying to remember which book I read that involved people augmenting themselves and being driven insane as a result. It's not a unique theme; off the top of my head, sarcophagi in Stargate SG-1 heal injuries and give superhuman powers but also cause insanity in humans, and SG-1 is hardly an obscure show. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Karma - No not that kind in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 24 2005 12:37 Profile Homepage #19 Note on English idiom: "I've seen precious little" means "I haven't seen any". It doesn't mean "I've seen a little, and it's precious". -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
The Universe in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 24 2005 12:32 Profile Homepage #57 The only sort of evidence for models in theoretical physics is that the mathematical predictions generally fit our observations slightly better. I repeat: that is the only justification for any of the various variations of theoretical physics over any of the others. If you want to look at most of the theoretical constructs directly, you're going to be disappointed -- the best they've managed is a handful of trails in particle accelerators that they believe correspond to new kinds of particle. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Pet peeve in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 24 2005 12:27 Profile Homepage #7 It's called a broccolo? Wow, I've been saying "broccolus" for as long as I can remember. I feel stupid now. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Undead Topics Need Loving Too (aka "Give Me Your First-Born") in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 24 2005 12:25 Profile Homepage #413 Umbrella Umbrella? I don't get it. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Cooking an idea, to help beta testing. in Blades of Avernum
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 24 2005 03:45 Profile Homepage #1 It's not a bad idea, although an AIM chat serves much the same purpose. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Sexual Orientation in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Wednesday, March 23 2005 23:04 Profile Homepage #49 Yeah, I really don't think sexual abuse should necessarily define one's life. I was molested when I was 4 years old, and while it was a humiliating and unpleasant experience at the time, and probably had all sorts of weird little long-term effects on me, it's not even close to being the worst thing that's happened to me in my life (and I've had a pretty good life overall). It's not even something I think about all that often any more -- and I'm inclined to think that animals are much less concerned about the complexities of social propriety and the stigma attached to past events than we are. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Karma - No not that kind in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Wednesday, March 23 2005 22:56 Profile Homepage #8 quote: Originally written by Dolphin: You know, one of the concepts of Karma is that what ever energy is sent out will be returned to you. To say “I have bad luck” will bring bad luck. To say “I love you” will encourage others to be more open to loving you. There seem to be a few potential oddities with the above. For example, does it mean that I can escape the effects of karma entirely by saying that karma has no effect on me? -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Nonfiction Books You Are Reading in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Wednesday, March 23 2005 22:43 Profile Homepage #54 The thrust of most creationist arguments that rely on genetics is that every step of a mutational process leading to a new gene must be beneficial (which would indeed seem unlikely). However, this isn't strictly true -- in order to have a reasonable chance of being passed on, a mutation need not be beneficial, it need only not be harmful. Geneticists generally believe that most mutations are selectively neutral: neither harmful nor beneficial, so just as likely as not to be passed on. Most mutations occur in non-genic regions of DNA, so it's relatively unlikely that they'll ever have any effect, positive or negative. However, a few do occur in genes. Selectively neutral mutations in genes tend to be in genes which are unnecessary to survival, often because these genes are near-exact duplicates of other genes (there are several mechanisms by which gene-duplication events may occur; they're relatively common). Now, in general, when several copies of a gene exist, an organism won't be harmed if most of them accumulate mutations (usually, only one copy will be conserved in its original state; which copy is conserved is fixed as being whichever one doesn't accumulate a loss-of-function mutation). Sometimes the non-conserved copies will turn into a functionless "pseudogene", but other times one or more of them may become different genes with new and useful functions. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00

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