It is suggested that you read this post first: http://vividrandomexistence.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/zoosexuality-should-it-be-considered-acceptable-or-not/

This post is an attempt by me to summarize some of what I’ve learned about zoosexuality:

1) There is nothing wrong with humans having sex with animals, just as there is nothing wrong with humans having sex with other humans
2) Bestiality becomes wrong if the animal in question is not an adult, is forced to have sex, or is not physically capable of having sex with a human (just as human-only sex becomes wrong when it is rape, etc.)
3) Society views zoosexuality and bestiality as taboo and ignores it almost completely; you are not likely to even hear it mentioned in school, in books, or on TV. Society acts this way largely because of irrational religious beliefs that think of humans as being superior to non-human animals
4) Although zoosexuality should be treated as a sexual orientation, it is instead treated as a medical disorder, which is a fallacy.
5) Zoosexuals hide in their own zoosexual closet similar to the homosexual closet; that is, they are afraid to tell anyone that they are zoosexual because they are afraid of being ridiculed by people they know and society
6) Lots of people are zoophiles, but most only admit it on the Internet. Zoosexuality is not as rare as you might think.
7) Many people believe that animals can’t have sex with humans because they can’t consent; however, these people fail to realize that consent itself is a human-centric term, that was created by humans and applies only to humans. If an animal doesn’t want to have sex, it will make it known through noticeable behavior (i.e. biting and other resistance). Humans do not need the “consent” of non-human animals to slaughter them for food or hunt them, so why is “consent” all of a sudden required to have sex with them?
8] Some Zoosexual people have been persecuted by unfair laws that forbid bestiality for vague and unjustifiable reasons (which probably originated with religious dogma). Laws that ban bestiality are discriminatory in nature; they are the same as saying that two homosexuals can’t have sex.
9) Animals have been shown to enjoy sex with other species, whether that species is human or not.
10) Zoosexuals are often discriminated against by bigots who like to spend their time showing their hatred and prejudice towards people who have sex with animals or relationships with animals.
11) People who learn about zoosexuality and are unfamiliar with it will often react with ridiculous and irrational responses, such as “eww, that’s gross” (similar to the way people go nuts when they see a “disgusting” insect). These reactions are based on primitive emotions, social stigma and the brainwashing of society.
12) Most zoosexuals Have loving relationships with their animals, and are known to treat their animals/pets better than the average person. Whereas owning an animal/pet is more casual for most people, zoosexuals are much more bonded to their animals and are more likely to take better care of them
13) Just as there are bad people in human-only sexuality (i.e. rapists), there are also bad people in zoosexual sexuality — these people are known as zoosadists and are in a distinct category from the good zoosexuals who care about and have loving relationships with their animals.
14) Zoosexuality in the media (if it is even mentioned at all) is likely to be loaded with misconceptions and misinformation about zoosexuality, and is likely to be based on ignorance and prejudice
15) There are no laws on planet Earth which protect zoosexual people, but there are lots of laws that discriminate against zoosexuals and ban sex with animals.
16) Religions are likely to condemn zoosexuality based on irrational beliefs and dogmas
17) Many zoosexuals have relationships with both humans and animals. (After all, humans are animals).
18] Social conversations usually ignore the zoosexuality topic altogether; however, whenever zoosexuality is brought up, it is usually accompanied by nervous laughter, irrational criticism (such as “eww, that’s gross” or “that’s weird”), talked about humorously, and not taken seriously. This is the way homosexuality would’ve been dealt with in the 1950s.
19) The most common animals involved in bestiality/zoosexual acts are dogs and horses.
20) Europe is the most zoosexual-friendly region of the world, although some countries such as the UK and the Netherlands have outlawed it
21) There is no link between zoosexuality and pedophilia. Various websites claim that there are studies which say that being zoosexual makes a person more likely to commit a crime against a human. However, this information was taken out of context — it was a survey taken of prison inmates, not the general public. Because few people are knowledgeable about zoosexuality, when the average person sees a claim that zoosexuality is linked to pedophilia, they accept it as fact, even though it isn’t true.
22) Although PETA has had conflicting views about zoosexuality over the years, the president of PETA has admitted that there is nothing wrong with humans having sex with animals when no harm occurs

Many fundamentalist Christians out there believe that it is OK for humans to be in control of non-human animals because they claim that humans have souls and non-human animals don’t have souls. When I read this point-of-view, or when someone tells me they agree with this point-of-view, it is one of the most offensive things I can ever be confronted with. To me, the idea that animals have no soul is delusional nonsense.

What’s amazing is that I have talked to people who claim animals have no soul. I have said to them, “OK, define soul. Tell me what a soul is” and the people I talked to were unable to tell me what a soul is. This is proof that many people with this point-of-view have no idea what they’re talking about.

The reality is, there is no proof that souls exist. Dictionary.com says that soul means “the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action regarded as a distinct entity separable from the body and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part as distinct from the physical part.” This is largely is the realm of religion, and religion is based on beliefs, not proof.

It is not fair to arrogantly place human beings as being “above” other non-human animals and to claim that humans have souls and non-human animals don’t. This is based, on delusional, religious stupidity that originates from a time when people weren’t enlightened and non-human animals were just there to serve people. It is scary to thing that there are thousands of people out there (such as fundamentalist Christians) who have the same beliefs as those people who lived centuries ago. These thousands of delusional people alive today believe that non-human animals are soulless objects who have no rights and who only exist to satisfy humans. This infuriates me, and I will explain why.

Since there is no way of knowing if humans really have “souls” (at least in the spiritual sense), then it is reasonable to conclude that there is also no way of knowing whether non-human animals really have “souls”. Based on this reasoning, it makes sense to conclude that whatever is the case for humans will also be the case for non-human animals. In other words, if humans have souls, then non-human animals must also have souls. And, if humans do not have souls, then neither do non-human animals. So ultimately, there is no separation between humans and non-human animals. Either all sentient beings have a soul, or none of them have a soul. The claim that humans are the only sentient beings with souls is delusional, uneducated, senseless, ignorant, illogical, and irrational. Additionally, this fallacy is discriminatory because it is speciesist. Just as there is racism and sexism, there is speciesism (which means to favor one species over another).

Consider this: scientists now have the ability to create human-animal hybrids (for example, a creature which has 50% human DNA and 50% cat DNA). Does this mean that the hybrid creature would have 50% of a soul? Of course not. Either the creature would have a soul, or it would not have a soul.

Here is a quote by Staks Rosch:

“One thing we have to realize right from the start is that we are all animals. Humans are no different from chickens except that for the fact that we have the ability to realize this fact. Contray to the teachings of Abrahamic religions, humans don’t have souls. There is no divine spark separating man from beast. We are merely a different kind of beast. We are the kind of beast that has developed the ability to think about the world and ourselves. This gives us a huge advantage and has enabled us to alter our environment to suit our needs and to work together to create complex tools and weapons[...] The fact is that humans are in a position of power over animals and to be able to reflect on that power. That power comes not from a god, but from our ability to think in complex terms.[...] God doesn’t enter into it. Religion is too simplistic in its view of life and morality. For many religious people, if a creature has a soul, then it has moral rights. No soul would be equal to no rights. It is all very black and white. But reality is less binary. Animals of course have rights (remember that we are animals too). The real question is which animals have which rights.” – Staks Rosch, Examiner.com (http://www.examiner.com/atheism-in-philadelphia/on-faith-do-animals-have-souls-and-rights)

If you ever read anything that claims that non-human animals have no soul, or if anyone tells you that non-human animals have no soul, ignore it. It is a delusion. Humans are on the same plane of existence as non-human animals and are not separate from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Also, keep in mind that animals have have different kinds of souls. For example, animals that are the most intelligent, such as humans and dolphins, may have more of a soul than an insect (which is not as intelligent). In other words, souls might be in “shade of gray” throughout the animal kingdom.

I have never liked fishing, just as I have never liked hunting. Basically, fishing is an aquatic version of hunting.

The acceptability of fishing in our society is largely based on the fact that the dogmas of dominant religions such as Christianity claim that non-human animals don’t have any rights, don’t have a soul, and are objects/commodities that are only there for human purposes. This arrogant and irrational view has allowed people for generations to unethically kill billions of fish for the sole purpose of satisfying human needs.

What also bothers me is that people create an unbalanced “hierarchy” for different creatures. Fish are near the bottom of this human-made hierarchy, simply because they’re not like people. Is that arrogant or what? Other animals, which are seen as “better” by people (such as cats and dogs) are higher up on the hierarchy. This is why society is OK with people sticking barbed hooks through the mouth of fish, but if someone were to stick a barbed hook through the mouth of a dog, it would be animal cruelty. This is a good example of speciesism — how humans unfairly treat certain species better than others.

Additionally, humans have learned in recent years that fish are actually very much like people. Yes, they share DNA with us, but it goes beyond that. Here is a quote by PETA president Ingrid Newkirk:

“They [fish] certainly have a neurological system like ours and the brain capacity to experience fear and pain. While pain is a mental event that cannot be accurately measured, it only makes sense that the ability to feel pain is a prerequisite for the continued survival of any creature and is not a singularly human trait. Without the ability to feel pain, fish, like us, would perish.[...] [Fish] also have taste buds in their throats, as well as in their lips and noses; they use their mouths much as we use our fingers, to pick things up and feel them[...] An Australian study found that when fish are chased, confined, or otherwise threatened, they react with increased heart and breathing rates and a burst of adrenaline: in other words, they have the same response humans do under stress.”

Ingrid Newkirk also said the following (about seeing an eel getting killed by a fisherman):

“Suddenly, the [fisherman] lost his patience and yanked hard on the gaff set. In a split second he had pulled the eel’s throat clean out of his mouth. The eel and I made eye contact at that very moment. There was no mistaking the look on the eel’s face: shock, horror, sheer fright, and terrible pain. He could have been a dog, a child, the man fishing, or me. It has been years, but I still can’t shake the look in that poor animal’s eyes. He was used as an object to satisfy the recreational whims of members of a species capable of playing chess with computers[...] [The eel] had been hurt terribly and then killed, not by juveniles on drugs or evil sadists on a crime spree, but by a man who seemed respectable, decent, and polite. The miserable deed had been carried out, not in secret, down a dark alley, but in the open in a public place. It had happened a million times before, in much the same way, or worse, and it would happen many times again, All for nothing.” – Ingrid Newkirk, The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights

The above two quotes by Ingrid Newkirk demonstrate how fishing is portrayed as a “fun, entertaining family activity” when it fact it is actually animal cruelty. Even catch-and-release fishing is cruelty because the animal is question is still being injured, regardless of whether it dies. Would you go up to a horse and stab a knife-like object through its mouth for pleasure? I don’t think so. And that why I think people are hypocritical for not wanting to do that to a horse, but also being OK with doing that to a fish. Fish are not objects. They are sentient beings like us. They can suffer like us. We are not fish, so we cannot “jump” into their minds and see things from their perspective, but we have science, and
science has shown that fishing is animal cruelty.

The next time you hear anybody say “Hey, let’s go fishing” or “let’s go hunting”, tell them to do something else instead, like hiking, kayaking, cycling, or swimming amongst the fish that would’ve been tortured.

Over time, I have discovered that there seems to be a spectrum of irrationality. Based on this discrepancy, I created the following system: From 0 to 10, with 0 being completely irrational and 10 being completely rational, I have categorized different types of people:

0-2 – The completely irrational. people who think critically, but in a completely warped, delusional way. People in this category include people who let religious dogma think for them and do not try to use their own imaginations for anything. These same kinds of people that blindly follow dogma also sometimes stubbornly refuse to believe in reality (such as people who believe that evolution never happened).
3-4 – The somewhat irrational. these pare people who think somewhat critically, but in the wrong direction — towards irrationality and non-reason. However, because these people are not extreme in their views, they still have a chance of being made rational, so long as they are open-minded. The more close-minded they become, and the more attached to religious dogma they become, the higher the chances become that they’ll end up in the 0-2 category.
5 – The “apathetics”. Most people alive today are probably in the 5 category. This category encompasses people who are apathetic and don’t care one way or the other about the true nature of reality; they tend to care about sports, shopping, their relationships, and their own personal needs (although these are only examples of what they are interested in). The point is, in general 5-category people don’t about philosophy, don’t care about irrational religious dogma, and would prefer to live out their own boring lives without having to think about anything.
6-7 – The slightly rational. These people are on their way to becoming rational, but aren’t quite there yet. They still engage in trivial activities such as gossip, but have the capacity to become more intelligent, and, more importantly, are willing to move themselves towards rationality. In other
words, they are smart enough to realize that clinging to single religious dogma is irrational, and have made steps toward rationality.
8-10 – The rational. These are the people who (mentally) are the furthest away from the people who cling to archaic, irrational religious dogma. People in the 8-10 category tend to be agnostic or atheist, and to them everything is rationally explained. For example, to a person in the 8-10 category, the notion
that humans are in a separate category from non-human animals is utter nonsense because they know that this perception of reality is a hallmark of traditional religious irrationality.

People from the range of 0 to 2 are unlikely to ever change their minds and become rational — they are likely to be irrational for the rest of their lives. Fortunately, however, people in categories 3 through 7 have a chance of being made rational, so long as they spend enough time in an open-minded environment in which many points of view are presented, and not just one. In other words, a person is likely to become more rational if that person uses more than one source to create his/her perception of reality.

I have always thought that the 10 commandments were flawed. They were not written by God — they were written by humans. To be precise, they were written by humans thousands of years ago (probably monks). The monks who wrote the 10 commandments then made the claim that God wrote them, and all of the
gullible people of the time period went along with it.

Amazingly, thousands of years later in the 21st century, people are still gullible and still blindly go along with the 10 commandments without even thinking about what they mean.

Because I do not agree with some of the 10 commandments, I decided to throw out the existing 10 commandments written by people thousands of years ago and write my own 10 commandments (non-Christian), the way I’d want them to be:

1) One will have religious freedom. If they want to be a Christian, they can be a Christian. If they want to be a Hindu, they can be a Hindu. If they want to be an atheist, they can be an atheist.
2) One will never intentionally kill another human, one will never intentionally kill another non-human animal, and one will never kill any other sentient being, at or above the Phylum Cnidaria. (Cnidaria = jellyfish) Basically, if a creature is shown to have sentience greater than or equal to that of a jellyfish or similar creature, it should not be killed.
3) One will never intentionally cause pain or suffering to another human or non-human animal, and one will not eat meat; only non-human animals shall eat meat. (“Meat” means the flesh of any human, non-human animals such as fish, or any creature in the animal kingdom)
4) One will have sexual freedom — the freedom to have sex with any adult human of any gender or any adult non-human animal of any gender, provided that the human or non-human animal is willing to have sex and capable of having sex
5) One will not allow humans to be superior to non-human animals; one will understand that although human minds are superior to the minds of most other non-human animals, in every other characteristic humans and non-human animals are on the same level of existence.
6) One will respect nature to the greatest possible extent and will have respect and compassion for every living being, and do everything he/she can to protect and preserve the environment and the inhabitants of the natural world.
7) One will accept science, the scientific method, and all it has to offer.
8] One will, to the best of their ability, use their individual creativity and imagination to construct ideas independently of religious dogmas.
9) One will view the Earth from the cosmological perspective, as a grain of sand on a beach (when compared to the trillions of other stars and planets out there); one will not be Earth-centric
10) One will never deliberately deceive another person with the intent of covering up information about something, and one will not be deceptive through the use of money or property, such as corruption, theft or extortion.

Interestingly, some of the “commandments” on my list are the same/similar to the original 10 commandments, such as not stealing (#10). However, the rest are completely different. Whereas the original 10 commandments dealt mainly with simplistic concepts (such as being obedient to God), my commandments have more to do with freedom, human rights, animal rights, and ecology. These are concepts that are alien to the concepts of people thousands of years ago. Things have changed. New things have been learned. Superstitions have been replaced by solid facts and proof. That is why I thought it was about time to
throw out the old commandments and replace them with the ones above.

Zoos are institutions in which people can see captive animals. On one level, I accept them. After all, they’re not as bad as hunting or slaughtering. However, there are certain aspects which zoos posses that are unethical.

Firstly, some species don’t mind being in zoos or aquariums. Other species hate being held captive in zoos and aquariums. A jellyfish probably won’t mind being in an aquarium, but a killer whale will. It is believed that the SeaWorld trainer that was killed by a killer whale in February 2010 was killed because the killer whale was sick of being in captivity. It may also have occurred because SeaWorld has a terrible animal maintenance record, and the animals are not kept properly.

What does it say about our society when such a large variety of species with completely different needs are all squeezed together into a single institution? What does it say about our society when people go to a zoo purely for amusement? Here is a quote from “The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights”:

“Marcellini [a reptile curator] found that almost 60 percent of [people who visited the zoo] was spent walking from place to place, almost 10 percent was spent eating, and other chunks of time were spent resting, taking bathroom breaks, and shopping. When visitors were actually milling around in exhibit areas, they spent less than eight seconds per snake and one minute with the lions. Pere david’s deer, expected to be extinct when the last deer dies in the zoo, received a mere twenty-seven seconds of attention per person. Marcellini concluded that people were ‘treating the exhibits like wallpaper’ [...] Some zoos still haven’t learned the basics about animals. They have gone as far as buying certain exotic reptiles and primates on the
black market when trade in them is illegal, and some dispose of their ‘surplus’ lions and other animals by sending them to cheap, run-down traveling shows in South America or even to game ranches to be shot for a fee. So much for their so-called respect for the animal kingdom. [...] Zoos teach people that it is acceptable to keep animals in captivity, where they are bored, cramped, lonely, far from their natural homes, and at the mercy and whim of people.” – Ingrid Newkirk, The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights, p. 94-95, 100

What the above quote suggests is that people go to the zoo for entertainment, not for learning about conservation. Besides, zoos don’t do much “teaching” anyway; usually there are only short descriptions of the animals, rarely more than a paragraph long. What the above quote suggests that conservation is merely an excuse that the zoos come up with so that they can attract more people and make more money. Zoos aren’t really about conservation; they are money-making places just like anywhere else (i.e. movie theater). Additionally, zoos do not give people an accurate representation of what animals do in the wild. What people see in zoos are animals that have become neurotic due to their cramped cages and abnormal environments. Unable to move around and unable to excite themselves, many zoo animals slowly go crazy, and many of them have lifespans that are shorter than they would be in the wild. Additionally, many animals are traumatized when they are separated from their families, and this is yet another factor which creates abnormal animal behavior.

And, as the above quote suggests, zoos reinforce the arrogant view that humans are superior to non-human animals, and that non-human animals are there to serve humans. When I went to a zoo, one of the things I noticed about it was the separation between the humans and the non-human animals. There really was no interaction between the humans and non-human animals. Although some zoos might have some kind of interaction programs, usually interactions are limited. This is an example of how humans think they’re superior to non-human animals — from their perspective, animals are only there to be looked at for human amusement, and nothing more. The most important thing to realize here is that in zoos, humans are in control and non-human animals are not in control. Everything is controlled to suit the needs of humans. If that means taking up valuable space to build a playground rather then give more room to animals, then people are going to do it because they are thinking in terms of people’s best interests, not the animal’s best interests. If you go to a zoo and see playground equipment there, then that zoo is likely not taking good care of their animals because they’d rather entertain children then give animals space.

The only possible reason why zoos/aquariums would be good would be a child who visits a zoo, sees an animal face-to-face, and is inspired to become a biologist or zoologist in the future. But this is rare and unlikely to happen. Chances are that when a child visits a zoo, the visit to the zoo will not affect what they end up doing in life. If they like animals, they are likely to find that out regardless of whether or not they visit a zoo or aquarium.

A few zoos are good, but most aren’t. I would suggest that people not go to zoos or aquariums, where sentient beings are held captive for the sole purpose of entertaining humans. Instead, people should stop being lazy and see animals in their natural habitats.

When I went to a zoo, I saw two tortoises having sex with each other. I could tell that the tortoise mating was making parents nervous. When their little kids would go up to the window and look at the mating tortoises, the child would say, “Mommy, what are they doing?” and the parent would nervously respond by saying, “They’re wrestling” and then whispering to another adult.

There is a problem with society, and the problem is that sexuality is hidden from everyone. This probably originates from delusional religious dogmas which forbid sexuality. Not surprisingly, millions of gullible people go along with the delusional dogma and condemn sexuality. Eventually, this overwhelming belief made its way into law (such as laws forbidding nudity in public). So ultimately, many laws relating to sexuality originated from religious morality and dogma, not from pure rationality.

Ultimately, some of the sexuality laws are good. The laws against sexual predators and pedophilia are good because they make sense. Other sexuality laws are also good, such as laws against rape.

These laws are not what I’m concerned about; what I’m concerned about are people’s attitudes towards sexuality, which are almost certainly influenced by religion to some degree. I am concerned that the surge in sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV is caused by ignorance, and this ignorance is caused by attitudes towards sex which prevent people from learning knowledge they need to know.

For example, children should learn about human sex and sex in non-human animals (i.e. mating), even if they will not be able to fully comprehend it until they are older. They should be told why tortoises in a zoo are mating. By doing this, people will grow up not thinking of sexuality as a taboo subject, and the consequence of this will be a reduction in the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV. If sexuality is not considered a taboo subject, people would have long ago known what they need to know about sex and would’ve made intelligent decisions that kept them from getting STDs.

Of course, we live in a reality in which sexuality is taboo and we live in a reality in which knowledge of sexuality is hidden from children until they reach the age of 11 or 12. That is why when a parent takes his/her child to a zoo and two tortoises are seen having sex, they are told lies (such as parents saying “they’re wrestling”) rather then what they are really doing (mating). Everyone, including children, deserve to know the truth. They should not be lied to for years. When I reached the age of 11 and was told about sexuality for the first time, I felt as though I had been deceived for my entire life. I thought to myself, “If people have sex all the time, then why hasn’t anyone told me about it?” This was similar to the feeling I felt when I was told that Santa Claus wasn’t real — a deception that society had been created to prevent people such as myself from reaching the truth.

What people fail to realize is that sexuality and reproduction is just as natural as any other process, like eating, or sleeping, or breathing. It is only our irrational culture which has brainwashed everyone into thinking that sexuality is taboo. Remember, for every process, there is a way to abuse it. Eating abuse occurs in the form of choking. Sleeping abuse occurs in the form of sleep deprivation. Breathing abuse occurs in the form of suffocation. Sexual abuse occurs in the form of child molestation or rape.

Because eating, sleeping and breathing are essential to living (whereas sexuality isn’t essential), it allows parents to conveniently sweep it under the table and prevent their children from knowing about it. But eventually, children will learn about sexuality, one way or another. And chances are that if they learn about for the first time around their teen years, they will go into sexuality without proper knowledge, and this will lead to the inadvertent spread of diseases such as HIV.

When a parent takes his/her son or daughter to a zoo and they see two tortoises mating, they shouldn’t awkwardly say a lie, like “oh they’re wrestling”. They should be honest and say “they’re mating, they’re having sex to create a new tortoise. This is a natural process just like eating or sleeping. You’ll understand it better when you grow up”. Until this change in attitude occurs, people will continue to go to zoos and deceive their children about what is really happening.

In the Super Smash Bros. video game series, fans have create a “tier” list for characters they believe are superior to other characters. This is similar to how people categorize pieces in chess: the queen is more powerful than the knight, and so on.

I agree with the tier philosophy; in Melee, for example, Fox is obviously more likely to win than Pichu or Kirby. However, this is only part of the picture. There is more to the game than just the tier list. The tier list (or metagame) is true, but its exact definition (i.e. exactly what the hierarchy of characters is) is murky, and the tier list might be able to predict who will win, but it does not take into account the skill of the individual player. Here is a list of what I think is wrong with the tier list:

1) Arrogance of pro-tier people. I have seen several people online say that “anti-tier” people are “ignorant”. What I really find ignorant are pro-tier people who arrogantly think that they’re right and the anti-tiers are wrong. The truth is, there is a little it of truth to what the pro-tier people say, and a little bit of truth to what the anti-tier people say.
2) Tier lists are not official. There is no official Nintendo tier list. Tier lists are created by fans, and because of this there is the likelihood of errors being created. It may not be wise to view fans as the authority rather then Nintendo itself.
3) Popularity. I have a feeling that even if Yoshi were one of the best characters, it would still be low in the tier list because he isn’t popular. On the other hand, characters such as Fox and Falco are likely to be higher on the tier list because they are more popular. The more popular a character is, the more likely it is to be played by someone, and the more likely it is to end up higher on the tier list. In this way, tiers could be viewed as being a popularity contest (that is, the tier lists are tainted by the scores of tournaments, which are themselves tainted by the personal preferences of the players).
4) Skills. Tiers take into account each character’s metagame, but they do not take into account the individual player’s skill level. For example, although Yoshi may be low on the Melee tier list, a person [like myself] who plays as Yoshi frequently can build up skills that can override many of Yoshi’s
flaws, such as his lack of a third jump.
5) Changeability.Tier lists never stay the same. Every year, the smug de facto “authorities” of the tier lists change the order of the tiers to reflect the latest tournament results. This is proof that tier lists are not entirely scientific. It also proves that tier lists cannot be a reliable method of measuring a character’s abilities.

I believe that tier lists should be taken with a grain of salt. They should be glanced at and taken into account, but should not be of primary concern. They should be there to give people general information about how a smash character might perform based on metagame data and nothing more. They should be based on who wins what tournament. Of the three Smash tier lists, the one that should be taken the most seriously is the Brawl tier list. Whereas the original Super Smash Bros. and Super Smash Bros. Melee allowed players to build up their skills, Brawl made it more difficult to do this. In Brawl, characters really are vastly different from each other, such as the difference between Meta Knight and Ganondorf. New characters such as Meta Knight were made way too powerful, while older characters from previous smash games (like Ness) were made weaker.

A person who looks at a tier list should understand that it only gives them an idea of what might happen, and that person should realize that if they really want to play well as a specific character, the tier list will be there to tell them how difficult the character will be to train. For example, since Bowser is low on the tier lists, this will be an indicator that Bowser will probably be difficult to play as. However, given enough time, a person could become very skilled at playing as Bowser. A person should not look at a tier list and say “Bowser is low on the tier list, so I won’t play as him”. This is the wrong attitude.

Sharks are wonderful animals. It makes me feel bad to know that there are so many ignorant people out there who hate sharks. All humans should love sharks. I’m sure there are some people out there who have compassion for sharks like me, but the vast majority probably do not.

In the event that someone does not like sharks, or is apathetic about sharks, here are some facts that may change your mind:

>Sharks have been around for 450 million years (before the dinosaurs)
>Sharks have a 6th sense, called the Ampullae of Lorenzini, which allows them to detect the electrical impulses of other creatures.
>Sharks are made of cartilage, the same material as the tip of one’s nose.
>Bull sharks use osmoregulation to live in both fresh water and salt water.
>Most sharks are docile and won’t even think of attacking people. Sharks such as the whale shark and the basking shark only eat small plankton.
>The whale shark is the largest fish.
>The great white shark is the largest predatory fish.
>While most sharks are cold-blooded, the great white shark (and a few other species) are warm-blooded, just like mammals.
>Shark’s teeth are constantly replaced by new ones.
>All sharks reproduce internally, just like mammals.
>Sharks need to exist in order to keep the ecosystem in balance. Without them, there would be ecological devastation.
>Only 2% of sharks species (such as the great white and tiger sharks) have attacked people. 98% of shark species do not attack people.
>93-99% of sharks off the east coast of the U.S. have been killed by humans.
>Sharks are not protected by any international laws. Humans regularly treat the ocean like the “wild west” and kill as many sharks as they can for profit.
>Only about 1 person gets killed by a shark every year.
>100 million sharks get killed by humans every year, most of which die in the cruel, ruthless shark fining industry (the shark’s fins are cut-off and the still-living sharks are thrown back into the water to die). Demand for shark fin soup in the main cause of this environmental calamity.

Many have asked the question, “What is the Internet?” Ultimately, the Internet is nothing more than a series of interconnected computers communicating with each other; each connection collectively forms a “web”.

I’m curious as to why nobody (as far as I know) predicted the Internet. For example, in the 1950s and 1960s, people were making all kinds of predictions similar to that of The Jetsons — flying cars, space age stuff, etc. But in all of those fanciful predictions, I don’t think anybody predicted the Internet.

In a lot of ways, the Internet is like the “5th dimension”; not literally, of course, but still almost like a dimension unto itself. Internet communities break down borders; they bring people together from all over the world that never would’ve known of each other had there been no Internet.

What will the future of the Internet be? Hopefully, not controlled by companies. If companies have it their way, they will have total control over the Internet, censoring whatever they want, and requiring people to pay money every time they do a Google search. This issue is known as “net neutrality”. Those in favor of “net neutrality” (such as myself) want to keep the Internet the way it is now — free and without any restrictions. Those against “net neutrality” want the Internet to be controlled by companies. I have a feeling that most people are in favor of net neutrality, so I’m hoping that the Internet will continue to exist in its current form for a long time. But who knows; maybe something better than the Internet will be developed in the next 30 years. After all, if people in the 1960s couldn’t predict the Internet, then we probably can’t predict what will happen in 2040.