What is it with all the 20-something drones?

[Luna]

Yeah. Although, see my thread in High Weirdness. It's not exactly the most humanitarian helping-people-out kind of stuff. I also looked into that, this one organisation, called Humanitas, is seriously awesome in what they do, but their regular-hours stuff is really heavy. I don't think it would be wise for me to become a "buddy" for a terminally ill person, or a disabled person. But it's so damn beautiful work, so maybe I'm going to see again if there's maybe something I can do anyway. They also have one-off jobs. Because working at this online fringe magazine thing is hella fun (and I'm going to continue doing that), I don't really feel it's much for the benefit of society.

Check again, they could have office work that needs doing, that kind of thing.

The magazine sounds like a lot of fun.

[Golden Applesauce]

Turning 21 next month, just took my last final for my BS.  If I don't find a job by early June, I'm taking a year to go teach English in Korea.

[Jasper]

South Korea has a pretty long work week, I've heard.

[Luna]

Turning 21 next month, just took my last final for my BS.  If I don't find a job by early June, I'm taking a year to go teach English in Korea.

Congrats, and good to hear you've got a plan!

[Kai]

I'll have my degree in hand one week from today. After that it's on to a museum internship, then a PhD. Then an actual JOB at a museum, so help me. I WILL have it.

[Luna]

I'll have my degree in hand one week from today. After that it's on to a museum internship, then a PhD. Then an actual JOB at a museum, so help me. I WILL have it.

Awesome!

[Kai]

What's really interesting is how many people feel the need to point out that THEY aren't drones, when nobody here would assume they are.

If it helps, I think some of us are just like "WTF, it isn't -hard- to not suck. It just takes application and paying attention. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALL THESE MORONS?"

I mean seriously. I am one of the laziest people I know and I have two jobs, several hobbies, two stable relationships . . . and don't live in my parents' fucking basement. O.o

Most of what makes you think that is a combination of impostor syndrome and dunning-kruger effect.

[Cain]

Incidentally, there is nothing wrong with playing video games per se.  As we speak, I am reinstalling a set of old games because some programmers and writers (including myself) got together and customized the shit out of it, turning what was already a highly rated trilogy into one of the best stories of the last decade.

The problem is playing boring video games which do nothing but test your fingers and reflexes, all the time.  Like I say, some of the best pieces of fiction out there today will be found in the video game industry, because no-one else outside of certain publishers (and look how long it took some top rated writers to get published, as compared to Stephanie Myers).  I mean, Hollywood is in a shitter right now, and the TV industry isn't much better.

I think what it is down to is people lack a certain amount of discernment and willingness to go after highly quality entertainment.  They settle.  And the problem is, when you become willing to watch or read or play any kind of old crap, crap is pretty much what you are going to get.  And garbage in, garbage out.  People form their impressions of the world through narratives, which are often created through the stories they watch.  If they watch lazy, badly written stories about people who, through luck and inherent decency, get everything they deserve, they think the world is going to work out that way (this is "The Logical Fallacy of Generalization from Fictional Evidence", writ large).  You get stories about useless lumps of girls with no skills or desires who whine endlessly, who nevertheless end up becoming immortal ubermenschen with superpowers, or about not especially bright boys who are mistreated by their family and then discover they are The Chosen One, but have most of the work done for them by adults providing an endless amount of deus ex machina, and those kind of things bleed through into the general culture in the same way The Song of Roland inspired generations of idiots to seek a glorious death at the hands of Muslims while dressed in a tin-can and riding a horse.

I'm pretty careful about what I let occupy my headspace, as a consequence of this.  That's not to say the occasional idiotic entertainment isn't sometimes fun (especially in a So Bad Its Good kind of way), but it should be treated as the mental equivalent of junk food - it shouldn't form the basis of any sensible diet.

[Payne]

Incidentally, there is nothing wrong with playing video games per se.  As we speak, I am reinstalling a set of old games because some programmers and writers (including myself) got together and customized the shit out of it, turning what was already a highly rated trilogy into one of the best stories of the last decade.

The problem is playing boring video games which do nothing but test your fingers and reflexes, all the time.  Like I say, some of the best pieces of fiction out there today will be found in the video game industry, because no-one else outside of certain publishers (and look how long it took some top rated writers to get published, as compared to Stephanie Myers).  I mean, Hollywood is in a shitter right now, and the TV industry isn't much better.

I think what it is down to is people lack a certain amount of discernment and willingness to go after highly quality entertainment.  They settle.  And the problem is, when you become willing to watch or read or play any kind of old crap, crap is pretty much what you are going to get.  And garbage in, garbage out.  People form their impressions of the world through narratives, which are often created through the stories they watch.  If they watch lazy, badly written stories about people who, through luck and inherent decency, get everything they deserve, they think the world is going to work out that way (this is "The Logical Fallacy of Generalization from Fictional Evidence", writ large).  You get stories about useless lumps of girls with no skills or desires who whine endlessly, who nevertheless end up becoming immortal ubermenschen with superpowers, or about not especially bright boys who are mistreated by their family and then discover they are The Chosen One, but have most of the work done for them by adults providing an endless amount of deus ex machina, and those kind of things bleed through into the general culture in the same way The Song of Roland inspired generations of idiots to seek a glorious death at the hands of Muslims while dressed in a tin-can and riding a horse.

I'm pretty careful about what I let occupy my headspace, as a consequence of this.  That's not to say the occasional idiotic entertainment isn't sometimes fun (especially in a So Bad Its Good kind of way), but it should be treated as the mental equivalent of junk food - it shouldn't form the basis of any sensible diet.

^VICTORY.

And something I sometimes fail to think about, though thankfully my entertainments are usually not too bad so it doesn't often matter.

[Cain]

Also, installing video games in a foreign language is a great way to further your knowledge, if you already have the basics down.

[Payne]

Also, installing video games in a foreign language is a great way to further your knowledge, if you already have the basics down.

I never thought of that.

I think Medieval Total War just got a reprieve.

[Cain]

Also, installing video games in a foreign language is a great way to further your knowledge, if you already have the basics down.

I never thought of that.

I think Medieval Total War just got a reprieve.

I had a friend who did just that for when he went to France for the summer.  Unfortunately, because of the nature of the game he chose, his vocabulary concerning medieval weaponry and armour was suspiciously good, but he found it also worked really well because there were plenty of general conversations in the game also.

Also I think based on what you have been learning about for the past few months, you have little reason to worry about your entertainment inputs. 

[Triple Zero]

Hmmmmmmmm. I do like to watch stupid sitcoms and TV series. Even though I know they're totally unrealistic, it's easy to let your guard down.

It's always interesting to change up habits and see what happens, I'm going to cut down on those and/or switch them up with some documentary type stuff I still should watch (thinking of a well acclaimed Dutch series about the history of Europe--and my knowledge of any kind of history is terrible).

Thanks for the tip.

[Kai]

Incidentally, there is nothing wrong with playing video games per se.  As we speak, I am reinstalling a set of old games because some programmers and writers (including myself) got together and customized the shit out of it, turning what was already a highly rated trilogy into one of the best stories of the last decade.

The problem is playing boring video games which do nothing but test your fingers and reflexes, all the time.  Like I say, some of the best pieces of fiction out there today will be found in the video game industry, because no-one else outside of certain publishers (and look how long it took some top rated writers to get published, as compared to Stephanie Myers).  I mean, Hollywood is in a shitter right now, and the TV industry isn't much better.

I think what it is down to is people lack a certain amount of discernment and willingness to go after highly quality entertainment.  They settle.  And the problem is, when you become willing to watch or read or play any kind of old crap, crap is pretty much what you are going to get.  And garbage in, garbage out.  People form their impressions of the world through narratives, which are often created through the stories they watch.  If they watch lazy, badly written stories about people who, through luck and inherent decency, get everything they deserve, they think the world is going to work out that way (this is "The Logical Fallacy of Generalization from Fictional Evidence", writ large).  You get stories about useless lumps of girls with no skills or desires who whine endlessly, who nevertheless end up becoming immortal ubermenschen with superpowers, or about not especially bright boys who are mistreated by their family and then discover they are The Chosen One, but have most of the work done for them by adults providing an endless amount of deus ex machina, and those kind of things bleed through into the general culture in the same way The Song of Roland inspired generations of idiots to seek a glorious death at the hands of Muslims while dressed in a tin-can and riding a horse.

I'm pretty careful about what I let occupy my headspace, as a consequence of this.  That's not to say the occasional idiotic entertainment isn't sometimes fun (especially in a So Bad Its Good kind of way), but it should be treated as the mental equivalent of junk food - it shouldn't form the basis of any sensible diet.

I agree with what you've said, but I'm trying to figure out what trillogy you're talking about. Elder Scrolls? Halo? Assassins' Creed? No, those are all too recent. Please tell me of this story.

Edit: Ah, Baldur's Gate Trilogy.

[Requia ☣]

We never learned to fail.

In school, in video games, in everything we grew up with effectively the only way to fuck up was not to put in the work.  Schools are too damned easy, and even a hard video game gets easy when you've played it for a while (and frankly, they make less and less hard games these days, even the multiplayer games let you rank up without actually winning any fights now that I think about it).

But while hard work is a key to success, it doesn't do a damned thing to keep you from failing once you're out of high school.  You're going to come up against college course that are actually hard and that you can't pass just by adding a couple hours of studying, you're going to get laid off even though you did everything right at work, you're going to fuck up.  And once you've failed (or especially, the third time you've failed) after all that hard work didn't pay off, and nobody can point you at what you should do next anymore, it is damned easy to stop trying.

I remember some old platitude about a horse.

Thankyou for asking this question Roger, I'm going to go pick my ass back up, however many times it takes.