SSCReader
3d ago
I think the 90's was the tipping point where a small number of people with a vision in gaming could do a lot with not a lot. (Arguably we are maybe returning to that with the advent of AI tools and the like?) I learned to program in Basic on a Commodore 64. I could in the 90's make simple games on a 386, that didn't look much off what professionals were doing. Soon after that, the number of people you needed would increase, and the amount of time I think.
So you got just got an expansion of who could get into being a game designer. But without necessarily having to have any kind of business acumen to run anything bigger than a few people working together. Maybe not just video games, Games Workshop was on the verge of collapse until it was bought out by management (rather than the designers) and turned in a more commercial direction in 91.
Creative Assembly is maybe the anti-example, founded in late 80's with a tiny workforce and increased in success until they could afford to do Shogun in 99. Bought out by Sega in 2005 after success with Medieval and Rome Total War which is when Tim Ansell got out. So he was able to scale it up from doing ports of MS-DOS games with 2 people to a hundred with 3 well regarded games under their belt when he sold it. Whether he could have scaled it to where they are today is an open question (though so to is whether Sega have been great at that either).
SSCReader
3d ago
I think the answer is it is likely to be both. Small independent auteurs are notoriously bad at upscaling and dealing with success. Bailing them out to make mediocre sequels in a corporate environment is also a bad idea (from the point of view of quality video games). Let small studios churn and burn creating gems then destroying themselves as they get over-ambitious. At least sometimes you get some diamonds.
I'll take Kerberos as a relatively recent example (10 years ago ish). They made Sword of the Stars a 4X space sim, it was excellent for its budget and time. They did well and for the sequel promised the universe and delivered a buggy mess that did not do half the things they said it would (it is after a number of expansions and patches a solid game but still). You can manage ships in real time rotate them to switch armor facing, and armor is tracked per facing, and each weapon has a different penetration profile, and then outside the first few battles never have the time to do any of that because your fleets are too big. Each race has its own FTL method so they play very differently, but it was supposed to have espionage, political rivalries and much much more). If they were bought out after SotS1 (which was on the cards from Paradox I think, who in the end just became their publisher) I think the sequel would have been safer, less ambitious and probably at launch better (maybe laden down with 50 DLC's though) But shooting for the stars and mostly missing at least gave us something interesting. Where some of the game is like 10/10 and other parts are just..missing entirely.
I think that's sometimes better than 7/10 COD X In Space. or whatever.
SSCReader
10d ago
Well sorry to depress you, but if it helps, most of these people also aren't going to do anything violent, and aren't really thinking of Thompson as a person. Just a symbol of what they are angry about.
Just like back home sides celebrate killers but very few want any particular Catholic/Protestant dead.
Dunbar plus tribalism suggests that people celebrating deaths are often not actually seeing those victims as living breathing people.
My uncle hates Catholics (and Muslims actually) but loves my Catholic sister in law.
So it goes.
SSCReader
15d ago
Luigi's trial is going on right now in New York, and there are large numbers of people celebrating his tactical legal victories in court.
Do note that as Ben Shapiro found out, that large number of working class right wingers are also pretty much on board with Luigi. It is not a right/left issue it's a working class issue. Ben's video (which he even had to change the title on) got 8.5K likes and some 45K dislikes, on his own channel. Very different than his usual ratios. I think Charlie Kirk had a similar thing with his comments but given all the noise about his murder I can't find that right now.
Check the comments about it if you don't believe me. That's why Luigi is getting so much support because struggling with health insurance is a bi-partisan activity.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=uJC_2zh21YI
Some excerpts (and this after they start deleting negative comments, but obviously gave up as their were so many).
My dad has voted Republican in every local, state, and federal election since I was born in the 1980s. I was with him when this news came out and he said “about time”. Read the room, Ben.
Ben, you're rich. Enough. Stop. You do not experience the implications of what denial of healthcare means for poor Americans.
I have never seen the left and the right be so united since 9/11,
Bro’s getting roasted here for defending a scam health insurance CEO. Did Ben actually think we would take his side?
Voted trump 3 times in a row and laughed my ass off at the news This isnt a left or right thing, its a populism vs establishment thing. You can't complain about the government wasting the tax dollars we put in, and then turn a blind eye to insurance companies denying necessary care from a pool we pay into. It's the same thing, and it's been happening for too long
Ben you're waayyyy out of touch. "Just don't choose United healthcare" " just don't work for an employer that has United healthcare". is the same thing as saying. " Just don't be poor" "just don't struggle in life" its your choice.... It is not because the reality is I have to pay bills in order to survive!!! I cannot just pick my health insurance!
I'm MAGA, I guess I'm a leftist now
So odd when you say ''the left celebrates'' but i've seen legit everyone laugh at this CEOs death since we've all been fucked over by health insurance, It really shows how out of touch you are with blue collar workers who pay for insurance for years then don't get anything since even a minor health issue can get you denied.
Conservative California here, this is not a left or right issue but every varied political ideology coming together celebrating the victorious policy made from the people and not the ruling class.
It’s not only the left dude, all my coworkers voted for trump and reposted artwork of the shooter in their Twitter.
I’m not going to lie. I don’t feel bad for this guy and I’m as conservative as it gets. I get it’s not all him by any means and he didn’t create the system. But they’ve denied sooooo many claims for greed. While yours or my mother could have passed because of it. This was overdue. Sorry for his children and wife. But these insurance companies are the worst of the worst. If you feel pity you either haven’t researched the issue. Or you’re privileged and never had to worry about healthcare. Watch your mother die before your eyes because an insurance company deemed her dispensable to their bottom line. This is the result sorry not sorry
Not Left yet I Celebrate !
Ben, I’m an avid right winger and this is just a bad take. This is a working class issue! It’s not just the left.
Im a conservative and I completely agree with the Democrats on this one the healthcare system in our country is a disgrace and the fact that luigi killed a mass murderer is not a form of terrorism Just because the wealthy say so
The left? I'm a 3 time Trump voter and I'm celebrating
Idk, I’m a Trump voter and I’m not sad about him dying. Our health insurance in the U.S. is dangerously greedy, resulting in many deaths.
Im on the right and admire Luigi. Media wants us all separated. I just unsubscribed. My grandmother was tortured byUnited all the way as she died. She was Republican too.
Not Ben accidentally uniting us 💀
And so on and so forth.
SSCReader
17d ago
Eh, I doubt it, inflation was too high, and people's belts were feeling too tight. The incumbent loses that pretty much regardless of who they pick. If I were a Newsom advisor I would have been advising him under no circumstances to run whether against Trump or any other Republican in that climate.
The writing was on the wall, which might be one reason there wasn't much of a concerted effort to unseat Biden prior to the debate. Who wants to burn political capital when you're not in a great position to begin with?
SSCReader
20d ago
Bernie did a series of well received town halls in Trump Country, and he was literally just in Lenore, West Virgina, population 1300 that went 74% for Trump, I don't think you can rule him out so easily.
SSCReader
25d ago
Generally only if you do it in a way which contravenes another law. To demonstrate, If you stand outside a convicted rapists house and yell over and over Bob Smith is a rapist for days on end you might be charged with harrassment. The truth value of your statement isn't what the law is taking issue with. They agree with you hes a rapist, but how, when and how often you say it is the issue.
The trans part isn't really the issue, its just the UK in general is less bothered about restrictions of free speech than the US, especially when it comes to maintaining the peace (charitably put, not rocking the boat if less so) so our harrassment and other speech statutes are fairly broad.
As an anecdote I was back home recently and at a public event a man was (as my mum put it) carrying on about the Good Friday Agreement. He wasn't being threatening, but the police rolled up and hauled him away anyway, with the assistance and full support of the public. Were his free speech rights abrogated? Probably. But it made the event a lot more enjoyable.
SSCReader
27d ago
Is something actually changing?
The UK Supreme Court ruling and the NHS roll back of gender identity treatment are concrete changes.
"NHS England no longer routinely prescribes puberty blockers for people under 18 and has halted access to them outside of specific clinical trials, following a review by Dr. Hilary Cass, due to a lack of evidence for their safety and efficacy in this age group"
"In an “interim update” on how the ruling should be interpreted, the Equality and Human Rights Commission said on Friday that in workplaces and services open to the public, such as hospitals or cafes, “trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities.”"
The current position is basically that trans-women are not women with all that entails for sports, bathrooms and laws, but also don't be a dick about it, because that is not the done thing and they're still a protected group.
SSCReader
27d ago
Just to point out in the kind of similar Rivera case (3 teen girls kill a Bolivian man in London, also filmed on mobile phone, also on CCTV), the CCTV and video taken by the girls has still not been released (barring a couple of heavily blurred stills) months later even after the trial, nor has the identity of the girls been released. There too the girls claimed the man was harassing them, but witnesses contradicted them and all three pled guilty to manslaughter.
Your chances of getting information from the police on an active investigation as a private citizen are essentially zero. If there is a trial that is the best bet of information being released. Possible CCTV footage might be released here as the clear images of the girls were already released (not by the police), so the cat is out of the bag there. But even so the girls are still being blurred out by the BBC and the like, so even if we get some CCTV stills released they will likely be mostly useless for working out what happened.
Unless it's leaked just be aware even if they have really clear footage it may never be seen publicly no matter which way the situation developed. FOISA requests for anything that may count as evidence in a criminal case are almost always denied. But you could try via
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/new/police_scotland
It does have a note that: Requests to Safety Cameras Scotland should also be made to Police Scotland.
which might be applicable.
You can see requests for information about CCTV have been made previously to Police Scotland (https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/communication_between_police_sco_2#incoming-3134038 and https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/information_on_police_scotland_v#incoming-3102254) but often questions are refused to be answered due to the Law Enforcement exemptions.
Also note requests through this site are publicly visible.
SSCReader
27d ago
I want to see that video. If it shows anything other than the girls approaching the adults and immediately brandishing or initiating assault, the girls are, in my opinion, in the right. The longer we go without seeing the video, the more my priors shift toward the girls being in the right.
Just to point out in other cases the CCTV is often never released. For example the Rivera case where three teen girls killed a Bolivian man in London, was mostly caught on CCTV, but only a few heavily blurred stills were ever released. Interestingly there too the girls claimed the man harassed them, but witnesses contradicted that and all three girls pled guilty to manslaughter.
So I am not sure CCTV not being released should change your priors much one way or the other.
Also it was in Scotland not England. Which doesn't really change the point about the cameras but might save you some harsh words from some of my more nationalistic brethren.
Di you live in the UK? Because that certainly doesn't seem like a description of the situation. Not least necause you are eliding a very important consideration. Class. Britain does indeed enforce behavioral rules on underclass/lower class groups.
Case in point I am back home right now and a guy was yelling at a family event. No threats, just effing and blinding as my mum put it, and the cops just rolled up and dragged him off after being called.
Community norms require and often get community involvement. A Karen is just someone trying to enforce norms others don't agree with. Someone helping enforce popular norms is a good citizen.
SSCReader
1mo ago
If you search Amazon UK or other UK tool sites you will see things labelled as hand axes, not as commonly as hatchets maybe but the term is in use. I had a Rolson hand axe in my shed for a number of years for example.
Also used in Dungeons and Dragons and other RPGs which might be where more online non-Brits see it.
SSCReader
1mo ago
Then you missed quite a bit. The plan was most of the resistance evacuate on cloaked ships to Crait, where they can hide in a secret base, while a skeleton crew on the main ships leads the First Order on a wild goose chase. If the cloaked transports were undetected that was a reasonably solid escape plan. Because the First Order would have no reason to search Crait because they would have destroyed all the main ships and thus believed the Resistance destroyed.
I'm not saying its a great movie but the plan was slightly more well thought out than a one in a million shot.
SSCReader
1mo ago
Except that wasn't the plan. The plan was escaping on cloaked ships while the First Order chased the larger ones. But because Poe sanctioned Rose and Finn's mission who brought back a slicer who betrayed that plan to the First Order, plan A was shot. Hyperspace ramming was the hail mary.
SSCReader
1mo ago
And they're likely the ones who'll end up walking into a house to find the body unexpectedly if they do just commit suicide.
Thats a problem with suicide generally, not the Swiss system specifically. The Swiss system at least means some kids will be informed in advance who wouldn't otherwise be.
You have to compare it with "standard" suicide and in almost all of those relatives are going to have to unexpectedly deal with remains. Excepting those where the suicidal person tries to disappear themselves. But that of course leaves family members with other issues instead.
SSCReader
1mo ago
Oh i'm not a mod ao I'm commenting on its truth/probability vis a vis the sources you quoted only. Personally i wouldn't consider you've done enough to show female answers would be obviously more incorrect.
You perhaps need to hedge a little more. Obviously is a very certain and consensus building word so your evidence should be equally convincing, i think. Probably or likely would give you more leeway.
SSCReader
1mo ago
Just to point out though none of that supports your claim that their reply would be obviously less correct on quora. That's the claim that you need to buttress. Do you see why?
Because someone answering a particular quora question is self-selecting. First to be on quora in the first place and second to answer that particular question.
It could be 8 out 10 women have worse general knowledge, but that given the selection pressures men and women's answers on quora are equally correct because only the 2 out of 10 women post there, and so on and so forth.
You can't evidence a specific claim like this with general statistics. Consider: Men generally have less knowledge of fashion than women. Positing this is overall true for a moment, it doesn't mean that men answering fashion questions on a website will statistically answer worse than the women, because it is highly likely those men are very unusual, otherwise they wouldn't be answering questions on fashion in the first place. They are very likely to have greater fashion knowledge than the average man. Whether they have more knowledge than the average woman on the website we could only determine by analyzing answers on the platform itself.
So you still haven't actually evidenced the women on quora would be obviously less correct in general. You may have evidenced that if you pick a random woman and ask her a general knowledge question she will on average do worse than a random man. But that wasn't your claim.
To evidence a claim about quora you will have to analyze data from quora (or something similar perhaps), or find a way to unconfound the general data to account for selection effects on quora. Which in itself probably requires you to analyze a lot of data about quora.
Or to put it another way, the fact 8 out of 10 men know little about the goings on on Love Island, doesn't tell you much about the level of knowledge a man who CHOOSES to answer a question on Love Island has. Because interest in the topic is a factor in both level of knowledge and wanting to answer the question.
SSCReader
1mo ago
Associated with middle class striving, so probably skewed Protestant back in the day. My grandmother did keep the toaster in a cupboard. My mum doesn't.
SSCReader
1mo ago
So if anyone has brilliant ideas about US visa applications, creative leave arrangements, or general life optimization, I'm all ears.
I'd start by reaching out to Inkhaven. If they had this open internationally, they should already have considered visa issues. Hopefully a whole bunch of influential rationalists should already have considered how they could do this. If you're not getting paid I would think a tourist visa would do. It's essentially a writing holiday. But if you are getting paid for for your blog posts that makes it considerably more complicated I should think. There are visas for artist residencies, so I wouldn't be too concerned about the writing thing being weird as being the problem, but those generally would require the sponsor (Lightcone presumably in this case) to be engaging with being an official sponsor through the US government. Also the timing is likely tight for November. J-1 or B-1 Visas might be a possibility depending on the exact details. Unfortunately India is not part of the Visa Waiver program or you might have been ok with just an ESTA as you can travel for 90 days for business.
"You may be eligible for a B-1 visa if you will be participating in business activities of a commercial or professional nature in the United States, including, but not limited to:
Consulting with business associates Traveling for a scientific, educational, professional or business convention, or a conference on specific dates Settling an estate Negotiating a contract Participating in short-term training"
SSCReader
1mo ago
In the cupboard as opposed to out on the counter. Popularized by Derry Girls where a Catholic girls school and a Protestant Boys school are attempting to find commonalities.
A Jewish man is walking through Belfast one night when he gets stopped by two men in balaclavas with Armalites.
One of the men asks in a thick Belfast accent "Prod or Taig?" The Jewish man looks confused. "What?" "Are you a Protestant or are you a Catholic?" the other man asks in an even thicker accent. The Jewish man says "Well, I'm a Jew". The first paramilitary gives a long suffering sigh. "Yes, but are you a Protestant Jew or a Catholic Jew?"
That's the joke.
I have heard a different version which plays off it:
A man is walking home late at night in Belfast. Suddenly he's pulled into a dark alley and feels a knife at his throat! A hoarse voice whispers into his ear, "Are ye Protestant or Catholic?" Thinking quickly, wondering how to answer to save his life, the man has an inspiration. "Neither! I'm Jewish!" he says. "Well now, I'm the luckiest Arab in Belfast, so I am!" says the attacker.
Edit: I see my near namesake beat me to it!
Edit Edit: There is also a version where it's an atheist and the final question is: "Yes but is it the Protestant God or the Catholic God that you don't believe in?"
SSCReader
1mo ago
This is a region where walking into the wrong neighborhood could get you shot.
Well we still have the murals and your chances of being shot have gone way down. Though FYI seeing which colours the kerbs are painted or which flags are on the lampposts is probably easier as there aren't that many murals, you may have to walk a while to work out where you are if relying on murals alone.
You chances of being shot in the wrong region weren't zero, but they weren't massive even at the height of the Troubles. I was on the Falls road (Catholic area) a fair bit even though I was Protestant. Without checking where someone keeps their toaster, or talking to them about schooling you can't tell a Catholic from a Protestant in general just by looking. Hence the old joke about a Jew being stopped by Paramilitaries.
SSCReader
1mo ago
I do not understand why you would have concerns about someone asking an LLM.
Well because an LLM is not a person. It doesn't have ideas or thoughts. It's not an interaction with a person at all. Asking another person to proofread not only gets you another set of eyes it gets you an interaction with an actual living breathing person, and now their messiness gets injected. Having said that I'm not saying the way you are using it at this stage is wrong necessarily. My point is basically about not confusing the destination with the journey.
Imagine if you want to get from A to B and you can 1) Use a teleporter (non 40K style or its another kettle of fish) 2) Get on a train or 3) Walk. 1) Means you don't have a journey at all, you just get from A to B swiftly and efficiently. If that is your goal it is the best option. But if you want to see the countryside, and look at sheep in a field on the way it is of no use at all. It replaces the journey with the destination 100%. The train limits what you experience on your journey but doesn't remove it entirely.
I think part of the charm of TheMotte is the journey, the back and forth, the tangents, the random weirdness that gets injected from messy human thinking. Maybe I'm wrong and the LLM usage you currently have won't reduce the kind of vector space for that kind of energy bouncing off. You may well be right that my concerns are overbaked! Hopefully so, because I would anticipate AI usage is just going to increase and maybe not everyone will resist the pull of having the usage pretty heavily circumscribed as you do.
I'd like us all walking together ideally, romping up and down the hills of discussion and the dales of Red vs Blue tribal responses from our messy little human brains. If we're on a train well that's a little worse form my perspective. And the closer it gets to a bullet train whizzing past the hills at 300mph the less I like it. A meandering steam train is probably ok as well.
I'm more musing than condemning just to be clear. You're an extremely valuable contributor here and I always read your posts with interest, and you have to remember, I am old after all. Shaking my fist at the Cloud and wearing onions on my belt is a time honoured tradition!
But note thats not the "going dark" being talked about here. He shuttered his blog and twitter just this month for 9 months due to an unspecified "professional obligation".
Thats quite separate from his flame out from here some time ago. Different events.
@Stellula
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