DD Social Thread (v1)

The thing with the smoking is the context, for example if your talking to a person, and they bring up the fact that they are a non-smoker as one of their traits, it would seem likely that they had given up smoking, where as someone who didn't smoke and would never consider smoking, such as you or I, probably wouldn't think to mention it. At least I think that's what he means :p

You could always say that your not religious and leave it at that, I'm not knowledgable enough to knowledgable enough to figure out what to call you :p

Well translating Latin becomes too easy when you have a dictionary :p

As far as this election goes I don't plan to vote for a president if I can't figure out who to vote for. This will be a first for me and I wish it were not the case.

James, you're welcome to those opinions. I don't fault you for what you believe. (We could discuss that and see if we could find a way to agree on certain things, but I agree with you-- it's hard to change someone's mind, and that's not my intent at all.) At the moment I think the discussion is fine. It shouldn't become too intense or drawn out, but at the moment it's not a problem, right?

I do think gay marriage will eventually become a normal part of society, just as interracial marriage and so forth did. We'll see, I suppose. And I don't mean to imply that everyone who opposes it is evil or anything like that. Nor I do I think that all people who opposed interracial marriage or the Civil Rights Movement, or who owned slaves were necessarily evil-- the times just change and society's perspective shifts. And the range of what is considered appropriate shifts with it. I imagine soon that gay rights will simply be a normal part of everyday life and nothing to talk about (in the same way that interracial marriage isn't very interesting at the moment!). And certainly some people may in the future still have a strong opinion one way or the other, but on average it will just be a non-issue.

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The thing with the smoking is the context, for example if your talking to a person, and they bring up the fact that they are a non-smoker as one of their traits, it would seem likely that they had given up smoking, where as someone who didn't smoke and would never consider smoking, such as you or I, probably wouldn't think to mention it. At least I think that's what he means

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Perhaps. What I was referencing was more about the separation of sections at restaurants or hotel rooms smoking vs non-smoking, smokers vs non-smokers. "Are you a non-smoker?" Odd question... ha.

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Well translating Latin becomes too easy when you have a dictionary

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Does it? Then you must understand the grammar really well. It's hard for a lot of people. I don't find it too bad, although some of the style still confuses me (and I'm completely out of practice at the moment).

It isn't a problem, but I'm aware of the danger.

You may remember that we discussed these issues waaaayy back when and it didn't stay as tame of a discussion as I would have hoped ;). It was my fault back then. I was the one that brought up the issue. I think it was same sex marriage. I was a little bit more naive back then too.

Once you've got the grammar down, it's pretty good, the main thing with Latin to English translation is a good grip on recognising tenses, moods, and obviously vocab, English to Latin, is much harder, as you have to not only be able to recognise the cases and moods in English, but then form the cases and conjugate in Latin.

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Originally Posted by james438

It isn't a problem, but I'm more aware of the danger.

You may remember that we discussed these issues waaaayy back when and it didn't stay as tame of a discussion as I would have hoped ;). It was my fault back then. I was the one that brought up the issue. I think it was same sex marriage. I was a little bit more naive back then too.

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I agree with Daniel on this, it will eventually happen, but it's just a matter of when.
Just as a question, I thought that in the American electoral system, you had to vote for someone? Or do you mean by not voting for someone, that you'll go for a third party? (Like the greens in Australia)

We are allowed to vote. Felons can lose the right to vote while others may choose not to vote at all.

Interesting, in Australia, voting is compulsory

Hm? Americans certainly do NOT have to vote-- the turnout is surprisingly low, in fact, something like 50%. It varies. And for less important elections it's probably much smaller. (You also don't need to select an item for every measure-- you can leave some blank and fill in others.)
You can also vote for a third party which is effectively like throwing your vote away or not voting. Perhaps it's good for some moral/theoretical reason, but it's completely ineffective-- America is completely caught up in the democrat/republican thing, for better or worse. Personally I think it makes no sense. I think that if that hadn't been the case in 2008, for example, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would have been fighting for the presidency (maybe I'm exaggerating). Of course I guess that they could have knocked each other out of the race, but there are times when it seems like it's not clearly one party vs. another party. This time around is potentially another example, where the republications were really scrambling to find another even slightly worth putting into the final race, but of course the democrats already had Obama so there wasn't much of a chance of another democrat even being considered.
Hm. I'm rambling. Probably mostly unimportant anyway. But, no, there's no requirement to vote.

Now, if you're asking about the electoral college, that's a really weird system that makes no sense at all (there should be no people in it, even if it works out mathematically that way). The population votes, divided by region (by state, also by other districts) and then all 535(?) members of the congress get together to "vote" based on what the population did for their district. But really what's the point, since they don't actually decide anything?
(I'm not positive on this, but I believe that those people can actually choose to vote another way and it would technically count; but they don't. I'm not sure what stops them. Or why they exist.)
Basically it's just an odd way of averaging things. And maybe they are required to vote; I certainly assume they all would anyway-- or they wouldn't have that position (not sure how they're selected either).
The math is a way to distribute the votes fairly (well, kinda), and I suppose that's fine, but the actual process is strange.
Well, here you are, more info on that:
http://www.archives.gov/federal-regi...ege/about.html


Also, Bernie, interesting about you learning Latin. By the way you describe it, you clearly do know a lot about it-- that doesn't come easily to most. Perhaps it has something to do with your interest in logic/coding in general-- it does in many ways easily transfer to Latin (especially how it is traditionally taught).