domain:greyenlightenment.com
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
11m ago
I'd be happy to take a look at yours if you share a link!
(Theft of Fire was great, the author needs one lit under his ass so he comes out with the sequel quick)
Lewis2
14m ago
Not a direct response to your question, but Leo created a bit of a stir in traditional Roman Catholic circles last week when he celebrated Mass ad orientem. Read into that what you will.
Lewis2
21m ago
even a connection to wokeness-writ-large seems strained
No, I think it’s very easy to place the blame squarely on wokism, especially given this detail:
The museum to the accomplishments and hardships of my ancestors had been "renovated". It now celebrated the fictitious diversity my town has always had.
Museum curators are 94% Democratic, and the newer generation seems quite gung-ho on inserting racial diversity everywhere. The New York Tenement Museum made the news a few years ago when it altered its core principles to change its focus from the Italian and Jewish families who actually lived there to celebrate a black Black family who didn’t. The Art Institute of Chicago made headlines around the same time for firing its entire staff of unpaid, highly educated volunteer docents because they were too white and hiring (and paying) a younger, more diverse crowd in their place (something several other museums also did, but without the attendant fanfare). In the city closest to my own hometown, the history museum has started replacing its old displays on the history of the area. With the changes, a first time visitor could be forgiven for thinking that the area’s history went 1) Native Americans, 2) Genocide, 3) Civil Rights, and 4) Immigration (2000–present), without anything of note in between. It’s a deliberate assault on the heritage of the people who actually built the city and made the area what it is today, and it’s entirely due to the wokeness of the museum staff.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
23m ago
I'm an early adopter of LLMs, but using them to "write" the thing would be counterproductive. If I had to give an estimate, less than 1%.
I use LLMs for:
- Editing
- Brainstorming
- Research
- As an alpha reader
Research is the big one. I remember, back in the GPT-4 days, I asked it to help make a certain Jamaican character's patois more realistic. Didn't think much of it, till six months later, when an actual Jamaican reader left a comment saying that he was really impressed at how authentic it was, and asked me if I'd asked a native speaker.
Writers are often advised to write what they know, and it's remarkable how easy it is to know more these days. I used to trawl Wikipedia articles and crib notes back in the day, now you can just ask an alien intelligence.
Hmm.. What else? There are half a dozen chapters I illustrated with the help of AI image generators. More of a novelty than anything, but it was super cool that it was even an option.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
34m ago
No.
(You're gorgeous)
grognard
Intel Pentium III 450 / Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra / Corsair 128MB PC133 / ABIT BH6
52m ago
Am I pretty?
anti_dan
55m ago
This post reminds me of the "His name was Robert Paulson" scene from Fight Club. Just a heads up.
naraburns
nihil supernum
58m ago
We do have much better video games now, though.
Very debatable, especially if you include the early 2000s.
I appreciate everyone taking the bait, but: I did say 1990s, I would not include the early 2000s (particularly since Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003) is still among the best-written CRPGs in history).
The Super Nintendo was indeed an excellent console with some timeless classics (FF4, FF6, Chrono Trigger, Seiken Densetsu 2 & 3, Super Mario World, Super Metroid) as well as foundations to future franchises (Mario Kart, Star Fox, Harvest Moon) and strong entries in others. The Nintendo 64 struggled but brought amazing first party titles (Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Super Smash Bros.) while the PlayStation brought mature themes and writing to new prominence. Final Fantasy 7 was a tour de force. No question: the 1990s were fire.
But almost every single franchise I've mentioned so far has stronger entries now. The Final Fantasy franchise has fallen off, but Expedition 33 is as good or better than FF7 along almost every axis but chocobo breeding and cinematic summons. Super Mario Galaxy (and its direct sequel) are better games than Mario 64, and Donkey Kong Bananza on the Switch 2 reinvents 3D platforming with equal aplomb. Red Dead Redemption 2 exceeds the writing, design, voice acting, etc. of basically every game that came before it. It's not just "better graphics," though it certainly has those. The Grand Theft Auto games from III to V were just one masterpiece after another. Even indies--you can argue that Stardew Valley lacks originality since it's just an evolution of Harvest Moon, and yet given a choice between Stardew Valley and the SNES Harvest Moon, I don't know anyone who would pick Harvest Moon.
I sometimes go back and play old games for nostalgia, but I almost always bounce off pretty fast. Some few games hold up surprisingly well but most just don't. We owe past developers a debt of gratitude for breaking new ground but the level of polish the years (and billions of dollars) have brought to the industry can't be ignored. Yeah, bad games get made, but that was always true. The best games of today are leagues ahead of the best titles developed in the 1990s, along basically every axis of comparison except pure originality (since originality was lower-hanging fruit in those days), and I don't even think it's close.
I didn't mean that there was no wokeness in museums, just that the "memorials being forgotten about in renovations" thing doesn't seem like an effect of it.
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