Mnemnosyne

@Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works

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Mnemnosyne,

In small (population-wise) rural areas like that, where positions are running uncontested or only contested in the primary, it’s actually possible individuals could make a difference. But there’s some caveats.

If the area is extremely Republican and would never vote for a Democrat, don’t run as one. Unlike in races like President and Senate, independent and third party are actual choices at this level, they’re not simply false choices.

An individual could find some local issue that matters to a lot of people in the area but seems to be being ignored. Talk to neighbors, local people, etc, figure out what they’re upset about that actually falls under the purview of local or state government, then make that the core of your platform.

As long as you’re not officially listed as a Democrat, you’re not platforming on things that the locals would never vote for (and you probably couldn’t do anything about anyway in the lower office you’re running for) and you’ve actually done some local research and found an issue that a significant number of people in your area are upset about, you actually have a chance. You’d probably lose, but there’s a real chance.

Mnemnosyne,

That’s exactly the reason for those questions. So they can ask ‘would you consider using jury nullification’ without informing people that jury nullification exists.

And also so that if you at some point admit something that sounds like you’re voting not guilty because you disagree with the law, they can kick you off the jury and possibly charge you with perjury.

If you ever find yourself in a jury and intend to nullify, you must not admit it ever: you must maintain simply that you are not convinced by the evidence.

Mnemnosyne,

It’s kind of a difficult issue. Jury nullification has been used for both good and bad, with the simplest and most obvious examples being from Civil War type stuff - people who unambiguously broke the law against helping slaves escape have had their verdicts nullified. Good thing. But also people who lynched black people in the south have had their verdicts nullified. Bad thing.

Making sure that verdicts are determined purely based on the law and whether the law was broken means that people need to work to change the law, they can’t just apply the law unevenly by nullifying against some defendants and not against others. So I can see the case for nullification being a bad thing. Ideally, you deal with that by removing or reworking the law so that it doesn’t come to the point of needing nullification.

But, well, reality isn’t ideal. Still, it’s unavoidable - as long as a jury can’t be forced to explain the reasoning behind their verdict beyond insisting ‘I was not convinced of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt’ and as long as a jury verdict of Not Guilty is final and cannot be retried, jury nullification will de facto exist. That said, it’s the entire system not just ‘this judge’ that is attempting to prevent jury nullification from happening. The judge’s question about following the law is boilerplate standard basically everywhere, and it’s a systematic and intentional attempt to weed out potential jury nullifiers.

Mnemnosyne,

It feels to me like people did unite after those attacks…it was the crazy conspiracy theories about them that really seemed to get the ball rolling as far as division goes.

Thing is, Republicans have been using any crisis and our ‘unite behind leadership’ behavior to fuck us since before Reagan, so I’m not sure it’s really such a bad thing that we stopped ‘uniting’.

Mnemnosyne,

Nope, wouldn’t really be in less danger. That’s something that bothers and concerns me, people act like it’s Trump that’s the problem, but he’s really kind of irrelevant. This is the Republican party, this is all Republicans. Trump is not some bizarre outlier, at least not in the sense of the things he wants to do and will push for and enable as President. Every Republican wants those too.

Mnemnosyne,

The big question is how many times to press it. Once at least is a given. It does specify the death as gruesome, so I don’t really want the death, but I’d also like enough money to not have to worry again until a non gruesome death.

Like, if it was painless death, I’d probably say something like 20 or 30 times, but with a gruesome one…maybe 5 max, or perhaps even less. Still, one or two pushes is a given.

Mnemnosyne,

Yes, as long as people keep focusing on fighting the technology instead of fighting capitalism, this is true.

So we can fight the technology and definitely lose, only to see our efforts subverted to further entrench capitalism and subjugate us harder (hint: regulation on this kind of thing disproportionately affects individuals while corporations carve out exceptions for themselves because ‘it helps the economy’)…

Or we can embrace the technology and try to use it to fight capitalism, at which point there’s at least a chance we might win, since the technology really does have the potential to overcome capitalism if and only if we can spread it far enough and fast enough that it can’t be controlled or contained to serve only the rich and powerful.

Mnemnosyne,

I bet some people flashed that one and such too, but I could find no indication that it was shut down because of that.

It feels like society has backslid tremendously on some freedoms in the past 15 years, particularly where it comes to prudishness.

These days we even have otherwise progressive people jumping on the prude bandwagon along with hyper religious controlling anti feminists and it just makes for such strange bedfellows.

Mnemnosyne,

I mean, that’s a fair criticism in a way. If Bill lets you taste the chicken at that point, it’s reasonable to comment on what he let you taste. If he didn’t think it was ready enough to get your opinion on, he shouldn’t have let you taste it at all.

Mnemnosyne,

If it is solved it will definitely be through technology of some sort. While I agree it will not be one brilliant scientist, technology will be the solution.

That technology may come in the form of a way to produce more energy without fucking up the climate, and the engineering and logistical capacity to roll out the change at a breakneck pace.

It may come in the form of simply developing a way to control the global climate directly.

It might come in the form of some technology to control the behavior of humans so that we can actually respond appropriately.

Or it might come in the form of the singularity, when self improving machines grow so far beyond us so fast that they can just do what is needed whether we like it or not.

But one way or another I guarantee that if it’s solved, it’ll largely be a technological solution, because getting humanity to just…stop using energy at our current rate…is just not going to happen.

Mnemnosyne,

Yeah, these projects done by one or two people could be better with a larger team, but it’s definitely not a matter of hiring a big pile of people suddenly.

The ideal size is probably a couple dozen people, but scaling up to even that will take months since the one person currently in charge has to do a lot. And it’ll almost fully pause work on the project for a while.

Cause if there’s one person, they’ve got to find all the candidates, do all the hiring, then bring people up to speed.

The real problem is if the person who made it doesn’t have the skills to manage even a small group of people.

Mnemnosyne,

Some of them, sure, but there are a lot of stories of how many lies recruiters will tell you to get you to sign on, so a pretty significant number are genuinely bad people.

Mnemnosyne,

I don’t understand the complaints about the expansions for these games. Ok, there’s a lot of them? But they’re generally good. And if you don’t want them, just…stop updating and stay on whatever version you liked?

And unlike most, they make it easy to play an older version. Did I like a particular patch better and hate all that’s come since then? Easy to roll back to it. What do people want…for them to not put out expansions?

Mnemnosyne,

You take off the glasses during totality. Only during totality is it safe to look.

Mnemnosyne,

Nice to hear. I just don’t play games that don’t have female character options, unless the character actually matters and has a personality that is a major part of the game, like say, Geralt. I leave old games some leeway, but nice to hear they’re fixing that in this old one, means I’ll probably give it a try just based on that alone.

Mnemnosyne,

That’s awesome. I have played Deus Ex, since I give old games that leeway, whereas there’s absolutely no excuse for new ones, but it might be enjoyable to give it another run with that mod, so thanks!

Mnemnosyne,

When the protagonist’s character, personality, and story is significant, then that’s fine. If I’m playing a game like that I’m not playing a generic character that could be either and therefore should absolutely be a choice.

I’m fine playing a game like the Witcher, Red Dead 2, etc, cause those are the stories of that guy.

Where I won’t play is games that give you a generic protagonist with little to no personality but restrict you to male only, or even I suppose female only, although this is incredibly rare and I haven’t run across it myself.

Mnemnosyne,

Metroid is an interesting example. In some of the games she definitely counts as having no personality or character, but overall in the series she’s been given a story and characterization with personality. Zelda games are in a similar boat; Link shows little personality in most of them but does have an established overall story and personality.

In cases like those two I’ll consider them, but the lack of personality in game is a point against them regardless of the gender involved and honestly that’s discouraged me from playing many games like that (including both those series) for a long while.

Way I see it, modern games have no excuse not to either let me create my own character or give the predefined character a strong personality that shows throughout the entire game.

Mnemnosyne,

Speed limits usually have been set by data, it’s just bad data or badly used data. Like one of the actual ways they determined speed limits was to see how fast people actually drive through an area and then set it so 15%of them are above it.

Of course, much of this was done a half century ago or more. Now most roads have speed limits set by simply choosing one of the ‘standard’ numbers.

But the real main issue that some studies have shown is poor road design. A road needs to be designed to make the driver adjust to the appropriate speed. A wide road with wide clearance on either side encourages higher speed. A road with trees very close to the road and narrow shoulders encourages you to slow down.

Design roads to encourage the speed you want, a d you’ll mostly get it.

Mnemnosyne,

You can do makeup that looks like eyebrows and it’s less of a hassle than shaving constantly.

Besides, with the center pill, you could look like an unkempt troll and the people you find attractive would still like it; the lack of facial hair is thus for your convenience, like not needing to shave.

Mnemnosyne,

Yeah…‘the Voyager’ sounds awkward to me in a way that ‘the Enterprise’ doesn’t. You also hear this in the real life Voyager probes.

With many other ships, both real and fictional, the same phenomenon is noticeable - if the ship name sounds awkward with a ‘the’ in front, it will usually not be part of the name.

Mnemnosyne,

They could turn that into a running theme, like how every Elder Scrolls protagonist is a prisoner to start with…

But Divinity already has a long history and so does Baldur’s Gate so…ehh, doesn’t fit in quite as well. Maybe with a new IP they make it a tradition for.

Mnemnosyne,

More like 1997, or even 1983, when the UK handed them back to China, or the earlier date, when they decided to prevent them from having British citizenship.

If everyone in Hong Kong had the right to emigrate to any British territory, China would have to be a lot lighter touched there, or there might be a mass exodus.

Mnemnosyne,

That company was so odd, cause usually companies that mismanage their money into bankruptcy don’t also make a great game, and yet Kingdoms of Amalur was amazing.

Mnemnosyne,

There’s probably a decent number of people that buy a game and don’t install it immediately. I often do this when something is on sale. By the time they realize they didn’t get what they were after, it may be outside the refund window.

Mnemnosyne, (edited )

Odd comparison, and internally inconsistent. They criticize KOTOR for having only one decision that affects the overall story, but fail to consider that SWG had zero decisions that affect the overall story.

It is true that as a multiplayer game there are theoretically more opportunities for roleplay in SWG, and if they’d focused on that it would make more sense and be more consistent.

Mnemnosyne, (edited )

It should be noted that this should not work. In every version of the game I am aware of, the spell description for wish explicitly calls out wishing an enemy dead as something the spell should not be able to accomplish. The typical monkey’s paw that is described as happening when you attempt to wish a person dead is that you are propelled forward in time until after they die, effectively removing you from their lifespan. This is part of the 5e description of wish as well.

For example, wishing that a villain were dead might propel you forward in time to a period when that villain is no longer alive, effectively removing you from the game.

Vlaakith is an ancient and powerful enough lich that it is entirely reasonable she has the means to kill a low level adventurer like the protagonist of BG3, even from her safe stronghold on another plane of existence, however, the particular method they chose to have her do it in is explicitly called out as something that is impossible, and shouldn’t have been used, if only because it sets a bad example for people who have never played D&D and BG3 is their first experience with it.

Mnemnosyne,

It’s not really anything other than someone’s death. It’s more ‘these wishes are safe and will work out how you want’. Anything beyond those, the DM is encouraged to respond appropriately. In 5th edition, there is actually very little that is listed as safe to wish for. In 3.5 the list was short but highly useful. In 2nd though, there were NO explicitly safe wishes. Anything could backfire.

If you wish for a reasonable outcome that’s not on the safe list, you should get it without too much trouble, but if you wish something that’s grossly unfair, then you get what’s coming to you when it backfires.

Mnemnosyne,

Wish is a 9th level spell. Archwizards with 10th and 11th level spells (we’ll leave out the one overachiever who cast a 12th level spell) find it quaint.

Lorewise, wish is only more powerful than meteor swarm, or Mordenkainen’s disjunction, or prismatic sphere, or other 9th level spells because it has a high cost - if we go back before 3rd edition, that cost was aging 5 years. In 3rd and 3.5 it was experience points. In 5th, it’s a smattering of minor problems and a 33% chance of losing the ability to cast the spell again. But essentially the concept is always that it takes something of your life or soul or physical fortutide to allow the spell to exceed ordinary 9th level spells.

This means it is ultimately a powerful but limited spell, both in the rules and in lore.

Mnemnosyne,

Well it doesn’t specify dragon type/color. Not every dragon has an innate alternate form ability, so hopefully you get one of those.

Age is also an issue. Depending on how old you are, you’ll probably be somewhere between young to young adult. If you’re at least 50 you can hit young adult. This means you’re pretty limited in a lot of things, and if you have your innate spellcasting at all, it’s gonna be pretty limited.

If you’re one of the dragon colors that doesn’t get innate alternate form, you’re probably gonna have to hide for the better part of a century just to get old enough to have some decent spells.

So there are downsides, if temporary ones, to the dragon option. Still, it’s probably the best choice, yes.

Mnemnosyne,

This is actually what I look forward to most in gaming in the next decade or two. The implementation of AI that can be assigned goals and motivations instead of scripted to every detail. Characters in games with whom we as players can have believable conversations that the devs didn’t have to think of beforehand. If they can integrate LLM type AI into games successfully, it’ll be a total game changer in terms of being able to accommodate player choice and freedom.

Mnemnosyne,

Only if no one challenges it, which is a big problem.

Patents are supposed to be given for new ideas, and also a certain degree of non-obviousness.

In the event that something has been done before by others, it should be open and shut to challenge the patent, but it still costs money. So it’s often easier not to, and the patent doesn’t get challenged.

Mnemnosyne,

The mods made under these rules seem guaranteed to be shittier than others.

Appearance and armor mods are out - no Bodyslide. Vast amounts of mods are dependent on SKSE, so those are out. A lot of the coolest stuff these days is possible only with SPID and other such frameworks for mods to use. Those are out.

So, either this will cause a significant decline in mod quality if modders actually try to build for it (to say nothing of the cost - even at $0.50 per mod some of my installs would cost $500+)…or most modders will ignore it, and it’ll go unused, cause it’s too hard to make good mods under these limits.

Mnemnosyne,

Basically, every promotion of every officer in the military apparently needs to be confirmed by the Senate.

Normally these are confirmed via unanimous consent - the entire Senate agrees and they’re confirmed with no further procedure.

But any senator can insist that the full normal procedure be followed, which means committee hearings, discussion time, and an actual vote at the end of it. He would not be able to stop them from being confirmed on those votes. But the normal procedure requires a lot of time during which the Senate would be able to do nothing else because the procedural rules require all this discussion and voting time.

Really, the problem isn’t that he had a lot of power; it’s the absurd situation where every single officer in the military needs to be confirmed by the Senate. I’m not sure that made sense in George Washington’s day, much less today with the size of the military.

Mnemnosyne,

Highest ranks, yes. It’s actually reasonable for the Senate to pay attention to who is getting promoted to the highest ranks. Every rank, no. It is my understanding that we are talking about every officer rank in the military needing confirmation by the Senate, which is meaningless because the Senate simply cannot pay attention to every one of these. That is precisely why Tuberville is able to hold this up, because it is logistically impossible for the Senate to check on every one of these people.

Mnemnosyne,

Yeah, Bethesda games have always been… playable, I guess, but hardly any good, without modding, at least as far back as Oblivion. Morrowind was the last game they made that was just good, out of the box, without needing mods.

So I figured in a year or two Starfield will be good, with mods, just like Oblivion, Skyrim, and Fallout 4 were all bland at best on release, until mods made them good.

Mnemnosyne,

Denuvo isn’t easily bypassed, unfortunately. I think there’s still only like two people cracking Denuvo and one of them is batshit insane.

Mnemnosyne,

Yeah. I don’t even know that much about the whole thing, just what I learned when going to look for a game a while back, and even from that little it was like, wtf is with this person?

Mnemnosyne,

The lead writer for Mass Effect 3… I suppose it’s possible he learned from it, but I question whether the person who wrote (or at least had to sign off on and approve) the ending of ME3, which killed the franchise and disappointed most players should be allowed to ever do anything related to writing again…

Mnemnosyne,

Yeah, if I remember correctly. He sold the rights straight up to the developers of the game, no royalties or percentage or anything because of his anti-game bias, then when the game was successful and that decision bit him in the ass, he tried to change the deal and get more money out of them. As I understand it he lost and still receives no revenue from the games.

Even then they’re still benefitting him tremendously because while he was popular in Poland, it’s the games that have really made his work popular overall, and people are buying his books and all because of it.

Mnemnosyne,

Ah, I recalled he didn’t win, I suppose I should’ve assumed it was settled, that’s usually how that goes down.

Personally I think he should’ve lost and had to pay CDPR’s legal costs, the whole thing was absurd. He admits he made a stupid mistake but wants money out of them anyways despite having been an arrogant shithead to start with.

Mnemnosyne,

Blizzard, back in the day, was willing to simply can games, even highly anticipated ones, when they didn’t meet their standards, even after a couple years of work. StarCraft: Nova, Lord of the Clans…

And Square-Enix managed to take an MMORPG that was already released, tear it down to bare bones and completely rebuild it to make it good, with FFXIV: A Realm Reborn.

So it is possible to completely redo something if it doesn’t work out…

GTA 6’s Publisher Says Video Games Should Theoretically Be Priced At Dollars Per Hour (www.forbes.com)

While Take-Two is riding high on their announcement that a GTA 6 trailer is coming, its CEO has some…interesting ideas on how much video games could cost, part of a contingent of executives that believe games are underpriced, given their cost, length or some combination of the two.

Mnemnosyne,

To be fair, for most games which you actually choose to continue playing, enjoyment per hour must be at or above a certain threshold otherwise you’d stop playing.

Mnemnosyne,

I’ve put in 2000+ hours on Civilization IV, Stellaris, and Skyrim, and 1000+ on several other titles. So, since I could quite happily never purchase another game again, and simply play those games until I die, let’s use them as our baseline for what the cost should be, shall we? Assuming they cost $120 each (maybe a little low on Stellaris when you count all the DLC, and definitely high on Civ IV) I’ve played each of them for about 2,000 hours…that means I should expect to pay $0.06 per hour. Heck, let’s be generous! Let’s count Stellaris, with ALL of its DLC, at the price it currently is, without being on sale (except for one that’s at 10% off. I’ve bought most of the DLC on various sales of at least 30% off, but let’s try pricing all games as though they cost this much. That’s about $335. Which still comes out to $0.16 an hour. Not bad, I’ll take it!

Granted, since most games don’t hold me for 2,000 hours, most games aren’t going to get that much out of me. I sometimes buy new games at a $60 to $70 price point. So, the average game would have to hold me for 375 hours in order to make the same amount I pay for it now. Which means in my entire Steam library, there are a mere 12 games that would reach that threshold of getting equal or greater than the $60 I’m willing to occasionally pay these days.

I’m all for it! Most of my games would drop considerably in price, even at $0.16 an hour!

Mnemnosyne,

Yep. I have not and will not give epic store money because they didn’t try to make a better product.

In fact they attacked me as a customer, in essence, by offering a worse product but then paying for exclusivity on various games. And in exchange they try to bribe me with free games.

Well, I’ll take the bribes, as I try to remember to collect my free games each week, but I’m not giving them money.

Mnemnosyne,

Or they could lower their corporate profit margin so neither is necessary. Don’t make excuses for them and act like there’s not a huge amount of money being hoovered up by profit.

What's your Patient Gamer's Unpopular Opinion?

Share your unfiltered, unpopular gaming opinions and let’s dive into some real discussions. If you come across a view you disagree with, feel free to (respectfully) defend your perspective. I don’t want to see anyone say stuff like “we’re all entitled to our own opinions.” Let’s pretend like gaming is a science and...

Mnemnosyne,

Many criticize the frequent content updates, often cosmetic, as overwhelming. However, it’s optional, and no other industry receives flak for releasing more. I’ve never seen anyone complain about too many Lays or coke flavors.

Lots of people complain when some product they like is no longer available in favor of a ‘new and improved’ product. Remember ‘New Coke’? Patches and updates to games are the same thing, especially ones that significantly change the gameplay.

I, for example, liked Overwatch during certain time periods. That game is no longer available. There’s certainly people who play League of Legends or DOTA that feel the same way, though I wouldn’t know - the game they liked was at a certain point in its development, and since then changes have made it no longer the game they like. Same applies to a lot of MMOs - I liked Ultima Online, EverQuest, World of Warcraft, and others, but the games I like no longer exist even though the games technically exist.

The problem isn’t easily solved either - no updates may make some people happy but others will not be happy. The resources probably don’t exist to continue splitting the game and maintaining a stable version of an online game at each iteration, and even if they did, the player base would become too diffuse to be able to actually keep the game enjoyable with sufficient players. But it might be a fair criticism to say that updates come too fast for some of these games, and we need more time between them, or various other things. And there’s nothing wrong with people just griping, even if it’s something that can’t reasonably be stopped.

Mnemnosyne,

Might just be me enjoying Nimoy in most everything, or maybe ta just that Civ 4 is still the best of the series, but I really liked his lines in that one.

Lots of memorable ones but “the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy” always sticks out as one of my favorites.

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