I believe that when we are called to jury duty we should perform it.

Attempting to evade jury duty is a very common phenomenon. Those called to jury duty roughly fall into three categories:

1) Those who are able to evade jury duty, employing knowledge of the proceedings and the intellect to leverage it in order to do so.

2) Those who do not want to perform jury duty but are lacking in the knowledge/intellect required to do so

3) Those that accept jury duty as a responsibility and do not attempt to evade it.

Those who actually serve jury duty are limited to categories 2 and 3 above, predominately 2. This has the net effect of lowering the actual burden of proof required by prosecutors, and allowing legal precedents to arise that should not.

The more people we have in category 3, the better.

"It'll be a great memory" is primarily a justification for what amounts to a very short-term diversion, rather than an actual motivation to do something.

We don't do the things that make great memories for the purpose of making great memories, at least most of the time. We do the things that make great memories because great memories tend to come from great experiences, however transient. The memories are more of a side effect.

A pragmatist will note the transience of these pleasant experiences, and will generally hold that their transience means they are not worth the costs (financial or otherwise) of experiencing them. The memory argument is typically used as a justification here; even if the experience is momentary, the memories last for most of a lifetime.

"Creating memories together" is another form of this, which is primarily (though not always) more concerned with establishing or reinforcing bonds between individuals. Creating the memories are merely a side effect of the actual intent in most cases, but it's far more pleasant to say that one wants to do something with you to "create a new memory with you" than it is to say that one wants to do the same to "establish an emotional bond with you."

There are, of course, exceptions, where creating memories is the primary goal. This is most frequently the case with a family member who knows he or she will be dying soon, or at the very least will be facing serious life-threatening situations- it's most frequently a parent with a young child when this is the goal; a terminally ill parent who is still mobile but expects to lose mobility soon might want to create memories for their child while they still can- a military parent who is to be deployed to a very dangerous area might want to do the same.

debating* with argument, rather. Didn't notice that until after a vote was cast.

You're confusing dating with arguing. Clinging to these commandments in an argument would fairly and reasonably be called a cop-out for those unable to hold their own.

Debate is different from argument, and debate is all about rationally presenting each position and questioning the premises, assumptions, reasoning, and conclusion on the other side. It's supposed to result in eventually reach a conclusion, with one side or the other demonstrated as being a generally more reasonable position to hold; a decision making tool, and one that also allows aspects of our own position that we may not examine fully to be looked at with unbiased eyes. In a debate, one side or the other may prove to be the better option, but nobody loses- everybody wins, both (or more) debaters and the audience.

The problem is when one tries to apply the debate format to something that is fundamentally subjective, or when an individual stoops to fallacies (such as most of these) rather than reasoning in what is supposed to be a debate. It turns into an argument, and there is only one winner- and it's a shallow win, because who knows what the better option is after all that?

Better to glorify the mental traits that distinguish us from other animals, than to glorify those traits that can be easily surpassed by beasts of burden or machines. The nerds are the most human among us.

There's an app... er, spell for that!

If a priest were to bless the Atlantic Ocean, each blessing would convert 1 pint of water. He must be in physical contact with a portion of the water to perform the blessing.

It's a level 1 spell, so if the priest were to max out his level and allocated all his spell slots to it, he could perform the spell several dozen times (~70 castings of level 1 or higher spells with good stats and other bonuses). Overall, that amounts to about 10 gallons/day max.

Based on an estimate of 264.17 billion gallons of waters in the Atlantic Ocean, it would take a maxed out priest roughly 72 million years to bless the entirety. Better make sure it's an immortal priest.

Even more complicated is the need of 5 pounds of powdered silver as a material component for the spell. That's over 21 trillion pounds of silver total. So... a very rich immortal priest.

289 points on that account. The operators identity should be pretty clear- or at least, the "main" account should be. Look at the name, writing style, the way the created debates are structured, and the context provided in this thread.

I need feminism because, even though such was not their intent, their actions have sparked additional scrutiny into injustices affecting other groups that might otherwise have gone scoffed at unanimously. Even now, many of these injustices are downplayed by the majority, but at least some are thinking about them now.

Exactly what could possibly be accomplished by further disparaging an organization already known to be unscrupulously violent?

Even ff there is no potential for discussion and understanding with such an organization, there is still no benefit I can see to disparaging them. Doing so only gives them more ammunition to fuel propaganda by which to further indoctrinate others to their cause. The best propaganda is built on truths and half-truths that are spun to invoke specific emotions in the audience.

I mean, what? Do you want more recruits for ISIS? Do you want them to have more fuel to inspire further violence and terrorism? Aren't you opposed to them?

No, it didn't. That's just the most inflammatory troll persona I can name off the top of my head. I'm assuming at this point that you're a troll persona, possibly by the same operator even- no evidence in your case, I just don't want to believe that someone could actually want that, and would rather believe they would only do so to get a rise out of others. Call it naivete.

I dunno, that's a long time. We'll probably have brain-computer interfaces by then to augment our memory. The proofs of concept are already there, it's just a few decades of refinement to wait for.