Messages

1

Aneristic Illusions / Re: Is it just me or is distaste for Libertarianism contradictory to discordianism?

« on: Today at 05:21:32 pm »

We need corporate regulations because, given the checks and balances in most first world countries, corporations are a at least as likely a source of repression as the government is in these places. And not just repression of their employees either. Consider the recent restrictions imposed by many popular online social platforms. In December, Tumblr abruptly deleted a third of their content and kicked out thousands of longtime users for no reason other than that they suddenly decided that they didn't like their content. That sort of thing should be illegal. We need additional corporate legislation to restore people's ability to express themselves.

I would personally prefer to see the check on corporate power come from employees and consumers.  Without the government holding them back unions are quite capable of representing employees, consumers are still lacking the sort of organizations that can effectively negotiate with corporate suppliers.

2

Aneristic Illusions / Re: Is it just me or is distaste for Libertarianism contradictory to discordianism?

« on: February 14, 2019, 10:28:17 pm »

Is there a political label for someone who thinks we made a massive mistake when we stopped being hunter gatherers?

I regularly fantasise about going off to live in the woods.

It's only the knowledge that its a stupid idea that would suck in reality that stops me... and also I need to do the laundry.

All kinds of very serious and well considered ideologies as based on stupid ideas. I think this could be a real go-er.

primitivist.  A lot of primitivists are even worse assholes than libertarians.

3

Apple Talk / Re: Sci Fi, zoos, and you

« on: February 07, 2019, 07:03:19 pm »

I think the problem comes when scifi paints the zoo as a good thing.  I have read a fair amount of scifi that includes genocide, as a necessary step toward the future utopia.  Sometimes the genocide is intentional.  It's often painted as a necessary evil and I do not like the author doing that.

4

Apple Talk / Re: Cartoon enemies

« on: February 01, 2019, 11:27:33 pm »

I like the redeemed villain saving the world from the fallen hero. although I can't think of a good example at the moment.

5

RPG Ghetto / Re: SPIDER IV - A NEW HOPE.

« on: January 29, 2019, 08:16:06 pm »

I would also be interested.

6

Principia Discussion / Re: New RAW book is out

« on: January 26, 2019, 07:15:33 pm »

I personally really enjoyed Illuminatus, but you need to be in the mood for goofy hippie writing.

7

Aneristic Illusions / Re: General Trump hilarity free-for-all thread

« on: January 25, 2019, 10:44:20 pm »

I'm talking about it getting to the point where they're furloughed entirely and nobody is doing their job at all, however badly or dishonestly.

Like I want to see stings and infiltrations and operations that took months of planning fall apart because of this.

They wont stop having power though, they'll just stop being paid, and as Cain pointed out, the Cartels are happy to fill in there.  That's what Trump promised us right?  That Mexico would pay for it.

8

Apple Talk / Re: Consumer Identity

« on: January 18, 2019, 08:34:50 am »

I liked it.  I felt like it was exactly like CNO said, basically asking men not to be jerks.  The fact that is controversial is absurd, but if a few men decide not to be jerks because of it, that's good.

9

Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Drinks are on the Supreme Court

« on: January 13, 2019, 05:54:50 pm »

My beloved is about to have her gallbladder removed. It's simple routine surgery but we are both still scared. The past few days have been hell for her.

10

Aneristic Illusions / Re: General Trump hilarity free-for-all thread

« on: January 01, 2019, 03:13:27 am »

So, Trump's pulling troops out of Syria (or he tweeted he's doing it -- I realize there's a difference there).

This is oddly conflicting.  On one hand, I've never liked the way the US has handled the region, and so I... agree... with Trump...  Which makes me immediately want to say, "no, stay, it's probably a gift to Russia to leave." 

But then, a lot of Republicans I really don't trust on matters of foreign policy have loudly declared that the troops should stay, so I'm back to being pro-troop withdrawal.



Someone smarter than me, please help.

The right thing, done  for the wrong reason, is still the right thing.  I am sure it is a gift to Russia, but we were still up to no good there.

My hope is that Russia shifts a bit in the Kurd/Turkey conflict.  It makes no sense to me that they aren't more anti-Turkey,what with Turkey shooting down their plane and all.

So, do you imagine that Trump suddenly joined the side of the angels, or do you maybe thing there's a hook in this?

I assume he did it as a favor to Putin. 

11

Aneristic Illusions / Re: General Trump hilarity free-for-all thread

« on: December 24, 2018, 11:06:09 am »

So, Trump's pulling troops out of Syria (or he tweeted he's doing it -- I realize there's a difference there).

This is oddly conflicting.  On one hand, I've never liked the way the US has handled the region, and so I... agree... with Trump...  Which makes me immediately want to say, "no, stay, it's probably a gift to Russia to leave." 

But then, a lot of Republicans I really don't trust on matters of foreign policy have loudly declared that the troops should stay, so I'm back to being pro-troop withdrawal.



Someone smarter than me, please help.

The right thing, done  for the wrong reason, is still the right thing.  I am sure it is a gift to Russia, but we were still up to no good there.

My hope is that Russia shifts a bit in the Kurd/Turkey conflict.  It makes no sense to me that they aren't more anti-Turkey,what with Turkey shooting down their plane and all.

12

Apple Talk / Re: Allow me to introduce myself...

« on: December 24, 2018, 11:04:06 am »

I like playing games.  A lot.  Enough that I waste a lot of time that I should be doing pother things playing games.  The website Kevin linked to had a bunch of games I did not want to play.  I did not find one I did want to play, but I didn't look that hard.  It kind of looked like it wanted to get me to install spyware.

13

Apple Talk / Re: On Language

« on: December 09, 2018, 06:13:25 am »

Alfred Bloom’s book “The Linguistic Shaping of Thought” tried another experiment - he gave Chinese and American students a passage to read, then tested them on it. The passage relied heavily on the subjunctive-clause, which is absent in Chinese. On followup tests, American students got 98% right, Chinese students got only 7% right. Bloom concluded that the Chinese language renders its speakers unable to entertain hypothetical false worlds without great mental effort. A cavalry of cognitive scientists disagreed with these tales of the concreteness of the Oriental mind. They pointed out numerous problems in the experiments, like that the Chinese translations of the passage were really bad, and at times genuinely ambiguous. When these flaws were fixed in subsequent experiments, the differences vanished.

This seems like an obviously flawed experiment.  "lets see how these students do at understanding something absent in their language, and use their language to test that"  um, obviously it isn't going to work.

14

Apple Talk / Re: Ask Hoopla:

« on: December 02, 2018, 12:15:00 pm »

That's in Illuminatus.  It's one of the characters though. It may be based on a RL conversation that RAW related in another book as well

15

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Simulated reality

« on: November 26, 2018, 10:05:52 pm »

One of the weird things about the simulation hypothesis is that if it's true, then our lives have objective meaning

Also, a simulated universe is definitely the product of intelligent design.


checkmate, atheists and absurdists

Does the life of an NPC have objective meaning if it never interacts with the PCs? If the plot would be the same whether resources were wasted rendering you, isn't that a form of meaninglessness?

When you start a new game of Dwarf Fortress, it generates an entire world at a very fine level. Hundreds of thousands of dwarves are born, live out their lives, and die, leaving behind ruins & legacies. The vast majority of their lives do not affect your gameplay. But nevertheless, there was a purpose in generating them.


Anyway, I don't think there are PCs or NPCs in the Simulation hypothesis? If a world was generated on purpose, then everybody in the simulation is part of that purpose.

PC's are directly controlled by the player, so those would be divine avatars.  We're all NPC's. (with the possible exception of Roger)