Callie

Junior year of chemical engineering (process and energy emphasis): CHE 311: Engineering Thermodynamics CHE 415: Particle Technology CHEM 421: Physical Chemistry I ENGR 360: Introduction to Fluid Mechanics PHIL 210: World Religions This is the first semester that I'm taking less than 18 credits. I'm tempted to take linear algebra, although it's not required, and I think the course material this semester is more than enough.

The only good game music I can think of is unoriginal. Civ IV and Civ V have nice soundtracks, but that's because their soundtracks consist of Bach and whatnot. (Civ IV actually has a real nice opening theme)

I guess I prefer a party for nostalgia's sake.

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity But why isn't party loyalty at least enough to make the neutrals listen to their enthusiast compatriots long enough to be won over to enthusiasm themselves? The premise, after all, was that this was an idea about which the neutral majority could be persuaded. If they are so persuadable, how come they don't actually get persuaded, even when they have the added incentive of party loyalty? If a Democratic candidate has views to the left of the party establishment then said candidate is unlikely to gain any traction. Opposing establishment ideas makes it difficult to raise funds or garner a necessary level of attention. Yet, if a view is too far to the left of the one party, it's certainly too far to the left of what's considered the right-wing party. But the view doesn't even have to be outside of the party's nook in the political spectrum: it just has to be in conflict with financial interests of the establishment party members. A candidate might come along who can rally a support base that agrees with the candidate's pet issue (a bad way of putting it though). But the establishment is going to shut that out: no money, no media attention, and a pitiful debate presence. Then the issue will be forgotten about, not because it was disagreeable, but that the people who espoused it are ignored out of expediency. Or it might not be forgotten about, the candidate will just make populist speeches to appeal to it, but not actually encourage real debate. Not to pick on the Democratic party, but its politicians are generally just as corporatist as their Republican counterparts. I'm not convinced that a majority of people support a system in which a business exists largely upon its ability to lobby politicians. It's going to happen regardless of how many political parties there are, but throw in more parties and you're going to have parties whose interests conflict a lot more often.

Originally Posted By: Rechtawthgin A Originally Posted By: Future Wonderbolt [snip] that is all <3 [snip] I find that it's better to use [snip] when referencing an image in a quote tag, or at the very least placing the image in a spoiler tag. Placing the entire image in a quotation leads to unnecessary scrolling.

Edit: Sorta sniped Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity If the two-party system is really standing in the way of any given policy, then it can only be because neither of the two parties, each representing about half of the voting population, can be persuaded to adopt the policy. If you can't convince a majority of half the people to believe in your policy, why would you expect to convince a majority of all the people to believe in it, if only the two-party system weren't there? If someone wished to convince half the population to hold a certain viewpoint, it would be necessary to openly discuss that view and assess the benefits of adopting said policy. I think there are many issues for which a majority of people could quite easily be convinced to agree with a certain viewpoint. It's just that some issues aren't discussed to begin with. The two-party system often results in rhetoric which makes it appear that the parties are diametrically opposed on issues, leading to an form of government where a reasonable idea is suppressed because it conflicts with the interests of the one party whose view is more strongly favored in regards to a certain topic. For example, public school teachers are generally granted tenure in the US, so much so that firing teachers who've committed crimes might be a boondoggle in some jurisdictions. I think that, if the issue was frequently discussed, a majority of people would oppose such tenure. In my experience, a lot of people aren't even aware that public school teachers are granted tenure. Tenure for school teachers is supported by the Teacher's Union, which overwhelmingly supports the Democratic Party. If someone suggests that we should eliminate that tenure the union will loudly oppose it and so will Democrats, because Democrats receive campaign contributions from them. Yet, if a Republican makes that suggestion, even people who would normally agree with that suggestion will oppose it as a result of the prevailing political dichotomy. Republicans are more likely to advocate cuts to education budgets, and almost everyone who espouses the teaching of creationism or school prayer is Republican. So the dichotomy is that Republicans are "anti-education" and Democrats are "pro-education," even though that kind of dichotomy doesn't accurately apply to all candidates of both parties. The Republican candidate who wants to eliminate tenure will immediately be labelled by the opposing Democrat as being detrimental to education, and that kind of argument will generally win. If there were, say, four or five parties it'd be more difficult for such a situation to occur. There might be one party with supporters who espouse creationism and education cuts, but that wouldn't be the case for the other parties. There would still be a anti/pro kind of dichotomy (as a result of coalitions especially), but different parties will reflect different interests, apply different rhetoric, and have varying degrees of views. I don't think it will eliminate the problem, but it would certainly help. (As for the incarceration issue, there is a similar situation. A Republican candidate can use the "tough on crime" argument to great effect.) Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity I'm not so sure about this. If you can change people's minds enough to get them to change the system in ways that will not only bring about universal health care, but will also bring an undetermined number of unknown future changes, then why can't you change their minds about universal health care alone? Constitutional amendments can, and have been, passed without a consensus among the general population, and I think this could very well apply to the electoral college (not with the current political atmosphere, though). If people oppose a perceived improvement, it's not entirely impossible for some branch of government to take initiative. Opposition to gay marriage in the US has declined noticeably, yet no legalization of gay marriage has occurred by means of popular referendum.

Originally Posted By: Future Wonderbolt Originally Posted By: Dantius text wall Just because it could be worse does not mean it can't be better. Dantius isn't disagreeing with that, but rather, Diki's use of hyperbole.

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity I quite agree that American society is plagued by some crying evils. I just don't buy the excuses that these things are all there, in the world's richest country, just because of that awful old electoral college, or gerrymandering of congressional districts, or the two-party system. Although changing electoral rules would require a drawn-out constitutional amendment process, it's still seemingly more feasible than trying to alter people's behavior or the underlying culture. As far as the two-party system is concerned: the system really does prevent certain issues from coming into light, because if both parties agree on an issue (often, I argue) then any meaningful opposition is thrown under the rug in favor of political expediency. If a certain idea becomes popular then one party will begrudgingly adopt it for a while until it's forgotten about. This is problematic because the two-party system represents a narrow set of viewpoints.

competent and honest government hahahaha

That image up thar transcends poniness. Congratulations!

wait what

This test is surprisingly accurate, although I'm surprised by the high score in adventurousness. Zero cheerfulness, ninety-nine cautiousness.

Originally Posted By: !Pinkie Pie Triumph can't google. An inside joke (I guess that's what it could be called) isn't something that can be easily found on Google, especially if it's an acronym.

My results. (99% Gary Johnson) I don't find this surprising because I had supported Johnson's candidacy from the beginning, and he's actually in line with the Libertarian Party platform and has meaningful political experience. I didn't like the amnesty question. The amnesty should be permanent, and I picked the simple path to citizenship option reluctantly because I disagreed with how it was phrased. Also, there are few instances in which I agree with Mitt Romney on economic issues: he's corporatist.

I guess I like Diplomacy now, when I have time for it, in addition to Monopoly, Scrabble, and chess.

Favourite Comic: XKCD Favourite Painter: I'm not educated enough on the subject to really pick out a favorite, but my favorite paintings are Nighthawks and Lady With an Ermine. Favourite Sculptor: Favourite Architect/Building: No favorites, but I am fond of mosques and similar types of architecture. Favourite Composer: Mozart or Rachmaninoff depending on my mood. Favourite Musician/Band: The Beatles/Radiohead/Bob Dylan Favourite Prose Writer: John Steinbeck (although my favorite novel is 1984) Favourite Poet: Bob Dylan Favourite Playwright: Sophocles Favourite Filmmaker: Stanley Kubrick Favourite Philosopher: Not particularly a set favorite, because I've read a wide variety of philosophers but not studied any of them in depth, but Adam Smith, Baruch Spinoza, and Milton Friedman come to mind. Favourite Miscellaneous Artist Not Covered Above:

The only one I visit regularly is XKCD.

I had never heard such commas referred to as Oxford commas before. Wikipidia enlightened me, although its section on ambiguity is pretty hilarious.

I need an excuse to walk around like those Monty Python monks.

Thank you for explaining!

Your Type: INTJ You have strong preference of Introversion over Extraversion (89%) You have distinctive preference of Intuition over Sensing (75%) You have moderate preference of Thinking over Feeling (50%) You have moderate preference of Judging over Perceiving (56%) Edit: When I responded in the thread Dintiridan linked to I scored INTP with Perceiving 10%. Huh

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S Quote: I'm wondering what percentage of people were female? I don't remember if that was a required question or not. Did you read the info at the top of the post? That should answer your question. I'm not going to assume that everyone who does not identify as male identifies as female.