Rant: I really dislike geographical links to culture, although it's so widespread and popular that it's almost impossible to carry on a conversation without it. I dislike it because it inevitably says minorities within those geographical areas are not the "true" members of whatever area is being discussed. For example, American immigrants often declare white Americans to be "American", and everyone else to be black, Mexican, Chinese or whatever. So despite the fact that they too are Americans, they only see white people as American. Whites only make about 2/3 of the country nowadays, so to have 33% of the citizenry vanish into nothingness is just messed up. But it's extremely common to hear this kind of talk in every day conversation.

Example: "The Germans killed lots of Jews, gays and communists in WW2." Did they? Huge numbers of German Jews, gays and Communists were killed, but in common talk, it's "true" Germans, killing those "outsiders". "Americans are a very industrious, smart people." What about the ones who aren't? Are they less American, not American at all? I just don't see much benefit to this kind of thinking, but I can see massive negative consequences throughout history because of it.

Also, culture and race very much influence each other, so I don't think it makes any sense to try and separate the two into distinct camps. It's very difficult for a black woman to feel more than politely welcome in any white social setting, for example. Black women simply aren't considered as attractive as white women, as a whole, so the end result is that white women are going to be more influenced by the opinions of white men than black women, simply due to increased contact. You can't assimilate something you find unattractive and thus avoid, which means cultural messages cannot be as easily transferred between the two parties.

Look at all the "check out this video of sexy girls!" videos that make the Top ranks of Videosift, and you pretty much only see white and East Asian women. White men are not as interested in black women as they are white and East Asian women, so how can black women possibly adapt the same culture as white men or women?

>> ^Payback:
>> ^djhenyo:
I told you to change the title. No upvote until it is so. Also just have to add that I hate the way this guest looks. Can't tell if he is white or black or indian or anything. Way to have an identity ya gay bitch.

Can someone unban djhenyo please? I want to downvote him too!


I wouldn't be surprised if Djhenyo was of Korean background and got frustrated with the topic title. I also feel that if this video had been "Why Blacks Don't Make the Best Scientists" or something like that, it wouldn't have gotten so many upvotes, no matter how gently it was argued in the video. So there's a double standard at play here too. I would love to be proved wrong though. There are probably thousands of videos online that argue that black Americans are culturally incapable of becoming good at many careers. Perhaps we can put them in the Sift and see how they fare? Heck, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter have made careers arguing similar views.

>> ^westy:
why is it unsettling ? I don't care if black culture/skin is no longer practiced/disappears any more or less than if white culture skin color no longer existed / was practiced. just shove photographs and writings in a musiim so whatever can be learned from the past can be learned and move on.
Within the next 60 years i think its likely that people will distance themselves from there physical entity of flesh to some existent , maby we will be able to separate ourselves from our body , evan if we are still locked into our bodies i can see a large number of people exsperanceing alot through vertual reality where u interact fully with people in some invented world. its alredy happning now to some exstent with internet chat MMO,s only its just shit at the moment with exstremily limited interactivty and sences.
once we can exist outside of our born bodies race prejudice will seem Evan more absurd.


But let's be realistic. Most Americans would prefer black skin and culture to be eradicated before white skin and culture is eradicated.

Interesting stuff but I gotta wonder what this guy really thinks about black and Latino crime in the States, and if he's holding back on the topic for fear of having his career destroyed.

Woah

I'm looking forward to this film, cuz the director is the guy who did that live action Halo fan film.

This reminds me of how after I took a Philosophy of Law class, I don't believe laws are laws unless they are regularly enforced. In other words,
"I didn't break the law unless I got caught" kind of thinking. My LAW class made me more criminal in thinking!

I really enjoyed this game but I never replayed it. The enemy AI is really poor, and the game is too forgiving. The game is very much aimed towards a teenage or younger demographic, as you can see in its art and ease of difficulty. It's mix of semi-WW2 setting, "war is hell" messages, and "Everyone is so pretty during war!" art was strange to me, too, I thought. (That being said, I've never played a war game where I cared about the characters and story as much as I did here.)

More importantly, I just couldn't get into the quasi-turn based gameplay. I need real-time combat. If SEGA made a Rainbow Six/Ghost Recon-style version of Valkyria Chronicles, it would probably be one of my fav games of all time. But as it is, it's just too odd seeing VC's combat unfold. Enemy troops just frozen in place as you move about in the world. My troops moving one at a time, doing things one at a time. It's just... strange.

Also, it seems clear Yahtzee did not pass the 35% game completion mark. After that point, you can upgrade your guns into different branches of attributes. I think I gave my machine gunners high damage and my snipers debuff weapons.

Ah well, if there is a sequel ever made, I will definitely get it. I just hope it's more real-time. Driving around the Edelweiss in real time would be so cool

Re: the Uzi story, automatic Uzis are legal in the US? o_O

Janeane is pretty cool on this season of 24

I've enjoyed most of Bioware's games for their writing quality, but the gameplay quality has always been very poor, IMO. You can beat the entirety of KOTOR at the hardest difficulty by merely hitting "Flurry" and "Heal" over and over. All the strategy layers of the game merely give you the illusion that there is anything deep going on.

For this reason I think Bioware is a poor video game company, but a good interactive novel company.

Anyway I was hoping Dragon Age would be the true sequel to Neverwinter Nights, but DA will apparently have no multiplayer.

Colbert makes a good romulan

Something in my pants is transforming!

A fascinating thing I learned recently is that the Japanese military refused to exterminate the Jews living in China during all this, protecting them from Nazi demands. Meanwhile, some Nazi officials in China protected Chinese people from Japanese atrocities.

So the Japanese (but not Nazis) hated Chinese.
The Nazis (but not Japanese) hated the Jews.
War makes strange bedfellows I suppose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_China