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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
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User ID: 355
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
12d ago
· Edited 12d ago
I'm playing (have just defeated the owlmoth thing
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the early areas somewhat lack distinctive personality
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the whole trap/consumable mechanic, so far, feels insufficiently impactful to waste precious middle-aged neurons on developing muscle memory for
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BGMs feel more ambient, while HK had some songs that stuck in my mind
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I agree with the sentiment below that many enemies are pointlessly damage-spongey (looking at you, red ant tribe).
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So far the driving plot feels too similar to HK, what with
the collapsing bug kingdom suffering from a mind control zombie plague that the protagonist has some mysterious existential connection to .
On the other hand, things that I feel are an improvement over the predecessor:
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The graphics and level design feel more polished. HK had some areas that looked pretty monotonous.
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Every boss fight so far has been great: they are unique, inventive, and the difficulty feels fair. HK suffered from the problem that a lot of the bosses were just finicky - you needed to learn the exact timing and hitboxes for their attacks so that you could get out of the way and strike back, but the mechanic would often just be "dodge this massive club swing by between 1 and 4 pixels and then run towards the enemy to get in a hit".
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It has doubled down on HK's strength of having an endearingly quirky NPC cast with funny fantasy-language exclamations and songs announcing their presence.
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I found the FOMO (what if some other set of powerups would have trivialised this boss?) of HK's knapsack-based badge/upgrade system to be more annoying than anything. The new one has less of that (though that might just be because so far I have found hardly any optional powerups that feel meaningful).
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I'm obviously not far enough in yet, but the narration of the main story feels more tight.
One thing worth noting is that I tried to play the game with my recently-acquired Switch controller (having been a keyboard gamer all my life, but finally folding because of some games requiring omnidirectional movement/aiming), but went back to keyboard after the first few bosses which immediately gave me a massive power spike. I am not sure the controls were optimised for gamepads.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
12d ago
· Edited 12d ago
In an actual scenario where they start a civil war and win, why would the Reds not rule with a jackboot? Even if they assure you, as a member of the Blue team, that they will not, as they try to persuade you to put down that big red button, why would you believe them?
I wouldn't trust any belligerent in the culture war to be magnanimous in victory on the best day, and here we are in a subthread where we're actually talking about the blog by some redtriber who is very openly fantasising about jackboots and lots of other redtribers are assuring us that he is very important and influential.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
16d ago
· Edited 16d ago
That's a fair response to @hydroacetylene's argument, but the "this goes against what our elders say about gender roles" argument against transgenderism is itself a rather weak one.
I think a stronger one is the following: transgenderism, in its common form as I understand it, is totalitarian and intrusive, because it demands that I rewrite my mental categories in a particular way. It is fairly clear that, from the point of view of the transgender activists, someone who perfectly abides by all etiquette demands (pronouns, social grouping/shunning, social expectations in line with the person's chosen identity) but internally continues to believe that the person is, for all purposes other than adherence to the preceding rules of etiquette, a member of their biological sex, is morally evil, and this pattern of thought is one that ought to be rectified even if there is no evidence that it will lead to any etiquette violations. This is intrusive and totalitarian, in a way that otherwise only religions are allowed to get away with (you can't just go to church on Sundays and say the prayers, you have to really believe, and there will be busybodies trying to figure out if you secretly don't and do their utmost to fix you); and as a price for being allowed to keep that power, liberal societies have severely circumscribed the power of religions in other ways (they are not allowed to threaten you into conversion, use your belief or lack thereof as a criterion in hiring, etc.).
None of these restrictions are being applied to transgenderism, and in fact acting outside of those restrictions is central to its existence as a movement! "Test if your professor secretly thinks that transwomen are men, and get him fired if it turns out to be the case" is praxis. This is not some tangential feature of religions, either - if one were to create a quick summary of what was bad about religion before our present framework of regulating them, "they perform intrusive tests to distinguish true believers from fakers and exclude the latter from society" will probably feature prominently in some form.
It sometimes seems to me that progressives have performed a horse-cart inversion regarding the relationship between biological sex and "gender roles", and typical-mind themselves to assume that everyone else must have constructed their categories likewise. The traditional gender role believer will think, "you are a man; therefore you must wear pants, wield violence and hide your emotions", but the progressive instead sees something like "you must wear pants, wield violence and hide your emotions; therefore you are a man". The former is a statement of fact, followed by a statement of "socially constructed" expectations contingent on that fact; the latter looks like a statement of arbitrary socially constructed expectations, followed by a socially constructed label for that set of expectations. I don't care if you think that way, but realise that it is not standard!
As it happens, I am not particularly attached to gender roles myself; if a man wants to wear dresses and makeup and act like a caricature of a Victorian damsel, I am happy to let him. There are plenty of people who do things that are more aesthetically displeasing or outright harmful to those around them. However, I will continue to think of him as a man, and I will consider a demand not to, for whatever reason, to be as presumptuous and intrusive as a demand that I make myself believe that Brahma created the universe. Hindus are free to believe this; they are free to be sad that I don't believe it; and they are even within reason to demand that I will not walk up to them and yell in their face that Lord Brahma does not exist/is an aspect of Satan/is a minor god that my god would make mincemeat of. However, if they presumed to demand that I publicly affirm Brahma as the Lord Creator of the Universe, made employment contingent on the belief, or subjected me to tests to see if my polite silence during their rituals wasn't because I secretly thought it is all bollocks, I would feel in my right to gently remind them that last time someone did that to my people, in the end we sent them to build railways in Siberia or gave them a one-way limousine ride to a nondescript downtown basement.
(...and to be clear, the asymmetry that I view "transwomen are men" as a statement of fact while you view "transwomen are women" and "transwomen are men" both as statements of belief/social construction does not matter, insofar as the demands of transgenderism would be hardly less presumptuous if we both accepted your premise that gender is socially constructed. Long before Europe went secular, it successfully figured out rules that prevented believers from forcing beliefs on each other!)
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
17d ago
I do find myself fighting intrusive "do not redeem" thoughts on a daily basis. It doesn't help that they really like putting the Saar- prefix on everything.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
17d ago
"Miyazaki And Human Space"
I find it strange that he would say all that and not mention how the setting of Kiki's Delivery Service is known to have been heavily based on Visby, Gotland, after Miyazaki's crew flew there for the sort of setting inspo research that is one of the few perks in the miserable lives of Japanese animators. Stockholm's old town and much of Södermalm (a far more "organic" rather than conserved-for-the-tourists area) basically look like the screencaps, too; as nice as these areas are to walk through and (the latter more so to) live in (if you can afford the subleases or have 20 years to spend in the housing queue), I did not get the sense that they amount to that much of a RETVRNer's paradise.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
18d ago
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
18d ago
I am currently in a fairly god-forsaken corner of Germany, but have previously lived in the northeastern US and various other parts of Europe including places that appeared to have other Mottizens. I just always assumed that offline meetups would not even be proper to suggest since everyone here has so much life-ending dirt on each other.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
20d ago
What does "keeping it real" mean in this context? It seems to be implied to be something like "defend your reputation/social standing like a man", but I'm not sure if I have ever heard it used to mean that before.
Sikh Pajeet
I'm not sure if you've been told this before, but the thing where you protest (entirely too much) that the bad stereotypes of Indians should akshually only apply to Indians who are lower-caste than you never has the effect you probably hope for. Having gone to CS grad school, I've interacted with my fair share of both Indians running the whole spectrum from stereotypical Tamil Brahmins to mystery Punjabis in the IT office that all other Indians avoid, as well as people of other ethnicities (all sorts of SEA peoples) who are familiar with Indians and not bound by American taboos. I got to see multiple instances of the high-caste Indians running their mouth similarly to what you like doing; what then always happens is that (1) the SEA Indian connoisseurs would immediately pajeet-zone them, (2) the non-woke Caucasians, if they didn't already follow suit on their own, would take the cue from SEA; (3) the other high-caste Indians would do embarrassed we-aren't-all-like-that displays of contrition to the foreign audience. (Often also (4) the original guy would go on to be rejected by a string of Chinese girls and complain how it is terribly unfair.) The lower castes acting uncivilised, and the upper castes treating them as subhuman, are easily intuitively understood to just be different life stages of the same memeplex, toxoplasma style, even by people who had no exposure to the toxoplasma idea.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
20d ago
Default to use preferred pronouns. German print media is dominated by Green party sympathisers, which is basically the local offshoot of the US progressive movement.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
20d ago
Isn't the whole point of weed that it suppresses neuroticism, ambition and the feeling of pressure to perform? Alcohol might make you useless, but weed makes you be at peace with being useless.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
21d ago
For what it's worth, the German print media I see reporting on this (Zeit, Sueddeutsche) all prominently state that the shooter was trans, while also (as is the default for German media) using female pronouns and descriptors.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
22d ago
I think the "wanted to impress friends" story from some parallel comments is the most likely, but the "break-in in the making" one is at least like 5%.
"Up to no good" does not imply "extremely dangerous". Without firearms in the picture, a 12 year old girl is not going to be dangerous enough to warrant unconditional avoidance. Note that even if your preferred response would indeed be as you say, it is enough if some people would think as I do (this is a situation where you should confront while filming) to reduce the probability of the scenario the culture warriors wish for ("this video depends a rape by brown immigrant being narrowly averted") precipitously.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
22d ago
If I am going to have a less than completely friendly interaction with 12 year old girls, I am going to be filming everything start to finish, out of simple common sense self-preservation. Moreover, if there are 12 year old rowdy girls loitering with axes in my neighbourhood, I will in fact be seeking an interaction to figure out what that is about (and potentially report them to the police, based on what that interaction reveals). To not do so seems irresponsible to me - what are they going to do with that axe? Break into someone's house? Threaten someone? Hurt themselves?
It seems to me that some people analysing this incident are operating off of a mental model of the UK as some sort of zombie apocalypse movie setting, where it is reasonable for children to carry scavenged weapons if they have to go outside in broad daylight to defend themselves from the hordes.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
22d ago
I am not sure if the UK has any other demographics that some significant part of the population won't feel comfortable, or even compelled by their position, publicly expressing disdain for.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
26d ago
It would be interesting to know why this is. My intuition is that, if I picked up a mass-market piece of adventure literature with a girl protagonist, there would be a greatly increased likelihood of there being some point in the story where the dramatic arc is sabotaged in the way that is so typical of female-protagonist stories - like the heroine actually had the power to solve all the problems in her if only she realised her own worth, or there was a solution that involves using emotional intelligence and likeableness to dissuade the villain from his villainous ways instead of defeating him, or whatever. I would find this disappointing and anticlimactic, especially in literature of a tier so low that I have no expectation of the victory-by-leveraging-wonderfulness-of-women being written in a remotely interesting way. Could a similar line of expectations dissuade other prospective male readers?
Indeed, it doesn't seem like boys avoid e.g. the Metroid series of video games; even if the protagonist is revealed to be female, the genre guarantees that Samus will still only defeat the final boss by getting gud. I also do not get the sense that the fandom of wildbow's Worm (whose female protagonist does not get treated well by the universe at all) leans female.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
28d ago
I think the difference boils down to few people really thinking it is appropriate to treat universities, even private ones, like private companies. Considering how a university generally winds up hosting a large part of its students' entire lives, they are really more akin to landlords, power companies or ISPs, whose "editorial rights" to choose and un-choose their customers are greatly circumscribed.
(Before you call gotcha there, yes, I think it should be possible to force Christian, Jewish or Islamic universities to admit gay students. I think this should be especially possible if such universities become in any way dominant; I'm not so bothered by a single low-tier small Islamic school practicing full Sharia law, and wouldn't be bothered if there were a handful of designated low-prestige SJW schools that require any white students who join to undergo a humiliation ritual either, in the spirit of conservationism)
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
28d ago
What is a socially acceptable way to express anger? Is there such a thing when you're a child in school?
In my time, it was listening to angry music (rap or metal, with the two being pretty mutually exclusive; the metal-listeners would generally turn out to be more successful for reasons that I had a whole teenage pop psychology theory for that these margins are too small to contain), playing first-person shooters, or getting into internet flamewars (my palliative of choice). I don't know about acceptable ways that can be used right there, in the moment, in a social situation, that go beyond giving the target a death glare and maybe clenching a fist in your pocket; bottling anything that can't be dissipated with just that up for later is a life skill that just needs to be practiced.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
28d ago
· Edited 28d ago
Yeah, I think that looks like a pretty good mirror image, and the US Left would be quite justified in deporting him.
(Whether it would be a good tactical move is another question. The visibly pro-Right immigrants in the US can probably be counted on one hand, so chances are the Right would just see that, take the implied deal and later expel pro-Left immigrants with far less restraint even if it means all the other three pro-Right immigrants get expelled too)
(Why do you even think I would have personal preferences in favour of one of the tribes here? I'm a European who previously spent time in the US on a student visa, and if I went again and my motteposting somehow came to the attention of the DHS it would almost certainly be the Right kicking me out for the anti-Israel component of it if nothing else)
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
28d ago
This just looks like you are deliberately misinterpreting OP's point. Surely some random "factory company" in mid-Michigan is not where the "smartest, most ambitious people from all over the world" congregate to give America a strategic advantage. Instead, if we are talking about Indians, it's going to be the likes of Google, Microsoft and SpaceX. The Gemini whitepaper, for example, has plenty of Indian names on it.
The problems prospective workers at those companies (or people who may or may not enter as students, and then later would naturally go on to work there) face are not "anti-black racism on the internet" either, but onerous checks and arbitrary rejections in the visa process and at border controls and the perceived increased probability that you will be deported over a random tweet. Now, a red-blooded red triber will for sure be cheering if some Indian Googler who retweeted an "America is helping Israel establish neocolonial apartheid" tweet gets unceremoniously deported, but it is unlikely that any damage to American interests from that retweet is greater than his contributions to American tech dominance, and other potential Indian Googlers who would never even have retweeted such a thing will only see "our countryman was deported for capricious reasons".
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
29d ago
I don't understand why you are just ignoring the question - it wasn't intended as rhetorical.
Anyhow, my answer to this question is no, but as with many other things (e.g. war crimes, military invasions...) I would rather live in a world where 2+ competing parties do it than in one where only 1 party does it, even if having 0 parties do it is best.
To make it very explicit for the situation at hand: not punishing any researchers for opinions unrelated to their work is best, but punishing researchers of all teams for opinions unrelated to their work is second best. (Not even a distant second best - as a working scientist I honestly think the science community would be much improved if all scientists trying to play at being politicians or "public intellectuals" were summarily kicked out)
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
29d ago
Eh, this seems very dependent on whom you include under "Reds". If the actual (historical) Commies count as Blue, then surely their Yankee rivals should count as Red - and the Cold War era was rife with missionary wars to bring Democracy and Capitalism to other countries. You can stretch the line into the past all the way to Matthew Perry forcing Japan open to international trade, and into the future at least to Iraq, which was sold by its Red cheerleaders as Operation Iraqi LibertyFreedom. Now, you could argue that all the democracy-bombing was window dressing and each instance was actually motivated by hard geopolitical and economic interest, but then how do you disprove the same statement about the Commies? Isn't the best ideological window dressing one that the NPCs on your side fanatically subscribe to? Also, if you are fighting a civilisational battle, is ideological conversion even distinguishable from hard geopolitical interests?
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
29d ago
· Edited 29d ago
That is a reasonable approximation of my model of Blue Tribe.
Well, how is it not also a reasonable approximation of the Red Tribe also? The sad reality is that the quote really should go, "when I am weaker, I ask for freedom because that is according to the principles we all claim to have; when I am stronger, I take away freedom because that is according to the principles we actually all share".
The progressives, in their many years of relative weakness, had me bamboozled; I'm not inclined to repeat that mistake with the other camp now in the #resistance.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
29d ago
Man I thought woke cancel culture was insane in their assault on academic freedom and free speech on campuses but this seems to be going up a whole nother level.
In what way is it a higher level? The other camp has actually gotten people fired for expressing political opinions that seem pretty commensurate with the pro-progressive noises Terry has made. He is not even getting fired or having his career seriously threatened, but is just being subjected to some inconvenience (much greater for his students). Even the fallout to students is not without mirror precedent: at the US university where I did my PhD, a grad student I knew was prevented from graduating even with a different nominal advisor purely to put pressure on his advisor who got #MeTooed (in an incredibly fishy case) but was fighting back.
It is understandable that Terry is complaining (and, indeed, he owes it to his students to make this effort), but he has made his bed.
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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
30d ago
The fear that another Trump-esque administration will come to power and do the same thing again will surely remain.
I have a US mathematician friend who is entirely apolitical, but joined the DEI committee at his department (where he helped them implement DEI measures, screen applicants etc., not to mention the implicit lending of legitimacy) a few years ago out of the simple consideration that he was coming up for tenure review and it was a no-brainer to do this simple thing that would greatly improve his chances. There are, I figure, many cases like that. If it stops being a no-brainer career booster and starts being a gamble (will get favoured by the system, but might also get targeted for reprisal in the future if the wrong administration is in power), I imagine far fewer will go for it.
The implied proposition that raw/fresh plant-based food = healthy seems suspect to me. Several human populations historically either had no such foods available to them at all, or only seasonally (note that the overwhelming majority of our edible plants are, in evolutionary terms, very recent creations); it would be strange, and does not seem apparent from real-world evidence, if their health suffered for it.
If you are not dead set on raw vegetables, I found it quite easy everywhere I went in Japan to find teishoku places that would give you half a dozen small plates of stewed or pickled mystery sansai with your rice and tiny portion of grilled fish.
For your other examples - Thailand/SEA are among the few regions that have a long-standing native traditions of eating copious amounts of raw or minimally-cooked vegetables, Korea is just extremely far up America's memetic colon (while their native food culture is all carbs, fermented foods and meat), and if you ask for raw vegetables in China people (locals and me both) will still look at you like you have a death wish.
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