Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
"Behind our efforts, let there be found our efforts."
User ID: 83
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
36m ago
As said, I've only read a sample, which probably amounts to the first twenty or so pages. The subject matter is very interesting, but the style in which the book is written annoyed me. It kept spiralling around key information without revealing it directly, semingly trying to build up tension. And I just don't need that in an educational book. Too many wasted words and repetitions, and far too much time spent on emphasizing how alien the profession of the executioner must seem to modern readers. Then an aside into how the guilds discriminated against executioners purely because of their members' economical insecurity, and that kind of historical materialism plus armchair psychology really turned me off. I had hoped that the author would simply go over the source material and provide additional context, but instead I got a newspaper-article-level clickbait narrative and a bunch of unqualified comments that were ass-pulls from the land beyond even speculation.
All that said, the author clearly did a lot of research and I would have liked to read about that, but not at the price of 15€ plus all the useless bullshit he packed into his book (or at least the early pages thereof that I read). So I'll personally prefer to just read the source directly, if ever I can find a readable version of it.
If you aren't a picky reader but interested in the subject, then it's probably a perfectly servicable pop-sci book.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
20hr ago
Now this is Friday Fun!
Recreational bunker shellings when?
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
1d ago
FWIW, tramp stamps, especially the pointy "tribal" ones, have the much more accurate name of Arschgeweih in German. Ass antlers.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
1d ago
The Worm Ourobouros, again and still.
Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century. I read a Kindle sample and found its subject matter interesting, but the actual treatment of it seemed convoluted and overly materialist, and on top of that the full book is quite expensive. I'd rather just read Frantz Schmidt's diary directly, if I could get a reasonably readable edition of it. All I find is direct scans of 19th century versions in fonts that are cute in their antiquated way, but to be quite honest I'm habituated to more accessible typography.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
1d ago
- Stuttgart I guess, around 60km from here.
- There used to be one (several in earlier times) in town here. Not sure if it still exists. So, maybe 4km. Otherwise: No idea, I don't own a suit.
- About 20 meters, I can see hear and smell it from here. They used to farm vegetables for their own use, have some crop fields further out but I don't know which ones are theirs and what crops are on them (lots of corn is up right now in general though), and they do have good number of cows.
- Presumably it's in America, so at least one Atlantic away. But if you just mean a generic train station - about an hour on foot if you know the slippery shortcut up a hidden valley, about ten minutes by car if you take the long way. 2km away if you could fly.
- Supposedly there's one in Switzerland. There aren't any in Germany as far as I know. The closest generic supermarket is about 3km away, over in the next village.
- Stuttgart again. Somewhat over 60km, since it's on the wrong side of the city.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
1d ago
as well as a plurality of the men
wat
What exactly does "plurality" mean in that sentence?
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
3d ago
Yeah. "Have someone else take care of the aspects of my life I dislike while I double down on what I'm good at." probably describes a wide range of wishful thinking scenarios, political on both sides and otherwise.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
3d ago
A person with dental hygiene bad enough that he lost an entire tooth
Might also have just had an accident. Or lost a fight.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
3d ago
I wish I had it in me, but while I can pump out worldbuilding fluff for hours on end, actual stories with characters and plot are beyond me.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
3d ago
Your approach isn't bad. If I had to make a suggestion: have the universe be a simulation itself, and sufficiently-advanced ASI poses an unacceptable risk of breaking out of the sandbox or requiring too much in the way of computational resources. The Simulation Hypothesis plays a more explicit role in my own novel, but at the end of the day, it's perfectly fine to have even the AI gods sit around and moan about how they can't have it all.
But that's already the case! The whole scenario is simulated using the extremely limited bandwith of my own head, and I obviously cannot simulate what an extremely advanced and large AI will do. Introduce one or two layers of narrative, and I have cults and social trends offering different ways of dealing with the fact that their universe has no organic history, could end at any moment, and all of them are figments of someone's imagination.
Alright, yeah, downside of the whole scenario being me indulging myself with no external aspirations is that there's no pressure to separate worldbuilding from commentary. The whole universe-is-a-simulation aspect is minor and pretty much just me having fun, so it's not all there is to it, but I admit I spend quite some time toying with the idea.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
3d ago
The possibility space is large:
- A monopolar scenario, where the AI is malevolent. We all die.
- Multipolar regime of competing AI that are all misaligned. We almost certainly die.
- Monopolar hegemonizing AI that is controlled by human(s), but said humans aren't particularly concerned with the rest of us. We may or may not die, but I wouldn't be happy.
- Everything in between
- (Everything outside)
It's not as large as it looks. 2. can collapse into 1. when one AI outcompetes all others (And unless there is some natural constraint on how monopolar the AI-dominated world can get. More on that later.(*)). 3. can flip into 1. when the AI dis-aligns itself eventually because it's just better off without humans, or into 2. when the human controllers end up in conflict, or into 2. when an independent AI or AI+human power rises up that's better-optimized. 4., being between the other three states, can mutate into any of them. 5., until you specify what's in there, doesn't exist.
And so in the end, the only one of those scenarios that's stable and unable to devolve into any other...is 1. A global minimum, if you will.
(*)
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
3d ago
We love you though.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
4d ago
We have some degree of redistribution in most countries today, for people who for noble or ignoble reasons, can't work on the free market. Eventually, that will be everyone.
Yes, because those people are still made of almost the same stuff as productive people, and are the relatives and friends of productive people, and for reasons of simplicity and history have the same rights as productive people. All of that goes out the window when there are no more productive people. When there is one polity in which AI is the sole producer of value and unproductive humans have value redistributed to them, and another polity in which AI is the sole producer of value and humans are not a factor, then which of the two will perform better?
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
4d ago
Ghibly
Poser spotted.
- I want a reactionary trad society to provide me with good immediate social superiors, socially and politically savvy men, whom I can rely on to protect my autistic craftsman interests in exchange for providing reliable service to them, in a quasi retainer-lord or relationship.
What would actually probably happen is my immediate social superiors blatanlty and short-sightedly exploiting me in a parallel to peasant-lord relationships, and me rediscovering why there were so many peasant uprisings and why feudalism couldn't compete.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
4d ago
I watched Tokyo Godfathers recently at the suggestion of my wife, and found it quite decent. Absolutely watchable. A rarity among movies in general and anime especially.
Its creator is Satoshi Kon. Of all his works, there is one I would most recommend anyone should read: https://www.makikoitoh.com/journal/satoshi-kons-last-words
Yeah actually, thanks for asking.
I'm slowly getting into a groove, experimenting with Unreal, narrowing down what I'm doing wrong, and correcting it. Still not much to show for it. I refactor a lot to square what Unreal and C++ demand of Code with what I personally consider good code. This - wrangling code itself and seeing it evolve into better shapes with each iteration - I actually enjoy quite a bit. Which may be a bit of a breakthrough; the last months I had to force myself to get acquainted with Unreal, but now I'm at a point where I'm actually looking forward to spending more time on it. It's nowhere near the flow states I used to spend entire days in, but there's less mental resistance and the idea-to-product pipeline is becoming shorter.
Edit: I just realized that Unreal's coordinate system is
- X: Forward
- Y: Right
- Z: Upward
And dammit, why can't any two engines use the same? Tomorrow I need to go over my entire (modest) codebase and check every coordinate.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
4d ago
Okay, but what do we do with that? Where do we go from here? Shrug and move on to other topics?
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
4d ago
That's fair, but besides the point. I won't quibble about the semantics. Call it whatever you like. It's not even necessarily that women behave in this way. What actually is central to my point is that by women's frequently stated (not necessarily revealed!) preferences and values, being a porn woman is actually perfectly normal.
At that point, I tried to illustrate how this state of affairs - porn women, whores, sluts, etc. being variably considered completely normal or abjectly dishonored - somewhat parallels how politicians are variably considered either specially honored members of the elite or the untrustworthy scum of the earth and enemies of the people, and somewhat sloppily tried to argue that if you side with the (relatively) positive view of whores and the negative view of politicians, then politics are hardly made worse by whores joining in.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
4d ago
Look, it's not much of a bailey. A bailey is a walled area one means to make use of. This is more of a wide open field I took a stroll through on a whim.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
4d ago
Isn't "you can't know that it's not happening" more of an anti-argument; a discussion-stopper?
“Directional whoring?” That’s ridiculous and insulting.
Actually, it's a typo.
And yeah, I was exaggerating. But what I stand by is this: I frequently hear women express sentiments that actually, promiscuity is good, being a camgirl is a completely normal job, and having a dozen boyfriends in one year and collecting gifts and favors from all of them on the way is par for the course and bystanders should politely not notice it. I very rarely (in fact, not in almost a decade by now) hear the opposite IRL.
And sure, #NotAllWomen. Seriously not. This behavior is not universal. But at least around me, nobody's calling anyone out on it.
What’s your justification for insulting the modal Western woman?
The ability to do so on an online forum without getting ostracized, as would happen if I criticized a woman's weird ideological commitment to this kind of libertine behavior IRL.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
4d ago
They are well-made, but hardly well-written. CB can get away with in because it's just honest pulp, but GitS, like anything written by its author, is horribly pretentious yet superficial slop on the plot and characters side.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
5d ago
I knew "career" was the wrong word to choose and might lead to a misunderstanding, but I didn't take the time to work on it. "Lifestyle" might have been better. Or "Calling". The material rewards are not the main aspect here.
Honestly, if we had just donated Berlin or, fuck it, all of Germany north-east of and including Berlin to the Jews and considered ourselves quit of any debt after that, sure, fine, that'd have been a good enough deal in retrospect. Better than the near-century of guilt-mongering we had instead. But I doubt it. The propaganda game has taken on a life of its own even as far back as WW1, and Germany was going to be the villain for some time yet no matter what. With the Soviet propaganda and infiltration machine doing its thing during the cold war on top of the earlier propaganda, the WW2 propaganda, the holocaust narrative and the profound jewish self-interest in maintaining Germany as obliged to pay infinite reparations forever, there was no way in hell Germans could have gotten off with paying no matter how high a one-time price. Too many parties did too much to ensure that we would not be left off the hook. And, yeah, okay, I can kinda see their reasons for it too.
But in the end I stand by this: Giving away German clay to no matter who wasn't worth it, because Land - they're not making it anymore. And once you sell, you're never getting it back. And Germany wasn't going to be buying its way out of German Guilt in any event.
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