Profile for Sarachim
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Sarachim |
| Member number | 95 |
| Title | For Carnage, Apply Within |
| Postcount | 567 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
Recent posts
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| What Are You? in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Monday, May 31 2004 17:03
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It depends where you go in America and just what cultures you're dealing with. I don't think Americans tend to be any worse than the rest of humanity regarding ethnicity, but what flaws we do have are made more visible by diversity. -------------------- It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose. Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| US Conflict Avatars! in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Saturday, May 22 2004 21:45
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*waves hello* -------------------- It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose. Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Age in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Monday, April 26 2004 18:59
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17. And Alec, you have an Asuka fixation. Now that is distressing. -------------------- It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose. Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Suicide in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Wednesday, March 10 2004 13:22
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I've probably spent a lot more time thinking about this than is healthy, but the idea that one should endure through pain, even terminal illness, because of some abstract "sanctity of life" is based on some flawed assumptions. For one thing, every person's life is their own. If it has value, that value is theirs to measure. If someone decides they really can't go on, and want out, isn't it cruel to prevent them? Talking them out of it is probably for everyone's best in most cases, but pressuring them into choosing life by telling them that their desire to stop suffering is "wrong" is not. On a similar note, why is death necessarily an evil? The worst case scenario, and the one that I believe in, is that death is just the end of sensation, like a deep, dreamless sleep. It's neither good nor bad. My life is more good than bad, so I don't want to die just yet, but there's no reason for me not to change my mind if the balance ever shifts to favor unhappiness. If, as most people seem to believe, there is some sort of life after death, then that only makes death better in comparison. -------------------- It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose. Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Religion, Homosexuality, Etc. in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Friday, February 27 2004 18:05
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The difference, Thuryl, is that anyone with common sense will say that alcoholism is a bad thing. Unless you're going to be close-minded, you have to admit that millions of people, many of them probably a good deal smarter than you, will disagree with any belief system you adopt. Trying to shape the world based on personal conviction rather than practical consensus is what has given us gems like the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and Reaganomics  -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Exile or Avernum? in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Saturday, February 21 2004 07:11
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I've never had a monster cast Cloud of Blades on me. When I cast it on them, however, it's one of the better attack spells IMHO  -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| The Stealth Tax in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Monday, February 16 2004 17:35
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Depending where you live, $100,000US may not be as much as it sounds like, especially for parents or people with high medical bills. Okay, so they've still got it prety damn good relative to the rest of the world, but there's no reason for them to lose out on deductions the very rich still get. Worst of all, Bush is likely to be re-elected on the strength of tax cuts that seem to have been largely imaginary. -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| It's a small world! in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Sunday, February 15 2004 08:53
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I live in New York City. And one of my best friends was into BoE when I met him, just by coincidence. -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Religion in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Tuesday, February 3 2004 14:00
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From what I have read, none of the gospels were written by their traditional authors, but only attributed to them in accordance with a longstanding tradition of claiming your writings were derived from those of someone older and better-respected than yourself. Matthew, if memory serves, is the oldest, generally thought to have been written around 60 AD, while the gospel of John could be as recent as 100 AD. Obviously, those dates make it impossible for any of the gospels to have come directly from the apostles whose names they bear. I'll link to an authoritative source on this once I dig one up. -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Anti-Americanism in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Sunday, February 1 2004 21:36
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I disagree, Drakey. Israel meddles in the region almost as badly as we do, and their treatment of Palestinians is abhorrent. From what I've read, our support of Israel seems to be the main thing that the Arab public (though perhaps not all terrorists) holds against us. -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Anti-Americanism in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Saturday, January 31 2004 11:14
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Just because someone burns an American flag does not mean they want every man, woman, and child here to die. Flag-burning in America has traditionally symbolized opposition to all the negative things the flag symbolizes: oppressive foreign policy, third-world exploitation, pointlessly destructive wars, and the greed and corruption of the government. Brass and Lamorak: Learn to distinguish America from Americans. The political situation here is objectionable, sure, but a fairly small number of Americans really have anything to do with it, and quite a few dislike it as much as you do. How many Americans have you actually met? By and large, we're not so different from anyone else in the developed world, and especially not the British. Apart from Canada, we probably have more in common culturally with Britain than any other country in the world. Look beyond the stereotypes, and don't think you're justified in showing prejudice just because America is so widely disliked. -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Inevitability in Blades of Avernum | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Friday, January 30 2004 23:44
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Personally, I'd think that LotR would be almost impossible to translate into a scenario without it sucking and losing the spirit of the book. But it wasn't that long ago that I felt the same way about movies, so what do I know? -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: More fun than a kick in the shins! Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Anti-Americanism in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Friday, January 30 2004 23:34
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quote:That's true, but there's absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be better than we are. If you consider two criminals, is the one who's comitted fewer crimes the good guy? Of course not. Is he good? Of course not. Just because America is one of the best (which is debateable, but I'll let it slide) does not mean that it is not derelict in its responsibilites to its people or the world. Similarly, no matter how good a person is, if they wrong someone else accidentally or on purpose, it is their responsibility to fix it to the best of their ability. No matter how many things the the United States has done right or is doing right, it has a responsibility as a superpower to fix as many problems as it can. Why are we not intervening in the Congolese civil war, the greatest humanitarian crisis since Rwanda? Why is so little being done to alleviate poverty in our own country? Why is the White House and most of Congress more worried about what gay people call thier unions than the fact that thousands of Americans have no health insurance? Or that millions of non-Americans die of malnutrition and preventable diseases every year? America may be a good place. Like Alec, I love it, in my own way. But the fact that it's so good makes it ripe for criticism. We can't appeal to the humanity or compassion of the House of Saud, and we can't expect Europe or Japan to take the lead in bringing peace to central Africa. Alec and I criticize because we love. We attack the president because he's hurting the country we love. And we use history to show that America is not and has never been infallible, which is something that far too many Americans have a hard time accepting. When someone like Card attacks the people who tend to harp on America's shortcomings, they're effectively squashing the conscience of one of the few states with both the power and the potential to do good for the world. [ Friday, January 30, 2004 23:35: Message edited by: [Sarachim] ] -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Friday, January 30 2004 22:47
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Edit: Double post. Apologies. [ Friday, January 30, 2004 22:49: Message edited by: [Sarachim] ] -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Friday, January 30 2004 22:47
Profile
Maybe blacks do bear some of the responsibility for their predicament, but we (and be "we" I mean whites, or at least American whites) need to cast the beam out of our own eye first. Poverty reinforces counter-productive behavior patterns in any group, while, black, whatever, and those behaviors only worsen poverty. Not only blacks, but also Hispanics and a lot of whites are trapped in this self-limiting cycle. The rich and well-off who got the cycle started, and their cultural heirs are still bearing the benefits of it. That's why drugs, crime, and deadbeat fathers seem so common in black America. When your life sucks and there's no hope of making it any better, you do dumb things. When you're faced with starvation or homelessness, the law suddenly doesn't hold as much authority as it used to. These are people who've been living hand-to-mouth since the Civil War and who had it even worse before that. And who caused that? The white majority. Not all of it, certainly, but let's face it, there are still people around today who remember when someone who believed that blacks and whites were basically equal was a hopeless idealist. Even people who didn't own slaves still profited from slavery. Slave labor helped make America rich, and all of that wealth diffused through the free people of the United States. Today, most of that wealth is still in white hands. I don't mean to suggest that every white person is in the wrong, or that every white American should feel guilty. But white Americans like myself have to bear our share of the responsibility for our country's racial ills. What I'm trying to say is that it's easy to say that black culture discourages working hard in school, or encourages amoral lawbreaking, or produces a lot of irresponsible parents. It may be true, and it may not; I'm pretty sheltered and wouldn't know the ghetto from parrono gouda, but that doesn't matter here. We can't make anyone change their behavior, but we have a duty, as Americans and as memebers of the human family, to do what we can to right the wrongs of the past, regardless of the morality or responsibility of the people we owe. -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Anti-Americanism in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Friday, January 30 2004 22:01
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Based on my (admittedly imperfect) knowledge of American history, Card's interpretation is the revisionist one. His characterization of Native Americans is unduly harsh; a small percentage may have been barbaric, cruel, or excessively violent. Most held themselves to a higher standard of conduct in their wars and their diplomacy than their white counterparts. A few were at a level of civilization comparable to that of whites; the Cherokee, for instance, lived in houses, had a written constitution. When they were driven off their land, they didn't burn farmhouses or scalp innocent women and children, they took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Google "trail of tears" to see how much good due process of law did them. Similar instances apply with his other references. Just because America's foes haven't always been perfect doesn't mean that they bear as much blame for what happened as America does. Sometimes they do, sometimes the don't. To call America a good guy is naive. To call it a bad guy is naive. The world is more complicated than that. But while America's good deeds are inspiring to make speeches about, it is our missteps that we need to work extra-hard remember. Nobody forgets success, but even the best of us can be eager to sweep failure under the rug. In life or in history, we only hurt ourselves when we do. If Alec or TM or I ever seem anti-American, that's why. None of us will deny that America has gotten a lot of things right, perhaps a lot more than it's gotten wrong. Now, it's one of the best places in the world to live, by any measure. But you don't improve yourself by resting on your laurels. Anyone who wants to make himself, or America, or the world better needs to learn from history's mistakes. [ Friday, January 30, 2004 22:03: Message edited by: [Sarachim] ] -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Free Will in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Monday, January 12 2004 13:51
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Speak for youself. I know when I'm dreaming fairly often :P -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Accomplishments in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Tuesday, December 30 2003 12:06
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Eh, everyone gets my point. I'm ancient and never post :P -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Why? in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Tuesday, December 30 2003 11:47
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There isn't one definite point to life. Everyone makes their own. You shouldn't worry about knowing the correct meaning of life, just find one that seems okay and doesn't involve ethnic cleansing and stick with it. -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| Accomplishments in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Saturday, December 27 2003 22:00
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-Having the lowest post count-to-member number ratio of anyone still active, AFAIK EDIT: Oops. Damn that Lord Bob and his posting-while-I'm-postyness! -Failing to accomplish anything at all in all the time I've been a member. That level of unaccomplishment takes dedication, people. A lesser man might have grown bored and started thinking about stuff and find himself working to improve the SW community before he even knew what hit him, but not me! No, sir, it takes a special man to be so very unexceptional in the face of so many creative aides. [ Saturday, December 27, 2003 22:04: Message edited by: [Sarachim] ] -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| THE IRON SALTIRE CHEF CHALLENGES YOU, PART ONE in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Wednesday, December 17 2003 18:11
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Just eggs? Not even salt? Wow, how very dull :P -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| If you could... in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Tuesday, December 9 2003 18:14
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That's a nice idea, but probably not practical. Not everyone's really got the talent for languages to learn any after infancy, and people who didn't use their second language routinely would forget pretty quickly. -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| If you could... in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Tuesday, December 9 2003 13:51
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People are quicker on the uptake when you treat them like human beings equal to you in dignity and value. Our conquered enemies in Germany and Japan are valuable allies today because we rebuilt those countries, rather than punish their people for their crimes. In recent years, we've seen a number of examples, such as Afghanistan, of what happens when you attack a society's evils without building good things to replace them. On compulsory military service: armies train people to respect rank, to not ask questions, and to obey orders without question. All of these behaviors are the exact opposite of how responsible citizens of a democracy should behave. FOr this reason, a democratic country should try to have as few people serve in its armed forces as it possibly can while still keeping itself safe. Which is a moot point if you're ruling the world, but eh [ Tuesday, December 09, 2003 13:51: Message edited by: [Sarachim] ] -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| If you could... in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Monday, December 8 2003 13:57
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Jame: So be it. But rest assured, enough people would side with me that there would be no peace to disrupt. I agree with BtI, TM, Alec, et. al., ruling the world is probably too much authority for one person. Besides, the list of changes I'd make to the way the world works now are too long, numerous, and complicated for me to list in a way any sane person wants to read, so anyone who really cares can PM or email me. I will say this, though, in responce to Ironweed. It's a common misconception that there isn't enough food for everybody in the world. The problem isn't the quantity of the food but the distribution: the average American eats way more than he needs to survive. The food situation in America is so ludicrous that one of our biggest problems is having too much to eat- something completely unheard of before the 20th century, and now unique, for the most part, to the USA. The federal government buys millions of tons of grain from American farmers every year to keep prices up and then lets it rot, while famine ravages the world. Is this "very good as it is?" Is this impossible to improve on? Is there nobody in the world smart enough to fix this, or are the haves just too greedy to share with the have-nots? Even a modest effort at equalizing the distribution of the world's food (and water, and medicine, etc.) would save millions of lives every year. And if there really isn't enough to go around (which I doubt), why should Americans get so much? EDIT: Er, sorry if that sounded hostile. I don't mean to be accusatory. I'm just trying to make a point, and I can't help getting a little worked up when I talk about these things. [ Monday, December 08, 2003 14:09: Message edited by: [Sarachim] ] -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
| If you could... in General | |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Sunday, December 7 2003 14:53
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quote:Originally written by Jame: I'd make it a law that humanity has to move out to space and colonize the planets. Also make all capital crimes automatic death penalties (i.e. if yer guilty, you're taken out to the public square and shot, hung or crucified. Something painful like that. This would be punishment instead of deterrence (or something like that). Then, no-one can have relationships with anyone more than 5-10 years older or younger than themseleves, and if men can have more than one wife, then women can have more than one husband. Abortion is legal, but adoption is preferred, though you can't abort a female child unless the mother's life is in danger (and "danger" would be very strictly defined). Then, everyone has to serve a term in the military, at least a 4-year hitch, before moving on to college/work/whatever. That's what I can think of. Flames can be directed here - "null" or "void." Okay, so I'm resisting the urge to flame. Let me just point out that most of the things you suggest went out of style with the Dark Ages. And, on a personal note, I would rather die fighting against each and every one of your ideas than live under them even for a year. -------------------- We were once Mao Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |