Sotha
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Posts posted by Sotha
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One thing to note is that people have more free time than ever. 100-200 years (just a few generations) ago people worked most of their time. Also, before electricity, daylight was so scarce in northern countries, people were sleeping if they weren't working to survive. Working in darkness was perilous.
Technology improved the productivity so much that now people have spare time, and the filling of spare time a whole 'new' industry.
What people consider 'garbage' is subjective. Some people waste their time playing games (mobile or PC), others watch movies, othes read books (high-culture or low-culture) and some discuss in the social media. Discussions can get really easily get down to "my garbage is less garbage than yours." In a social media bubble it is easy to agree that "their garbage is less garbage than ours."
With what justification can we label something as garbage? Some kind of objective "usefulness metric" should be devised. But that is subjective, too: for example, following stock exchange news is far more useful than reading high-culture books, if you are inclined to make money by investing. Culture people are bound to disagree, because to them high-culture books have some intrinsic culture value, the investor does not see or understand.
I wonder if this, in the end, is just fundamental questions of
1) what is good life?
2) what is happiness?
Modern people are quite free to examine these questions and pursue them according to their own desires. Clearly in the above example culture people valued culture more than making money. When a World of Warcraft player dies, does he consider their high-level character as one of the main achievements that gave their life meaning and fulfillment? What about the person who read everything Hemingway or Dostojevski or Hawking wrote?
Remember the electrical outage I mentioned some time ago? I challenged myself with one week of offline-life recently. When I returned to my normal life afterwards, I realized that actually the offline week was slightly more valuable and happy than the normal life. Reasons for this increased value may be, but not limited to novelty, more sleep, less being busy and more perceived time. It is difficult to exactly pinpoint all contributing reasons for a general good feeling.
I am starting to think people have certain needs which -when fullfilled- generate happiness. It is difficult to get to know one self well enough to know what one really needs.
Entertainment (or garbage or alcohol and drugs for some) is sort of a substitute that distracts people from noticing what they really need or want (or are fated) to do in life. It is easier and more obvious to get the instant gratification from entertainment, rather than experiment and work to find ones true needs.
What do you think is "good life" or "time well spent?" Are you aware what makes you intrinsically happy (not being entertained by the entertainment industry, but rather the happiness that arises from seeing meaning and fulfillment of one's life.)
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The wiki has a few lines about the City in general.Awesome, any contrasts you feel are really interesting, impressive or worth noting?
http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=The_City#Districts_of_Note
But that is just for inspiration if mappers are out of ideas. Ultimately, Bridgeport is, if not an empty canvas for the mapper to paint in, a pristine coloring book, which the mapper can color as they please and make it their own.
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Howsabout some general sample lines like this?
"*casual, relaxed* hello, how are you? A bit chilly night, isn't it?"
"*frightened* hello...? Is someone there?"
"*sad, shocked* gone.... every single penny. Damned thieves!"
"*enraged, angry* I am going to cut you like a roasted pig!"
That way we get a fair idea what kind of voice you have and also what kind of emotion you can put behind the voice. Most of the stuff mappers need, is just casual talking, but if you can put emotion behind the lines, people could do some more complex works as well.
Thanks for your interest to help us out. It is greatly appreciated: not many voice actresses around these parts, I'm afraid.
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Origin placement is important. If the model origin is greatly misplaced and ends up outside worldspawn (in the void), then dmap will fail.
As long as the origin is somewhere within the model and makes the module snap perfectly to the grid, all is well.
It is very fortunate DR does not rotate stuff around the origin, because many objects do not have the origin dead in the center, because that would compromise the grid snapping. Also, door models must have their origins at the actual in-game rotation point.
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hundred years ago they didn't know how to hunt their own food or make their own fires anymore. Times change.
One more delightful insight is that I do (in theory, practice not tested) know how to hunt and how to make a fire in a survival situation, because....
....I watched survival reality television! (The garbage entertaiment!)
:DSo it is not all bad, I guess.
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But why do you think the rich are pushing it? What justification do you have for this claim? Please, think hard, it is really important, I would really like to know why you think so.I think you are right that people are first and foremost responsible for themselves and their children.
Yet at the same times I think that the rich are pushing it, especially on the poor deliberately.
One could say that in terms of education, I belong to the elite in my country. At least I have never seen any evidence of the rich forcing the poor to rot their brains with garbage.
It may be due to the fact that socioeconomic status is hereditory. The elites value education and they pass it on to their young. We force our kids to violin/piano courses so that they learn early on that working and training generates ability and comptetence.
I do not know what they do in worker class homes. Perhaps limited amount of funds results in simple, cheaper entertainment instead of expensive educative hobbies? But you cannot put that completely on available funds: it must be attitudes and values, too.
WRT of disappearing jobs
This is not a conspiracy either. Technological progress results in changes. This is completely normal. When cars became common, the professional horse carriage drivers became obsolete. When automatic cars became common, taxi drivers become obsolete.
The problem is, that that not everyone can find a new job, because with robotization you need less humans. The wealth will be more focused for the few. Hopefully goverments realize this in time. Either they implement taxes and socialistic transfers of money to distribute the wealth more fairly or they will face civil unrest when the middle class deteriorates.
In the end, it is more like a dream from the industrial era: "when the machines do the work, humans can focus on politics, culture, art and other higher intellectual matters."
With brutal realism this changes to: "when the machines do the work, humans get unemployed, poor, but have plenty of time to rot their brains with garbage entertainment."
Freedom from technology
I've always been a pro-technology person, but here is a fun story. We had a power outage some time ago. This happens very rarely, like one 1h power outage per 5-10 years. It was wonderful: I lit up candles, because it was really dark, and I just hanged around, without any distractions. The reality felt more real than usual. There was not that usual busy feeling that constantly bugs me these days: on to that next thing. I was sorry when the power was restored... the lights and screens felt unusually bright and painful for the eyes.
This planted the wish of having more of these offline evenings, some times. But not right now, I am too busy...
I guess we are all addicted to our technology level. With a click we get what we desire... but when things are so easy, they also lose their value.-
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Press and hold use key?
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Instead, this is actively prevented by the upper class - by filling people's heads with garbage - much like they fill people with too much and bad food, making them obese and ill. It works, because they exploit evolutionary desires - people like to observe other people (TV, series, movies) and they like energy-rich food (cakes, fastfood, sugar bombs).
So it is the elite that ruins the people, not the people themselves?
I would say that some people choose to do the stuff you say to themselves. They could study, they could learn, they could do something useful... But they watch reality TV because that is their decision. The elite has nothing to do with it. People will consume entertainment what they choose, and entertainment makers make entertainment that has demand.
Instant gratification garbage wins. But some people choose higher level stuff and that is good.. for them.
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Oh, sorry. Somehow posted it here, but I intended to post it in the newbie DR questions.. Doh.
Here is the answer I found: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/9082-newbie-darkradiant-questions/?p=404586
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Hi!
I am thinking of making a steam machine for my FM. The player needs to put a flame in the boiler and start the machine with a switch.
Is it possible to ask in a script whether an extinguishable light is lit or not? What command is used?
That way I could use the switch to call a script that checks the boiler flame and then if it is lit, trigger the necessary stuff. When the machine is on, I can also continously ask if the flame is on, and if it is not, I can switch the machine off.
Thanks!
Found it:
$device_light.getLightLevel();
returns a 0 if the light is off!
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Hi!
I am thinking of making a steam machine for my FM. The player needs to put a flame in the boiler and start the machine with a switch.
Is it possible to ask in a script whether an extinguishable light is lit or not? What command is used?
That way I could use the switch to call a script that checks the boiler flame and then if it is lit, trigger the necessary stuff. When the machine is on, I can also continously ask if the flame is on, and if it is not, I can switch the machine off.
Thanks!
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Not made to a triple-A title: let some indie dev make it. Someone good with new ideas.
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Played around with the modules for the first time today. Sure, they have few quirks, but once you know them, working with them is ultra-fast, fun and the instant results look gorgeous!
Big thumbs up, Spring!
These really are a game changer for TDM!-
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Love competitions but I just started a new map and I'm really inspired by the idea.
Me too!
I'm gonna do just something small for this contest. Dunno if I'm gonna finish in time, though.
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Exactly! I've monitored the discussion here with interest, but I do not understand the purpose.My question was "How do you establish the actual message of a religious text"?
If there isn't a good method, then the text becomes meaningless, doesn't it? It's just poetry--it can mean whatever the reader wants it to mean.
How does reading ancient fiction help with any of our modern problems?
One could just as well read Lord Of The Rings, but be better entertained, because it is better suited for modern audiences. You can pick up a lot of meaning and how-to-live-your-life tips from there if you wish, and they are written in a more precise and obvious way than those in religious texts.
The more vague the text is, the more there are ways to interpret it. Many interpretations results in lots of discussion opportunities, but the discussion is kinda pointless because it cannot lead anywhere. But it is good stuff for those who like to discuss just for the discussion.
If the purpose of text is to convey information, then ambiguous texts are texts that failed to serve their purpose. You can never talk about the text itself: you can only talk about the individual interpretation the other reader made from the text.
I have always failed to see the benefit of religious texts. They are ambiguous, they are a dubious record of history, they are often in conflict with itself, you cannot make conclusions from them, you absolutely cannot base any politics on them... what is their worth anyways, other than being a curiosity from the past times?
@Moonbo & Mortem Desino,
I don't think the purpose of internet discussion is to make people change their mind. You are right, they won't. It is more like planting a seed in people. I've got many seeds from the discussions I've had my life. In time these seeds grow and change into insight. It is probably not a complete change of mind, but more of an acknowledgement and acceptance that there are other opinions as well, and most importantly understanding and awareness of the justifications of those opinions.
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The reason why we even got so far from terrorism to this - is because modern society's moral compass is under scrutiny. We can do better than that. That's why to me conservatism matters. The struggle goes on.
I can sort of see the benefits and reasons of conservatism. The world changes at a rapid pace. Just as it started to make sense, it changes again and leaves one scared and dumbfounded, completely in a new situation.
But I am more of a liberal than conservatist. Looking back in history, it is obvious that yesterday was worse than today. Progress brings benefits for everyone. Too much conservatism will block this progress and we will get stagnant. Water gets foul in stagnant pools.
Ethics and morals... With what right do we condemn those who are different? Homosexuality is an intrinsic property and will not change in the individual. Sure it will always be in the minority like you say, but here is a simple check for you:
What if you won in the lottery? What if it turned out that you like the same sex. The conservative community will hate and fear you. Your options in life will be lower. Would that be fair? It is not your fault: you just were born that way. This mental exercise shows one more reason why LGBT should have the same rights as others. It is a big thing for the individual. Benefit for the community comes from the individual's contribution to the community. For example, Alan Turing took his own life, and his denied homosexuality must have been one contributing thing. That they were not let to be the person they were. What wonders would he have contributed to the UK should the community been more tolerant?
Is it ethical to condemn these people to have less rights than the majority?
Our moral compass in indeed under scrutiny. But the terrorists will win if any changes to it will occur because of the attacks. The correct way to respond is simply to keep calm and carry on with our lives.
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But I do not regard it a person seriously with such a condition neither. For the same reasons by analogy why people have a restriction of movement in psychiatric institutions. Do you believe we went really far with our methods there?
This makes it seem that homosexuality is a mental illness from your point of view. Is this correct?
Current western scientific view does not support this idea.
It's not the end of the world if they get 100% rights as heterosexuals but it's still not the same traditional family. There's still no father/mother figure from which a child could mould their potential future soulmate by compatibility. Because you notice that approximately the way a mother-child relationship goes, the same way a boy searches for some resemblance qualities in his future lover. And vice versa for girls - they look up to their fathers for traits to find with their future boyfriend.This is just one of the psychological things that gets screwed.
I think I read a newspaper story about a child grown by homosexual parents. They became just an ordinary heterosexual. But that was just one instance, more is needed for statistical meaning.
Children are brought up in completely different family environments: father working only, never with family; other parent dead or left; alcholist parents: etc; etc. There are large diversity there. I do not think homosexual parents are such a big deal for the development of the individual. Now that liberal countries give these rights to LGBT, we will get a lot of statistically meaningful data. This is a good thing for science (another benefit for giving the rights!)
Another idea to throw around: same sex marriage women are more likely not to adopt children but rather to use in vitro fertilization. Are you okay with that? Are those going to be healthy families with their heterosexual equivalent?
I think they will be perfectly fine families, for reasons stated previously. Human children can grow in a multitude of different family arrangements and mostly fine and stable individuals are "produced" as long as there is no beating, abuse, or similar criminal activity.
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What makes you say that this is progress?
My values say it is progress. I feel it is very conservative and backwards to do otherwise. I can see you have the opposite view and I respect that. We do not need to be in agreement, but it is interesting to see your justification why LGBT should not have the same rights as everyone else. What benefit does their prosecution (or condemnation) provide to the society?
The truth is - people still don't see LGBT people as normal and prefer to ignore them.
You cannot say it is the truth without presenting some demographics indicating so. Polls in Finland indicate most people in cities have no issue with LGBT. Rural areas are more conservative.
Economic growth happens when the demographic crisis of an aging Europe is overcome. That's the priority. Not adopting children by LGBT's.But for the individual it is a big deal. Why should they not have the same rights as others have?
Are we truly setting our priorities right?Sure, there are always bigger problems... But it should be no justification for not letting the little things progress. Little things are Big Things for some individuals. If we can improve their lives with simple measures, why not do it?
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Science is good. But Freudian extremes are awful. In my opinion science isn't capable of reaching conclusive answers when psychologists in more closed, private discussions openly state that homosexualism is an illness. For fear of being blamed as a homophobe.
We're still with psychology and psychiatry in its infancy. We practiced lobotomy just half a century ago. At least for this reason laws should not be hurried to change.
When science cannot indicate what is right, it is a question of values. The location you live in will apply some values on you. I see and acknowledge that you and I have different values.
For example, in my country Finland, homosexuality was an abomination in the past. Their rights were non-existent, etc. The values were strict.
Now, when time has progressed so have attitudes. Majority of people have absolutely nothing against giving homosexuals the right to get married or adopt children. Scientifically or socially thinking, there are not many justifications why giving these rights would be a bad thing. I guess the typical argument against the rights is that "it was not so in the past." This is a silly reason to block progress.
Only a few well-fortified groups of conservatives oppose these liberal changes, but fortunately they will not halt the wish of the majority. For example, some old priests refuse to bless homosexual couples, but young ones are happy to bless them. After a few years, when the old priests die off, everyone will look at this refusal and think "what the heck was that about. A bit backwards thinking perhaps."
In Finland, values are not so strict anymore. People can freely be who they are and nobody have the right to judge them for being different. Scientifically thinking, there are no reasons why to prevent these people from getting the same rights everyone else have. I think, it will be good for the economy (and thus the majority of people) that some people are not prosecuted and they can live a full, enjoyable and productive life.
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Interesting discussion here.
Yes, animals do that and homosexuality existed for much of Ancient times. I don't accept the evolutionary theory but I do believe that as humans, it's important to realize that homosexuality included is beneath our dignity, our rationality.Heh.. I always thought that sexual preference is similar to food appetite. Someone likes fish, someone don't, and someone enjoys everything. People are different. This is a blessing! With what right do we define what is "beneath the dignity of the humanity". Not everyone needs to be the same.
I could just as well declare that those who think like you just wrote are "beneath the dignity of the humanity." That would be just daft, right?
Speaking philosophically LGBT rights don't matter because it's not natural.With this logic, you could declare a lot of stuff unimportant by declaring it unnatural.
Like the right to marry a tree or a cat. "Scientists conducting research in the field and assessing that homosexuality is also love" are just delivering a political thing, waste of time.
This argument is strange. Humans with different sexual orientation exhibit consent to each other. A cat and a tree do not show consent.
People are sometimes attracted by people. Attraction occurs according to the preference of the individual. Sounds very natural to me.
Also, you cannot write off scientific research just as political waste of time. If you go down that road and abandon science, you will soon be one those who believe climate change is a china conspiracy, the earth is flat, and creationism is true.
Science is the best method we have for finding out what is true and what is not. You cannot dispel data that was acquired with careful study, just by saying "I think it is not true, political waste of time." If you do this, you will cherry pick just stuff that supports your world view and your views will be skewed. This is very bad. Skewed world view is very difficult to correct later on, because typically humans hold on to their existing beliefs very firmly even though all evidence shows otherwise. Such is human nature.
You need to do a careful opposing study and present it for the scientific community for critical analysis. In time correct data will be obtained and a reliable consensus will be reached. If it was published in a good journal, and the theory has not been challenged by better ones, then it is probably close to the truth, until better data is obtained. This is the humanitys best method for understanding the universe! Far better than "I think it is so."
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Best of luck! This will be super interesting!
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They caught the suspect. According to the news it looks like ISIS inspirated work: the suspect had uploaded ISIS propaganda and stuff on facebook.
Perhaps some kind of early warning system would help, for example people could report social media activity to the officials, so that they have a list of people about to radicalize. For example, in Finland, worried friends reported a woman planning a school shooting. The police intervened in time and she was put to psychological care.
But still it would be impossible to avoid stuff like this, because the police does not have the resources to monitor all would-be-nuts all the time, and they cannot be put to jail before they do something stupid. Also, putting propaganda to social media cannot be a reason to jail people.
So stuff like this will happen again, and what liberal democracies can do is just persevere, I guess. Starting some "let's hate foreigners"- campaigns will only make it worse. Hate brings more hate and increases the likeliness of radicalization.
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In order to not flood the comment/status system, I'll open a thread for the topic.
Feel free to resume commenting here.A crude copy of the discussion so far:
Sotha
Terrorist attack now in Stockholm? Will this never end?
Fieldmedic, you ok?Goldwell
There is one common denominator among all of these attacks in Europe. But unfortunately addressing the issue on ANY level results in a negative pushback.
If Europe pulls it's head out of the sand and sees the forest for the trees they might be able to do something about it.
Until then the senseless killings keep on happening and until then...
#prayforStockholmAkira
And what common denominator might that be then?
Also, as someone who lives in sweden, which happen to be one of the most atheist/secular countries in existance: keep your pointless "prayers" to yourself.
Goldwell
Akira i'm sorry but you completely missed the point of my message.
First of all the praying part I mentioned is a mock on the idiots who think that #prayfor*insertcityname* does anything.
Secondly the common denominator is quite obvious if you really think about it.. out of all of these attackers what have all of these people shared in common?Akira
They were driving heavy trucks?
Why don't you say what you mean instead of implying?
Sotha
At this point it could be just as well an Islamic Idiot or Retard Rightwinger. Or just some Random Loser who decided to replicate horrible stuff that has been done.
Let's wait for more info before jumping to conclusions.
Oh, and let people pray to whatever god or entity they want if it makes them feel better at this time of crisis.
Goldwell
Yes Akira, the issue is heavy trucks. Obviously.
Springheel
We don't know who is responsible yet, but let's not pretend like Islamic terrorism isn't a problem in Europe, or that it hasn't been responsible for multiple, similar attacks in the past year. It will still be a problem even if this turns out to be unrelated.
Goldwell
That's exactly right.
And by the way I wish to clarify my earlier points by stating that I am referring to radicalised Muslims not ALL Muslims.
Part of the problem as I mentioned in my OP is that any form of discussion around this results in backlash rather than discussion which is what this problem needs. No need to turn a blind eye to something that is an obvious problem that needs addressing.
Sotha
I think it may be an exaggeration to say that blind eye is given to the problem.
Islamic extremists (or any extremists, BTW) are a complex problem. It has not beed solved, because it is not obvious how to solve it.
You can't just go and ask everyone whether they are an extremist about doing something horrible, then expel them or put them in jail and call it a day.
Anyone have good, working idea what to do about it? Go to politics and you will get a lot of.....a lot of votes after stuff like this.
Goldwell
I'm not saying that I have the answers, just that i'm not oblivious to the problem.
Springheel
This should really be a thread.
Sotha
I do not think anyone is oblivious to the problem after events of few last year.
There are plenty of people who are offering simple solutions to complex problems and I guess we know how they work.
Akira
Trump, LePen, golden dawn, jobbik, putin and all the other nationalists scare me a lot more than terrorists do.
Springheel
The terrorism, and the general political response to it, is part of the reason those people are gaining power.
Anderson
There's a difference between Trump and Dughin inspired conspirologist/anti-globalist/pro-Russian opportunists.
Sotha
Lotsa discussion here, I'll start a thread -
Always nice to have more options for briefings. Can you post a video to show how it looks? Your description of it sounds exciting!
Is your brain filled with garbage?
in Off-Topic
Posted
@Judith,
Interesting view that you think most people honestly are not happy. Any particular reason why you think so?
I was thinking that people are, in general, happy with their lives.
I mean, if they were unhappy, surely they would do something about it, and thus unhappiness would be a temporary matter that would eventually be resolved. But sure, there is always room for improvement and people could be even more happier, and the question could be interpreted that way as well.
I'm thinking happiness is more like a skill you can train, and not like candy that you buy, consume and need more. This, provided of course, that the basic life needs are satisfied, there is enough food, shelter, etc.
It is sort of interesting that recent studies indicate repetitive negative thinking (a great obstacle preventing happiness) is linked to insufficient/problematic sleep, yet still people choose to sleep too few hours. Less entertainment (or work) and more sleep could make it easier to be happy. Are we being entertained so heavily (games, movies, books, social media) we lose sleep and get more unhappy because of that?
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10608-014-9651-7