domain:felipec.substack.com
OliveTapenade
18m ago
It's possible he thinks that way, or even that he just thinks that owning the character and account is what matters. I suppose one could make a comparison here to his companies: he presumably thinks of himself as designing or making cars or rockets, even though almost all of that is done by lower-level employees. Likewise he may think of himself as playing PoE2 even though almost all of it is done by a lower-level contractor.
To be honest the impression I've gotten with regard to Musk and gaming is that he just doesn't understand how gaming works. That PoE2 YouTuber, as I recall, pointed out that what Musk claims to have done is mathematically impossible - he could not have reached that level in the game in the amount of time available. It's not doable. But I would not be surprised if Musk believes that sheer skill can accelerate one's progress in the game. Is it possible that he just doesn't understand how grinding works?
I suppose I think that he has very surface takes on games. I remember when he claimed that chess was too simple and Polytopia was better. Not only does that tell me that he doesn't know much about chess, it also tells me that he doesn't really know much about Polytopia, which is a quite simple 4X that can be mastered relatively quickly, and which did not hold much interest for serious 4X players. On the surface Polytopia looks more complex than chess, because it has more widgets to manipulate, but in terms of strategy it has less depth. What this tells me is that Musk probably played Polytopia for a few hours, maybe even a few dozen hours, but has never deeply familiarised himself with the genre.
I suspect that Musk finds the idea of gaming interesting, and is enchanted by the idea of being a hardcore gamer, but he is what we used to call a casual.
There's nothing wrong with being a casual. Casual gaming is a great way to spend your time. But a casual who wants to be seen as hardcore, doesn't have the skill, but does have the money... well, that's just cringeworthy.
gattsuru
29m ago
Technically, two furry versions, though you have to go into settings for Bad Rudi. Tbf, they're both obnoxiously monofocused and pretty lackluster when it comes to animations or gameification; Rudi on telling 'cool' stories, and Bad Rudi just trying to swear at you (cw: exactly what I said, loud sound).
But, yeah, it probably says a lot of strategic things.
OliveTapenade
31m ago
I can understand that case - part of what makes Musk willing to be daring and innovative in business is also what makes him willing to do bizarre and eccentric things in other fields. Having enough ego to disregard the advice of everybody else in terms of what's possible for rockets or electric cars probably goes with having enough ego to, well, do these other absurd things. So you've got to tolerate a bit of weird gamer nonsense as the price for all these other benefits.
I suspect that overall we disagree about the net value of Musk's contributions to society, or about the desirability of things like AI girlfriends or artificial companions more generally. I'm quite pessimistic about AI in general, so I consider it preferable to maintain as large a taboo as possible against using AI for social purposes. If there is a respectability cascade that results in the public considering AI girlfriends/boyfriends to be legitimate or healthy ways to spend one's time, I would consider that a negative development. But we may have different high-level generators of disagreement on this issue.
Hieronymus
37m ago
The Reader’s Digest condensed version: The Old Testament ritual for purifying Jewish priests to serve in the temple requires the ashes of a spotless red heifer. Rabbinical tradition adds a bunch of criteria to the biblical law (as rabbinical tradition is wont to do) such that qualifying cows are absurdly rare.
Some Jews who want to restore the temple would like to breed qualifying cattle. A few eccentric dispensationalist Christians, who believe that the rebuilding of the Jewish temple is part of the unfolding of biblical prophecy, want to help them. This isn’t a common thing, but it has geopolitical relevance, as rebuilding the Jewish temple would require tearing down the Al Aqsa mosque.
OliveTapenade
38m ago
The tennis example strikes me as absurd and lacking in dignity for either Ackman or the tournament, but the presence of a substantial benefit to the tournament does change the calculation a bit for me. The tournament has traded part of its credibility for a large payment. Depending on the tournament's finances, that might have been a worthwhile trade for them, but it's still undoubtedly sordid.
Sunshine
44m ago
If you observe a person's number of teeth over time, you will find that they start with 0, rise to a certain peak, wobble a bit as baby teeth are lost and replaced, and then stay mostly stable at a certain number for a long time (possibly losing a few to accidents). Then, at the end of their life, they gradually lose teeth their one at a time until they have none.
If you were to look at a snapshot of a community, you would find that some children are gaining teeth quite quickly, the adults have a stable number of teeth, and the elders are gradually losing teeth. In a community that is 50% children (not rare historically) you might take an average and find that the number of teeth in the community is rising rapidly. However, if you were to extrapolate that to assume that the community's children are mutating into shark-like creatures who constantly grow more teeth, you would be making a mistake. In the long run, everyone ends up with exactly 0 teeth.
The mature civilizations of this planet are becoming less religious. It would be a mistake to assume the immature civilizations will continue their current trend lines exactly. It is better to assume they will follow the same course of evolution the more-developed civilizations took. The more-developed civilizations are becoming less religious over time, and unlike with children there are no new undeveloped civilizations rising up. It is reasonable to assume that, if things continue on as they have for another 100 years, secularism will continue to rise.
ABigGuy4U
57m ago
If the temple is going to be rebuilt, the site would need to be consecrated with the sacrifice of a red heifer. It has to be a heifer that has no other colored hairs at all. That is very rare. Ranchers in Texas are working with ultra-orthodox groups in Israel to breed a line of such cows to have it ready in case the Dome of the Rock suddenly....goes away.
I had thought that most skulls had some teeth, often most teeth?
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