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What Might Actually Be Happening, part III of V

Started by The Good Reverend Roger, October 03, 2012, 06:51:30 PM

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The Good Reverend Roger

You know the game.  Everyone does; it's awesome.  You plug in, and you forget who you are for the duration of the game, and you live in a virtual world where everyone's a primate. 

There's easy levels and hard levels.  America used to be one of the hard levels, but it's kiddy land, now.  All the hardcore players drop into central Africa and "get born" (spawn) into the REALLY hard level. 

Anyway, you live out a whole life as a primate, but at a faster pace than actual time (otherwise it would be mind-numbingly boring), and you and the other primates take part in primate activities like business and play and the occasional global conflict (though the BIG ones are out of fashion right now).  When you get killed or die for whatever reason, you're bounced back out to reality.  You then remember who and what you are, but you also remember the game.  It's the ultimate in virtual reality gaming.

Of course, there's rumors that sometimes things go wrong, and people experience time in the game at a 1:1 ratio, meaning they have to spend almost a century, on average, running around in a primate hell (the hardcore guys wouldn't have to wait so long, but still...).  But that's just an urban legend, probably spread by the game owners themselves to add an extra thrill of risk to the game.  I've certainly never heard of it happening to anyone.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Freeky

That explains why, when people try to remember back in time in-game, there's so much missing.  It's all the auto save files getting written over, over and over again. 

So in-game, you could have the best day of your "life," and a little ways down the road you won't even remember it because your data got corrupted, and you had to make another save file over that. 

I think the game developers did mention something about how the save function is a little wonky.  I don't believe very many people have figured it out to date.

LMNO

OSHIT.


That one just freaked me out a little.


Because yeah, it make a lot of sense.

The Good Reverend Roger

Sometimes the players SUSPECT they're in a game, mostly because of how time seems to speed up and slow down, but the illusion is more or less perfect.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

Fucking hell, you just PKD'd the Matrix.  With Cronenberg directing.

Sita

This whole series is freaking me out.
Somehow you've gotten into my head and are putting out every thought I've had about reality (even if just in a joking manner) since I was 15.

Only now, I wonder if I've stumbled onto something during my drab existence.
:ninja:
Laugh, even if you are screaming inside. Smile, because the world doesn't care if you feel like crying.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Sita on October 03, 2012, 07:21:00 PM
This whole series is freaking me out.

Jesus, you think YOU'VE got it bad?  Read number 5.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

Philip K Dick.  You know, that paranoid bastard.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 03, 2012, 07:37:24 PM
Philip K Dick.  You know, that paranoid bastard.

Oh. 

Naw.  If it was PKD, people would come out of the game, lose their girlfriend, become pariahs, and then kill themselves en masse.

Or was that Vonnegut?
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

P3nT4gR4m

I encountered a magnificent thought experiment, which your mind initially rejects but, the more you think about it...

To paraphrase it. You accept for sake of argument that at some point in the future, if technology and Moore's law and we don't wipe ourselves out or blow up the planet, that we'll have a way to simulate, at subatomic level, something as complicated as our solar system. To set it motion with predetermined conditions for life on Earth and then just let the bugger go, with the outcome that consciousness, as we would recognise it, emerges "inside" the simulation.

So, at that point, if this is a valid, plausible scenario it immediately turns out that you have, at best, a 50/50 probability of being in the "real" original reality and of being a product of the simulation.

If you accept that this, in a hundred or a thousand or a million years time, will be possible, then there comes the question of where this tech will be in another hundred, thousand, or million years. There's got to be a fuckton of these simulations going on by then, right? With every simulation run, across a global, perhaps trans, or even inter-galactic interbutts of teh future, the likelihood of you being in the original reduces to the point where you have more chance of winning the lottery.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on October 03, 2012, 07:41:10 PM
I encountered a magnificent thought experiment, which your mind initially rejects but, the more you think about it...

To paraphrase it. You accept for sake of argument that at some point in the future, if technology and Moore's law and we don't wipe ourselves out or blow up the planet, that we'll have a way to simulate, at subatomic level, something as complicated as our solar system. To set it motion with predetermined conditions for life on Earth and then just let the bugger go, with the outcome that consciousness, as we would recognise it, emerges "inside" the simulation.

So, at that point, if this is a valid, plausible scenario it immediately turns out that you have, at best, a 50/50 probability of being in the "real" original reality and of being a product of the simulation.

If you accept that this, in a hundred or a thousand or a million years time, will be possible, then there comes the question of where this tech will be in another hundred, thousand, or million years. There's got to be a fuckton of these simulations going on by then, right? With every simulation run, across a global, perhaps trans, or even inter-galactic interbutts of teh future, the likelihood of you being in the original reduces to the point where you have more chance of winning the lottery.

Why would that have to occur in the future?  I mean, if it were happening right now, would we know it?
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 03, 2012, 07:40:48 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 03, 2012, 07:37:24 PM
Philip K Dick.  You know, that paranoid bastard.

Oh. 

Naw.  If it was PKD, people would come out of the game, lose their girlfriend, become pariahs, and then kill themselves en masse.

Or was that Vonnegut?

Could be either.  PKD had a lot more ideas about what "reality" means, if it's hallucination, simulation, or wishful thinking.  And you still don't know, even when the story's over.

Cain

The developers made a huge mistake when they rolled out nukes.  Crazy DPS, it totally breaks game balance and ensures a select group of top players with access to top tier weapons and economies.  I hear some people are pressing for a patch, but the developers haven't shown much interest in what they are saying.

Also, the settings on Africa are just crazy.  Sure, harder levels of gameplay are fine, and that usually goes hand in hand with a spawn zone...but setting up multiple factions means you can just sit on the resouces while every local team fights with each other, and use that fighting to extract resources for far cheaper.  It's a blatant camping, and really needs to be looked at.

I sometimes wonder if the devs are even paying attention to these kind of bugs.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Cain on October 03, 2012, 07:49:20 PM
The developers made a huge mistake when they rolled out nukes.  Crazy DPS, it totally breaks game balance and ensures a select group of top players with access to top tier weapons and economies.  I hear some people are pressing for a patch, but the developers haven't shown much interest in what they are saying.

Also, the settings on Africa are just crazy.  Sure, harder levels of gameplay are fine, and that usually goes hand in hand with a spawn zone...but setting up multiple factions means you can just sit on the resouces while every local team fights with each other, and use that fighting to extract resources for far cheaper.  It's a blatant camping, and really needs to be looked at.

I sometimes wonder if the devs are even paying attention to these kind of bugs.

You know, we could have some fun making a fake blog thingie for this...
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.