Messages

1

Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Free Russian Orphans with Every Purchase

« on: March 18, 2018, 07:44:19 pm »

Whoever linked to that Shaun guy on Youtube - thank you.

I have been on a serious binge.

I think I may have at some point recently? I'll take credit and say you're welcome.

2

Apple Talk / Re: Hate Letters Again

« on: March 08, 2018, 03:33:43 am »

 

 Nice, both for "Mango Unchained" and the letter.

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Apple Talk / Re: Hate Letters Again

« on: March 08, 2018, 12:56:46 am »

Retorted earlier today:

To the Esteemed Doktor Howl,
 for Whom entirely new definitions of Malpractice needed to be codified,
 within Whom resides Thoughts and Ideas unfit for decent society,
 who places himself atop the World and dons a Crown of UUUUNNNNG,

The practice and study of geography may be all fun and games to you, sir. But when the moorings finally break and Tuscon floats away into space, where will you be then? You won't know, and it will be because you can't tell a Mercator projection from a Conical projection.

I kid, of course. The real reason you won't know is because your so-called "Holy Land" has no reliable landmarks except coyote poop and the occasional cactus. You think you're safe from the reach of our gentrified, overpriced Eastern Empire just because the desert is bigger than it actually is and has devoured every one we've ever sent out there on reconnaissance?

The fact that time flows backwards in the desert has been a real pisser, I'll grant you that. You may be safe for a while yet while we figure out how to get up there without devolving into shitgibbons. Our experts think it has something to do with the lack of water. We also aren't completely sure WHY we are all driven like lemmings to get up there and Show You What, but there's no time for introspection these days.

Progress is inevitable, good Doktor. It may be slower or faster, and it is definitely Terrible and Ugly and Wrong, but it is inevitable. It's also kind of squidgy and smells bad, but you get used to it.

Odiously Yours,
Right Rev. Jake

4

RPG Ghetto / Re: Unified Vidya Games thread

« on: March 02, 2018, 03:23:49 am »

Oh, and we also killed a Dragon Priest.  I wanted the Krosis mask, for more empowered alchemy cheese, so I went up to Shearpoint Peak, and when Krosis popped out I frenzied him and went invisible.  This led to the dragon perched on the Word Wall attacking him and while it didn't kill Krosis, it brought him down to about 1/3rd health before Krosis' staff of fireballs finally killed it.  I finished him off by casting Rout on him and making him run into a pack of ice wraiths who, after being frenzied, happily killed him off.

 

5

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Magnet Theory of Social Change

« on: February 28, 2018, 02:41:12 pm »

Here's what I would consider an example of applying this theory on a personal level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NFy6Uc2BHs

The title is not very descriptive, but in short it's a straight, white, male who plays lots of video games using his voice to expose people like him to better ideas than the shitty ones they've likely been exposed to on the Internet... and says that's precisely what he's doing, no trickery or mind games.

6

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Magnet Theory of Social Change

« on: February 27, 2018, 03:45:32 am »

I think it's important because it allows for not wasting your energy on people who's reality tunnels are so at odds with yours that the effort required to effect meaningful change is just not worth it.

You can get outside an ideological echo chamber without jumping headfirst into, like, /pol/.

You can be moderate in your approach without having to compromise with shit. Keep yourself in a position where your influence can actually mean something.

7

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Magnet Theory of Social Change

« on: February 26, 2018, 11:55:10 pm »

Related: https://youtu.be/lTnQLEstpHo

8

Or Kill Me / Re: Short rant on CLIMATE CHANGE.

« on: February 26, 2018, 06:21:32 pm »

Update:  In 2013, Canadian Prime Minister Harper destroyed the fisheries libraries containing meteorological data going back to 1850 (including, I might add, my father's work from the 1970s).

Because if you have no historical data, you cannot observe rate of change.

FUCK

9

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Magnet Theory of Social Change

« on: February 26, 2018, 05:20:33 pm »

I spun this off from the Corpus Callosum thread, but here's why it made me think of it:

If you are only one neuron in the societal "brain," I'm not sure you can really be on one hemisphere AND be part of the corpus callosum. I'm not sure it's possible to be both the bridge and the destination, in other words.

But other people CAN be the bridge. If you separate yourself from them by being a wingnut, you lose access to the bridge.

10

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Magnet Theory of Social Change

« on: February 26, 2018, 05:13:41 pm »

lemme crunch this a little bit - is this your position?

that basically, it's easiest to affect the people nearby you (people with slightly different opinions), and that by moving enough of them, they can act as a larger gravitational center which pulls in people from further away?

Yes, I think that's a fair distillation of the idea.

11

Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Free Russian Orphans with Every Purchase

« on: February 26, 2018, 04:37:14 pm »

Also uhhhh good job everyone on... not dying? Apparently there's been some near misses. Yikes.

12

Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Free Russian Orphans with Every Purchase

« on: February 26, 2018, 04:33:00 pm »

So, the co-worker who broke into my flat apologised to me today.

I think my reaction is best summed up by this smiley: 

King Meh remains my single greatest contribution to PD.com. I think it's telling that the freeware pixel art program I used to make it borked forever shortly after. It's work in this world was complete.

Also, 'sup Pee Dee. It appears that the forum is no longer nannywalled off at work.

13

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Magnet Theory of Social Change

« on: February 26, 2018, 04:08:27 pm »

I've been workshopping an idea that I'm tentatively calling the magnet theory of social change (maybe better to call it the gravity theory, but it's a metaphor anyway so fuck it). The idea is that each of us has some amount of "magnetic" pull on our peers, as part of a greater social system.*

The society overall can be seen as a field of little magnets on a flat surface. Since politics is the subject of interest, you can imagine this flat surface has the Left-Right/Authoritarian-Libertarian political axes on it, or whatever axes you consider relevant at the moment. This spread also serves as a visualization of the Overton Window.

If you are super gung-ho about your views and pull yourself far to one side, you may be able to pull some number of people along with you, depending on your charisma and persuasiveness. But your pull on the overall field of magnets, on society generally, is dramatically lessened with distance. Likewise, if you become estranged from the pull of the larger society, you cease to care or be influenced by what the bulk of society cares about, as their magnetic pull on you has lessened. This is probably not a desirable place to be, unless you're into being a hermit or charismatic cult leader.

BUT

You can still move in the direction you want while maintaining your magnetic pull on those near you (in meatspace or headspace). Ways to do this include:

- Being chill and not being hard to talk to ("Don't get him started on capitalism, you'll never hear the end of it")
- Being rich and powerful so people are motivated to follow you

so yeah mainly just the first one is an option for most of us

What this DOESN'T necessarily include is reaching out to people who are on the far side of the society from you. This may be necessary if the opposition is (a) so intractable that it takes an unreasonable amount of energy for you to engage them, or (b) their preferred tactic is to feign reasonableness and waste your time with rhetorical games. Ideally, the magnet theory relies on the strength of the bulk of society pulling most people away from the ideas that suck ass, and allowing the fringe to be the fringe.

The more I think about it, the more this probably should be the gravity theory rather than the magnet theory. It's sort of an evolution of BIP "cog in the machine" thinking, which asked that you change yourself only so far as to effect change on your immediate surroundings, rather than futile grand schemes.



* This hinges on the general reality tunnel (which I've been using lately) that humans are a generally communal, cooperative species with occasional clashes of interest that take up a lot of our energy. This does not work if your reality tunnel mainly views humans as individual agents who are generally in conflict and only occasionally cooperate (a la Ayn Rand hyper-individualism).

14

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: In Praise of the Corpus Callosum

« on: February 26, 2018, 03:20:42 pm »

I've been thinking about what it means to "reach out" to "the other side" (whatever that means, although in the current context I'm thinking about American political life) and what fruits that can bear, if any.

Contemporary wisdom always favors moderation, and extolls the virtue of compromise. Taking a firm stance is almost always seen as poor marketing at best and fanaticism at worst. Is this always the case?

What if you believe you have truly made a good-faith effort to understand your opposition's position, and came to the conclusion that their way just plain sucks? What is your recourse to something better?

15

RPG Ghetto / Re: Unified Vidya Games thread

« on: January 28, 2018, 01:43:55 am »

Vidya Gaem shit I am paying attention to:

Dark Souls 1 is getting a remaster. Now maybe we can have a proper PC port that doesn't require a mod to run adequately.

Assassin's Creed: Origins is the first AssCreed game I've played since the original and it's the tits. Highly enjoyable.

Wolfenstein: The New Colossus is honestly kinda hard as shit and I had to set the difficulty down like the weakling coward I am, but BOY OH BOY does the game go hard with its story. Like, I'm genuinely impressed with how much balls they had with this writing, and they mostly pull it off.

Monster Hunter World had its beta on PS4 a while back, and it was the first Monster Hunter game I've ever touched. Apparently MonHun has a dizzying, intimidating amount of systems and equipment that are involved, but all I know is that I shot bees at a hippopotamus made of rocks and then pole-vaulted onto its back and rode it like a rodeo bull. So uh, best video game ever, basically. Very sad that the PC release is not until Fall.