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.
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.
OSHIT.
That one just freaked me out a little.
Because yeah, it make a lot of sense.
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.
Fucking hell, you just PKD'd the Matrix. With Cronenberg directing.
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.
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.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 03, 2012, 07:05:29 PM
Fucking hell, you just PKD'd the Matrix. With Cronenberg directing.
PKD'd? What's that??
Philip K Dick. You know, that paranoid bastard.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camping_%28gaming%29), and really needs to be looked at.
I sometimes wonder if the devs are even paying attention to these kind of bugs.
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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camping_%28gaming%29), 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...
Meta ARG?
Like, be really real in blogging in the style of an RPG campaign?
I'm kind of loving it, and now wish I had played more D&D as a kid. Oddly that's probably the first time in my life I've wished something like that.
I strongly suspect that, when looked at deeply enough, the parallels between video games and reality are highly disturbing.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 03, 2012, 07:55:01 PM
Meta ARG?
Like, be really real in blogging in the style of an RPG campaign?
I'm kind of loving it, and now wish I had played more D&D as a kid. Oddly that's probably the first time in my life I've wished something like that.
Well, I was thinking of a blog with comments discussing this game, making it blatantly obvious after a time that the game is, you know, life.
Holy fuck.
Yes. Do this.
And it's every game. It's RPG and FPS and RTS and dating sims, always, and you never know at your spawn point which one you started in. I like it.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 03, 2012, 06:51:30 PM
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.
BRRRRRR.
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.
I've mentioned that possibility before. It was barstooled and considered to be useless wankery.