OT: Much of our culture is based upon ...

[Renegade 13]

Personally, (and I think I agree with you guys about this) I think cell-phones are unnecessary for those who don't have life-and-death jobs; for example, paramedics, the police, etc. If someone can't get a hold of me for the 6 hours I'm driving into the city and buying some stuff I need, then driving back, it's not gonna be the end of the world.

Democracy may be an old idea (and I'll disagree with it being on par with such disgusting predilictions as pederasty...), I have yet to read about / experience anything that apparently works as well. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't have its flaws, because it most certainly does. Introduce to me a more workable system, and I'll be happy to check it out!

[Tim_Ward]

It is very odd to see a bunch of people on a computer game forum condemning people for having things which are "unnecessary" & "meaningless". I'll just assume everyone saying that needs a computer and an internet connection as a life and death part of their work, shall I?

You had to be introduced, and you had to be of similar social status.

:S

Yeah, it was awesome back when everyone knew their place.

To put it simply, solitude is a necessity just as communication is. And telephones, by their nature, make it hard to ignore them - The call could always be important.

Mine comes with an "off" button.

To me Democracy is an outdated ancient greek ideal as abhorent as pederasty (Men and boys). The idea of having two major parties trying to curry favour, promising citizens little gifts so as to buy their vote instead of doing what is necessary is stupid. You have the party in office and the other is reduced to either doing the opposite of what the governemnt says because they're the "opposition" and so therefore must promise the opposite, or they claim "bipartisanship" because they know the topic at hand is dear to the public and would lose them votes otherwise.

Well, that is actually the modern take on democracy, not the Greek one. The Greek system was much closer to what we'd describe today as direct democracy. Of course, the Greek city states were very small and the population in antiquity was very low compared to today (and the population of citizens even smaller), so the ancient greek system is probably no longer practical.

It's very easy to just say that government should "do what is necessary", but it's not anywhere near as simple as that. People have different ideas about what is necessary and what is desirable.

[MrToxin]

Moral of the story?

Ignore everything.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Cell phones and telephones are neither unnecessary or meaningless. They are simply annoying in the way they tend to intrude.