Macsen
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Posts posted by Macsen
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free will is an illusion as far as I am concerned.
Haha. 'I've decided that I don't decide things! I've made up my mind that my mind makes up itself!'
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Ah, you're one of those teenage goth nihilists aren't you? I should have known better than getting caught in your shiny web of cause and effect.
The only evidence of free will I can offer is, well, the obvious fact that you have it. Despite your background and your nature being factors, you can make any choice you want in any situation. You can't stab someone and say 'Well I'd rather not be doing this, but with my nature and childhood I'm afraid I have no choice'. I have free will, don't know about you. Maybe I'm the only one? Hmmm...
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your response was that a bad childhood is "no excuse" for his behaviour, my point was that talking about "excuses" is a moral judgement that ignores the facts of a situation.
I'm not ignoring the facts of the situation - I'm looking straight at them. Snape had a tough childhood with strict parents. I don't see how that can be accepted as a reason for siding with a mass murderer. The central premise of this argument is that Snape showed 'considerable strength of character not to become completely evil' - I'm just arguing that this isn't true. He showed considerable weakness of character in siding with Voldemort in the first place, even more in sticking with him when he showed his hand as a mass murderer.
Presumably the Welsh were not told (or led to believe) that the POWs were subhuman filth who did not deserve proper treatment; if they had been, chances are that many of them would have behaved like the Nazi guards.The Germans were completely vilified by British propaganda during both world wars.
Your argument does not stand up, because every one in Germany was subject to the same propaganda but responded in different ways. Some chose to become Nazi guards, others didn't, some fled, some stayed to fight the Nazis from within. These different choices show that different people of different character can respond differently whatever their background. The 'hypodermic needle model' for propaganda is much too simplistic. People do have a choice in the way they act and to blame it on propaganda or their past for their choices is just an abdication of responsibility on their part.
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Point of information: Voldemort was probably not a "known mass murderer" at the time Snape signed up.
Um! Snape rushed over to tell Voldy about the prophecy (why would he have done this if he no longer supported him?), and was still very much on his side up until the point he killed Lily Evans. He was already known as 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named' at that point for his unspeakable crimes. He was so evil that there was a country-wide wizard celebration when he died and they built a statue to Harry Potter. If Snape was at that point still somehow oblivious to his master's nature, it seems as if he was the only one.
I do not even recognise the concepts of "good" and "evil" myself; this is essentially religious black-and-white thinking which bears no relevance to real life.Bloody hell it's a kids book, not real life - we don't have to get into semantics.
Hitler's cronies were not "evil", they were behaving in a natural human way).I don't accept that excuse at all. For instance, I know WWII POWs were treated well here in Wales because I've spoken to some of them. If it was human nature to revert to 'evil' when you are in a position of authority that would not be the case. Nope, there's no excuse for barbaric treatment of another human being, whatever your background.
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Sorry, I have to disagree with you guys. A tough childhood is no excuse for siding with a known mass murderer, who would gladly round up and kill most of the human race. It's like saying 'Yes Hitler's cronies were evil, but they had a tough time as children'.
Snape was pretty vile, and the only thing that led him down the path of 'good' was a rather unhealthy obsession with somebody else's wife.
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Haha, when I saw this thread title I thought you'd just leapt out of bed to tell us.
Pre-congratulations on your possible child.
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I thought it was one of the best of the movies, after POA. I liked the Orwellian ministry of magic, I liked Voldemort. But I agree about Michael Gambon, he's nothing like Dumbledore at all... but then I didn't think Richard Harris was either. They should have got Ian McKellen.
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But hitting Alt-G to go in game, Alt-E to go back to editor was nice.
Not if it crashed every time you pressed Alt-E. grrr...
I tried Dromed again the other day for the new hammerite mission contest, but gave up at about the 53rd crash (about ten mins in).
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I think Snape was still pretty evil. He supported Voldemort at first, a known mass-murderer, and only turned against him when he killed the woman he had been freakishly obsessing over. If Voldemort had given him the chance to kill James and keep Lily for himself he probably would have. And he didn't exactly sacrifice much to be on the side of good - he had a plum job, decent pay, and so on, while the rest of the Death Eaters had to rot in Azkaban. And if Voldemort had won in the end I don't think Snape would have announced himself as a good guy.
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I'm sure one can sit back and poke holes in the fabric of the HP universe all day long if one chooses, but ultimately I don't see the point except to demonstrate how smarter-than-thou one is.
I was just being overly nitpicky as a jokey response to this.
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What I don't underestand is that when the Minister of Magic visits the muggle Prime Minister in book 6 he refers to the PMs predecessor as 'He' even though the book is set in 1996 and the then PM, John Major, had taken over from Margaret Thatcher, who was, though some would dispute this, a She.
Being friends with the current PM Gordon Brown you'd think JKR would know this?!
Tsk tsk tsk...
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Hmmm... is it some kind of modern version of Thief?
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You can already play it if you're a beta mapper. However building a mission to play it in is pretty much up to you.
So the chances of you playing Dark Mod this year is 0% if you don't join up and 100% if you do.
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Thats a really interesting read Mac. Why did the one guy refer to all "white" settlers being targets. Do the Welsh not consider themselves white or does white have a non racial meaning in this context.
I think they decided to attack only white settlers' property because they didn't want to attack poor people seeking genuine refuge in Welsh communities. At the time you'd never see a black or asian person buying a summer home.
What is the situation like now? Is the land still being gobbled up?It's pretty bad - no one of my age can really consider being able to afford a home. A house costs £200,000 in my area. In other words you have to be half way to being a $ millionaire to afford a house in Wales.
As you can guess this is pretty much destroying Welsh language communities as everyone has to move because they can't afford homes where they grew up.
Things have really taken a turn for the worse in Cornwall, where houses cost as much as in central London. This has led to the re-forming of the CNLA.
While the majority of Welsh and Cornish people condemn attacks on property you can understand how some people could feel that violence is the only way to sort out the situation. I wouldn't play any part in it however.
There's little that can be done about this problem in terms of changing the law to limit house prices or summer homes - Welsh laws still need to be approved in England.
Plaid Cymru - the Welsh Nationalist Party - has just entered government in the national assembly of wales for the first time in its 80 year history, so there's some hope that they push for a referendum on stronger law making powers for Wales and then maybe sort the situation out.
The irony of course is that so many people living in Wales were born in England that they're likely to lose such a referendum at the ballot box!
I have nothing against England or the English BTW. But as much as we like England we like Wales too, and feel aggrieved to see the language and culture of Wales wiped off the face of the earth by summer homes. It's unlikely that the people that move here know the harm they're doing, of course. Which is why we need legislation.
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That isn't just an American problem, Maximus. We have similar problems in Britain, with the added problem that languages and cultures are destroyed as well as communities and families. It all leads to this kind of thing.
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I was born out of wedlock. In fact, I remain unmarried to this day.
P.S. Is it me or does 'wedlock' sound like a wrestling move?
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Jesus Christ why are you using those gigantic underlined plus signs as bullets? And Times New Roman? Arrrgghgh, my eyes!!
+Stop.
+Complaining.
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There's even a mission plan. Might be worth building.
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I bought this book at a music festival in Wales because it was pissing down with rain so hard the river next to the campsite was actually overflowing and needed I something to pass the time in my tent. So I read a bit and the characters end up in a tent in Wales where it's pissing with rain next to a overflowing river!
So I found the first half of the book a bit dull to tell the truth. Dammit I want escapeism, please! i don't want to read about miserable tent while in a miserble tent.
This line is just to
squirrel
confuse people reading
giant pancreas
between the black bits.
Things picked up once the Dealthy Hallows were mentioned. I think the ending was executed well but going for the old 'allegory for Jesus' line was a bit of a cop-out. God should sue JK Rowling for stealing his ideas. And we could have got the Jesus reference without the 'King's Cross' (nudge nudge wink wink ey ey) chapter title.
I think it was Voldemort under the chair in the station, too. And when he died he was stuck there forever. Bwahahaha!
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I've voted most days and twice on Fridays on different PCs... and probably a few more times when I myself was 'Intoxicado'... all I demand in return is that Aerosmith change its name to Macsensmith...
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You could open for The White Stripes as well as Aerosmith. All you need to do is commandeer your own fishing boat.
Just finished HP7
in Off-Topic
Posted
Well since I can't prove that free will exists and you can't prove that it doesn't there's not much point discussing it further.
I'm off to find out if it's possible to incorporate moving paintings into Dark Mod missions...