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Otherwise, going by that logic... people would want to smoke cigarettes more than they'd want to do crack, LSD, etc etc.

I'd argue that they do. Many more people smoke that use crack, LSD, etc
How many people do you know who smoke versus smoking crack? The worst addiction I ever had to fight, psychological or otherwise, was cigarettes by far. I'm been off them for 11 years now, but I still get cravings from time to time.

Also, check out any drug and alcohol rehab clinic. You'll find chain smokers a plenty. People get clean of alcohol and drugs, but never seem to be able to kick smoking.

[FlowCell]

These guys on YouTube sure talk a big game, but when asked to back themselves up they decline. Funny that. Maybe FlowCell realised that his 'solution' would actually change nothing and the religious bigots would still oppose anything that makes their unions equal to gay unions.

Seems like this boards dead at the moment. I'll check back from time to time to see if it's livened up at all. Bye all. *waves*

69. Dead forums.

You obviously don't know anything about the royal family, prince william and harry are in the army, harry went to afghanistan.

I'm well aware that both Princes are in the army. It's was a joke dude. Lighten up.

Another thing, in the US they are putting up ads as well. In the DC area on buses it will say, 'Why believe in a god, just be good for goodness' sake'

Yeah, I saw a Fox News report on that. It was friggin' hilarious. Faux News were balanced and unbiased as ever.

[FlowCell]

This is a topic I have been debating with a guy over at YouTube, but the confines of the YT comments section is too prohibitive. So I've brought the debate over here. This is his video from YT.

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Okay, I'm going to jump right into a response to this video, but of course everyone else is free to jump on in too.


Response to FlowCell

I'm going to lay out what I think your argument is so you can correct any errors I make in representing it.

1.   Marriage is a religious sacrament
2.   Gay people mostly only want marriage to piss off the religious
3.   Both sides are trying to impose their will on the other
4.   If we don't get rid of marriage we get stuck with Jim Crow style laws
5.   Therefore, we should abolish the term 'Marriage' from law and replace it with 'Domestic Partnership' for all people.


1.
As I have said before marriage is everyone's term, not just the religious. It DOES NOT belong to them alone. Proof of this is the fact that non-theist couples get married all the time. I think that you contend that marriage comes originally from religion and is their sacrament, and you know that I don't agree with that, but neither of those positions really matters. What matters is that fact that marriage is currently a cultural practice irrespective of whether you are religious or not.

The solution is to simply acknowledge that marriage is a cultural thing that both theists and non-theists practice and we should allow everyone to participate in it, gay or straight. That fact the non-religious couples get married all the time is enough to show that marriage is not longer a religious sacrament only.

2.
Your contention that many gay people only want legal marriage to get back at religious people is asinine. How is a gay person taking the matter to court to be recognised as equals under the current marriage law perpetuating divisiveness? They're perpetuating divisiveness by wanting equal rights? How does marriage for all perpetuate divisiveness? It only does so IF you assume that the religious have a right to claim marriage solely as their own.

When people have a dispute they sometimes use the court system to resolve the dispute. It is naturally an adversarial process. Fighting to have everyone recognized under the law as equal is not divisive. They want marriage because they want the same rights everyone currently has, not because of some juvenile attempt to annoy the religious.

3.
You're trying to equivocate here. You're trying to set up the religious and the gays as two equal and opposite sides, both trying to impose their will on the other and that we need a third solution.  The truth is gays are not trying to impose their will on anyone, they are simply asking for the same rights that everyone else currently has.

"We should not divide ourselves up into little factions; rival factions where we try to impose our will, our culture and our values on other people."

I agree. The religious are trying to impose their values on society by claiming that homosexuality is wrong and they shouldn't be allowed to marry. Gays however are not trying to impose their will on society. They just want the same rights as everyone else. They want what theistic and non-theistic couples alike have.


4.
We can have marriage without being stuck with Jim Crow style laws. Simply allow everyone the right to marry. Problem solved. Yes, the religious will not like this, but honestly that's just tough luck. Religion has been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era on several occasions over the last few hundred years. Slavery, civil rights, science; in all of these areas religion has fought to keep the status quo and have everyone to adhere to their views. It is religion that is preventing society from having true equality in this issue, not the gays.

5.
I see no reason to conclude that the term marriage needs to be abolished from law. We simply need to do what we have always done. That is, we need to progress and recognise that groups we had not previously seen as legitimate but do now, should have the same rights as everyone else. If marriage is a religious sacrament, why can non-theists marry? If non-theists can marry why can't homosexuals? Why do we need to go to all the effort of writing a new act called 'Domestic Partnerships' when all we need to do is change a small part of the existing one? Just so we don't annoy religious people? That's absurd. Why kowtow to them? Clearly, as I have argued, marriage does not belong solely to them. It belongs to us all. If tomorrow the religious said, 'Funerals belong to us. We are offended that non-religious people use our sacrament.' Would be then go on to remove the term funeral from law so as not to piss them off, and then replace it with 'civil burial'?



Final questions

Do you think that religious people would agree and want to have the term marriage taken out of law?  Also do you think non-religious heterosexual couples would want to have the term marriage taken out of law?

They seem to not have enough

That's always the case unfortunately. That's the standard business model these days for bigger companies. Have shit load of clients/customers and under staff your customer service section to save on staffing costs. Online games are the same. A person could watch an ice-age pass while waiting for GMs to respond to a customer service request. It's the same with the Telco's, electricity companies, etc. The only companies who have good customer service are the small ones who can't afford to lose a single customer. And as soon as they grow to big companies, they stop giving a crap about the individual customer. You just can't get good customer service anymore. They're relying on peoples general apathy. Most people can't be arsed with the hassle so they just give up and let the company get away with what ever they're doing. So long as people still have their bright and shiny objects to appeal to their nano-second attention spans they're happy. Give 'em iPhones and reality TV and you can do just about anything you want to them.

Youtube seems very quick to pull the trigger and suspend accounts without looking into things.

They do at that. Though there must be millions of YouTube accounts now. I wonder how many staff they have to looked into issues like that?

I drive the white car

I sure hope that guy's insurance covers your damage.

Here in england i pay tax to the queen because she is the religious head. She is the 'pope' it's fucking bollocks. The monarchy should be overthrown, they don't do anything but take our money anyways.

They should do what some of the royal families in Europe did. They should give all their wealth back to the people and exist in title only. She can still be called Queen if she wants, but don't give her any power over the state and make sure she puts all their wealth back into the economy. Can you imagine Prince William working a day job? His boss comes over and says, 'Get those crates up to the warehouse right now before I sack you...your highness.'

Despite JY's claims, I didn't spend a penny on a lawyer. I just read the law, understood my rights, and didn't shy away from standing up for them. It's amazing how much you can accomplish with just that.

Indeed, and if we encourage more people to do it perhaps we can put a dent in the crazies who think the DMCA is a censorship tool.

They have to, by law. They cannot withhold the name and contact information of the claimant. James Young initially tried to hide the fact that he was the one who had Episode 1 taken down. Once YouTube confirmed it, he had to change his story.

He should have tried again, threatening legal action if necessary. He probably just got someone ignorant of how it works. They have to give him the information, on request, no subpoena necessary. I know I schooled YouTube on a lot of this with the James Young mess. Fortunately, I'd read the DMCA (unlike the politicians who voted for it).

That's good to know. Any time anyone on YT gets suspended because of a false DMCA I will advise them of this. These people need to learn that filing false DMCA's to censor people is a crime. Personally I'd love to have seen Thunderf00t nail VFX to the wall for his false claim, but TF is a gentleman and gave him an out.

You absolutely have these rights, but, like all rights, only if you're willing to stand up for them.

That's true to a point. There is the affordability of justice to consider. YT may be counting on the fact that most people probably couldn't afford to proceed legally to get the claimants information out of them. Justice is an expensive proposition. Still, hopefully the threat of legal action is enough to get them playing fair.

[Thunderf00t]

A false claim of copyright is a felony. He should be able to take legal action against each and every one of them. Maybe that'll send a message and they'll stop doing it out of self-interest.

That's the path Thunderf00t went down with VenomFangX. Which worked wonderfully, unfortunately YouTube can be arseholes about giving out the information of who filed the claim. Thunderf00t got lucky with his counter claim. VFX admitted to filing the claims, or at least getting 'someone' to file on his behalf, and TF also got lucky in that a YT rep sent him a confirmation that the claimant was VFX. Desertphile also tried to take action against a false DMCA claim when he was suspended a few months ago, he had a lawyer ready to go and all. Unfortunately when he wrote to YouTube to find out who made the claim they said that would not give him that information without a subpoena. I think Nick Gisburne had the same issue when someone filed a false claim against his old account, though I'm not absolutely sure on that one.

Are they really so blinded as to not being able to see their own despicable, hypocritical behaviour?

They know full well what they are doing. They a the used car salesmen of evangelists. They have no honour or morals. Not to put too fine a point on it but they are despicable human beings. Plain and simple.

Extantdodo has been suspended again, the fourth time ive heard, so here is a tread just to keep track of wrongfully banned people by false claims made by bogosity proposers in general (will be mainly extantdodo probably).

Yeah, I saw that. Andromeda's Wake has a good video about it. He's linked to the YouTube support section and written a small blurb so people can send YouTube a message protesting Extantdodos suspension. Too often are good channels like Extantdodo are being banned or suspended unfairly because uneducated creationist r-tards are making baseless DMCA reports. It seems that this is the only way these people can win. Ironic that the self professed morally righteous would use such immoral tactics.

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I just read that entire exchange, now my head hurts. I don't how you managed to make it that long.

I stopped replying to him when I realised that he was never going to come over here and argue his case. He tried spewing his ridiculous moon hoax non-sense on one of my YouTube video's comments section, but I put an end to that real quick. If he wants a battle, he can come do it here. He's still whining on White's video comments but I think I'll just let him have at it. He's making himself look pretty stupid at the moment. I'm guessing he's used to that by now.

I had really hoped that White himself might come over here and argue his moon hoax case. I guess that was a little too much to expect. Conspiracy theorists rarely have the courage to step out of their own arena. The sad thing is, I actually feel sorry for people like that. I'm not sure why some people need to believe silly things like moon landing hoaxes or that David Icke lizard people insanity. It's like they can't handle the reality of their mundane world and want to project magic and fairies into it. Not healthy.

It'll have commentaries (hopefully with guests, I've already done Episode 5 with Lee Graham, and I'm hoping to get Phil Plait, Kevin MacLeod, and one of the LEAP guys to do one each) and whatever bonus features I can stick in. Aside from some extra material from Lee Graham that I didn't use (I'll include those), there really aren't any deleted scenes.

Tom already said he's doing German subtitles. Someone else expressed an interest in doing Spanish subtitles, but I haven't heard back from them. If anyone else wants to do subtitles in different languages, let me know.

Have you thought about pitching the show idea to some TV network? You never know, with shows like Myth Busters and P&T's Bullshit, sciencey/sceptical/critical thinking type stuff is becoming more popular.