Casilla

I thought about writing up some post about the fun outings I'm going to have with my hubby and friends, but let's be honest:

 

 

(We are going out, though.)

The kid was mentally ill.  It has nothing do with our culture or society, except perhaps that he did not get the mental healthcare he needed.

 

Supposedly he stopped taking his pills?  At that point, is the state supposed to step in?  Instinctively, I would say no, it is not, because I would not want the state to force someone to medicate against their will...unless they were a threat to society. And obviously we have a long way to go to identify who is truly a risk to society.  If that is possible at all.  So I do not know what the best solution to this kid's specific problem is.

 

When whatshisface in Norway killed all those kids in Oslo, and wrote his own damn manifesto, did anyone go, "Well, obviously conservatives and conservative policies are the cause of this."  Well...some people did, but it was not taken seriously, because it's ridiculous.  The man was obviously insane.

 

It was clear from his video that the kid was off his gourd.  Yes, the PUA, etc, culture is anti-women, but on the flip coin, often feminist culture is anti-men.  But if some chick posted a manifesto about patriarchal society and how she has been slighted by all the men in her life and how they are all pigs and blah blah blah in the same style that this kid did...and then goes and shoots up a bunch of men...am I going to say, "OMG feminism is to blame for this!!"?  No.  Because it's ridiculous.

 

Crazies gonna craze, you guys.

Can I be late to the party on this?  I haven't read this thread.  Apologies to Josh.

 

As anyone who knows me knows, I am an atheist.  But...I believe religion is generally a good thing.

 

A huge critique about religion is that it divides us by making our brother man seem different, and different is easy to see as less equal, and then the enemy, and then finally inhuman.  But in some hypothetical land where there weren't religion, there would be something else.  In fact, there are already plenty of "something elses".  There's nationalism, there's culture, there's ethnicity, there's income, there's profession, there's skin color, and there's gender, to name a few.

 

Those are all things that can divide - that do divide - but they also unify, because they are all commonalities.  Religion acts as a commonality as well.  And unlike all those other things that divide, most religions do promote something greater than themselves: charity, and when done right, love for fellow man.  And if nothing else, purpose and hope, even if it is a falsity.  Do non-religious groups do this as well?  Of course, but not on the same scale, and that is a relatively modern invention anyway.

 

Now, it is easy to find religious people who hate, who ridicule, who even kill those others who are not like them.  But as I said, it's easy to find that in every human group, because the behavior is common to all mankind.  And don't tell me, "Well, religion is the cause of most of it."  No, religion is the excuse of most of it.  Do you think the British Empire really wanted to "convert the savages" when they invaded various countries?  No, they wanted land and resources.  Do you think the Muslim conquests of Jerusalem and the Catholic's church crusade against them was really about religious differences?  No, it was about who held a seat of profound social, political and financial power.  Do you think religion had anything to do with witch hunts and the Inquisition?  No, it was a way for various church groups to remove political rivals while also securing a power base.  Do you think the countless issues with female genital mutilation in Africa and the Middle East have anything to do with Islam?  No, it is a cultural practice that spans back well before Islam's founding.  These conflicts and more would have happened in some fashion at some time, even without religion.

 

You might be thinking now that, religion is still bad because it is used as an excuse, and it is used as a means to control people.  Yes, that is true.  But let's look at some non-religious examples, hmm?  McCarthyism is a great recent example.  Yes, there is a tidbit about godless communists, but the driving force was really capitalist vs communism, not religion.  It was used as an excuse for a great many civil liberty violations.  And what about the persecution/internment of German and Japanese American citizens during WW2?  Despite many of the families being in the country for decades...well, you are THIS ethnicity, so off to camp you go!  And there are a great many racial hate crimes committed all over the world, by groups (and individuals).  Are you black in the South in the wrong decade?  That's a beating, despite often being the same religion.  And that shit still goes on in South America to some extent.  Women in Africa and India get gang raped, despite it expressedly being against their religious teachings, and the "police" look the other way because it is a "cultural" thing.  And just look all over the Middle East to see how people of the same religion (and even the same subsect, Sunni or Shi'ite), will happily kill each other over tribal and racial distinctions (and primarily, who controls land).

 

So what is the common cause of all this?  There are differences between people and eventually they come to blows.  But no one thing is truly the root cause of this evil.

 

Individuals might be motivated by religious beliefs to commit atrocities, but that is rarely the cause of a group action, and it is never the sole cause that group has.

 

Although I can only imagine what the Aztecs were thinking.

 

We do not often hear about the good things that people do (in the name of religion or otherwise), because it rarely makes the news or the history books.  To me, it doesn't matter why someone does something good for others.  I do not care if they think it gets them "points" with God, or if they see it as a social duty, or if they feel simply altruistic.  The outcome is the same.

 

We as a species need to be able to love each other despite our differences if we are ever to truly blossom.  If anything, these differences, including beliefs, make us stronger, not weaker.  We all come from the same source, whether that is God or not, and we all share the same future.

Right.

I asked if Josh got involved and asked crewmembers to stop homophobic behaviours.

He said no.

I said that was cowardly.

He said it's because he'd get in trouble.

I said that was even more cowardly.

Then he said he did get involved after all, he just didn't realise that I was including that type of getting involved in my question.

I clarified.

There is yet to be a straight answer to what is, really, a very simple question. Which smacks of avoidance.

He's answered your question multiple times AND explained the situation he's in. He's not avoiding anything. You are reaching, and frankly, I am disbelieving because I have never remembered you acting so obtuse before. You are not in his situation, you obviously cannot comprehend military society, but calling him a coward for something YOU do not understand is... well, ignorant.

Josh wouldn't change anything, he wouldn't help the victim in question, and the homophobes wouldn't get punished if he acted like you say he should. The ONLY way to get results in the military is to follow COC.

*shrug*
I disagree.

And that just shows how ignorant you are of the military. COC is there for a reason in military, for better or worse. If Josh "stood up" against someone senior to him, not only is his own military career probably ruined, it wouldn't solve the problem.

That person senior to him wouldn't get punished for his actions, and it would bring more attention to the gay person being humiliated by his crewmates - and not necessarily in a sympathetic manner. It would reinforce any beliefs of "well, we shouldn't have gay people in the military because they cause problems".

Command's way of handling problems is with authority and, if needed, subtlety. Those who go outside COC do not propser, do not change anything, do not solve problems.

Real life isn't like the movies. Sometimes you need to follow the law in order to get results instead of acting out of "instinct".

Yeah, it does. You let it happen and then tell tales, instead of standing up to them yourself. There's no reason you can't do both... Save cowardice.

Joe, you are being ridiculous. Lay off Josh, he's done everything right for the situation he was in.

Everyone and their grandma has jumped onto the microtransaction bandwagon. I'm actually a bit surprised it has even come this far. I believe it to be a very flaky business model. If I were a venture capitalist, I would hesitate to invest in a company based on microtransactions.

What the heck are you talking about?  Virtual item sales are way profitable, and microtransactions encourage more spending.  Because people tend to be impulse buyers - so, they buy $30 in NC, and then go around the mall looking for items.  Hey, their cart now has $40 of NC items in it.  Do they pull out the items they don't want?  Maybe, if their RL cash is tight.  But most of the microtransaction (non-card) users are adults or older teens.  To them, what's another $5, $10?  It's not that much.  The vast majority of the people on the NC boards or Premium fit this demographic; and they are always buying new crap because someone else has an item they want, and they have to buy in order to trade for it, etc.


Microtransactions fool a person into spending a lot more than they intend to by keeping it in manageable, bite-sized portions.  People tend to forget about previous transactions with online microtransactions as well.  I know a person who spent $1000 in Facebook games over the course of a year because he completely lost track of his spending...he had the money in the bank.  He'd buy something.  Find out it wasn't enough, buy some more.  You only show a fraction of that on your statement each month, and it seems manageable at the time so he didn't think about it, even though it's more than you would usually spend for an MMO.  And you do that for like six games, it adds up quickly.  Now, $1000 is a bit extreme, but an adult Neopets user spending $100 over a couple months with NC?  Not at all unrealistic.

Now, I have no idea how long it takes Neo artists to draw/animate the NC items, but let's assume you have, at max, two hours per item (honestly I bet they get them done a lot quicker), and then you have, what, 50 pets?  You don't draw for UC pet styles.  So you have 100 hours of work per NC item.  Now, the average 2D artist salary in LA is about 50k/year.  That averages out to $25/hr.  You're spending $2500 per item for art (as I said, I bet it doesn't take as long per draw, but if the artists are smart they always round their time up anyway).  Now let's tack on an additional $100 for, you know, misc - someone had to design an item, set a price, make sure it makes it into the mall correctly, etc.  Whatever; probably averages out to just a few extra hours of some marketing or content person.  $2600 an item.

The average item price in the NC mall is 200 NC - most clothing is 150, most BGs are 250.  200 = $2.  That means you have to sell the item 1300 times.  That is not at all unrealistic.  I know for sure that capsules, at 250 NC and only usually having one limited edition item associated with each capsule (the other items in the capsule are already in the mall or retired mall items) will easily sell that very quickly.  I spend time on the NC boards and it's normal for people to buy limited release capsules 10 or 20 at a time.  For limited release items, it's probably made a good profit by the time the promotion is over.  I honestly couldn't begin to fathom the kind of sales for it, but I'd say the NC community on the boards/Premium is about 500 people strong...and a lot of people buy doubles to trade with out of the mall.  And those are just the people who go on the boards.  So they are easily breaking even with a healthy profit; maybe more if it's really cute or cool.  For everything else, it's in the mall an indefinite amount of time, so I imagine they keep it in there until it sells enough that they are comfortable with the profit made.  But capsules and events (and especially capsule events) are where all the money's at, which is why they keep having them.

Now, you want to encourage card sales, because card sales are done deals once you sell them to the vendor - you spend about $1 (maybe $2) per card making, packaging, etc.  But it also advertises Neopets to an audience where Neopets really doesn't do much advertising (outside of the occasional TV ads on a VIACOM channel like Nickelodeon).  So you encourage card sales by adding special items, maybe extra NC (if you buy the $25 card).  Once the card is sold to the vendor, you don't have to worry about it anymore.  But you also charge the vendor a lot lower price than the face value...I can only imagine 50%?


You really want to encourage straight CC transactions.  For large companies like VIACOM, I bet they have a 2% rate on CC transactions.  But let's say it's 2.5% which would put them in line with most online large vendors.  So that comes out to be a bit less of an expense than the card (for a $30 transaction versus a $25 card), but you also don't have to pay the vendor.

For Paypal, it's a different game with companies like VIACOM versus normal merchants in regards to chargebacks.  Furthermore, Neopets freezes people who do chargebacks on them, soooo I have a hard time believing it's a rampant problem...I doubt the chargeback rate is very high, and I doubt Paypal screws VIACOM over on it, either.  I would guess at most around 3%.  I could believe 5% but not really any higher than that.  Again - if it were a company like...Nexon...or any other semi-large MMO or smaller...I could see the chargebacks being a lot more of a problem.  But all-in-all, it's not a huge loss.  

No matter what, you're expecting to keep around 95 to 97 cents per every dollar charged in a microtransaction - be in CC, card or Paypal.  Or that new Ultimate pay or whatever system they have - I imagine it's the same kind of risk.

And honestly, it took Neopets a while to get in on the cash-shop idea.  It has only been out three years, now?  Nexon and other games have been doing it around 5 years now.  That isn't a VIACOM-Ruined-Everything decision - Meteor Games (where Adam and Donna now run) also do cash-shop sales through Facebook. And I think the microtransaction-mindedness of Facebook is the only thing supporting them, because unfortunately their games kind of suck.


Also, Neopets had ads well before VIACOM bought them, so I don't know what ya'll are on about.