What Video Game Were You Most Determined to Beat As a Kid?

Mine was Mario64. Still one of my favorite games to this day. You see, my video game obsession started with my father.

I still remember him coming home from work, and us playing Mortal Kombat together. Though, I was never quite able to beat him. Then comes the day when my father bought the Nintendo64.

Absolutely wonderful gaming system, with the strangest controller ever. Anyways, Mario64 was the first game he got with it and I was instantly hooked. As Iu2019m sure most kids were, I was always trying to catch up to my dad, never quite able to though.

Within a few weeks my dad had beaten the game. It blew my child mind on how he could do that. To beat this game you had to get every star from ever level.

So I tried and tried and tried and just couldnu2019t ever get all the stars. I saved up money from mowing the lawn and other various chores and even bought the guide book for the game! Just so I could beat the game like my dad.

After a few months I finally did it. I couldnu2019t believe it. I waited by the front door for my dad to get home from work.

Surely enough as soon as he walked in, he was bombarded by his child eagerly yelling that he beat the game, just like him. I donu2019t think Iu2019ll ever forget the look of pride on his face, or the feeling of pride that I had. Fast forward to today and my father hasnu2019t played video games since the PS2.

But occasionally, on a rainy weekend or just a weekend I have no plans, Iu2019ll pull out that old 64 and pop in Mario64, and Iu2019ll remember back to when I first beat a game ever.

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Why did reptiles evolve before mammals?

While I generally agree with Israels answer I am more interested in the process of evolution and see the paths as just historical progression and facts and in a sense Everybody has to be somewhere and some time!

There are some general principles but the main one is still survival of the fittest with a soupcon or more of chance. It is difficult to do things in an orderly fashion when meteors hit the earth and kill off a big fraction of living things. There are some interesting phenomena associated with mammal and reptile evolution that could help you understand the order and why Israel rejects the ordering.

Of course there is mostly binary divisions necessary to create separate species so a division had to occur some time. But many paths of evolution die out within the line leading to reptiles and well as that leading to mammals. I am physiologist/biochemist/developemtal biologist that has focused on eggs and yolk proteins that supply the raw material for an embryo to develop to hatching/independence as a new generation.

In a sense I see everything in terms of yolk protein. The naked yolky eggs of amphibians had to evolve into eggs covered with a shell to evolve into reptiles and further into birds. At some point internal fertilization and retention of the egg without a shell and without yolk arose that ended up leading to our mammalian line.

Much of that evolution was happening in small generalized tetrapods around the same time as reptiles were gaining prominence and eventually dominance in the Age of Reptiles. Our line of generalized tetrapod pre-mammal was hiding in the wings as a minor form. In that sense Reptiles did evolve before mammals in the sense that they had their day before mammals came to the fore.

But now we have the edge as the Age of Mammals and the Age of Humans are being declared somewhat self-serving. My microbiologist friends would say that it has always been the Age of Bacteria Bacteria started it all and they may end it all when we can no longer invent new antibiotics to fight them

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Why has the U.S.

been involved in so many wars?

Im pretty sure the reasons are many and varied. Americans (even during the colonial period) have been constantly involved in war.

Go back to the 1600s and count them. You will be amazed. Violence and warfare have been part of the American way of life always.

Its part of our culture, of who we are. Do I like this? No.

But I dont have a choice, it is what it is.My 7th great grandfather came to the shores of New England in 1630. He lived through the Pequot War in which the colonials burned down an Indian village/fortress and slaughtered everyone.

He also lived through King Philips War, proportionally the bloodiest and most deadly war Americans have ever fought. It doesnt get better for my other grandfathers. One was scalped and killed (or maybe the reverse) during one of the series of French and Indian wars, my 5th great grandfather was in the Continental Army for 3 years during the Revolution, another was wounded and taken captive during the War of 1812, several of my uncles were killed in the Civil War and my great great grandfather enlisted at the age of 16 in the Ohio Cavalry.

He was in several dozen battles and managed to survive. My father was sent off to the South Pacific and the Battle for Okinawa. He survived too.

A few of these wars were forced upon us. Most, I believe, could have been avoided. Not many are founded upon good reasons.

It is what it is. We dont have a good excuse for what we are. We are what our history and our culture have made us.

I was in France with a group of people when we saw on TV the twin towers come down on September 11. When I was asked about what would happen, my response was that the last time we Americans were attacked this way we obliterated Tokyo with fire bombs and we dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities. America is like a very dangerous animal, you do not want to poke it and wake it up!

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How should an atheist counter the claim that Pol Pot, Stalin, and Mao were atheists who killed millions due to lack of religion?

I would put it like thisFootball fans (soccer to you Americans) are almost world wide. Some of them behave badly or riot against each other (lager louts et al).

I and many of my friends are not football fans. We are Not-Football-Fans. We occasionally speculate that something about football fandom encourages this bad behavior.

Being together in large groups and passionate about football teams, maybe.A football-fan argues that rioting against other teams is done by not-football-fans too! Look at those Hockey Fans over there overturning cars and looting liquor stores!

And, yes, they are Not-Football-Fans, so their bad behaviour is definitely on us! Especially as they riot so much worse than most Football-Fans. (this is just an analogy!

no offense to Hockey-Fans, please!)So, Not-Football-Fandom leads to even worse rioting than Football-Fandom! Not-Football-Fandom should maybe be banned or at least discouraged!

Nearly everybody is a Football-Fan anyway (true). It's adherants should all be ashamed of Hockey-Fandom's riotous behavior!Uh, no.

The fact I'm a Not-Football fan does not mean I necessarily have anything to do with some other particular Not-Football-Fan. Not-Football-Fandom is actually not a thing, except as none of us aren't, you know, really into football. We just, generally, don't want to be coerced into Football-Fan things like going to games or paying for huge Football stadiums by taxation.

Things like that.I think we'll extend our hypothesis a little. Maybe it's Sports-Fandom that leads to rioting?

Well, I haven't heard of Golf-Fans misbehaving. Maybe it's that Sports-Team-Fandom can lead to rioting against rival Sports-Team-Fans? Could be.

So, maybe it's that Ideology-Fandom, such as Christianity, Communism or Islam, when in absolute power and in the grip of passionate self-righteousness, can lead to genocide. Maybe. The rest of us dunno 'bout you, I just want a beer.

( I've already cut-and-pasted this answer a couple of times)

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What would happen if civil war broke out the USA?

If there was another civil war in America it would definitely be the bloodiest in our history. I think its totally possible that it could happen with everything going on in the country right now especially Corona.

The virus has everyone stuck at home with their thoughts and people are getting angrier and angrier. But if it were to happen people would have to pick a side. Conservatives can say itd be about their freedoms being taken away all they want but it would boil down to them being racist.

So theres the two sides the racists and the non-racists and we the non-racists would win. Heres why1. ) We out number racists.

All they would have is about half of white America. We would have the other half plus basically all of black America and most Hispanics and Asians.2.

) They would be in the lead in the beginning because they do have more weapons, however they underestimate us. Liberals own guns as well. Especially in the south.

After the first couple of months we would get on our game and crush them.3.) We would have the major cities and the industrial capability to fight a war.

They would have the farms and theyd say they could starve us out but theres be plenty of non perishables to go around and Im sure foreign countries would supply us which brings me to my final reason we would win. 4. ) All of Americas current foreign allies would be on our side.

Even if they decided to sit it out it would only be a matter of tone before the racist side started committing mass atrocities which would cause our allies to step in and either send in their troops or give us what we need to finish the job. There is no scenario in which the far right wins a second civil war. Maybe if it happened a hundred years ago but not in 2020