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Well, you can check the first post on this thread and guess for yourself.  I'd expect to release the SciFi and Parody stories for voting any day now.  The Fantasy stories, for some reason, are lagging behind a bit, but they, too, should be done this week.

I've had a four people write for a second time on a story, and I'll have to choose one more person to double up on Fantasy 2, for a total of five repeat writers.

Just one deadline remaining today:  [baleeted]!

Yup, sorry Nathan, I didn't mean that to sound like I was disagreeing with you.  Talk of this very thing is already floating around various circles.   Although, make no mistake.  These people are not really wanting to incite a revolt.  They're just trying to swing voters for the next cycle via a little rabble rousing.  I was pointing my dissatisfaction at the people inciting this and their motivations and tactics, not at your statement!

The only part I disagree with was

There is very little reason for the lower class to revolt at what is going on but considering that realistically speaking the upper class is becoming more and more oppressed they would be the one to strike.

Even though things are going to technically (at least attempting to) move in a direction favoring the poor, it's like moving a few pebbles off of a mountain.  The upper class currently has it better than they've ever had it before (with the exception of that pesky recession that they caused), and the government has only barely started moving things away from where Bush has taken them.  The lower class still has a much better reason to revolt, they just are too busy working three jobs to pay for their kids' bronchitis.

Also fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHVwrCzRUX0

And no, I'm not a socialist, it's just that there are nearly no roads currently open for people to get out of the lower class.  Lots of people are there because of bad decisions, others were born into it with no way out.  Yes, some people rise out, but it's very rare.  Money attracts money, and the lower class don't have any.

Even Billionaire Warren Buffett (lives in a modest house a few blocks from where I grew up, I've met him, smart guy) wants the government to raise his taxes.

October of last year:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/business/06buffett.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin

To help pay for the rescue, the government should raise taxes on the wealthy, Mr. Buffett suggested. “I’m paying the lowest tax rate that I’ve ever paid in my life,” he said. “Now, that’s crazy.”

Yes, the poor, oppressed Upper Class.  Won't somebody please think of the wealthy for once!

: Sheesh.  If only I had the same set of problems a member of the Upper Class had.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht_W5_Ogh0U

If the upper class (depending on the metrics, between 1% and 6% of America) pull off some kind of revolution it will be because they bamboozle millions of misinformed middle and lower class members who trust the people whose opinions and whinings receive far more than a representative portion of the media coverage.

Step 1: Get all the money
Step 2: Whip the crazies into a frenzy
Step 3: Revolt
Result: Get all the money.  Wait...

Ok, one story down!  I'll release it as soon as its mate is complete, then we can vote on the two and have a laugh until the next set is done.

Parody 2 should also be done in the next couple of days.

Two deadlines today! [both received!].  Two deadlines tomorrow: [removed] and PHEMAR!  Let's have 'em!

Cool!  This looks groovy!

I remember playing Clue on the NES a long time ago, and each player would have to look away when someone was looking through their Clue Cards.  It was really annoying.  Eventually, we decided to just play the board game and sold the cartridge.  Co-op multiplayer would be fun though!

Jim,  I was in contact with a Father Allan Jones of a Catholic Church.  If you would like his contact information, PM me.  I recognize that he cannot speak for the entirety of the Catholic Church, but he seems to be in very strong disagreement with many of your beliefs regarding faith healing.

I did not ask yet if I could witness a faith healing.  For that, I should probably speak to someone in person, and I haven't had the time to do so, nor do I think I will follow up after this email.

I do not intend to specifically attack you with this, though I am in staunch disagreement with your practice of requiring money in exchange for prayer healing and hope to change your mind about doing so.  Father Jones seems to share my disapproval of the practice.

Perhaps you are not a member of the Catholic church, and another church does support your views, but you directed me towards the Catholic Church, and this is the response I received.  Please let me know if I misrepresented your practices.

He copied my email in black and replied in red.

[edit: email removed.  Jim and I have taken our gentleman's discussion to PM]

Pan's Labyrinth?  It kind of matches that description.  But it's Spanish, and set after the Spanish civil war, not a World War.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457430/

Edit: darn Khris posted while I was typing.  I'll post anyways.

And just imagine a doctor who claims to value life but cuts out cancer cells to 'allegedly' save the body. That doesn't sound like someone valuing life now does it? - I mean: he's killing of all those living cancer cells because they would somehow be a threat. There's really no sense in that if you come to think about it, now is there?

So who would want such a guy as his doctor? - Let alone accept (and follow) his advice on how to live a healthy life.

Burned again Lionmonkey!   



I have no idea what you're talking about with that first part though.  Sorry, I just couldn't follow the logic.  First of all, faith healing has never grown a limb back because that's something that cannot happen through other means.  This is what Kris was talking about with the "God never answers prayers if there is no possibility of coincidence" comment and is an immediate contradiction to your statement that "There's always a possibility of coincidence. "

I think what you're saying is that the axioms that science is based on might some day be proven false, or at least to have exceptions.  This is acceptable.  For example, we've recently (historically speaking) discovered that the force of gravity works differently on things that are very very small.

However, I don't understand how that can be used to discredit a light bulb, or verify prayer healing, or at least bring the two onto the same plane of logic.

The unicorn seems like such a silly argument to everyone because we know unicorns are just made up, but if you're going to take this backwards-approach to science, then the two statements:
-There are some unknowns in science, therefore faith healing could be true.
-There are some unknowns in science, therefore unicorns could be real.
Are on the same level of verifiability.

There's room for faith.  I don't mind anyone filling in the gaps with a god.  But you have to understand that you can't discuss it in the same way as you can science.  Nor do you have to somehow invalidate science to validate your god.

Oh if only life were so black and white as that tree thing!  Life would be so much easier!  What's with all the gray, world? Huh?

Lionmonkey,

I still don't see how your argument makes knowing that science works the same as knowing that prayer healing works.

Basically you're saying that "Science works even though the coin might someday land on it's side" is the same as "Faith healing works because the coin might someday land on it's side."

Jim,

Again, your answers aren't nearly as detailed as I was hoping and aren't much help on my quest to learn more about your faith healing beliefs and ability.  I'm not trying to be insulting here, but I want to let you know my thoughts based on our conversations so far.

As a naturally skeptical person, your lack of detail or clear answers makes me think that your generalities are covering up for your own doubts or contradictions in your beliefs.  I'm not stating that as fact, just saying that it is what my skeptical logic leads me to believe.  I also have serious doubts about the authority and the intentions of the person who gave you this licence.  Based on the information presented to me so far, I believe him to be a charlatan.  I don't believe that you are ill-intentioned, but I believe you to be mislead by this man.  It's not the believe that faith can help with healing or well-being that bothers me, but the accepting (or requiring) of remuneration strikes me as unconcionable. 

Again, I'm just telling you my personal beliefs based on the information I have so far.  I have sent an email to a representative of a catholic church asking to direct me in the direction of someone who can answer my inquiry.  I'll keep you updated.

Jim, forgive me, I don't wish to ask you to repeat yourself, I've been paying some attention to this thread, but not reading each word, so I may have missed it.  Exactly who was it who gave you the licence?  All that I can remember reading was that it was a higher ranking member of your church.  Could you be more specific?

-What is his position within the church?

-What denomination is this church?

-What country do you live in?

I'm only asking to satisfy my curiosity, not to attempt to discredit you.  Also, just so that no one misinterprets your beliefs or your practice of prayer healing, could you answer these questions?

-Do you recommend faith healing to your family and friends?

-How do you find people to heal via prayer?  Do they seek you out?  Do you advertise?

-Do you do this often, or just whenever an acquaintance seeks your help?

-Do you recommend people seek medical help along with the prayer healing, or is the faith sufficient?

-If someone has true faith, can their prayers heal any malady?

-If your prayers fail to heal someone (do they ever??), do you return their money?

Edit: And by the way, I promise that I will seek out information from a catholic church here.  Your answers will partially help me know to ask the right questions.  Thanks.

The question about paying yourself, while phrased somewhat jokingly, was meant to be a serious question.  I am still somewhat puzzled by the reasoning behind why you must be paid to heal someone.  As far as I know, the only answer you've given to that is that you were told that those are the rules.  Please correct me if I've missed something in this thread. 

I'm sorry I phrased my comment in an insulting manner.  Please accept my apology.

I have tried not to be condescending about anyone's beliefs in this thread, though I do tend to make jokes.  Again, let me know if you interpret anything as an mean-spirited.

On topic, I will contact a representative of the nearest catholic church in my area and get back to you.

Regarding your fever, I have often woken up feeling ill and experiencing a fever and had the fever dissipate on it's own and been up and on my feet in a couple hours.  Is it possible that this was the case with your fever?

I thank you for trying to not be insulting.  I also try.  Let me know when I fail.  I already worked out one misunderstanding from this thread with my friend Miguel via PM.

But could you try to be a bit more patronizing?  (Not saying that sarcastically)  I'm hoping you can explain things more clearly and fully.  You generally use a sentence to sum up complicated issues, and I would appreciate more details.

What church should I ask about faith healing?  I have a feeling that if I went to the church I was baptized into (Methodist), the one I spent most of my childhood in (Unitarian), or the last one I attended (Unity), the ministers would tell me that prayer is a good thing, but that I should seek a doctor if I had a serious medical problem.  I'd be more than willing to test that hypothesis, however.

Also, seriously, what illness did you cure yourself of last week?

The people in the above mentioned article didn't have faith as it seems. They may have said that they do but that doesn't mean it's true.

They had enough faith to bet their own daughter's life that their god would heal her better than a doctor.  That's a pretty big helping of faith if you ask me.

I pray when I'm sick, and it works every time. I did it about 10 days back.

Cool.  What'd you have?  Was it diabetes?  Did you pay yourself?

We USE those inventions, we KNOW that they work! 'nuff said.

'Nuff said, not 'nuff thought: How is it different from people USING prayer healing and KNOWING that it works then?

That's actually completely different.

There has never been any non-anecdotal evidence of prayer healing.  If you know of any, let me know.  The problem with all the anecdotal evidence that a faith healing advocate might supply, is that it's all very lightweight.  If faith healing is used in conjunction with medical attention, how do you know that the prayer is what did it, and not the demonstrably effective drug or medical treatment?  Sometimes illnesses go away by themselves.  How much can be better explained by a placebo effect?  I can however demonstrate faith healing not working.  Unless you think they were just doing it wrong.

On the other hand.  I know that a flashlight works because when I flip the switch, the light comes on.  It's completely observable and verifiable.  I say the light is on because flipping the switch connected a circuit between the batteries that is heating a filament that gives off light as designed due to years and years of experimentation and observation.  Would you argue that the light could be caused by something else?  Or that perhaps the light is not, in fact, on, and it is only that I think the light is on that makes it give off illumination?



As for the whole thing about why the axioms underlying the behavior of our universe work as they do, that just goes back to the creation of the universe.  Science does not yet explain several things, and you're free to fill in the gaps with goddidit.  I won't criticize anyone for doing so.  But know and understand that that is at least as big of a leap in logic as just calling those axioms and basing a system of knowledge and understanding on them.

All of that has already been covered in this thread.  So:

On a side note, someone who's not as lazy as I am should create a chronology to document how the topic of this thread changes from post to post and set on fire anyone who makes them repeat.

Consider yourself burned at the stake. 

No.  Which is why those two things are completely different.

Parody 1 made a huge surge today.  Thanks to the three people who all turned it in in rapid succession!

I've got one deadline rapidly approaching: [removed]  five hours left!

And I still totally need one person to act as a replacement!  I've had two people drop out.  I filled in for the first three vacancies, but there are going to be three stories without endings if I don't get one more person.  Or, I'll just randomly select someone from the team to write a second time on the story.  I'll give you a day to jump on board!  C'mon new guy!

What happens if by the time a story reaches the last person it is nowhere near a nice closure point?

Every email that I send contains a helpful tip reminding people that there will be ten people to write so the first three or so should be establishing plot, characters, and settings, the next four or so should be progressing the plot, and the last three or so should be moving it towards a conclusion.  If people don't move it towards a conclusion then it just ends when it ends!

@Andail

Yeah, I've had to skip more people than I had hoped.  With Parody 1, the first person to write emailed me that they had received my mail before the 24 hour mark, and then never returned the story and was unreachable as the 48 hour deadline approached and passed.  They later emailed me explaining that they had become sick and slept the whole day away.  Another person just never responded (they later explained that they were away the whole time and didn't know we had started) so was skipped at the 24 hour deadline (saving us a day of waiting) and then yet another person answered the first email, but never finished within the 48 hours.  I still haven't heard from that person, so they are out of rotation until I do.

I have skipped a few other people in other stories, but it's been people like one person who emailed me from their phone right away saying that their computer died and can't write for a couple days  until it's fixed, so I'm waiting for their email before I put them back in.  Another person said he was busy for a couple days and just asked to be moved slightly lower in the rotation.  One other person was busy and asked for a one day extension. 

So, yeah, there have been several delays here and there.  A lot of them understandable, though.  The worst delays are when someone emails me back saying that they're working on it, and then they never return the story.  Hopefully we can keep those down to a minimum.

Daily update:

Not a lot of movement today, but then almost every story has a deadline tomorrow, so I expect to wake up to lots of stories in my inbox!

Sorry about Parody 1.  I have now had to skip as many people as have finished.  It's kind of slowing down progress...

Still, we are now officially half-way done with this activity!  Congrats!  The stories are all really interesting so far, and I'm looking forward to see where they are all going!

Props to Ultra Magus who has now written all three times, and averaged about 5 hours for all three times!  Sorry that you now have to wait a while to see the results!

Vasily,

I don't understand what's going on in this game.  Most of the time when I try to load it, the Unity Player takes a looooong time to load and then crashes.  Once, I got it to load and then it was just... just weird.  I push something around and then I die.  There's no rhyme or reason to anything, and the text bits are hard to read and don't make much sense.  I also really dislike having to enter a random code to visit each level.

I don't think you really learned any lessons from Quite Soulless.  Do you understand why that game was such a financial failure for you?

Try getting someone who has never seen this game to sit down in front of you and play it.  Don't tell them how to play it, just make them start playing.  See if they look like they're understanding what's going on.  See if they're having fun.

Also, get someone who is a native English speaker to go over every piece of text that you're going to put into the game.

Finally, I'm not sure what you're trying to get out of sending this to Obama and Schwarzenegger.  The message that you're trying to get across (which I'm guessing from your posts and the "making of" documents that say that you're schizophrenic has something about you being denied asylum in the United States and your Room mate being mean to you?) is not clear at all.  The game, especially with the name "Space Spy" doesn't seem to cry out "Help me! I need protection from wrongful persecution in my native country!"   However, it does have a little bit of "Hey, the author of this game is schitzophrenic! Wheeee!" except not as fun as that sounds.

Daily update:

Today was a great day to be SciFi story number one!  Three people have recieved, written, and returned the story today, taking an average of 4.5 hours each.  Well done those people!  If everyone were like that, we'd be done!

But we are making some good progress.  Almost halfway done overall.  28/60.  Nobody with any quickly approaching deadlines right now.

I still would like to have an alternate sign up.  If you know somebody on the board who is a good writer and isn't signed up, threaten them.