tsolarprincess

[tsolarprincess]

A good rule of thumb for AI is "would you trust a trained pigeon to do this?"

"We trained a pigeon to recognise cancerous cell clusters and somehow they're really good at it" okay great, that's something that could plausibly be a thing.

"We trained a pigeon to recognise good CV:s and left it in charge of sorting through all our job applications" uh perhaps consider not doing that.

[tsolarprincess]

[tsolarprincess]

I'm in this mood where I don't know if I need a pick-me-up or a put-me-down

[tsolarprincess]

Fallout – Equestria is extremely viscreal. I don’t know how the author does it, but it makes you feel everything. Every time the protagonist is hit, you flinch. Every time the protagonist is scared, you jump in your seat. I don’t know how it works. It’s like some kind of subtle word magic is at action. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t work on everyone — some are immune to the magic — and thus not everybody appreciates this particular aspect of the book’s genius. But for me, it definitely worked.

Nothing exemplifies this better than Littlepip’s struggle with addiction. Early in her journey, she finds some Party-time Mint-als (mentats). True to the original games, they gove her a temporary boost in stats, but taking it too much might result in addiction, and your stats will actually be lowered while you’re not under the drug’s influence.

Initially, she takes the Mint-als occasionally to overcome some hard problems. It’s very helpful, so she starts taking them more and more. Then she starts taking them just for fun, when no obstacle was actually present. Eventually she catches herself thinking how she just isn’t herself when under the drug’s influence, how only the drug makes her feel normal.

At some point, her friends stage an intervention and get her to a doctor, who cleans her system of the drug (that’s how it works in Fallout). He warns her that while the chemical effects of the drug are gone, the psychological might remain, and that if she ever starts taking the drug again, the addiction might return.

After the procedure, Littlepip feels renewed, rejuvenated, remarkably clear-headed and happy. She initially mistakes it for some kind of high, but then she realizes that this is how she normally feels — that’s what she was like before she started taking the Mint-als. All this time, she was a sluggish, brain-fogged, weakened, irritated mess, and she only felt a semblance of normality when under effects of the drug.

And I felt all of that.

I felt highspirited whenever she took the drug. I felt down and sluggish whenever she was off the drug. Often I caught myself wishing she would take the pill already, and felt relieved when she actually did. I felt the brain fog — the final chapters before she went clean really did feel sluggish and slow, as if my brain wasn’t working properly. The writing and the events felt irritating and uncomfortable — until she took the drugs again, that is. And when she went clean — I really did feel like a mountain was lifted off my shoulders. The universe felt beautiful again. My brain got working back up to speed. Only then I realized how slow and miserable I felt throughout the latest chapters — and how it only got worse and worse as Littlepip’s addiction worsened. I felt it all.

I don’t know how well that reflects real-life addiction — I’ve never been addicted to any drug in my life. But if it works like that in reality, then I totally get what everybody’s talking about and how addiction ruins you so thoroughly. If you or anyone you know are addicted, then I’m sorry.

Sometime later Littlepip finds her stash of the drug and ponders whether to throw it away to not risk getting re-addicted, or to keep it in case she ever needs a boost in an emergency. That really felt like a dilemma. Lots of writers set up contrived moral dilemmas with one answer clearly marked with author’s endorsement — but this one felt genuine.

[tsolarprincess]

I had been roped into playing Terraforming Mars. It was one of the worst tabletop games I ever played, and I played Monopoly!

The game has no yomi, which is the only thing that makes competitive multiplayer interesting.

The players barely interact. They tend to do their own things, trying to get the most victory points out of what they have. They don’t particularly care what the other players are doing. There are exceptions like some betting on the commons, but, generally speaking, the advantage you get from knowing what other players are doing and what their plan is is negligible. By the midgame we stopped caring about hiding the cards in our hands – it’s not like knowing another player’s cards will help you in any way. Compare this to poker, Starcraft, Mafia, or even Rock-Paper-Scissors, where if you can read your opponent’s mind you have basically won. And trying to do that is where the fun is.

In Terraforming Mars all players are basically playing a single-player game and compete in who does it the best. As a single-player game it’s passable; maybe you could make it better by removing all other players.

[tsolarprincess]

Oh, looks like capitalism got Nexus mods? When should we expect AI slop, fake mod botspam, advertising masquerading as mods, and other ways to extract money by making the product worse?

[tsolarprincess]

So Let Me Teach You Some Discordian Principles

Truth is more subjective than most people are lead to believe. Truth is all about the lens of reality that you're looking through.

Have you ever wondered why a Muslim and a Christian can both hold up different gods and say "my god is the truth"? And then an Atheist could say "my lack of god is the truth"? Then a Mormon can dead ass look you in the eye and tell you drinking coffee is a sin, and that is the truth?

None of them are out of balance in their definition and standards of truth. They just have different lenses.

Part of Discordianism is getting above these lenses and figuring out how to harness a variety of them, then switch them out at will.

If I were to give you a visual metaphor, one lens is reading glasses. Another a spyglass. Another those old blue and red 3-D glasses. Another a high powered telescope pointed at a blazar that waits for you to blink first. And another, is the camera on a pink nintendo 3DS.

Every time you look, you understand another person's sight. You start wondering why you've been looking through a view master your whole life, or worse...staring at the shadows of a cave.

Getting mastery of these lenses puts you in a fluid state where you can understand and empathize with anyone with enough information. Not only that, but you can start to predict people. But that's small potato powers. The real power comes from when you can start to see history move.

Let me lean in and whisper; that's discordianism.

And it's metal af.

And if you're wondering what this post is...

I just gave you a lens. You're welcome. This one is a kaleidoscope.

Hail Eris.

[tsolarprincess]

Sugar Daddy, sugar Daddy, send your child unto me, for the sins of the unworthy must be baptized in blood and fear

[tsolarprincess]

[tsolarprincess]

Oxytocin just curtseying

red blood cell girl bringing you oxygen on a cute little platter and then curtseying

[tsolarprincess]

nothing in the world makes me more evil than just being kind of annoyed

[tsolarprincess]

I want to see the fall of LinkedIn during my lifetime

[tsolarprincess]

There are only two jobs left in the world and it's making sandwiches or killing people

[tsolarprincess]

Tumblr would like this one

[tsolarprincess]

The entire system is designed to make suffering people suffer more. Other examples include:

jailing people for drug use

fining homeless people for loitering

[tsolarprincess]

Why is it called a quintology if there's four games in it

[tsolarprincess]

Looks like there's no rainbow capitalism this year. Wonder why. We're all those companies lying to us about supporting LGBT?!