Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
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User ID: 214
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
That one is brutal. Gig Economy is certainly fun but I'll agree with you that it's not the best word to describe God-Shaped Hole. I had to include it because I think it's his best work. I've seen the never-ending rabbit hole of schizo links and tangents it includes criticized before but I loved them. Some are from actual news articles, some are made up, and you wind up clicking on random links and reading until you don't know what's real, what's fake, or how you got here.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
My observations from lurking around Art Twitter indicate that most artists, who are often but not always left-aligned, hate hate hate AI art. This may feel like I'm stating the obvious, since it's going to unfortunately invalidate many of their jobs overnight, but it shouldn't be understated.
There are a few strains of this. Some are denying the power of these new programs. Some in the replies indicate this guy is cherrypicking bad results, but even if StableDiffusion can't copy him 100% yet, the time until it's reproducing his art perfectly in seconds is here in less than five years, conservatively. This one is more in the acceptance stage of grief. This is from an art YouTuber that I quite enjoy and to summarize the tweet he essentially says it's here, it's good, it's probably over soon unless you're established.
From my limited perspective, AI Art is/is going to be maligned in online spaces and among journalists in the same way as Crypto and NFTs are. Big companies will adopt it, but they will be dragged for it by the online commentary class. I've seen the term "AI Art Bro" thrown around the same why as NFT Bro, which makes me a bit sad. The tech will be supremely disruptive in a way Crypto and especially NFTs can only gesture at being, but there are a lot of upsides to it, and I get the feeling that many people are dismissing it without giving the implications much thought because of the class of people they perceive as being most excited about it.
Personally, I think it sucks for the artists who get displaced, and they will be displaced, but it's good overall for everyone else who isn't an artist. Others have discussed how many doors it opens to have cheap, instant, bespoke art that you can dictate into a text document… Still, there's something deeply psychologically troubling about some code making something you base your identity on obsolete, so I do genuinely feel for them.
I think voice acting is one that's going to be hit soon as well. I look forward to this for similar reasons - how many games and productions are bottlenecked in quality/money by the high cost of voice acting? The outpouring of art we'll see from people who didn't have the resources beforehand is something that excites me.
To answer your prompt on tribe distinctions, this one might fall more on the growth/retreat split that was brought up by Ilforte. Retreat mindset focuses on artists losing their jobs and deepfakes allowing for misinformation. Growth mindset focuses on democratizing access to art and all the new doors opened by AI content.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
You're underselling the effect of these things because they're normal now, but we used to live in a world where on-demand entertainment meant picking one of 3 channels on TV whose content was made by very similar people. Hell, there was a world where to even own a copy of a book was a huge status symbol, because we didn't have a way of quickly copying them. The democratization brought by computers, the Internet, new tools, etc. has created a golden age of creativity.
In previous eras, if you wanted to be an artist, you needed a wealthy person to sponsor you. Now, open a Twitter or ArtStation account and get to work. If you are a writer with ideas too weird for publishers, you can get a following on Twitter and outsell most published authors. Musician? No need to sign a deal with a label anymore, just make good music and network. Interested in video? There's YouTube, TikTok, Vimeo, etc. Take your pick of media — books, games, short videos, fanfiction — it has either been improved by or invented as a result of new technologies. If your media is too samey, then that might be due to a lack of looking on your part.
My fear is we will turn us into mindless consumers, incapable of creating anything beautiful anymore, or even understanding the world around us.
Why is this? From my point of view new tech that democratizes creation is the best solution to those that would like to gatekeep and limit the range of acceptable thought. If people seem dumber now because of things like Twitter, I'd counter that the average person isn't much of a thinker anyway and you're just able to see them more clearly now.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
In fact creative people seem to be barely hanging on, against all odds.
They seem to be flourishing. It feels like every day I can find something new and amazing that I'd never heard about before. The problem is that there is too much good stuff out there right now, because as an individual you have limited free time and lots of responsibilities and goals.
Because the less you practice something the worse you become at it, and AI generated art doesn't give you a lot to practice.
I can see that. I still think art as a hobby will be widespread despite it not being economically viable. Art as a means to an end is where things get exciting. To give an example from my own life, I moved for work and started an online tabletop campaign with some friends of mine. This is normally something I'd do in person, but the situation is what it is. Moving online has its drawbacks but also gives me a lot of opportunities to increase the production value of my games with pictures and maps while we play. I'm not great at drawing and it isn't feasible to make that much art myself, but being able to generate it instead of hoping I can google an approximation of what I want to show? That's really exciting.
I just think the kind of people that would use to play music at your local pub, paint, or join a theatre group, increasingly just don't bother anymore, and that AI will only make it worse.
An overabundance of entertainment does make it easier to just consoom, but better tools and more time due to cheap/free labor from automation similarly frees up creatives to create. We'll have to see how it balances out. We used to have to have 9 farmers to support 1 non farmer. Better technology has turned that number on its head, and I would bet on it continuing to do so.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
I view it as more akin to the printing press, game development engines, digital art tools like photoshop — something that will increase creative output, not decrease it.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Thanks! I've heard the names of some before but often a mention on the motte is a good push to actually give something a read.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
I've been playing Rimworld, which feels appropriate given the circumstances. I did a run last year with Royatly installed, which was nice but felt more like a well-polished mod. This time I have Ideology installed, which makes the game feel complete, to put it simply. Being able to modify how colonists think with a dynamic ideology you can convert others to is both fun and feels true to what the game is trying to be. It's worth playing again with it installed if you've done one run but haven't been back to it.
I'm also running more mods than I've done before, at least on Rimworld. I'm quite into modding Bethesda games and have made a few simple mods for myself in Skyrim, and while that process has gotten more user-friendly over time, if you really want to get into it you're going to have to do a lot of reading and be prepared to get hands on with it. Rimworld's mod support is... shockingly good. Compatibility is rarely an issue as long as the mod maker has updated to the latest version of the game. It remembers your mod order for each save and will automatically regenerate it for you if it detects a difference. It's so nice.
Some of the standout ones are the Rimworld of Magic, Vanilla Expanded, Outposts, and Rim War. I did a tribal start which kneecaps your tech growth and is much tougher overall than a drop run. Combined with ideology it really feels like you're some group of tribals that has broken off and is doing its own weird thing. Rimworld of Magic interacts with Ideology so my tribe venerates magic and has a priestess that can awaken the spark of magic in colonists to let them eventually become one of the (overpowered) magic classes the mod adds. Extremely cool. I've teched to electricity but I've kept the colony electricity-free, letting magic serve our needs as we move through the midgame.
Outposts and Rim War gives you a dynamic, warring world to play around in and raid. One of my pawns has a spell that lets him teleport in our attack squad of powerful gun-wielding mages to annihilate rival resource outposts and colonies, forgoing the need to caravan over there. The magic is definitely OP but it feels like our small group's unique advantage that lets us punch above our weight despite the low numbers and lack of electric tech.
Still not near the victory condition yet. I might eventually get electricity, but we'll have to see. I may try to wipe out my rival tribe instead. Rimworld is proving to be one of my favorite games of all time at this rate.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
I have a buddy who was/is(?) still into the GME and AMC stuff. He tried to convince me that the mother of all short squeezes you mentioned would happen in about June of last year. I just told him to not invest what he couldn’t lose, etc. but it was troubling to see him constantly latching on to that and other cope excuses for why his meme stocks were not working out.
He isn’t well off and has a lot of issues in his life, most of them genuinely not his fault. It’s easy to scoff at what he’s doing, but I think the degenerate betting you see in the crypto/meme stock space is more rational than I first gave it credit for. If you’re a young man with little assets, no education, no girl, and no status, what do you have to lose if you make a terrible options play and go bankrupt, really? And what do you gain? Possibly a life free of working a shit job until your body gives out.
You might run the numbers and find that the odds are so low that it is not worth the risk. I’d tend to agree, but If you’re the type to run those numbers I’d bet you’re more likely to have something resembling a degree, stable job, and financial assets.
There are issues with those online communities you described but at their core they’re a place for young men who aren’t doing as well as they’d like to shoot the shit and find some camaraderie. We used to have wars, robust priesthoods, and high risk high reward jobs like whaling (we still have some jobs like this, not as many though) to deal with excess men. What pressure valve is there for excess men today?
I don’t think we should bring those things back, because most of those things are terrible. But men are disposable and for many the risk/reward of hustling crypto/NFTs/stocks does seem to make sense.
I'm convinced that the HODL meme is a sociopathic way for current bagholders to get others to raise the price of their investment to the ideal cash out point. Many of the people who bought at the bottom made out with lifechanging money.
A lot of them though, yeah. They're just idiots. I begged my friend to sell his Gamestop stocks at his buy-in price when the stock rallied back up to it, but he held on for the MOASS and is now in the red. I don't know what can be done to protect those types, short of just not allowing them to spend their money on stupid things, which opens up a new host of (worse) issues. As the adage goes, "a fool and his money are soon parted."
EDIT: I may be undervaluing the clout you get in these communities for HODLing and hanging on well past when you should have sold. For some people, the money may not even matter and it’s more about the clout and fun of fucking around with like minded men with a normally serious topic like investing. Again, not my thing, but for some that may be worth it.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
That makes sense to me. Last year I saw a Skyrim modding tool that let modders synthesize new voice lines from an AI that listened to and mimicked the lines of the in-game voice actors. It was rough but surprisingly solid, especially if you put in the time to chop up the lines by hand to make them flow better. I figured that if modders could do it (for free) then the actual industry must have something like that cooking.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Agreed. Mental stats are the unfortunate place where the fantasy of "you can be anyone" runs up against the reality of your real life "mental stats." It's not something you scream from the rooftops, but d&d is a cooperative roleplaying game, and your ability to depict the character you're playing matters. It's easy to abstract away swinging an axe or doing a fearsome war cry to the dice if you can't do those things but your character can. Coming up with a cunning plan or smooth-talking through an encounter... not as much.
The unfortunate result is that someone who freezes up when put on the spot simply cannot roleplay a suave rogue or bard as well as someone who can. Same goes for someone who, like you said, plays a 20 INT Wizard but can't memorize their spells. It's not like you need to be Bond or Einstein to play these characters — you just need to be able to approximate it well enough out of character that the other players can let their imaginations do the rest.
You could abstract things away to rolls like you said, but I find campaigns where that is the norm to be less engaged. If I have a bard as a player, I expect the player to be cracking wise and making rousing speeches instead of saying "I make a joke" or "I make a speech."
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
More digital ink should be spilled on the effect of the show Critical Role on the overall hobby. For those who don't know, Critical Role is a show run by voice actor Matt Mercer about him running D&D with a group of players who are all themselves actors. It is wildly popular, with each 4-hour episode pulling in an average of a million views, and has brought countless people into D&D. It is one of the big contributors to the game becoming as mainstream as it is.
The politics of the creators and its fanbase are easily identifiable. At risk of sounding low-effort, Matt Mercer's twitter bio contains both his preferred pronouns and a BLM hashtag. I say this because those things are symbols of commitment to specific ideas, and this is generally reflected by the show's fans. To see a very quick and simple example: look at this article, where the writer expresses her disappointment that a group of white players would publicly play in a fantasy setting based off of nonwhite cultures for their upcoming adventure. This line emphasizes both the lengths the creator goes to be racially sensitive, and the feelings of his audience.
Regardless of Mercer’s assurances that he and his team would be working with “professional cultural & sensitivity consultants” throughout the campaign, and that he would attempt to present certain aspects of languages and cultures “without appropriating them”, many were still concerned that it would still come across as a group of people engaging with cultural touchstones that they aren’t a part of.
This is not to say that Matt Mercer isn't liked by his audience, far from it. I'm simply trying to illustrate the general social and political leaning of him and his audience. If you want more examples, I can produce them.
I mentioned how the show has brought droves of fans to play D&D and join its comunity. To put it simply, you can't bring in such a huge number of people without it vastly changing the culture of the hobby. Like it or not, people who think like the writer make up a substantial amount of the playerbase for Dungeons and Dragons now, possibly the majority. This culture is endorsed and amplified by the creators of the game, Wizards of the Coast, who have the same politics. The racial controversy you bring up is a very natural and obvious result of this cultural shift coming into tension with the old culture of the game. If you're feeling like the hobby isn't as much for you anymore, that's because it probably isn't.
Many players are fleeing to stuff like OSR, where the gameplay tries to emulate an older era and the culture is resistant to changes like this. I still play D&D, but I use my own setting, add my own homebrew, use my own races, and most importantly run my own game. I use D&D for its rules, but since 5E is basically a combat simulator, so you have to do a lot of work to make the exploration and interaction robust.
But that's the fun of D&D and tabletop. You can do your own thing with your own people. It doesn't affect me what WOTC does with their races and published adventures, since I don't use those. If you don't know people or don't DM, the outlook is less rosy.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
The reason you ask for the player to roleplay his speech but not to describe his sword swing technique is because D&D is a game that exists in our heads. It is a real as the group believes it to be. That is to say, it can be very real, but this requires collective suspension of disbelief, engagement, buy-in, and yes — roleplaying. You aren't taken out of the collective fantasy by your fighter's player not knowing how to swing a sword, but you are by the player who is supposedly the high Charisma party face clamming up whenever an NPC speaks to him.
I don't have an issue with such players being at my table, and in my experience they tend to avoid those kinds of characters anyway. You don't need a silver tongue to be able to play a charismatic character, but you need to have some degree of wit and charm. If a player wants to give a speech, I'm not exactly expecting St. Crispin's Day, but he should have something to say.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Tactile for me is the feeling of taking off wet socks or of sitting by a fire/bundling up in warm clothes and blankets when it's cold inside. Nothing like it.
I don't know if I'm relaxed by scents per se, but specific scents tend to act as memory triggers for me. The pomegranate Burt's Bees chap stick takes me mentally to early college, since that's what I would use a lot back then. I had bought this white tea and sage candle and had it going while I was playing Elden Ring a few months ago, so now that's the Elden Ring scent.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Sure, especially if the player is less comfortable speaking in first person, or is performing something like a song that would take a long time to devise. I have a preference to first person roleplaying, but in the kind of example you gave the player is clearly demonstrating engagement and knowledge of what's going on, so it's all good to me. I take umbrage more with doing away with all of that and just rolling the dice in social situations.
Think "my character sings a song" vs "my character sings this folk song with specific themes that he uses to subtly mock the hostile lord."
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Now that Order of the Stick has entered the CW thread, I'll say that I always think of Xykon's legendary "power equals power" monologue to V whenever someone on here discusses conflict theory or institutional capture.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Any Fire Emblem people here? A new mainline game was finally announced this Tuesday, Fire Emblem Engage. It's been over three years since Three Houses released, unless you count the Dynasty Warriors game, which I don't.
There have been comments on the main characters' split color look. Specifically, his/her resemblance to the colors of a specific toothpaste brand. The character design has grown on me, but the clowning is well-deserved. The character designs of many of the side characters are more concerning for me, as many look like generic gacha fantasy art at first blush. I'll have to see them in more detail and how they grow on me. The game looks like it takes many leads from Awakening and Heroes, for better and worse.
Notably, it doesn't seem to have a route split, which the last two new (original) games did, and also seems to be rolling back some of the focus on the Persona elements of Three Houses. I'm lukewarm on route splits, since it's often obvious after you've played the routes where compromises in design and quality had to be made to support them. I liked the Monastery in Three Houses, but know it's not for everyone.
I'm also interested in how it will be built around permadeath. If you don't know, it is a staple mechanic in Fire Emblem that if a unit hits 0 HP, they die and are not usable for the rest of the campaign, unless you reload the map of course, potentially losing an hour of progress. You're supposed to play to keep your units alive and if someone is going to die, it better be for a damn good reason, because you won't have them for the rest of the run. Early games in the franchise drowned you with tons of recruitable characters with little personality to act as replacements, though you were still incentivized to keep your best alive as the replacements are often worse.
This mechanic has become more and more vestigial as time has gone on and the games add more RPG elements, to the point where it added nothing in Three Houses and actively tanked its storytelling. In a game with a small cast that puts a lot of focus on the story and relationships of each member, it kind of ruins the experience that only 3 of them can ever appear in cutscenes to account for the fact that the player may have lost them. It's... quite terrible, honestly, and I hope the devs re-evaluate the mechanic if they continue to go in that direction. On the other hand, I have nothing against permadeath as long as the game is built around it. I'm expecting Engage to be like Conquest, which in theory has permadeath but does not design around it at all.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Depends on the game. The shorter ones you can probably finish in 25 hours or so. Most probably clock in closer to 50-60, and Three Houses can take you 90 if you're being thorough. The newer ones have mechanics that let you rewind turns a limited number of times per map to make up for mistakes. If you're emulating, and you will be for most of the older entries, you can savestate scum to your heart's content.
If you're looking to play one, a safe bet would be emulating Sacred Stones, which is excellent. If you like RPGs, start with Three Houses. If you're big on strategy games and don't mind holding your nose during anything story related, play Fates Conquest.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
There was a comment on the reveal trailer saying "this looks like it will be either an instant classic or feel like a mobile game" and I couldn't agree more. I'm trying to withhold judgement until I play it, but the character designs do leave something to be desired.
I actually got into the series with Three Houses as well! I downloaded it the day before release in anticipation of a 12-hour car ride and was not bored for a second on that trip. I've been working my way around the series over the last three years. You should give Echoes or Sacred Stones a shot if you liked Three Houses and are interested in playing another. Echoes is fully voiced and has some of the best art direction in the series. The story is simple but the presentation and details make it something special. Sacred Stones has really nice art and animations if you like the GBA pixel art. Great characters, solid map design, and good story.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
My favorite character designs overall are in Genealogy and Three Houses. Certain characters in Awakening and Fates, like Robin, Tiki, Selena, Oboro, Niles. The heroes art for most of the Genealogy characters modernized their designs really well, even if it took away from some of that sick 90s artstyle.
After a trailer featuring ghosts as equipment?
Heh. If this is what it takes to get Sigurd in an English release...
Regarding permadeath, if the games are going to put a lot of work into the supporting cast as 3H did, then they should allow for some ludonarrative dissonance and let all of them show up in cutscenes and have a role in the story even if they "died" in battle. It is... frustrating to have characters as important as Seteth, Felix, Ingrid, and Sylvain barely do anything in the story. They should just write the story and let the supporting characters have actual roles and show up in cutscenes as if they hadn't died, even if losing them locks you out from using them. Basically, your second guess.
Some of the older games, mainly the Marth titles and Binding Blade, really make the mechanic work. More characters than you could ever use, so you tend to play past mistakes unless you lose someone really important. Few characters have any story to miss, so you don't feel like you're locking yourself out of important content by saving over their death. If the meat of the game is in its supports though, you're always going to be incentivized to reload on a character death, which just feels bad.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Definitely a lot of Genshin in the DNA of the art. I’ll probably get used to it thought
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Criminal justice reform can be somewhat of a snarl phrase because it’s generally used by people who seem to not believe in prison as a concept, or more charitably, are blank statists enough that they believe almost everyone can and should be rehabilitated with enough time and effort.
I’m not really in that camp and think we can and should lock people up for as long as we need if they’re violent menaces to others. That said, prison conditions in the US are appalling and I get extremely uncomfortable when people righteously gloat about how a criminal will be violently raped in prison as retribution for his crimes.
Someone who goes to prison for a minor or nonviolent offense often finds himself joining up with a prison gang just to have protection. Once you’re out, your criminal record hurts your employment chances, but it’s okay because you just networked with a group of hardened criminals… it’s like we designed the system to both maximize suffering and crime.
I’ve seen a few suggestions for reform on here that I really like. One was from a rather controversial user who used to post here named Penpractice, who suggested public corporal punishment instead of jail time for minor offenses. Basically, humiliate and let the criminal resume his life, rather then send him to prison to meet worse criminals.
I like this idea, but since I don’t believe the optics of this could survive for a minute in the US, a better solution came from 2cimirafa, who basically said “keep violent offenders in prison until they’re 60 and give them fast food and video games to keep them humanely fat and sedated.” If that could survive the inevitable Republican swipe of “Democrats want to buy Playstations for every felon in prison” it seems to be a good idea. Keeping violent offenders comfortable and sedated and off the streets should cut down on violence for prison guards, less hardened prisoners they would prey on, and of course the average person.
Obviously, both ideas would take a lot of work from concept to execution, but they seem a lot better than the current system.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
I was a bit unclear with the "until they're 60" line I was quoting, but I'm fully for locking that type of offender up for the rest of their natural life with no chance of parole. If I related to the victims, I would probably want blood, but there are other considerations beyond personal satisfaction. Locking him up this way ensures he's never able to harm an innocent citizen again and lowers the likelihood of him person harming the people who have to live with or guard him in prison. In a world where we could 100% verify guilt without bias, I have no issue with the death penalty, but for practical reasons I'm against it.
The others probably shouldn't be jailable offences to begin with.
How should we punish comparatively minor offenses? I think we should come down hard on crimes that don't produce a body like thievery and armed robbery since they lower trust and make people feel unsafe, even if the objective harm they have is minor compared to some white-collar crimes. Just because I don't want those people around doesn't mean I want them to face constant prison violence, though.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
I do a combo of Roth IRA + the lazy portfolio 3-way split. I'm avoiding looking at the numbers as of late so as not to stress out since they're investments for the very long term. I don't really do individual stocks or options since I don't value my financial predictive ability that highly. I recently broke that rule and tried crypto trading and wound up with universal losses, though fortunately I only used a relatively small amount of play money to buy in. This has only reinforced my personal rule to stick to long-term stuff and not try to beat the market.
Some fun ones:
The Three Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin, though the third book isn't nearly as good as the first two. These consumed a week of my life as I was unable to put them down.
Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday. Nonfiction story of how Peter Thiel took down Gawker through Hulk Hogan. You can probably finish this in a single sitting or day.
There is No Antimemetics Division by qntm. Webfiction, though I think you can buy it as a physical book now. If you're into rational fiction you've probably heard of or read this one.
God-Shaped Hole and The Gig Economy by Zero HP Lovecraft. I'd put this in a similar genre to the Antimemetics series, though the authors are on opposite poles of the ideological spectrum. God-Shaped Hole is quite NFSW, just a warning.
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