Adalast

@Adalast@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨At this rate, why not.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I think they underestimate a military’s desire to use all of the things that go boom.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Keep them guessing⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I love that Srinivasa Ramanujan’s notes are on display in the library at Cambridge (if I remember correctly). The man is hands down one of the greatest men to have ever lived. I was so happy when The Man Who Knew Infinity came out. He deserves his place alongside Leibnitz, Newton, Gauss, Einstein, al-Khwarizmi, and too many others who contributed more to our world than 99% of humanity will ever know.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨imagine⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I would agree if they didn’t use their non-sterile plants to take over small farms around their huge ones by suing for theft when farmers used part of the previous crop that had been pollinated with the Monsanto GM pollen. They didn’t buy that genome so it was stolen… Fucking wankers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨For No Reason in Particular Here's a Bunch of Games Where You Kill Nazis⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Thank you. All of these things are actually very well defined. Nazism, Fascism, Authoritarianism. These are not words that are just thrown around haphazardly and have no meaning. The ones who DO use them inappropriately are those whom they describe. It is a concerted effort to redefine or undefine them so there is no longer a word to describe them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨For No Reason in Particular Here's a Bunch of Games Where You Kill Nazis⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  And this is the crux of the statement. Social contracts are group moral codes. The Nazis do not adhere to the terms of the contracts and thus are not protected by them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨For No Reason in Particular Here's a Bunch of Games Where You Kill Nazis⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  By definition a legal framework is not a social contract. Technically there IS a social contract that we will agree to follow the laws, but not everyone does that one either. We violate speed limits, download media, burn crosses in front yards.

  There are also many cases where laws do not cover the violations of a social contract. Slurs are protected speech under most circumstances, but that does not mean that there are no consequences to utilizing them in your vocabulary in public. You will never go to jail for it, but in using them you violate a social contract of tolerance, and thus the members of society around you should not tolerate your presence. If you pull a gun while using those slurs, that is a clear indicator that you intend harm, specifically on the people to whom the slurs refer. This violates the social contract of safety, which means that you are open to being harmed yourself by the members of the contract around you. They protect the safety of the members by preventing you from harming them. It is actually covered in the US laws and has been condoned by society. The “murder is wrong” tautology fails very quickly in the face of reality. Is it OK to kill someone who is actively raping an infant? How about if they have a knife to your partner’s or child’s throat? What about if they point a loaded gun at a crowd of unarmed protestors and are not a legally recognized peace officer? Your moral code determines where that line is, but everyone has a line. Do you condone Israel’s actions against the Palestinians? Let’s go for the good ole trolley problem. Do you pull the lever? Is that OK?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨For No Reason in Particular Here's a Bunch of Games Where You Kill Nazis⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That would be “safety”. Just to be clear. And we do condone the harming and killing of those who mean to harm or kill us. Self defense laws, castle doctrine, capital punishment, etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨For No Reason in Particular Here's a Bunch of Games Where You Kill Nazis⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I can see that point. I get the same thing sometimes when I casually defend social media companies censoring speech. That is why I usually do it like I did here; direct, verbose, and overtly unambiguous.

  People do need to have an understanding that applying an ideal to all people does not mean that you condne the behavior of anyone in specific. I do, personally, hold the philosophy that social contracts need to be mutual and by nature cannot be applied ubiquitously. That is the essence and source of the Tolerance Paradox. That is the most easily digested version, but all social contracts hold the same paradox. Tolerance, compassion, inclusion, safety, etc. The only reason any of of them function is because we all agree on them. It is safe to drive becuse we all agree that that yellow line means we don’t cross it. We are safe standing on a subway platform because we all agree not to push each other onto the tracks. We are able to lead peaceful lives because we agree not to accost each other in public spaces. We are confident we can shop in stores, attend churches, spend time in parks, and move about in life because we include each other in our spaces.

  Those who do not do these things forfeit the confidence they hold in those contracts. If you own a store or business and exclude some group, you should expect to be unwelcomed in the spaces of others. If you express hateful commentary or accost people, you should expect to be accosted and to not lead a life of peace. If you openly declare yourself as a threat to the health, wellbeing, and/or safety of other members of society, you are not owed any of those things. Period. That is the solution to the Social Contract Paradoxes. Those who are not party to them are not protected by them. It would be like if I signed a contract with a roofer to replace my roof and my neighbor started demanding they replace his roof too under my contract. They are not a party to the contract so they derive no benefit from the contract.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨For No Reason in Particular Here's a Bunch of Games Where You Kill Nazis⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No, he is right. The only people ‘cosplaying’ Nazis are Nazis. If you are an actor on stage or film cast to play a Nazi then you are doing your job. If you don a SS pin and a swastika armband you are a fascist and actively advertising yourself as a threat to those around you (unless they look like you). This is “hate speech” which means that it is “free speech” and thus should be protected from government interference. It, on the other hand, can also fall under “fighting words” which are not protected. It all depends on context. In the context of a fascist wannabe dictator taking office who is openly promoting violence against minorities and showing blatant support of white supremacist groups like proud boys and KKK, it falls under the latter. It is also speech that removes ones self from the social contracts of “tolerance”, “compassion”, and “safety”. Just like any contract, the privileges and protections are only afforded to those who are a party to the contract. If someone goes out in a Nazi ‘cosplay’ and gets gunned down, beaten, savaged, spat on, or verbally assaulted they have no room to complain since they wore “speech” that said “I support or intend to do harm to those in my community and I am a threat.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It looks like someone at Activision is leaking Slack screenshots to right-wing X users⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Send them a check? Money always helps.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It looks like someone at Activision is leaking Slack screenshots to right-wing X users⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh god, I “love” those people. Same as the guy who was pissed about how woke Rage Against the Machine had become. Like bruh… Seriously?!?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cozy Games May Help Improve Players' Mental Health, Researchers Say⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That first paragraph put me off from the article because it positioned the research on gaming violence as if there were a positive correlation instead of reporting that it is actually negatively correlated. It also did not mention the positive research that came from the studies on game playing and eye hand coordination and the many other benefits video games have been proven to have. The author made it sound like this was the first positive thing about video games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨GTFO⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is actually old wisdom, at least as to why plants are green. There was a discovery a couple years back that green light alone actually can cause water to evaporate well above the thermal limit. Since evolution is best modeled as an energy minimization problem, the fact that the least energy required to retain moisture is accomplished by being green is why chlorophyll is green.

  news.mit.edu/…/surprising-finding-light-makes-wat…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨GTA VI Might Inspire Other AAA Developers to Price Their Games at $100⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  And this is precicely why I mostly play indie titles made by individuals or small teams that are sold for under 10 bucks. Fuck this noise.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Luck be a Landlord Might Be Banned from Google Play⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  We are talking about the country who’s leaders tried to ban flat chested women from porn because they “look too much like children”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What games have you sunk the most time into?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I wish I could filter out idle and clicker games. My biggies are Factorio and KSP for non-idle games. Several thousand hours in each.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do You think about level scaling in cRPGs?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Consider me a psycho with a hot take, but I have always preferred games that mix the enemy difficulties around in a zone. Something like Ark where, sure, level 3 Dodos spawn on the starting beaches, but a level 70 Spino can spawn not far away and you have to be sure to skirt it lest you become a healthy snack. The steady progression of “zone difficulty” has always bugged me a bit because it is just so far off from realistic. Sure, close to a settlement there would be culling of particularly dangerous creatures, but some of them would still exist (if the settlement is being responsible). And yeah, as you get farther into the wilds those sorts of cullings would fall off rapidly, but to say that there would be areas where there are no easy monsters or no hard monsters, even in the wilds, is just not accurate.

  Also, you get the same feeling of accomplishment, sometimes more, when you have died to hard monsters in starting areas a bunch of times then learned to skirt aggro properly, but then suddenly you come back after being out for a while and utterly decimate them. Just feels so good.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Funko, BrandShield speak out about itch.io takedown⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Nope, they are covered most of the time by what is known as the “corporate veil”.

  Better explained than I can do here: federal-lawyer.com/when-can-a-ceo-be-held-persona…

  Essentially, unless they are personally doing it, they are protected. Embezzle millions and you go to jail, poison a water supply, kill thousands, give birth defects, cancer, and a myriad of other health issues to a community at large and only the corporation is liable/culpable.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Funko, BrandShield speak out about itch.io takedown⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Personally I want to see the criminal shield removed for corporations. All C-Level executives become personally liable for any illegal actions, malfeasance, slander/liable, or injurious action perpetrated or instigated by the company with the ONLY defense being proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt (not just reasonable doubt) that an actor within or without the company caused the action with the express intent of harming the C-Level executives, either specific or generally.

  Fuck corporate personhood. Fuck people making a LLC and doing whatever the fuck they want under the guise of the company then the company declares bankruptcy while they run off like a cartoon character with bags of money. Leadership liability and culpability should be the norm, not the exception.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Funko, BrandShield speak out about itch.io takedown⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh, I’m here for it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨FIGHT⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Let’s be accurate here, private slavery companies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨fake reviews lol⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It was published, hence the first word being “Post-publication”. I think the issue for the retraction is that if 4 or the reviewers were lying about their identies then the voracity of their assessments is strongly in question. As shitty as the modern peer review process is, its essence is vital for the progress of modern science.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨US Senator Warner Presses Valve to Crack Down on Hateful Accounts and Rhetoric Proliferating on Steam⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is the central myth of “free speech” under the 1st Amendment.

  The 1st Amendment only protects individuals exercising speech and expression from laws being passed or used to silence said speech or expression and from agents of the government abridging the rights. That is a lot, but it is also all. Private citizens are allowed to abridge each other’s speech as much as we like. Private companies can censor whatever they want. This is why the guy wrote a letter to Steam, because literally ANY larger action would have crossed the line.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are your favorite 1000+ hour games?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly, I had it all with line breaks, but it didn’t take. I will fix.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are your favorite 1000+ hour games?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Factorio: 2344 Path of Exile: 2736 Rimworld: 2191 Kerbal Space Program: 1071

  I have a bunch of honorable mentions in the several hundred hours ranges that are only not 1k+ because I have severe ADHD and something else became a hyperfocus before they hit that point: Backpack Hero Ark The Last Spell Timberborn Factory Town Dyson Sphere Program Loop Hero Brotato Satisfactory Path of Achra Against the Storm Desynced

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DayZ creator reveals a "Kerbal Space Program killer" with kittens and challenges license owners to sue him⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This. I was so pissed when I saw the EULA for KSP2. I love KSP more than probably any game that has ever been released, due in no small part to the vibrant modding community. The fact that they decided to abuse the very people who made KSP great is disgusting and short slighted.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cognitive Biases⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You hit the nail on the head for the conservative agenda, though that is not as impressive as it once was since they all have started saying the quiet parts out loud. Anyone with enough brain cells in close contact to notice that Jesus was about as anticapitalist as you could possibly get is appalled and concerned for their safety. At least all of the ones I know are.

  To your point on the authority of a postdoctoral level person who assumes they are right in hubris, I feel like they have kinda earned it. It is also likely that their “wrong” is going to be far closer to right than that of a lay. I am personally a polymath, so I don’t find lay topics for myself very often, but when I do, I do listen to topical experts and respect what they say, while checking the voracity of things that feel off to me using reputable journals and prepublication articles on the likes of arXiv.

  If someone is lay and they are either unable of unwilling to do the diligence to verify the person claiming topical authority, then they really need to just take what is said at face value and not enter the more global conversation aside from trying to learn more (eg asking questions). I am so tired of my numbskull uncle claiming that Anthony Faucci doesn’t know how viruses work of some distant relation bitching about how student loan forgiveness is theft from taxpayers. My uncle knows nothing about virology and my distant relation couldn’t parse economic principles to save his life, but there they sit, acting as counter-authorities to people with doctorates and 40+ years of professional experience. That is the part I want to see stop. If you have a Masters degree, fine, argue with the expert, but if you have never stepped foot inside a classroom where that topic was being taught, just don’t. Your opinion is woefully uninformed and thus not worth the CO2 you expended to voice it.

  I do like your take on the societal and philosophical underpinnings for the Death of Expertise. It gels well with some things and gives me some avenues to investigate should I finally get fed up with this world enough to write it. Until that time, I will just keep Farnsworthing it. Dr. Farnsworth meme: I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cognitive Biases⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Fair enough argument. I do wonder who, in your opinion, is someone who can justifiably have authority on a topic if not a topic expert? Who is reasonable to be educated by?

  As for the book, at this point I have not put pen to paper as it were, but the premise is the observation that there is a concerted effort on the part of some political parties to sew so much doubt in subject experts as to render their knowledge meaningless to the general populace and how dangerous that becomes when the situation is something that has potentially dire consequences. I have seen it happening for a long time, but it really came to a head for me in 2020 when I saw entirely lay politicians and pundits undermining warnings from virologists, epidemiologists, and statististians and sewing distrust in public health organizations essentially to trade people’s lives for political points. Since then I have been seeing an ever escalating trend for people in category 1 of authority to push the populace away from category 3 on topics which really only category 3 should be talking at all. The rest of us should be shutting up and taking notes, asking questions for clarification, and learning.

  Abortion, gender identity, climate change, economics geopolitics, etc. Essentially every topic that has been politicized into a hot button issue is really somerhing that is so beyond complex that we should not be arguing with the people who have dedicated their entire adult lives, sometimes 40+ years, to studying.

  My father has the perfect microcosm anecdote from his working days. He worked for a garage door manufacturer who hired some fresh faced MBAs into middle management. They were all sitting in a meeting one day and thought they came up with an amazing idea, so they took it to the veteran engineers who had been designing garage door openers for decades, some of them essentially since the damn things were invented, and told them to make their hairbrained idea. The enginners looked over what they were given and told them that they had had the idea decades earlier and that it did not work and that materials science and engineering had not progressed to the point that it would be feasible. Did the MBAs who were trying to make waves and make a name for themselves listen? Nope, they fired all of the veteran engineers and hired in a bunch of fresh faced engineers who had never actually designed a garage door opener and told them to build their hairbrained idea. The engineers, only knowing what they had learned in school and a couple of years in other jobs got excited by this revolutionary idea and dove into it. Fast forward about 2 years, and millions in R&D, and we find the fresh faced engineers, now not so fresh, somberly telling the MBA dickheads exactly what the veteran engineers had told them initially. This, along with a few other boneheaded schemes to make earnings sheets look better for the MBAs actually ended up tanking the company and it was sold like 10 years later.

  Subject expertise matters. Respecting subject expertise matters. Being able to recognize when you are sitting atop Mount DK is one of the finest skills we could ever teach our children.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cognitive Biases⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Even with the somewhat incorrect examples, I want to print this out and hang it as a poster on my wall.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cognitive Biases⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I have to respectfully disagreed with your example. Ostensibly the researcher should be an authority. I think the example given in the chart is not quite right either. I think the confusion comes from the three definitions of “Authority”.

  1. the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience. “he had absolute authority over his subordinates”

  2. a person or organization having power or control in a particular, typically political or administrative, sphere. “the health authorities”

  3. the power to influence others, especially because of one’s commanding manner or one’s recognized knowledge about something.

  In your example the “Authority” is definition 3, someone with specialized knowledge of a topic that should be listened to by those who are lay on the topic.

  In the chart I think they were trying to go for 1, which is the correct source of Authority Bias, but they didn’t want to step on toes or get political. The actual example is someone who has decision authority like a police officer or politician or a boss at a workplace who says things and a listener automatically believes them regardless of the speakers actual specialized knowledge of the topic they are speaking on. A better example would be “Believing a vaccine is dangerous because a politician says it is.”

  This all feeds into a topic I have been kicking around in my head for a while that I have been contemplating attempting to write up as a book. “The Death of Expertise”. So many people have been so brainwashed that authorities in definition 3 are met with a frankly asinine amount of incredulity, but authorities in the first are trusted regardless of education or demonstrable specialized knowledge.