Be Excellent To Each Other

I'd like to think so,yes, what the fuck else can you judge anything on?

No. it is what you do next that is important.

Nope sorry, didn't get that one, can you explain?

Whether you enjoy a cavity search, presumably.

(in all seriousness - what in the fresh hell is going on in the world? What is Uganda's human rights record up until this? How does that record compare to, say China or another developed nation with human rights difficulties?)

(also, just looked up details on this anti-Homosexuality bill, and *apparently* the provision for the death penalty was removed from the proposed legislation in March this year. Not that that makes it any more excusable, of course, but at the very least I suppose it's not *as* serious as it was)

Not right now. I'm on a redemption theme today.

What people are defines what they say or think.

"It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me."

Batman said that. Must be true.

Well, there's all these hurricanes they've been causing.

So once we've got all the gay folk, we're going to need to start in on the butterflies.

What's your point there, Grim? sorry, but I'm not getting it.

Edit - aha, maybe I should have added "do" to the "say or think" bit

It's about the notion of free will - who someone is defines what they say or do, they have absolutely no say in the matter.

When (if) you reply to this post, the way you reply would always be the way you would have replied at the current time - no matter how many times you might think you're changing your mind. As long as the external factors remain constant, you would (I believe, as it's impossible to prove) always make the same decisions, because of who you are.

Yes, but the likely consequences of your actions will also affect them. So even if you deny free will then you have to accept that how society deals with certain actions is itself one of the external factors.

but, given the evidence, you'll always make the same choice.

I agree with grim...

Most of Africa were running around naked 250-300 years ago before we enslaved them with the US and made the place civilised.

The religious brain washing they will have revived from the fine upstanding missionary’s in the 1800’s will have played a large part in this. It was only made legal in what the 1960’s in the UK?

This is wrong but it’s part of the nations development , and given you could still be jailed for it in the UK 50 years ago and that a huge part of the US are anti-gay, the “Great West” has little right to be shouting over this.

Legal in Enlgand and Wales in 1967, but 1980 in Scotland. It was a capital crime until 1861.

Man, what a fucking fantastic job we did of that.

Ah, it's about free will now rather than murdering gays? Inevitably I am indeed responding to this post (go on, admit it, you always knew I would). I'm not even sure yet myself what I'm going to write (or am I?....whooooh Twilight Zone!). I think I have a choice about what I write next (well I would say that, should have seen it coming really). If that is an illusion, it's a pretty damn convincing one. I've read a few articles on free will and found them to be a bit of a mind fuck.I do believe in free will, but I think (wrongly or rightly) that what our genes and our experience through the environment do is tweak the probabilities, but do not make anything 100% inevitable.

So I'm going to press the "submit button now (or am I? - maybe I'm the sort of person who's going to change his mind at the last moment....maybe I'm the sort of person who wastes way too many of his waking hours thinking about this kind of guff?) Yep, that's me, so the "submit" button it is...probably.

And btw, can we stop murdering the gays, or ideally anyone for just being different?

As noted earlier, the "capital punishment" bit was removed from the "law".

Oh well, that's perfectly alright then.

It seems that you're suggesting I don't think this is a bad thing. I do - I've said so.

Ok, my bad, I probably didn't read all the posts. What about the free will thing, though?

I know what Grim... is saying it's just that I think it is entirely a moot point. What people are determines how they act, but when what they are is itself determined in part by external factors then when considering one of those external factors it doesn't much matter whether the chicken or the egg comes first.

I think it's interesting.

If it's true, it pretty much destroys all religion and makes pretty much every crime one caused by mental issues. Granted, it's not super-relevant and it's certainly not an excuse, but, you know, I can't help it

It's certainly interesting, but is it true?

Are we really just robots going through the motions? Are we not responsible for our own actions? I certainly feel responsible. To pick a random example, if I have a noisy neighbour who doesn't give a shit whether he's waking us up in the middle of the night I could go down and punch him in the face, but I choose not to.

But you choose not to based on previous experience and contemplation of the consequences. The choice could just be an illusion.

Ok, assuming you're right what do you do with that information?

He does exactly what he would do...

I knew you'd say that

(how predictable was that?)

I spent about 3 hours in a pub with Lave arguing whether free will exists or whether our actions can be predetermined based on brain chemistry.

Hey Craster, you're a mod, is it worth splitting the thread at this point? Or has the free will thing already been done to death?

Well if the gays wouldn't keep flapping their arms about maybe we wouldn't have so many hurricanes.

It's because gay people attract leopards. In sub-saharan africa it can be a real problem.

Ebola outbreak in Uganda

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20338014

Obviously the fault of the gays...or the anti gays...or summat.