It depends on whether his reads are on or off. I do believe I can fool soah, but not every time, so the problem has to be considered. I've had the same issue with herbie — there was a game when we'd just been talking about how lousy it was that he and I kept insta-dying, but I still killed him n1, not because he was herbie but because he was right.

However, if I think I know the seer, I kill the seer. FPS with respect to leaving seer candidates alive is grossly overrated.

you don't seem to have gotten too much into your political views here, although i definitely see the direction you seem to be in

but understand that most of reasons why someone would want to kill off all but 100 million people, are just myths perpetuated by the global ruling elites

myths such as global warming, peak oil, horrible overpopulation etc

the means exist right now to feed every person on plant. and although there is tons of oil, to switch to renewable energy, and to live basically in harmony

its just that those are the desired by those in control

while there have certainly have been environmental disasters, the planet is a pretty big place and nature has a way of being quite resilient and resourceful

so I really don't agree with you at all that we should be killing over %95 of the worlds population

Dustin, I don't give a **** what other people think about the population — I'm not supporting any ruling elite. I'm judging based on what I see.

I think people are unhappy. I think population density and a lack of space, and particularly natural space, per capita is contributing to it. I also think we're well on the way to destroying everything we can about what's beautiful and wonderful in the world. We tear down mountains, literally. We pollute every waterway we can. We bleach the reefs and destroy the fisheries. We use slash-and-burn on jungles that will not come back within the next fifty human generations because doing so destroys the microclimate and causes the soil to run off into the ocean.

I don't need global warming for any of that. I have personally seen, in my lifetime as a birder, numbers of birds at Point Pelee (a formerly wonderful migrant trap in extreme southern Ontario) drop by more than half, and I know that it had dropped by a greater percentage before I started birding. I know that the spring migration have advanced by more than two weeks in some spots, and that's probably our fault (Occam's razor, basically), but even if it isn't I know for certain that we are directly responsible for thousands of extinctions every year.

Further, I know from direct observation that we are largely focused on economic success, and I know that it doesn't seem to be making people happier in the aggregate.

Finally, I know that there is no strong evidence that any of this is going to stop before it's too late. We save the condors but lose dozens of other birds over a similar time span. We save the whales while draglining is extirpating who knows how many species. Our solution to perceived scarcity of oil is to plan more nuclear plants, notwithstanding that uranium mines are inherently environmental disasters and that we have no ****ing clue how to keep the tailings and other waste out of the groundwater for the necessary ten millennia or so.

To be clear: I accept that this is true, I just think it misses the point. The 50 billion people the world could probably feed would be unhappy. Even those who think that humanity is really all that matters need to recognize that well-fed, healthy people are not necessarily happy.

Of course I'm imposing my own views here, but my love of wilderness is so deeply ingrained that I guess I can't imagine people being happy in a world without a lot of it.

Comics: no clue. Sorry.

No. Dark Knight was OK but it had Nicole Kidman so it could ever be great, and Shawshank Redemption is overrated — it's good, but just because Morgan Freeman talks a lot, slowly, doesn't make it the acme of cinematic excellence.

That reminds me: see American History X.

I don't watch TV, so if you turned it on you'd find that it was just hooked to the PS3. Before moving in with my father (recall that a 15 year old lives here), it had been maybe five years since I'd even had TV reception or cable. I do watch shows I download, sometimes; latest ones were House, The Wire, and (the original) Cupid.

Absolutely not. I would not trust myself to make a decision about what I looked like, with such potential for being wrong, in such a way that I could be confident I wouldn't have changed my mind fifty years later.

I love wilderness as well. And its one of things that I'm missing most being in the giant metropolis that I'm in now

But I've found that the people here, in the giant metropolis I'm in now, are happier than people anywhere in the U.S. that I've been, big city, small town, or anywhere else

So I think its more of a cultural thing than geography and landscape

Anything that takes a long time is awful. In my own near-drowning it never got to the point that I had the physical sensation of drowning, which is supposed to be particularly terrible, but I knew I was going to die (probably). The longer that goes on, the worse. Couple it with pain and it's even worse, I suspect, though the human mind has a limit on how much pain it can understand.

Among methods that don't take days, worst way would be being burned alive, I think. best way is something that destroys the rain rapidly, or cuts off its oxygen rapidly — without blood flow to the brain we lose consciousness in just a couple seconds, and after that none of it matters.

My thinking is probably badly colored by having spent more than 90% of my time in a disgustingly materialistic culture. I'd love to believe I'm wrong about a lot of this.

You probably have no idea how much of a compliment this is. I think the greatest strength of my game is being able to see things through other people's eyes.

Ooos I gots a good one. Well I have a couple. first one is relatively easy.

What is your view on torture? Should it ever be used to extract information. To clarify, I wholeheartedly believe that water-boarding is torture. So is forms of sensory deprivation etc, etc.

I think about death a lot, an abnormally amount. Not in a suicidal way or wishing it was brought upon me or anything like that. Just the experience and friends who have died.

Do you think death is going to be more than the sensation of falling asleep or passing out? Is it just knowing that you are going to die the scariest part about it? Have you ever had friends who died, how long did it take for you to get over that?

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i got in too late, so sorry if these questions have been answered

A few recommendations of must see places in the world for someone who loves traveling and seeing cool **** (nature, architecture, whatever)

Given infinite resources where would you be living?

Something about your ww game that is a wolf tell?

ACT or SAT?

Genocide,
Do you have a problem with it? Why/why not?

I'm 19, if you could go back in time and give the 19 year old you advice, what would it be?

Is there anything you recommend I do/don't do or any general life advice you have for me? (This is really broad, I know)

What makes you think you have the right to kill billions of people? (I think your scenario is -EV from a utilitarianism POV, too.)

cool well. Thanks, atak.

Buddhism has a concept known as the Bodhisattva Ideal. A Bodhisattva recognizes that all beings are adrift in an ocean of suffering, and dedicates himself to relieving their suffering.

Do you view your philosophy of murdering the unhappy as freeing them from their suffering? Or does it serve a greater good at their expense?

SAT for most people. more universall accepted. Howver, there are some students who do better at the ACT, so if it's someone who is on the cusp for getting into preferred schools, it makes sense to look into both and see which one gives the more useful score.

atak why is "the earth" so important?

If say we can support 50 billion people as dusting purposes, which is absurd imo, whats wrong with killing off the ecosystem - wouldn't the contributions that 50 billion, productive people would make out weight the death of mother nature?

Pretty sure you just knocked yourself out of the 1% that gets to live.

just ftr I never said anything about supporting 50 billion

I don't know what the number is

50 billion seems extreme though

to rephrase; alot of "save nature" arguments always end up with a circular answer -

the earth is a biosphere, and if we destroy it we killed ourselves in the end; thats why it should be saved.

your world view, however seems to be that the Earth is important in and of itself; why is that? If we could live without it, why should we preserve nature at the cost of stemming human development?

Not at all. This is more about the coming generations. I don't think most people are happier dead than alive - in other words, I don't think he Bodhisattva's are right, in general. (Of course, a suicidal person has to address this issue, but as a general matter I thnik it's clear that most living beings are going to elect life.

I do sort of wish the global murder thing weren't what we were talking most about — in fact, I'm definitely not sure about it. I have days of one, days of the other. I'm in a depressive phase right now (have been since K left after summer ended), which colors things a lot. When I'm depressed, I'm not good at focusing on the good in humanity.

What book would you recommend for someone mildly interested in identifying the birds of California? There are a fistful to choose from. I am not interested in details, but just, that's a starling, that's a Stabbing Hoosiwhatchit, etc.

99% of all the species that have ever existed are now extinct

sure, a lot of species are being destroyed as a result of human activity

and the fact that most species that have existed are now extinct certainly doesn't justify or even mitigate that

I certainly do think that mankind needs to learn to live in greater harmony with nature, but the solution to that is education, not murder