You're old, or old at heart, or both, I don't know. Cloud's over there for yelling at.

So you don't feel that video is baby talking at you?

I mean if I'm 2 minutes into a video and it hasn't said anything that isn't fucking obvious why would you watch and further?

Quote from: TJS on April 02, 2021, 05:56:24 AM

I can't for the life of me understand why people have can't wait for the game to be released to condemn it.

I think that if Kickstarter has taught us nothing, waiting until it may or may not be released is a fool games.

Best get your condemnation in early.

If it never ships than who cares?  It seems pointless to condemn content if it never arrives.

In that case the story would not be about the continent about the failure to be any.

Quote from: TJS on March 16, 2021, 07:22:46 PM

Quote from: Reckall on March 16, 2021, 07:08:56 PM

His book, "Cynical Theories", is the best dissection I ever saw of how the excesses of the Left and the Right are currently providing fuel to each other, making both sides able to reach surreal extremes - with Lindsay destroying both in the process.

However, I feel that the fact that this is the most sold book on Amazon in the "Philosophy" section confirms something I really believe in: how most people are interested in understanding the current follies - not in being part of them.

It's a fairly good book.  And it's better when it deals with the more recent "Applied Postmodernism" aspect of things.

But just remember that Pluckrose and Lindsay actually understand this theory and have read a lot more of it better than 99% of people who actually believe in woke causes.  In other words, if you want to understand where certain terms and ideas originate from it's a good source, if you want to understand why they spread and how they are used it's less so.  You really need some kind of sociological explanation.

This review contains a good critique of some of the issues. https://arcdigital.media/postmodernism-unbound-dc576063e78e

Ok, I read all of that "critique," and what I gathered is the following:

A. The grad-student who wrote it is upset that the authors didn't ask and answer the questions he would have asked and answered.

B.  His primary grievance is that the authors didn't articulate that the postmodernism of the academics they are attack isn't real postmodernism, which the grad student apparently supports.  So, while acknowledging that the criticisms are accurate, he deflects by suggesting that they do not apply to his version of postmodernism (a la "True communism has never been tried...").

So, in summary, I would like you to refund the time I wasted reading that pseudo-erudite wall of sophomoric jargon posing as a philosophic critique.

P.S. The idea that anyone would find that pablum persuasive says more about them than it does about Lindsay's book...

Ok whatever.  Fuck off.

James Lindsay, along with Helen Pluckrose and Peter Boghossian was party of the Sokal squared hoax where they wrote a lot of fake journal articles with ridiculous premises and got them published in social justice/critical theory journals.

Look it up, it's hilarious.

Although Lindsay does fall into the trap of attributing rather too much of what's going on to ideas.  He ends up making it sound like there is more intellectual consistency than there really is.

“We were in the midst of combat and the GM described someone’s jaw getting broken," the company said. "And the vet stopped the game and said ‘Hey, you know, I’m cool with most things but I just… I have a thing about teeth.’ Clearly having anxiety about it. Now that’s not on the list of most people’s triggers, but if we’d had a better content discussion …or had Safety Tools available, then it would have been a much smoother experience for him as well as everyone else in the game.”

If only we'd had a conversation about it we wouldn't have had to have a conversation about it!

One of the more interesting things that's taking place among the woke is the shifting of the centre of moral gravity from 'intent' to the rather nebulous notion of 'harm'.

As pointed out, however, this is inconsistent - and it's an inconsistency right at the core.  It's what happened when a partial understanding of French postmodernism crashes into Judaeo-Christian moralism.

Basically what it boils down to is that the woke do believe in intent (they have to because they most definitely believe in guilt), but they've also taken on board post-modern and marxist perspectives that will hold that racism can be perpetrated at a structural level.   The problem with the latter (to the woke anyway) is that they actually let individuals off the hook!  (A structural analysis would actually suggest that you don't need racists to have racism - occasionally you see the progressive woke remember this, but it's increasingly rare*).

So what has come about is basically the belief in a deeper subject. You may not be conscisously racist but you're deeper self, your true self is.  (This is why things like implicit bias tests are so popular).

So basically there is intent, but not at the conscious level.  This is why you must "do the work".  (Eg.  read lots of poorly written books, attend diversity training run by grifters etc)

*And it would also imply ways of addressing racism that would be in no way compatible with Disney or Starbucks world view (eg addressing actual poverty).

So why didn't the horses of Eurasia all get eaten? Palaeolithic vegans?

Probably because they evolved with humanity.  The megafauna of the new world would have had no experience of or instinctive response to humans.

I know they listen to the actual playtest feedback otherwise the Artificer wouldnt have been totally overhauled. The polls are a bit weird but it allows feedback as well. If anyone bothers.

I'm sure they listen to feedback.

It's just that the feedback is not going to be based on playtesting in any meaningful sense.

Releasing this material lets them:
- know if they've made something that can easily be broken because some white room optimiser will spot it in 30 seconds.
- know if it's going to piss of a section of the fanbase for any reason.
- know if people think it's broken, in which case they'll change it (even if actual playesting would have revealed it is not.)

It basically just seeking "I reckons".

This is why they have so much trouble with with Psionics. A sizable contingent of the fanbase obviously dislike psionics.

You can't possibly playtest a class or subclass in the space of a month in any meaningful way in your ordinary home games. Therefore any opinion you give in a survey on that is not based on meaningful playtesting.