Sotha

...meanwhile in Finland... https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5c5c3679e4b00187b558e5ab What do you think about UBI? Here is my take: Initially I was in favour of UBI. Reason: automation, self-driving cars, AI and pals will make many jobs extinct. Millions of people will lose their jobs and the old system of small rich elite, big middle class and small poor unemployed population will transform; middle class shrinks a lot and amount of poor people will increase. This will cause a lot of social problems. The problem is that I am not at all impressed by the results of the Finnish UBI test. The results are preliminary, but could be summarized like this: 1) people who got the UBI got happier. 2) The unemployment of UBI folks did not improve during the first year compared to non-UBI folks. If UBI does not improve the ability of the unemployed getting jobs, then it is only an extension of the welfare state. The little happiness injection to keep the lower classes from causing trouble. So perhaps UBI will be used to prevent the poor from rioting and breaking the toys of the rich elite. Another solution would be riot police and extra security. UBI is probably cheaper in terms of cost and human suffering. In democracies the rioting could be replaced by wrecking ball-type politicians getting more power. The problem is that people receiving it will still have pretty bleak outlook in life: you get this basic income, you will never get a real job and cannot thus move forward in the social hierarchy. But it is better than nothing, I guess.

I think it might be like this: 1) stealth games are a bit niche market. 2) Thief4 was a failure 3) TDM exists for free 4) because of 1-3, it is a financial risk to try to make a new thief game. It is a small market (low gains even if successful), and someone has already failed due to demanding customer base (high risk of failure). There is no incentive to take the risk. It is better to just make another version of (insert-usual-AAA-title-name-here). Maybe some small indie studio might go there...

I played the redux version of the first episode on the xmas holidays just recently. The redux is better than the original, and they had some good new ideas (I really liked the left OR right mouse button choice with the convict.) I really sit a bit pondering what would be the right thing to do. That mechanic was exactly what they should capitalize on more. For example, they could have used it with all the NPC's, somehow: Blind woman meeting: Left click - try to grab the gun, Right click - try to talk Trying to talk would go to the normal course of events, where the player would do chores for the lady. Trying to grab the gun would result in a gun struggle where the gun goes accidentally off, resulting in randomly either: 1) killing the blind lady (player gets a gun. player must find clues in her house to proceed, player loses permanent fire in the fireplace) 2) getting the player locked out from the house with a gunshot wound (player needs to heal up and then explore on his own to proceed, and does not have access to lady's house). That sort of stuff would be great, especially if the player somehow later runs into consequences of his actions earlier ("I saw you leaving from the house with the dead lady. You killed her, now you pay!"). You know... more interesting choices... choices with consequences. That's the stuff that makes a story in computer games.

In engineering terms, I think, it acts as a pressure release valve. Let everyone have their say about the matter here, and then be done with it. Conclusion and closure. Case closed.

I get a deep feeling of deja vu. Smooth operation is everyone's responsibility. It is tough decision, but sometimes it just has go so that partial liabilities are reduced so that the entirety can function better. Proceed as normal.

Hey! This is exactly what I was trying to talk about in the OP! https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/nov/29/why-we-stopped-trusting-elites-the-new-populism

Thanks for playing! Always gratifying to hear someone likes your work. @Mircea, a fun little developer commentary for you, On the origins of the origins of the caulk: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18030-the-origins-of-caulk/?p=388346

Well, it probably goes so that people stop trusting anything they read, see or hear. It will be really difficult to convey new ideas or progress things. Humanity will go stagnant: there will be those who are informed and able to discern reliable information and think for themselves, and there will be the masses of ignorant monkeys who are pulled to any direction the populists or hate mongers want. Fascinating times. We have only little time to discard democracy and start running meritocratic technocracies for the benefit of the whole humanity. But how do we make sure the technocracies do not turn into autocracies?

Really good discussion, as expected! @Skaruts, I am a scientist myself, but I would not say that the scientific method is based on distrust. I would say it is based on critical scrutiny, which is different from distrust (but they could be thought to be distant cousins). Trust is required in scientific progress. If you do not trust earlier data or findings, you do not have a foundation to build your own experiment (I.e. if you allow a a silly example: if you distrust the scientific consensus the Earth is round, but -looking yourself around your immediate area- conclude the Earth to be flat, you will have hard time putting satellites to the orbit.) A lone scientist cannot know everything, so they must trust some sources when they build their work. Trusting does not prevent critical scrutiny. If they find an error in the previous data, of course they should then revise and report accordingly. Thus, I would separate levels of trust like this: "Distrust", "Trust" and "Gullible Trust" "Trust" is what I was looking for: people can interact based on basic trust. We are not gullible, but listen the other party with good faith, but you use critical scrutiny. We can reach consensus because we trust the other party does not screw us. The other party also trusts us (has calculated we have little incentive to screw them). The Trust generates a climate of cooperation and everyone wins. When there is Trust, you can make a contract or an agreement, because you trust the other party will honour their part of the bargain. Trust builds trust: when you have a partner with whom you have done previous transactions, who seems to honour their end of the bargain and everything ran smoothly, you will likely do business with them again. "Distrust" is that is happening now inside America, and elsewhere. Different factions listen to each other with bad faith: assuming only lies and trickery. In that kind of climate, you cannot have a discussion. Discussion with bad faith and the expectation of lies is useless: it is just shouting and saying anything to get your way. Consensus is not possible. You will get dysfunction, hatred, and in extreme cases civil war. It is not a climate of cooperation. The winner takes it all, the loser loses all, everyone fights fiercely and truth does not matter anymore. When there is severe Distrust, there is no point in making contracts or agreements, You expect the other party will screw you over anyway, they can always interpret the contract fine print like the Devil. "Gullible trust" it what you talked about, where you trust everything without critical scrutiny, and get conned. The favourite state for people in a dictatorship. So the initial question of the OP would be, how to progress more into the direction of: *more Trust *less Distrust *less gullible trust?

I've been reading the Climate Change Thread and wanted to start another discussion. This time it is on Trust. Human societies are based on trust. The paper piece (money) in you pocket has value and can buy you things only because we have agreed together that it has value. You can safely buy land and property, because we have agreed you own them after the purchase and we have agreed that if someone comes to your own house, throws you out and claims it for their own, you can trust the state violence monopoly (police) comes to your assistance. You can trust the bus arrives roughly on schedule and that the trip costs the promised amount. The value of stocks and the economy stands on basic trust. If you lose trust, the economy collapses. Without trust, truth has little relevance, because truth cannot be transmitted between minds. Without trust, we cannot have this society. Nothing would work anymore. We cannot agree on anything. We cannot even have a discussion, because the other party would be just lying and saying anything to get their way. Trust seems to be eroding. Look at our situation: *many people think the elite is conspiracing against the common people. *politicians are lying all the time is the common perception and norm. *people seem to think research results that they do not like are fraud. *Trump got elected because at least partially because the voters wanted to demolish the elite because of deep distrust. *is Brexit due to distrust of the British people towards the EU? Lots of distrust. But yet the society still works. Signing contracts still have a meaning. But how much more distrust can the society endure? How can we build trust? We need some kind of system for integrity enforcement. Trust builds trust and lying produces distrust. Thus, lying should have consequences: at least reputation loss. Maybe now trust is being destroyed, because lying has no consequences, integrity is not a required virtue and decency seems to be forgotten. How do we go to the other direction?

Thanks for the Bosnia story. That was an exiting read! I wonder how it would play out in a Finnish city, where -because of legislation- only police, military, registered hunters and shooters, and criminals have guns. If the officials confiscate weapons in the early days from honest folks, that means only police, military and criminals have guns. I suppose the correct maneuver would be to get out of cities to the countryside just *before* the shit hits the fan. And like the Bosnia story writer said, everything happens too fast.

Heh, the future is here! Global value chains means that when you buy hardware, you get china-chips from Chinese subcontractors, russia-chips from Russian subcontractors, america-chips from American subcontractors, and spy-chips from all the other parties of the value chain. Plus after hardware, you still get all the bloatware and malware that comes pre-installed. I find it tragicomic. Bright side is that at least you get extra microchips for the same price...

I think people are tricked by the marketers and confused. It is true that some level of consumption is required for happiness, but after basic needs are fulfilled, increasing consumption no longer increase happiness. People struggle for more and consume more, but they do not attain the happiness they struggle for. Happiness is a simple internal thing in you, which you can activate if you choose to do so. It is not something you seek out from the world and grab or buy for yourself. The expectation of infnite growth must be somehow linked to this confusion. I know a lot of educated and smart people who really believe their immediate happiness depends on acquisition of Trinket X. Then they buy it, are happy for a brief moment, then feel hollow, store it in their fault of trinkets, and start craving for Trinket Z. Trinket X could just as well be an item, or a holiday trip to Thailand or something else. This confusion results in the purpose of humanity to be consumption. People want happiness, but end up consuming instead. Wastefully.

I agree that it is hardly probable that 1 CEO really equals in value 230 ordinary workers for work "value." But there is the flip side of the coin (pun intended); at least in Finland high salary CEO means a lot for government tax income. Also, when the CEO buys their expensive toys and penthouses and palaces, the government taxes those as well. Thus some part of the wealth is recirculated back to the money pool of the common people and pays for welfare benefits, healthcare, road maintenance, and stuff). That is, if the tax money was not squandered in ineffective bureaucracy, corruption, etc. Because there are wealthy people, there are markets for luxury items, which is probably a profitable corner of the economy as well.

I think it is a miracle that the capitalistic economy works. Please pause to consider it. It is the glue and an artificial (perhaps sometimes even arbitrary) set of rules and incentives that coordinates massive amount of people to cooperate towards a common goal. And it works! Have you ever tried to influence the behaviour of a large group of people? Really difficult. But here you have it: capitalism + democracy (The System) leads to a more or less stable and predictable society and economy. The incentives direct people into mostly useful activities. Wealth is generated and distributed. Laws and directives are obeyed. Technology develops. Humanity proceeds and prospers. It may very well be that the System is even efficient. It facilitates the development of new technologies, which make it always more and more efficient. Perhaps, too efficient, in fact. Humans are beginning to be the bottleneck for the progress of efficiency. If you have an efficient System, you should consider what the purpose of the System is? If it is really efficient, it takes you to its end result very quickly, and you should damn well be aware where the destination is. What the goal is, is also interesting topic to debate. What is our economy and society for? What is the big picture? The objective of corporations is to maximize profit. The objective of governments is to govern (in ideal case, for the benefit of the people. In dictatorships, for the benefit of the ruling elite). If I am not mistaken, our current System is based on consumption. More and more consumption increases employment, profits, taxes and well being. Less consumption means recession, stagnation and unemployment. Thus, from a planetary point of view, the purpose of the System is to consume. The purpose of humanity is to consume. Incentives direct us to consume everything like a swarm of locusts. But with our modern technology, we are much more efficient in consumption than locusts. This poses a considerable threat to the environment, which must support the ever increasing consumption. At some point we need to change the expectation of limitless growth and consumption, right? Then, we need to change the System, either through gradual and controlled change or a sudden crisis. But can we even have a sustained economy without increasing growth and consumption. What is the next system? And when does the change come?

Primitive boys, in jungle paradise, build a roman-style brick house using only their wits, sticks and stones. They make their own bricks, too. Awesome!

A nice little project: (no, the AI grumble was TDM's own idea: I did not put it in!) Here is an animation if someone wants to try to do something with it. Even if it would not go to core mod, it could be pretty cool as a scripted city watch raid or something.. And the files as .pk4 are here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PcGb4s1awWWBvdCC2317Sl23rZRuGD0A/view?usp=sharing Enjoy!

Working on an animation now...

Kicking and shoulder-bashing a door does not *unlock* it, but would rather break the door or the door frame, right? (The lock slide cracks through the frame or the door comes down from the hinges.) Would it be a little weird if the AI would violently kick the door, which unlocks, and then is opened normally? Also, if the player has a key to the door, can the door be unlocked again? If so, would be silly. Kicking would be a skeleton key for all doors. The issue is a non-issue if the AI is allowed to open all doors. In my missions, I always give all AI permission to open all locked doors for this reason. Kicking and shoulder-bashing would make sense if the whole door was destroyed. It would we useful for the AI if they got stuck by player blocking the door from opening with moveable. Play kick anim, remove door model, open visportal permanently, remove all nearby moveables, splatter the area with door debris, which despawn after a while. Add dust cloud particle effect. Even so, it would be strange if AI could demolish doors with a kick, but the player cannot even with a fire arrow or explosive mines. On the other hand, if mines could be used this way, it would open up interesting break-and-enter type of missions.

I think, map design wise, they nailed the atmosphere of a northern city qu8te well. If you go to Stockholm after playing the game, you see hauntingly familiar places parks and suburbs...

Oh that, we talked about it years ago. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18270-cry-of-fear/ I think it was pretty awesome. Not so good gameplaywise, but the atmosphere was spot on.

What is the exact anniversary date?

I wonder if crushing walls trap could have simple script that detects moveables in the trap space and removes them when the trap is triggered. Add a dust puff particle effect when the walls start to move which would conceal the disappearance of the moveables.

"What if your children will be assholes who'll kill each other over your inheritance and in the end it will just be owned by the state? Or some immigrant polishing children's shoes to get a will with the aforementioned inheritance, that will get because those children were too selfish, leading to being alone, rich and miserable? Isn't that even more pointless to fight so selfishly for life only within your family? It's Santa Barbara type stories but they do happen. " Exactly. If humans really did pointlessly fight each other, we could have never progressed this far. We progressed this far because we stopped being selfish bastards and we banded together and collaborated. One could of course call this being selfish, too: you help others only because you benefit from it yourself. So maybe we are selfish and help others for mutual benefit, or maybe we are self-sacrificing heroes who help others altruistically, the net effect is the same: everyone benefits and progress progresses and the world is not as shitty place as it would be if everyone were really fighting each other brutally all the time. I like to help because helping makes me feel good and it gives life meaning. A nice bonus is that when you have a track record of "helper" rather than A "selfish bastard", others are more likely to help me back. It is sort of an win-win situation. I am sorry, but I sort of missed something: what makes Anderson believe we (humanity in general) progress towards dictatorships? Or did you mean your own country? Some countries are, and some countries are not. I think democracies slip into dictatorships when people are Confused (see my earlier post) and because of their confusion, they vote populists, religious or other groups into power, who then start to systematically change the political, juridical and media systems to permanently enforce their own power. One more reason why we should combat the Confusion and those who wish to promote it.

"I feel we work ourselves up over semantics; we think alike in that the scientific method is indeed superior, and, in it's idealized form, as an idea, is optimal, at least the best we have for finding truth. I just want to stress that until it produces truth, it temporarily can (and often, perhaps usually in some fields) produces falsehoods; [...] But the central usefulness of science is for helping us to make more successful decisions, and those have to be done right now or soon, and we have very often not the time to wait for science to produce perfect truth." I think we are in perfect agreement here. Points I want to make are: *In life we have to accept high level of uncertainty all the time. Is it even fair to ever expect The Perfect Truth, or 100% certainty from science? I would not expect that. 70-90% is pretty awesome/impressive already. *There are rogue elements in every trade. That's why I suggested to always check the source reliability and check multiple references. Find the consensus data. Disregard unreliable sources, emphasize reliable sources. Scientific mainstream is a good place to be, but not always right. It is true that sometimes being right condemns you to the minority. *If one adjusts their view according to current mainstream scientific consensus, they have probably the most accurate and reliable view the humanity can provide. But it also means one has to be prepared to change views as the consensus views start to shift as new studies are completed. In reality normal people are not going do this struggle all the time. But when Important Decisions are made, the decision makers should check the science, see the options and choose the optimum one available at the time. Like you buy something expensive: you do your homework, you check reviews (from good source), you ask around (good sources), you list your options and you buy the optimum, not the best, not the cheapest. Information will ALWAYS be incomplete, but this way you at least did your best to make a wise choice. *It is good to be sceptical, and it is good to think to yourselves. The problem is that the issues are often so complicated that we are helpless in arriving to correct conclusions on our own:make one little mistake and you could end up far away from the truth, while thinking you are correct, and them make a horrible mistake. That's why we have experts. They know the topics better and have a better shot in arriving to correct conclusions. If you build a house, you ask the construction professionals for advice, not the economist. When you invest to the stock market, you ask the economists for advice, not the construction professionals. After gathering the information, you should be enlightened enough to make the correct decisions. (All this assuming the experts were trained according to the most recent up-tp-date scientific knowledge, which is not always the case, sadly.)