sohois
1d ago
I can't say I got this joke, although I did chuckle a bit at the sudden introduction of nuking Israel
sohois
3d ago
But this applies just as much to left wing parties. The Democrats are also a ragtag coalition with often contradictory single issues and leadership that is composed of the useless or corrupt.
sohois
3d ago
I know a lot of people here still consider Israel an “ally” or at least a neutral country in the grand scheme of things. Do these midterm results change your opinion? Do they shift you toward seeing Israel as a dangerous “enemy within”?
In what sense is a country having their own goals and desires a cause for them to be neutral or even an "enemy within"? In the UK, you'll find plenty of right wingers who grumble about the so-called "special relationship" with the US, remarking that the relationship appears to be entirely one-sided, the UK doing anything the US wants while getting very little in return. And plenty of these people advocate for a more independent relationship because of that, which is fine. But absolutely none of these people will declare that the US is an "enemy within" just because they seek to gain things from the alliance.
sohois
4d ago
But you can say the same for the various national and supra-national organisations that you proposed had a binding effect on power. While the EU or supreme courts might protect some progressive causes, in actual fact nations can leave the EU, or pack the supreme court, and then get away with all kinds of right-wing policies.
I suppose you could argue that there would still be some blowback risk as has happened with the likes of Duterte and Bolsanaro, but if you were dealing with a genuine socialist/communist leader the blowback would probably be them getting assassinated mid rule so it evens out
sohois
9d ago
I'll echo the point Poplar made below: surely there are parts of the motte diaspora that can be asked for promotion to bring in some new voices?
Who knows if Scott would be willing to throw us a mention, but even without a direct nod mods could probably go into some of the Open Thread comments and make some advertisements for new users.
And the various substack spin-offs, would none be willing to throw the motte a bone? I don't really know who has become well read outside of TracingWoodgrains, but maybe someone else has paid more attention. (I guess trace is a no go given he stormed off last time he posted here and doesn't even post as Trace anymore, not here, at the schism, or at rdrama)
sohois
11d ago
Idk
If we're still naming groups of people that have those beliefs, sounds like you want in with the transhumanists and brain upload people
sohois
13d ago
I think then that this perspective would find a lot of support among the doomers, where there is a notable faction that believes highly advanced AI should never be developed.
sohois
13d ago
I'm not sure I entirely understand the purpose of this scenario. You are suggesting that we would create an essentially friendly AI, but then provoke a conflict with it by attempting to shut it down?
I don't believe I've ever read such a specific scenario; it seems like this is already included in the category of "AI that refuses to be turned off", which to LW types is already an unaligned AI. So I would imagine they'd say there's no point looking at such a particular scenario as they have already suggested that a resistance to being turned off is a danger.
sohois
14d ago
I'm going to agree with some of the posters below that they aren't really a good example of Go woke, Go broke. I don't think Anthem had any elements like that, and I understand Andromeda's weaknesses were all just garden variety bad writing. It's only Veilguard where it became insufferably woke - much more "roll hard left and die".
The actual issue is summed up by the fact that there are only 3 titles to even discuss. In the 7 years between Mass Effect and DA: Inquisition, they released 7 major titles, including an MMO. They managed 3 in the 12 years since then, and all of them flopped. Doesn't need anything more than that.
Because Google Docs already exists.
There are already free versions of all these. All of these are probably going to get better a lot quicker, but they still won't do the enterprise stuff that gets the big subscriptions
edit: this comment was made without seeing Brainwavez reply. Great minds, etc.
sohois
16d ago
I'm going to echo one of the below comments and state that reverse engineering has gotten good, but that's a long way from perfect. The various photoshop and office clones out there do a great job of looking convincing, but the reverse engineering is only skin deep.
And none of this should be a surprise, as these tools have been developed over decades with hundreds if not thousands of people contributing. That you can run Astra or Opus for a weekend and get 80% of the way there is pretty incredible, and some skeptics using the fact that they aren't 100% to say AI is rubbish is an incredibly stupid argument.
The pareto principle still applies though, and I don't think (assuming AI just stopped advancing, which it won't) this would change software that much. Maybe 1-2 months of tinkering with your agents would get you basically feature complete for all the big stuff on a photoshop, but then the rest is going to be 10000 little things that have been added in over the decades and will take ages to discover and implement. 99% of these vibe projects are going to lose interest after the first week and go nowhere. Enterprises will continue to use the big SaaS programs, and you'll see some more niche stuff switch more to internal builds. (again, assuming AI didn't keep advancing. What will actually happen is in 6 months - 1year they will be pretty much perfect and software will cease to exist)
The big impact is likely going to be the cloud coming for even more software, especially in gaming. Reverse engineering is difficult, because you only have the software's surface to inspect. Decompiling a local application is a different ballgame and I think, even if direct game streaming remains a niche, a lot of games are going to shift some parts of their functions into the cloud, to tie games to internet access and prevent them from simply being copied straight away.
sohois
17d ago
While I think it is true that Western game developers have ceded a market in terms of making gooner games for teenage boys, I'm not sure that this is that important in the grand scheme of things. Hades 2, afaict, was still extremely successful. If you look at all the examples you provide, they are all big brands like Halo or critically acclaimed like Tomb Raider or Mass Effect.
Games like Concord and Hyenas, meanwhile, were mediocre attempts to enter into dead genres. Do you think it would have made a difference if Concord had some hot women characters? Maybe it would have lasted 2 weeks instead of 1.
This is not to say that there aren't some big titles which seem to go out of their way to antagonize chuds with particularly unpleasant and ugly characters, particularly female. Sony seem to revel in this across their different developers. I would guess that this is causing long term damage to their various IP. But that doesn't mean that games like Hades won't be successful even with some dodgy character design decisions
sohois
19d ago
If I might steelman the design of Medea, and the wider concept of 'safe-horny' for a moment:
That twitter post is standard internet hyperbole, but that doesn't mean that the Medea design isn't hot. This is clearly an attractive character, and the AI redesign makes her more titillating, not necessarily more attractive. What it also does is changes the feel of the character. I've not played Hades 2 so don't know this character's role but if I saw the latter, it would instantly strike me as temptress/romance option. The former is more neutral and doesn't set expectations of what the character should do. More widely, the AI design instantly codes as male/teenage bait, and could be off-putting for other audiences. There's a big commercial drive for horniness* to be done in a 'safe' way.
What is the purpose of sexy designs and horny material in games? Unless you're playing Sex with Futa Hitler 2:Goebbling Cock, it is generally not for players to drop their controllers and start masturbating. Sex can be an important part of romance in games. Lust more generally is an important part of the human condition. 'Safe horny' allows you to make use of this in your games and storylines without casting the game instantly into the pornography bucket.
The same exact mechanism is visible in film. There is pornography, and film, and there are plenty of films that straddle the line between the two. Long before woke there has always been criticism of films that rely on crude sexual imagery as being "literal pornography" or "material for teenage boys". At the same time, there are films that are far more explicit which are still considered high art because they are handled in a very 'adult' manner.
To be fair, 'safe horny' typically eschews the overt sexuality that films can get away with; there's still some way to go in how games can present this kind of material. But the important thing for most creators is probably getting away from that 'teenage boy' category while still presenting something that says "this is a hot character and you can have sex with them".
The first Hades did this very well. A character like Megaera is not typically attractive, with harsh facial features. She's also the ex of the main character and a lot of her dialogue is romantic in nature. So how do you get people horny when you're dealing with a character that is practically ugly to look at? Just give her the most sensual voice imaginable. Instantly, the designers have found a way to horny that doesn't rely on shoving tits in your face.
Compare that with something like the FF7 remake. Here we do have Tifa's tits shoved in your face, but as a scene it's pretty teenage**. It's like an anime beach scene, with a flustered protagonist and no actual suggestion of sex, beyond "Hey look at these fat tits and hot bodies".
Imagine a situation where you were playing one of these games in front of a wife or girlfriend. Or recommending to a colleague. I think the majority would feel more comfortable with Hades, despite the fact that the actual content of Hades is more sexual, more mature, than FF7.
i think this is the steelman, that 'safe horny' allows you to communicate and use sexuality in a game without bringing the baggage of 'teenage boys' (and I use teenage boys specifically, because it's not male sexuality that it should be blocking).
That's the steelman, but the reality is that while Hades 1 did was able to tread this fine line, Hades 2 largely fails. Medea, who isn't super hot by any means, is pretty much the only hot character. Hades 1 had hot characters where needed, unique characters where needed, and plain characters where needed. Hades 2 has a bunch of uggos and ridiculous designs like disabled gods. They went so far they completely failed to signal horniness.
*I appreciate that there a few games like Overwatch where the pornography has become an active selling point, but I don't think this is something you can aim for; lots of games have had casts of hot women without getting the impact of OW.
**which isn't a problem inherently. FF7 was a game for teenage boys and not everything needs to be super sexual. The scene is suitable in terms of the rest of the game.
sohois
19d ago
I think Miranda was very much a case of design and/or tech failures meaning Bioware didn't achieve the desired look for her, rather than them actively deciding to make her look plainer
sohois
19d ago
I want to step aside from the controversy here and ask if the lead artist of a series that's pretty much the poster boy (or poster man if you prefer) for safe horny really called Gen Z? Did she adopt this as a deliberate nom de plume?
sohois
19d ago
Boxing seems much more driven specifically by the US having no good heavyweights during that time. If there was an American even at the level of an Anthony Joshua it would probably be way bigger
sohois
23d ago
It's certainly a strange inclusion when you look at the rest of the anime list, but if you look at top X lists for media in general it doesn't stand out.
Every publicly voted top list is always a mix of "reddit picks" with actually good content, typically biased towards the former. You need the right set of circumstances for the good stuff to break through, which most properties miss out on. To use a few examples of Anime which are far superior to anything in that list:
- Legend of the Galatic Heroes is too old. Recency bias is a big thing
- Berserk is both a bit too old and suffers from association with many far inferior adaptations
- Mob Psycho is too out there, not quite accessible enough for a general audience
Frieren manages to be recent, high quality in every aspect*, and not too off-putting for a more general audience. Maybe it doesn't trouble your personal top 10, but then none of MALs list would trouble the top 10 of a discerning viewer.
A unique factor for MAL in particular is the tendency for some shows to blow up in popularity and fall off just as quickly - though in part due to competitive voting from different fandoms. The FMA fandom is notorious for voting down anything which threatens its position at the top of MAL (at least until Frieren broke through). I recall shows like Oshi no ko suddenly claiming the top spot, before a combination of a mediocre follow-up with agressive down voting took it off. For this reason, I would be stunned if Re:zero managed to cling on
*I haven't actually watched the anime, I have only read the manga. The manga is excellent, and I understand that the anime is a well done adaptation
sohois
24d ago
Is that going to matter? Trump cares primarily about himself, and maybe to an extent his family members. Does he give a shit about his various hangers-on, the Republican party, or even the US in general?
I would be very surprised if he even bothered to offer support for a Vance campaign, let alone anyone else. Maybe if it came with some form of bribe, but candidates can't offer much until they're elected. Perhaps one of his sons running would bring him out, but Trump loyalty wouldn't be enough to prevent them getting destroyed.
And that's putting aside the question of his increasing senility.
sohois
27d ago
I read a lot of web serials, which I would estimate are >95% male written (the Royal Road kind, not the fanfic or gay romance kind).
One thing I can say for certain is that if there is a female protagonist, she will always be a lesbian, or "bisexual" but basically all romance is with other women. I assume this is because it's icky to imagine a man hitting on your character, but it does get a bit ridiculous.
I don't know if this applies to professionally published works, I would assume not.
But you are in fact playing it on PC, and emulation is provided on the assumption that people are ripping legal copies of the game (and morally you could purchase a copy then download a ready to use version for your emulator I suppose)
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