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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   3169 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 8, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Helldivers 2 added mechs, after a long and grueling campaign where players had to fight in the hundreds of thousands to liberate the planet producing them.

They're great. Big stompy and utilitarian tin-cans that pack 1000 rounds of 7.62x51 Fuck You and 12 rockets of fuck you in particular. I'm told they're similar to Mantis mechs from Halo in terms of design, but I'm a 40k fan so I see Dreadnought.

Unfortunately, much like the Dreadnought, they can quite easily turn into a coffin if anything shoots at you.

Bugs, thankfully, do not have rocket launchers or high caliber projectiles, so the mechs handle them with ease. The biggest baddies in the game go down with 3 good rockets to the face. If you can't chew through a hundred bugs with a thousand rounds, git gud.

The robots? GG. They have more missiles than once covered the Fulda Gap and don't believe in MAD. Enjoy being blown up I guess.

Still great fun, but I do wish they were a tad bit tankier. They can blow up from a stiff breeze or stepping on flowers (explosive flowers, but they don't kill armored humans), friendly fire or just turning so fast the hitbox of the missile intersects with you before it leaves the tube.

turning so fast the hitbox of the missile intersects with you before it leaves the tube

this is hilarious

That kind of shit used to happen constantly in the original Battlefield 1942 back in 2002. Hated how my bombs would hit my own plane due to physics being too slow to kick in.

I'm very late on this, but I recently watched Shin Godzilla (on a flight to Tokyo, if you can believe it) and thought it was very good. Spoiler warning for an 8 year old movie. While the plot in the first 2/3 consisted mainly of meetings, meetings about meetings, and debriefs of meetings about meetings, I thoroughly enjoyed it. First, it served as a satire of the endless bureaucracies that exist in politics. One scene that stood out was when the Japanese Prime Minister announced publicly that the disturbance within Tokyo Bay was geothermal in nature 20 seconds before news footage showed the tail of Godzilla breaking the water. Some of the characters even comment on the endless red tape surrounding the event. Second, it served as a suspense building tool. Whereas we already know what's to come (if only by reading the title), the characters are woefully unaware of their situation and therefore completely unprepared. Several notable scenes that were particularly well done are:

The meetings in general early on in the movie. The meeting scenes, especially the ones with dozens of participants, are blocked, shot, and acted very well.

When Godzilla first makes landfall and is shown in full. The grotesque expression and design were very striking, as well as the gallons of blood that flowed from the gills. Something about the eyes is both disturbing and oddly cute.

When Godzilla reaches his 4th form and rampages through Tokyo while the classic theme (originally the Japanese Defense Force theme in the original Godzilla movie) played. This scene really reminded me of the original Godzilla movie. There's a sense of dread, awe, wonder, and doom that has not been present in a Godzilla movie for a long time. This is definitely something that the Legendary Godzilla movies are missing. Godzilla is so often portrayed as a defender of Earth nowadays that it's easy to forget that he started off as a physical representation of the power of the atomic bomb. I have not yet seen Godzilla Minus One yet, but I'm hoping for a similar feeling in that movie.

The Atomic Breath Scene.

All in all, a very welcome addition to the Godzilla franchise and probably one of the best movies possible to bring Godzilla into a new Era. Based on reviews of Godzilla Minus One, it looks like the Reiwa Era is off to a fantastic start for Godzilla.

My Top 5 Godzilla Movies (in no order):

Godzilla

Shin Godzilla

Godzilla vs Destoroyah

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Godzilla: Final Wars

Honorable mention to Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster

No fucking way did Oppenheimer deserve Best Picture. Gwan the boy Cillian for nabbing Best Actor though, doing Cork proud.

No fucking way did Oppenheimer deserve Best Picture.

As opposed to... what?

Were I to have a vote: all movies in that grim Oscar bait style would be removed from contention instantly for best picture. So negative on Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon. Barbie would get the nod from me, that work done within a bright pink framework was worth a dozen dark explorations of the human soul.

I go the opposite way: the Oscars should get more snobby and up their own ass and should frankly demoralize the people on Twitter and op-ed pages who want their latest topical message movie (Black Panther being nominated was ludicrous - thanks Dark Knight!) to win. Those films already make money, but people are now convinced the Oscars should be "relevant" by validating their taste.

Nope, the Oscars should act as a billboard for pretentious movies that'd otherwise not come to the attention of the general public. That's the main way I see some of this shit.

I'm all for pretentious and obscure. I just find grimdark to be overplayed. I'm sick to death of movies that use morally disgusting protagonists as "complexity." What's really interesting and impressive to me artistically is making a beautiful and complex and deep but positive and uplifting, or at least fun, work of art. Which is where Oppenheimer fails.

Among the nominees, I enjoyed Past Lives, Barbie, The Holdovers, and Poor Things (in that order) far more than Oppenheimer, which was a boring slog with a few interesting bits scattered here and there.

I didn't watch enough movies to give a better alternative. Not Barbie. Not Killers of the Flower Moon. I liked Asteroid City better, but it wasn't even nominated.

I want to like Nolan films, but on the whole, I don't. Oppenheimer was one of Nolan's better films, but I still disliked its overall structure. School > Communism > Manhattan Project > Security Clearance Hearing > Senate Confirmation Hearing. It felt unfocused to me.

I liked Asteroid City better, but it wasn't even nominated.

Wes Anderson still got his Oscar.

Oh man, I hated Asteroid City. I think I laughed once. But also Wes Anderson is really not my bag and I recognise that

It felt unfocused to me.

Same.

EDIT: I think J. Robert Oppenheimer is a strange choice for a three hour biographical thriller. A documentary makes more sense to me.

Also I tend to dislike biopics due to the propagandistic nature of the genre.

I tend to dislike biopics for the simple reason that they seem to lack focus. They're slow to get started because they have to focus on marginally relevant bits from their childhood or early adulthood, and the crux of their professional life is represented by a series of only semi-related vignettes. Sometimes, like in Gandhi, this ends up being okay because their entire life was really leading to one thing, in Gandhi's case Indian independence. The way to do it, though, is like in Lincoln, where you focus on one aspect of their professional life that could be a movie in and of itself.

As far as propagandistic ones go, though, Walk the Line has to be the worst example. By all accounts, Johnny Cash was a horrible human being throughout most of his life, yet the movie makes it seem like his life was a redemption story when he met June Carter and found Jesus. The movie conveniently ends before the part where he has an affair with his wife's sister while his wife is pregnant, and that whatever redemption he found came in like, 1992. But after that movie came out I had to endure people playing the same three songs on jukeboxes in bars while telling me that he knew pain and was a great man, etc., etc.

Of course, whatever you think about him as a person, Cash at least is one of the most important figures in 20th Century American music. The same can't be said for Queen (and not just because they aren't American). Bohemian Rhapsody probably has to be the worst example of this kind of propagandizing, and also one of the most effective. First while I understand that Hollywood is going to take some liberties with historical facts to make a more compelling story, I don't expect them to play copy and paste with a band's chronology. This is easily verifiable information that everyone with a certain degree of familiarity with the subject already knows. It's like making a film about the American Revolution that tells you the war began with Washington crossing the Delaware and has them signing the Declaration of Independence in 1780. They also relied to heavily on first-hand accounts from Brian May to get the inside story of the band. I know you have to get it from somewhere, but I doubt Freddie Mercury apologized to them as much in real life as he did in the movie.

But the real travesty of this film is that it created the myth that Queen were an iconic band up there with the likes of Led Zeppelin and The Who. I've listened to their entire catalog and well, they aren't. When they started out they were a pretty good hard rock band, but the only songs from this period that anyone still talks about are Killer Queen and maybe Keep Yourself Alive. Then they made what are supposed to be their best two albums, A Day at the Races and A Night at the Opera and they're... good. But they aren't iconic albums. Even if my dislike of Bohemian Rhapsody the song is due merely to overexposure, most of it is just unmemorable. They'd make a series of okay albums with hits of varying quality and plenty of padding until the '80s were in full swing, at which point what would have been padding started to sound substantial in comparison to the dross that made up the majority. By the end even their hits were unlistenable. I don't hate Queen, but I don't know why some people consider them better than, say, The Doobie Brothers, who made at least three albums that are better than anything Queen ever did.

Some people will argue that those who dislike Queen simply have a distaste for the theatrical elements of their performances, particularly the strong allusions to opera and musical theater; if you don't like either of those, you won't like them integrated into your rock music. While I agree with this up to a point, and agree that they started to go downhill when they became "theatrical", it's not because of a dislike of theatrical element per se, it's that they do it badly. Their understanding of opera is surface level, not going beyond what you see in a J.G. Wentworth commercial. And while some Beatles fans will complain about what John Lennon referred to as Paul's "granny music" (Your Mother Should Know, When I'm Sixty-Four, Honey Pie, etc.), it's sincere, borne out of an appreciation for the music he grew up listening to. With Queen, on the other hand, it's pure kitsch. There's nothing wrong with kitsch, but there's a low ceiling for how great it can be. This kind of got off the rails, but I don't think any of this happens without that stupid movie.

But the real travesty of this film is that it created the myth that Queen were an iconic band up there with the likes of Led Zeppelin and The Who.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but this just seems flatly untrue. They were a hugely commercially successful act with their classic lineup and remained so for decades afterwards, with greatest hits compilations still topping UK charts as recently as 2022. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, fifteen years before Bohemian Rhapsody came out. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was voted the UK's favourite single of all time in 2002. Their Live Aid performance in 1985 was widely considered the greatest live performance ever decades before Bohemian Rhapsody came out. They've been directly cited as an influence by everyone from Judas Priest and Megadeth to Radiohead and Katy Perry.

Bohemian Rhapsody didn't create this myth - the film exists as a direct result of it.

The thing is, though, there are a lot of bands like that. I should also emphasize the difference between Queen's stature in the UK and Europe vs. North America; they were always popular here but never had the kind of mega-popularity they enjoyed across the pond. The best analog I can think of is a group like the Eagles. They're played on the radio constantly, they had a ton of big hits in both the US and the UK but were always more popular in America, were inducted into the Hall, had a massive reunion tour in the mid-'90s, etc. Their critical stature is higher than that of Queen, but both groups were critical whipping boys in their day whose stature has improved over time. Looking at the VH1 100 Greatest bands list from 1998, Queen ranks at 33 and the Eagles at 23. Rolling Stone's 2010 list of greatest artists has Queen at 52 and the Eagles at 75. Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums had two entries from the Eagles, Hotel California at 37 and Eagles at 374. Queen's lone entry was A Night at the Opera, at 230. When Rolling Stone did the list again in 2020 it had Hotel California at 118, Eagles at 207, and A Night at the Opera at 128. To be fair, when VH1 redid their list in 2010 Queen jumped to 17 and the Eagles dropped off the list entirely, but it should be noted that this was after the point when VH1 had burned most of their credibility in the music world and emphasized more pop-oriented acts — Michael Jackson jumped from 40 to 2, Madonna jumped from 86 to 16, and George Michael (!) entered the top 100.

Now, I prefer the Eagles to Queen and they have (slightly) more critical credibility. For all intents and purposes, I'll consider it a draw. The difference is that I don't hear anyone trying to argue that the Eagles are among the top 5 greatest bands of all time, especially not 20-year-old zoomers who aren't so much as arguing it as much as stating it as though it were an accepted fact among anyone familiar with rock music. To be fair, they are very different bands representing very different tastes, but the popularity of country music (particularly pop country) in the United States suggests no reason why the Eagles shouldn't enjoy a similar reputation, especially considering that a lot of the country I hear on the radio descends more from what they did than from what e.g. Willie Nelson or Tammy Wynette did. The answer seems obvious to me: Movies. Not necessarily Bohemian Rhapsody, but earlier. The most notable movie moment for Queen prior to that biopic was the scene from Wayne's World where they were singing Bohemian Rhapsody in the car, which was incorporated into a new music video that was played on MTV and helped the song hit the charts again in the US. The best known movie moment for the Eagles is from The Big Lebowski when The Dude tells the taxi driver that he's had a long night and hates the fucking Eagles. Ever since that movie achieved cult status in the early '00s it's been cool to slag on the Eagles. Meanwhile, Queen, a group who by all means should enjoy a similar stature, gets treated as if they're up there with the true greats. Bohemian Rhapsody (the movie) only took this cool/uncool dichotomy a step further, by cementing their legacy through a largely fictional account of their history. I can't speak for Europe, but over here, there was definitely a marked change in how younger people treated this band after the film came out.

If I'm reading you correctly, you're saying that Queen were considered a great band in the UK and Europe for decades before Bohemian Rhapsody came out, but owe that reputation in the US to the release of the film.

Again, this just seems flatly untrue. As previously mentioned they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, "Bohemian Rhapsody", "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions" were added to the Grammy Hall of Fame years prior to the film's release, one of their greatest hits compilations has spent more than 500 weeks in the Billboard top 200.

No, that's not what I'm saying. They were well-regarded in the US, but no one considered them at the absolute top of the pyramid, up there with The Beatles and Stones and Dylan. Not even Led Zeppelin, for that matter (I mean, there were some people, but they were mostly pop fans whose knowledge of rock music was surface-level). Yeah, they were in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but with over 300 inductees it's not exactly an exclusive club. And saying that they have three songs in the Grammy Hall of Fame is like damning with faint praise — I couldn't find anything about "We Will Rock You" or "We Are the Champions" ever being inducted, but A Night at the Opera was inducted in 2018, and even giving them that, they're still shy of Blood, Sweat & Tears, who I don't hear anyone arguing are among the all-time greats. I brought up the Eagles because they're a band whose popularity and critical standing was, by all normal metrics, similar to that of Queen, but who I don't hear anyone claiming was among the top 5 groups of all time. I only brought up the UK because I know they were more popular over there and I don't know if people there have been ranking them to 5 or whatever for longer. I would also note that this is a phenomenon that I see much more among younger people who probably saw the movie when they were at the height of their susceptibility of being influenced music-wise at the time of the film's release. I don't really see too many people my age and older reevaluating their opinions on Queen.

Yeah, they were in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but with over 300 inductees it's not exactly an exclusive club.

I don't even know what this is supposed to mean. How many rock musicians or groups have there been since the genre came into being? Surely significantly less than 1% (or 0.1%) have made it into the Hall of Fame.

There have been 116 Novel laureates for Literature since the prize's inauguration. Would anyone dispute that this is a very exclusive club, even if it's only one-third as exclusive as the Hall of Fame in terms of raw membership numbers?

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The way to do it, though, is like in Lincoln, where you focus on one aspect of their professional life that could be a movie in and of itself.

Los Alamos was the only part of Oppenheimer that really worked for me (minus the colossal cinematic cocktease of the Trinity test), because Nolan is interested in concepts and bored by people. The entire last hour of the movie was an exercise in tedium. Who gives a shit if Opp loses his security clearance?

Who gives a shit if Opp loses his security clearance?

Exactly. It's not like the prevention of nuclear proliferation hinged on whether or not he lost his security clearance. That's what didn't work for me. Why's the rest of his life important? What's the takeaway? Don't associate with communism, otherwise you'll lose your security clearance?

The movie should've focused solely on the Manhattan Project and the immediate reaction to the dropping of the bombs. Or maybe the race between the two sides, getting more of the German and/or Japanese perspective.

The takeaway is that evil meddling anti-communist politicians drove out the brave, wonderful philosopher-scientists who just wanted to give peace a chance.

But the real travesty of this film is that it created the myth that Queen were an iconic band up there with the likes of Led Zeppelin and The Who. I've listened to their entire catalog and well, they aren't.

I've listened to the entire catalog of The Who and they aren't either. I liked I Can See for Miles, Behind Blue Eyes, Who Are You, You, Eminence Front and that's it. Five songs out of twelve studio albums.

Queen has 15 studio albums, and I counted seven songs that I like. Same ballpark.

But the real travesty of this film is that it created the myth that Queen were an iconic band up there with the likes of Led Zeppelin and The Who.

What? That's neither a new idea, nor is it a myth. Queen is considered one of the all-time greats and has been since I was a kid 30 years ago.

Let's say you wanted to stop AI in its tracks.

Stop OpenAI? No, deeper.

Stop NVIDIA? No, deeper.

Stop Taiwan Semi who produces NVIDIA's chips. No, deeper.

Stop ASML who makes the machines which make the chips. No, deeper.

Stop the quartz used to make the chips. This deep.

Big Yud retweeted this: https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1766504587781878196

"The modern economy rests on a single road in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. The road runs to the two mines that is the sole supplier of the quartz required to make the crucibles needed to refine silicon wafers. There are no alternative sources known."

I am doubtful, but it is interesting how much high tech stuff runs through relatively fragile supply chains with little redundancy. Also, why isn't this mine worth $1 trillion dollars?

Stop the quartz? No, deeper.

Stop the humans who mine the quartz. Everything I've heard suggests a bioweapon is not really all that difficult to build. If we just drive humanity extinct then no AI will be built!

Because there are a ton of quartz mines scattered all over the globe. Another mine would supply it if this one didn't. Just because one farm supplies grain to wagyu beef in japan doesn't mean another one can't do it if they stop. The cattle don't die.

There is also synthetic quartz, this is a solved problem.

It would cause a delay though--especially if the quartz itself was sabotaged (e.g. by the powder the tweet mentions) rather than the road being blocked or something.

What's the stack overflow for LLM prompts? Large parts of my work is unironically "prompt engineering", and I plan to offload significant portions of thinking to gpt.

There doesn't seem to be any forum that focussed on good prompt engineering.

I second the excellent question. Chatbot threads on imageboards have some insights into prompt engineering, but they're not exactly technical because their goal is not automating some abstract task. They still do have some useful info though, and roleplay is honestly underrated as a medium for interacting with LLMs, wearing masks seems to come very naturally to a shoggoth. There's a reason many simplistic prompts for e.g. coding tell the shoggoth "you are a very smart coding assistant" and things to that effect, likewise why many Stable Diffusion prompts begin with "masterpiece", "high quality", etc. Funny how that works, but hey, as long as it works.

If you have access to Claude, Anthropic's documentation on it is fairly solid and grounded in reality, people have been putting it to use and described methods have real effects.

Anthopic has a great prompt library.

What is currently the best LLM implementation on which to use these prompts?

Given these are anthropics prompts, shouldn't the prior be the Claude models ?

I guess they would indeed be best suited for Claude(s), but they are quite generic so they should work all right on any decently large model.

OP I'd be interested to know if you found other useful resources

Why not just ask ChatGPT for a good prompt?

Edit: Just realized why this would fail terribly.

  1. ChatGPT isn't going to help you hack itself

  2. ChatGPT doesn't know much about ChatGPT because it's not inside its own training data

So, either prompt engineering will be the last area of human expertise or, rather, we'll simply ask bot A how to prompt bot B.

Why not just ask ChatGPT for a good prompt?

I'm past that stage.

Who else finds the stupidpol people or position to be inconsistent? The premise sounds good in theory: disaffected leftists and Marxists who believe that identify politics distracts from workers' issues and protects corporations. Fair enough. But I have found that in the comments it's constant shit-tests and questioning the motives or loyalty of others, either as not being insufficiently Marxist or , being a covert liberal, etc.

Or, second, if you accidently slaughter one of their sacred cows, even if it's otherwise consistent with the idpol or pro-workers position. For example, I argue that climate change is a distraction from workers' issues, but this steps on the feet of leftists who believe climate change is equally important or a crisis. So which is it? If liberal elites use climate change as a pretext for power, all while the cost or responsibility of fixing climate change is placed on non-elites (elites will not be living in pods or having to reduce their footprint in any meaningful sense), much like identity politics, then is not consistent to oppose the climate change narrative too?

They come off overall as disagreeable argumentative people. It's like they want to be mad at someone or something, and no one can ever be good enough or live up to some unobtainable ideal of being correctly anti-identity politics. They have become the very thing they oppose. The experience is like walking on egg shells . It's like this with other political niches too, not to only pick on them.

Regarding climate change, I am agnostic on the issue, but I don't think the left is being intellectually honest. It's a fallacious argument, specifically, the argumentum ad ignorantiam, in that any deviation of 'normal' weather or temperatures can be interpreted as evidence of climate change, which makes it impossible to ever falsify it. The burden of proof is shifted to skeptics to disprove climate change, which is impossible to do if anything can be summoned as evidence of climate change. It used to be called global warming; when that failed to stick, it was rebranded as climate change.

Hey, this isn’t fun!

In all seriousness, please save the CW topics for the CW thread.

sorry, i meant to post this in culture war. I originally made a brief post and then i kept adding to it and hit submit before realizing i had posted it in the Friday thread.

So, I have this idea, and I'm curious if I'm on the right track.

I've generally avoided stock options, because the only thing I know about them is that's how you lose all your money. They expire worthless all the damned time. However, selling covered calls seems like a good way to be on the right side of that, and the only risk is you miss out on potential gains. You are literally selling contracts to people you are betting will be worthless by expiration, and pocketing the cash, and even when you are wrong, you still get the full value of the stocks you sold them at the price you agreed on in the contract.

I'm sitting on a shit ton of COIN, and I'm planning on selling half when it doubles. This actually coincides wonderfully with the size of an option contract (100 shares). So I'm thinking, every week I sell an option contract at my price target, pocket some extra cash I wouldn't have otherwise, and it eventually sells at that price just like I had pre-committed to do anyways.

It's win/win/win right?

What if those contracts are not worthless by expiration? Indeed what if they are worth more than what you sold them for? Do you think this possibility is not taken into account while pricing them?

I work at a small options trading firm at a non trading role. I interact with the guys working on modelling and pricing options every day. One thing I know is that these guys are really fucking smart and spend most of their day and night hours thinking about how to very efficiently take your money and getting very well compensated for this. I would advise anyone away from competing with these guys unless you really know what you are doing. Derivative trading is meant for institutional investors to hedge certain risks. Options are to be bought as well calculated insurance policies and not as a way to gamble with leverage. It’s a pity that they became a very efficient tool in the crypto world to part fools with their money.

Let me put it like this. The alternative to me selling these covered calls is to just set a limit order to sell 100 shares at my price target. One way or another they are getting sold, I'd rather sell the covered calls in the meantime. None of this is on leverage. I don't care if someone else makes more money if I still get my 100%+ return on holding them for 1-2 years.

When my NVDA 10x'ed I sold 20% to take out 200% of my initial investment. The other 80% that I let ride has gone up another 100%. I regret nothing. I plan on selling 10% more soon and taking out another 200% of my initial investment. I'm not trying to time the top perfectly, or make more money than everyone else, I'm trying to end up with more money than I put in. Preferably beating a benchmark of 10% annual returns. Worst case beating a benchmark of HYSA returns.

I can't believe that when Wall Street Bets posters were getting rich off of NVDA back in 2017 I thought I had missed the boat.

Are you managing all of your savings yourself or are these stock picks some small portion of your total assets? I'm just curious—I'm not going to tell you to stop or buy index ETFs.

Well, these stocks were a small portion of my total savings. I used to have 3x as much in a nice conservative 401k. And they were also a small portion of my overall non 401k brokerage portfolio. But their growth has so outpaced everything else, its gotten a bit lopsided.

Edit: Wrote that up on mobile, and realize it might be unclear. My 401k was 3x the size of my regular brokerage account. In my brokerage account, COIN and NVDA were about 1/4.

Then there's my BTC which was about 1/5th the size of my brokerage account.

Selling covered calls is a great way to reduce your position size in a stock you also don’t mind holding for at least the time it takes for the option to expire. So, sounds perfect for your plan to scale down. Just remember if your strike price is high enough to present little risk of having your shares called away, your counterparty is wise to this and will bid accordingly. You’re only compensated for the risk you accept.

Two possibilities you may be discounting:

  1. You sell a call, make your $500 or whatever, and COIN tanks sharply. Sure the option expires worthless and you keep your $500, but you may lose multiples of this in forfeited capital gains by not just exiting, and who knows when it could recover. Also your target price is now even further out of the money and will sell for that much less going forward.

  2. The opposite happens, you lose your shares at your target price, and sure you’re fine with the possibility now, but it’s a different story when you watch your underlying double, triple within a year or two and you gave it all up for a few hundred bucks in premium.

These things will happen to you if you use this strategy enough. If you’re okay with all that I say go for it.

RE 1. I am not an extremely sophisticated investor. I generally buy and hold for 5+ years. Unless I have something I'd rather invest in, or the gains just get too rich (10x or so), I let things ride. I also tend to do this with my losses, since I know I'm not fast enough, or have enough inside information, to dip before things go south. So once I'm at the bottom, I figure I might as well ride it out, or save the losses for tax season to offset gains. Maybe this means I shouldn't have a self directed brokerage account at all, and if I ever dip below my 10% APY threshold I may consider that, but so far so good.

RE 2. You may be right about this one. I sold the first covered call, and my heart dipped when COIN went up enormously Friday evening and Monday morning. Turns out I might not have been as emotionally prepared to part with COIN @ 340 if it happened this early after all. Of course the price came back down, the call I sold is rapidly approaching worthlessness, down 85% from when I sold it, and it looks like I will escape the week a few hundred richer and with all my holdings in tact.

My whole reasoning behind attempting this is to keep it up with some regularity week to week, getting $100-200 here or there with some consistency. Sell calls that are at or above my strike price and only 4-5 days out, and just settle for whatever I can get for them. Paying for private school has been expensive and my monthly contributions to my brokerage account have dwindled precipitously. Selling covered calls seemed like a not terrible way to effectively goose my "contributions". But I may not have the emotional fortitude or sophistication for it after all.

We shall see what this Friday brings, and if I feel like repeating my efforts come Monday.

First of all, congrats. You've been the recipient of incredible luck. The market gods have smiled on COIN and bestowed upon it a share price far outstripping any reasonable valuation.

If it were me, I'd sell the entire lot at market open on Monday. I can't guarantee that today was the top, but the supply of greater fools is limited. Coinbase may not be the stupidest bubble stock (that would be CVNA), but is not far behind. Despite everything, Coinbase still doesn't make money. And the share count only goes up.

In a sense, it's a good thing to sell covered calls because this reduces your overall exposure to COIN.

But overall, the Buy-Write strategy hasn't performed well in recent decades. For a long time it was considered a way to generate great risk-adjusted returns. Things have changed in the post-Bernake era of easy money. For example, QYLD has returned 42% in the last 5 years vs. 159% for QQQ, and with higher taxes too.

Yeah, I have a significantly different thesis for Coinbase. Crypto isn't going anywhere, they are the custodian for Blackrock's ETF, along with all but 2 of the others. Pretty sure they will execute a regulatory monopoly. Also you may have missed their last earnings. Reducing operating cost and making institutional clients 50% of the revenue got them pretty solidly in the black. Plus they are sitting on a mountain of cash. The stock has at least 6 months to stretch it's legs as the bitcoin bull market runs a bit further. I mean, anything can happen, but I'm putting my money where my mouth is for at least that long.

I'm not super aware of finance, but my impression was that in general, you can't get higher returns in an efficient market without insider knowledge or higher risk. This would make me think that there's some type of drawback to your win-win-win (at least, in general, that wouldn't mean that it's not the best for you personally)?

Secondly, I think I heard that any financial instrument can be simulated using options.

I could be totally off base on either of those, so if people can correct me or confirm, that would we appreciated.

Came across a philological-theological argument that the word for faith in the New Testament context (pistis) means embodied allegiance more than cognitive assent. This is interesting as it could indicate that the faith/works controversy comes from inappropriate translations and inadequate study of the original meaning for a first century audience. When I read this I immediately thought of the weird Centurion moment in the New Testament, where Jesus states that someone has the greatest faith (pistis) because he says —

“Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

I wonder if this anecdote was included in the New Testament specifically to illustrate the meaning of pistis. Because we see the cognitive trust that is typically thought of when we think of faith (say the word and it will be done), yet we also see an emphasis on fealty (not worthy) and, significantly, an even greater emphasis on obedience and allegiance to commands.

Well that's nice, but I don't think it's how "faith" has been translated down the ages. From the Scriptural view itself, the verse about "what is faith" doesn't say "it's swearing allegiance to the King, duh", it's the entire eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews 11:

"11 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

Greek translations are tricky things, and Reformed scholars seem to love popping up with new takes in a "My Classical and Biblical Greek is better than yours" measuring contest.

According to Bates, we’ll be judged on the last day on whether we were genuinely loyal to Jesus, not whether we kept an itemized list of commands.

Yeah, well I'm just an ignorant Roman Catholic, but I kinda think the "how will we be judged?" part is already covered, bro:

Matthew 25:31-46

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

I see this article comes from 2017 but it always amuses me to see Protestants rediscovering, and thinking they invented, Catholic concepts:

As Bates argues, the gospel can’t be reduced to the formula “Jesus died for our sins,” since the gospel centers on the truth that Jesus is King. He’s the resurrected and enthroned Lord over all, and we’re called to express our allegiance to him as our Lord.

...Bates particularly stresses that Jesus is enthroned as King and Messiah over all the world.

We gotchu covered there, fam:

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, commonly referred to as the Feast of Christ the King, Christ the King Sunday or Reign of Christ Sunday, is a feast in the liturgical year which emphasises the true kingship of Christ. The feast is a relatively recent addition to the liturgical calendar, instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI for the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. In 1970, its Roman Rite observance was moved from October to the last Sunday of Ordinary Time and thus to the end of the liturgical year. The earliest date on which the Feast of Christ the King can occur is 20 November and the latest is 26 November.

...Pope Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King in his encyclical Quas Primas of 1925, in response to growing secularism and secular ultra-nationalism, and in the context of the unresolved Roman Question."

Quas primas established the Feast of Christ the King, which was Pope Pius XI's response to the world's increasing secularization and nationalism.

It was written in the aftermath of World War I and the Revolutions of 1917–1923, which saw the fall of the Hohenzollerns, Romanovs, Habsburgs and Ottomans. In contrast, Pope Pius XI pointed to a king "of whose kingdom there shall be no end". In 1925 the Pope asked the French Dominican priest Édouard Hugon, professor of philosophy and theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum, to work on Quas primas.

Hebrews 11:1 may lean more toward assent but I think it’s still a bit nuanced, because the word translated assurance is hypostasis, its primitive connotation being “that which underlies the visible”. Some have translated this title deed. The word “assurance” is criticized because while the Greek words means certainty / certainly-persuaded, our word “assurance” doesn’t come close to that conclusiveness except in its technical business sense. For instance, if you are “reassuring” or “giving assurance” to a friend, it’s an open question whether this results in some cognitive certainty of a reality. But in the Greek there is sense of it being conclusively held.

In the rest of Hebrews 11, we see the examples of “why the ancients were commended” for their faith, and this is a list of people being obedient or committing to some action based on expectation of a promised reward. This seems more than “mental assent”, as in, “I assent to the truth of this and that”. It’s more like an allegiant assent, because the focus is on how the patron deity rewards its client believer. The person fully knows (not believes) that a promised reward will occur based on the relationship between the God and the believer based upon good faith (like the business term).

But I agree with you on the primacy of the passage in Matthew. The difficulty is in establishing compatibility between Matthew and some of the more “protestant” verses, like “by faith you are saved and not works”.

In context, isn't "works" the ceremonial Law of Moses?

That's probably the main thing in view (well, the Mosaic law as a whole; not merely the ceremonial component), but that doesn't defeat the protestant point.

Here's my reading: Verse 3:19-20: Paul asserts that the law gives knowledge of sin, that it's to reveal guilt, that it acquits no one. We're all guilty, and the law makes us know it. [note: guilt not exclusive to Jews, as it refers to the "whole world," and it describes the law as essentially revelatory of guilt, not creator of guilt. So in view is also being guilty, apart from the mosaic law]

3:21-22: But righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ is a thing, not through the law. [Conclusion: righteousness must exist distinctly from the mosaic law]

3:23-25: Righteousness is as a gift from Jesus; we're all inadequate otherwise. Received by faith. [Unfortunately, no definition of faith given.]

3:25-26: I don't have a clear enough picture of what precisely Paul is doing here.

3:27-28: So we can't boast. [Due, presumably, to 3:24-25]. I don't have a clear enough view of the semantic scope of law at the time, such that he speaks of a law of faith.

3:29-31: So gentiles eligible too. Upholding of the law. (Makes it clear that by "law of works" he did have in view the Mosaic law)

4:1-3: Repetition that works tied to boasting. Then, "Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness." [note that while the επιστευσεν has some range of meaning, I'm pretty sure it's used of the one trusting/believing/whatever as the subject, and the one trusted in etc. as the object. This would be evidence against @coffee_enjoyer's theory, assuming this is connected to the earlier instances of faith/pistis. Abraham is a potent subject, as in him lies the origins of the Jewish people.]

4:4 Whatever's happening, it can't be something in such a way that a reward is earned.

4:5: And there we have it, it is in fact connected to righteousness in faith. In general, we trust (rather than be trustworthy->we are counted righteous.)

4:6-8: And our being righteous is comparable to David's being forgiven. [Reading the psalm that this is taken from, it does not look like this is talking about Mosaic ceremonies]

4:9-12: In general, saved by faith, the particular Jewish moral code (esp. circumcision) not such that it is necessary for salvation, nor is it sufficient.

4:13-15: Faith and the law treated as contrary principles of our being counted righteous.

4:16: Faith tied to it being grace-based

4:18-22: Definitely reads like it's talking of faith more as consisting in Abraham's trust than his fidelity.

4:23-24: And so this is analogous to us.

I think Romans 3 is largely inconclusive as to whether the protestant or non-protestant reading is favored, and may even lean catholic, but when Romans 4 is included, it seems definitely to favor the protestant position. Specifically, verses 1-8 and 18-24 read like Paul is not operating under a "saved by fidelity" system.

If I were not protestant, I would read "the law" in this as talking about discrete, external actions. Whereas, faith would be an internal thing, faithfulness.

But this seems inadequate to me, at least in light of other scripture. In the passage, I've pointed out that this is more difficult to reconcile with the 4:1-8 and 18-24. More broadly, Jesus summarizes the scriptures by describing the greatest commandment as something that per this analysis, would fall into faith; but it is clearly a requirement of the law, being both its summary and a specific commandment in it. With that conceded, any analysis of the law could not treat it as solely describing discrete external acts. The impossibility of following the law is probnbly also supportive of an internal component.

I'm very hesitant to break out Paul verse by verse and ascribe an individual meaning to each line. Chapters and verses were only delineated many hundreds of years after Paul wrote. He also does not come from the same tradition of writing that we developed, where we write our thesis front and center, then write our supporting evidence, then follow with a conclusion. This can make it hard to understand what the point of any given passage is.

With that said, my reading of Romans chapters three and four would be: The first covenant that God made with Abraham never promised eternal life, theosis, etc. to those who followed it. It did lead to Salvation - out of the Covenant came Jesus - but it does not grant salvation. When people failed to follow the first covenant, they weren't failing to achieve their own salvation. Instead they were merely demonstrating that humankind is weak and sinful.

In your exegesis of Romans 4, it seems to me that you are generalizing things that Abraham did as part of his forming a covenant with God in Genesis 15, into general moral action. I disagree that Romans 4:13 contrasts Faith and the law as opposing each other, but rather Faith preceded the covenant. If you reread Genesis 15 you will see that Paul's referring to it in a very orderly fashion. First you have him quote Genesis 15:6 ("Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.") Then right after that verse in Genesis, God forms the covenant ("On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram.")

In Romans 4:18-25, Paul does generalize to the gentiles - because a huge part of his letter to the Romans is to argue that the gentiles do not need to join the old covenant to also join the new. A Christian's faith in Jesus is like Abraham's faith in God's promise - they both start a covenant. He is saying that Gentiles don't need to follow the old covenant to be justified because the old covenant never justified anyone. Unlike the new covenant, the old covenant never promised justification.

I also think we might not have the same terminology when we talk about Righteousness, Salvation, Justification. Sometimes Catholics and Protestants disagree about how much we are disagreeing because we just don't use the same words to talk about the same things. To be clear about the terminology I am using here are some definitions:

Justification - A formative process in which Christians are made righteous over the course of their entire lives. It is a gift from God, unearned, provided by Jesus' death on the cross to all who accept that He is Lord. This is something that can be lost or stalled and then picked up again. It is comparable to being born. It is unearned gift, but there are certain things you can do that hasten your (spiritual or physical) death.

Protestants often define justification as "To be declared righteousness," in a one time event. This dramatically changes how we read any Bible verse with the word "Justification" in it. Instead, Catholics would use the word "Salvation" in places where Protestants commonly use "Justification."

Salvation - Actually getting to Heaven. Not the same thing as Justification.

Righteousness - Correct behavior. Jesus imparts (not imputes) righteousness to us.

In the Catholic view, faith is an unmerited gift from God. Without God providing the grace of faith, there is no human effort that will grant a person faith. Faith leads to Justification, in which Christians become righteous over the course of their lives. At the end of our lives, we reach Salvation through this process of Justification, which we did nothing to earn but do need to participate in lest we lose it anyways.

This is a good video that examines the differences (an similarities) between what Catholics and Protestants believe on Justification.

I'm very hesitant to break out Paul verse by verse and ascribe an individual meaning to each line.

I know there's nothing special about verses, I was just using them to go through the text in detail. The text contains detail; you can't just ignore that (but of course, the overall scope and arguments are also vital).

The first covenant that God made with Abraham never promised eternal life, theosis, etc. to those who followed it. It did lead to Salvation - out of the Covenant came Jesus - but it does not grant salvation. When people failed to follow the first covenant, they weren't failing to achieve their own salvation. Instead they were merely demonstrating that humankind is weak and sinful.

I'm assuming you're treating the covenant referred to here as roughly the same as the Mosaic one? That one definitely does promise life: "the one who does these things shall live by them," which Paul quotes in Galatians.

As to faith, etc: I didn't really address your position, mostly just coffee_enjoyer's, before. Let's get to yours.

In your exegesis of Romans 4, it seems to me that you are generalizing things that Abraham did as part of his forming a covenant with God in Genesis 15, into general moral action.

As Paul does, in verses 23-25, and elsewhere. If you think there's a meaningful difference, point out where, and we can work from there.

I disagree that Romans 4:13 contrasts Faith and the law as opposing each other, but rather Faith preceded the covenant.

Perhaps you may not think that Romans 4:13 does so, but I don't see how you could read 4:14 as not presenting a contrast/opposition of sorts. Read in context.

In Romans 4:18-25, Paul does generalize to the gentiles - because a huge part of his letter to the Romans is to argue that the gentiles do not need to join the old covenant to also join the new. A Christian's faith in Jesus is like Abraham's faith in God's promise - they both start a covenant. He is saying that Gentiles don't need to follow the old covenant to be justified because the old covenant never justified anyone. Unlike the new covenant, the old covenant never promised justification.

I think I've shown sufficiently that it does promise life, at least, above. Yes, I agree that obligations upon gentiles are a part of what's going on here. But they are not the primary object in focus. Rather, it's how the (yes, primarily jewish) law relates to our righteousness before God in general, and in so doing he sets it up as dependent upon faith, where faith is understood in a sense of trusting, rather than on something lawlike.

No, Paul's point is not that in both a covenant is begun. Never does he refer to the formation of the covenant as such. Further, that doesn't comport with the meaning of the passage, as the point (of some parts) is precisely that the gentiles don't need to be circumcised, whereas what you are saying would make the argument fail: they'd begin not needing to be circumcised, but then they'd need to get circumcised after (plausibly).

I also think we might not have the same terminology when we talk about Righteousness, Salvation, Justification. Sometimes Catholics and Protestants disagree about how much we are disagreeing because we just don't use the same words to talk about the same things. To be clear about the terminology I am using here are some definitions:

I am well aware that there are terminological differences.

The Protestant interpretations are closer to the Pauline ones, though sometimes more technical.

But okay, let's assume that the Catholic use of those terms, as defined here, is the same as the Pauline ones, for now, and see where things break down.

First: righteousness. You say:

Righteousness - Correct behavior. Jesus imparts (not imputes) righteousness to us.

In this passage, righteousness is counted to Abraham (seen repeatedly, should be uncontroversial). The righteousness counted here cannot be merely understood to be an instance of correct behavior. Rather, he's being counted righteous more holistically—as a whole person, as this is understood to constitute his righteousness in general. This faith makes Abraham righteous, not merely righteous in respect of his faith. This can be seen in the way that this is treated in the passage as the source of righteousness in general, in how the promise is attached, and in the previous context of the legal penalties, where it was talking about the relation of the law as a whole to a person, not the effect of any singular provision. Further, while this doesn't explicitly talk about imputed righteousness in the particular sense of Christ's work (at least, no more clearly than "received by the faith in 3:25), it is clearly talking about imputation of some variety ("it was counted to him as righteousness") and in verses 6-8, it talks about righteousness by means of the non-imputation of sin, basically.

Salvation - Actually getting to Heaven. Not the same thing as Justification.

Sure, though I'd also be willing to use that to refer to the enter process holistically, or in other important steps.

Justification - A formative process in which Christians are made righteous over the course of their entire lives. It is a gift from God, unearned, provided by Jesus' death on the cross to all who accept that He is Lord. This is something that can be lost or stalled and then picked up again. It is comparable to being born. It is unearned gift, but there are certain things you can do that hasten your (spiritual or physical) death.

Yeah, sorry, that's just not what Paul's talking about here. Romans 4:2-3 connects justification to being counted righteous. This whole process is about how Abraham was justified, not his becoming righteous with this as one step of a broader whole (note: an aorist in 4:2, meaning a simple past action. This means Abraham believing probably acts as a discrete instance of justification, not one step in a broader process of justification). Further, the focus of this passage is on righteousness as reckoned by God, both as seen in the quotation, and in the opposition of righteousness to wrath, not as talking about our being made righteous. The law is presented as inadequate because it works condemnation, not for the reason of it failing to produce any good works.

Protestants rather understand the term in this passage to be following its legal usage (especially that used in the septuagint): to be talking about acquital or vindication, and this explains the passage far more potently.

Protestants often define justification as "To be declared righteousness," in a one time event. This dramatically changes how we read any Bible verse with the word "Justification" in it. Instead, Catholics would use the word "Salvation" in places where Protestants commonly use "Justification."

The word has varied usage, but being counted righteous works well in this passage.

In the Catholic view…

I am aware.

I've made an effort here, but if I remember correctly, Chemnitz' examination of the council of Trent, in the section on justification, does a pretty good job of showing why the protestant understanding of justification is correct, and the catholic one fails, and he does this in such a way that this is not merely a terminological dispute.

I'm assuming you're treating the covenant referred to here as roughly the same as the Mosaic one? That one definitely does promise life: "the one who does these things shall live by them," which Paul quotes in Galatians.

Do you believe that Jews who followed the Law went to Heaven without Jesus's death, and in fact would have made it to Heaven without Jesus' death? I never heard that position before, but Paul's quote in Galatians does not support it. Galatians 3:11-12: "Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.”" The full quote is clear, the law is based on "living by" i.e. performing actions. It's not saying the law provides eternal life.

(I'm going to start using the Lattrimore translation, because I'm noticing a lot of theological language smuggled in when I switch between NRSV and NIV. Lattrimore was a secular Greek translator who is most famous for his excellent translation of the Iliad. He did become Episcopalian towards the end of his life, but this conversion was after he translated the New Testament. I think we're both trying to figure out the words as Paul wrote them, and short of studying Greek this is the best resource I can get.)

Let's go back to Romans. Paul starts Romans off with discussion of Pagan wickedness. Then he broadens it to discuss everyone's (even Jewish) sinfulness.

Romans 2:6-8: Through your hardness and your unrepentant heart you are storing up for yourself anger on the day of anger and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will give to each according to his actions: to those who, through steadfastness in doing good, strive for glory and honor and incorruptibility, he will give everlasting life

This doesn't sound like sole fide.

Then we have Romans 2:12-15 "For those who sinned outside the law will also perish outside the law: and those who sinned while within the law will be judged according to the law. For it is not those who listen to the law who are righteous in the sight of God, but it is those who do what is in the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature what is in the law, they, without having the law, are their own law; and they display the work of the law engraved on their hearts;"

So from the beginning, Paul is referencing the Law as referred to Torah observance. Gentiles "do not have the Law", but "display the work of the law engraved on their hearts." Paul seems really concerned with telling Roman Jews that Gentiles are able to do good without being Jewish. Because they are Gentiles they aren't participating in the nation-building or ceremonial aspects of the Jewish law, but rather the natural law or the moral law.

Throughout this, Paul is admonishing the Jewish people in Rome to not boast. They are just as sinful as the Gentile populace.

Now we move to Romans 4. So that I am not accused of ignoring any detail, I will go through section by section and explain how it makes perfect sense from a Catholic view:

1-5: What then shall we say of Abraham, our forefather in the way of the flesh? If Abraham was justified because of his actions, he has reason for glorying; but not before God, since what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted as righteousness in him. For one who does something, repayment is counted not as grace but as his due; but for one who does nothing, but believes in him who justifies the impious man, his faith is counted as righteousness.

Abraham is the patriarch, the father of the Jewish people. Abraham cannot boast because he had no power in himself to justify himself. Instead, God reaches out to Abraham and (despite some shakiness on Abraham's part) Abraham responds with faith. It is Abraham's response that counts as righteousness. Abraham believing God would give him descendants was a good/just/righteous action - it counts as righteous. It doesn't count as neutral or evil.

God singling Abraham out is a huge grace that Abraham received. Abraham did not deserve God's offer of a covenant. It is Abraham's faith in God that was considered the righteous action.

6-12 So David also says of the blessedness of the man whom God counts as righteous, apart from his actions: Blessed are they whose lawless acts have been forgiven and whose sins have been hidden away. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count. Now, is this blessedness for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? Since we say the faith of Abraham was counted as righteousness. How then was it counted? In his circumcised or uncircumcised state? It was when he was not yet circumcised, but still uncircumcised. And he received the mark of circumcision, the seal upon the righteousness of that faith he had when he was still uncircumcised; to be the father of all those who are believers through their uncircumcised state so that righteousness could be counted for them, and also to be the father of the circumcised for those who not only have been circumcised but also walk in his footsteps through the faith, which our father Abraham had when he was still uncircumcised.

Abraham was able to achieve one canonically righteous action (his faith in God's promise) before being circumcised. Therefore, the uncircumcised Gentiles can also consider Abraham their Father in Faith (see that this is contrasted to verse 1, Abraham as the forefather in the way of the flesh.) And the circumcised are also supposed to walk in faith just like Abraham.

13-15 For the promise to Abraham, or his seed, that he should be the inheritor of the world, was not on account of the law, but of the righteousness of his faith. For if the inheritors are those who belong to the law, then the faith is made void and the promise is gone; for the law causes anger, but where there is no law there is no lawbreaking.

God told Abraham that the his descendants would inherit before the Torah existed. Abraham's faith was righteous (not imputed righteousness, but unqualified righteous.) It cannot be that only those who follow the Law of Moses will inherit the world, because the law by itself does not justify. "The law causes anger." This ties back to Chapter 3 verse 20: "since through the law comes consciousness of sin." The law only reveals human weakness. No one was ever going to follow the Torah all the way to Heaven.

16-21 Thus (it is) because of faith, and thus by grace, that the promise should hold good for all his seed; not only for him who has the law but for him who has the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all, as it is written: I have made you the father of many nations. It held good in the sight of God, in whom he believed, the God who puts life into the dead and summons into existence the things that do not exist. He against hope believed in the hope that he would become the father of many nations according to what had been said, that is: Thus shall your seed be. And Abraham, without weakening in his faith, knew that his own body was that of a dead man, since he was about a hundred years old, and he knew the dead state of Sarah’s womb, but he was not distracted with unbelief in God’s promise but was strengthened in his belief, giving glory to God and assured that God was able to do as he had promised.

Description of Abraham's act of faith. Restatement that faith is a gift, an unearned grace. Restatement that Abraham is the father of all those who have faith as well as the father of Jews in flesh. There is a little bit of a comparison between God bringing life from Abraham and Sarah's dead bodies and God bringing spiritual life from the spiritually dead Gentiles, but Paul doesn't really elaborate there.

22-25 Thus it was that faith counted as righteousness in him. But it was not written for him alone that it was so counted for him, but also for us for whom it is to be counted, for us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was betrayed for our sins and raised up again for our justification.

Abraham's faith was righteous. God made sure that this passage was included in Genesis so Paul could win this argument with the Romans that the uncircumcised can be saved. I see very clearly the Catholic view of God sending grace, Abraham accepting the grace, and then that action of accepting the grace counting as righteousness.

This whole process is about how Abraham was justified, not his becoming righteous with this as one step of a broader whole (note: an aorist in 4:2, meaning a simple past action.

Abraham was dead when Paul wrote his letter, so whether he was justified or not would have happened in the past, not as something ongoing. But 4:2 is an ironic negation - Abraham wasn't justified because of his action. Also, the aorist simply states the fact that an action has happened. It gives no information on how long it took, or whether the results are still in effect. An aorist could mean that the action took years. But however long it took, it's over now because Abraham is dead.

Chemnitz' examination of the council of Trent

All four volumes are $180, do you know which volume or page number you're thinking of?

Alister McGrath is a reputable Evangelical historian. His book on the history of justification - Iustitia Dei - is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive treatments of the subject. McGrath writes, "[If] the nature of justification is to be defended, it is therefore necessary to investigate the possible existence of 'forerunners of the Reformation doctrines of justification...' [This approach] fail in relation to the specific question of the nature of justification and justifying righteousness... A fundamental discontinuity was introduced into the western theological tradition where not had ever existed, or ever been contemplated, before. The Reformation understanding of the nature of justification - as opposed to its mode - must therefore be regarded as a genuine theological novum."

One of the foremost Evangelical scholars on the topic could not find a historical belief in Forensic Justification or the imputed righteousness of Christ. I know that many Protestants believe in a great apostasy. But I personally expect that those who lived closest to Paul's time and spoke Greek in the same cultural context would best understand what Paul's message is. And no one in the Patristic age read Romans and thought, "Forensic Justification."

For example, St. Clement of Rome who was bishop of Rome from 88 AD to 99 AD wrote, "Let us clothe ourselves with concord and humility, ever exercising self-control, standing far off from all whispering and evil-speaking, being justified by our works and not our words." (1 Clement 30) This is someone who lived in Rome and likely read the first edition of the letter Paul wrote. This is someone who knew Peter and Paul - Paul references Clement in Philippians 4:3. If Paul was arguing sole fide, why was Luther the first one to understand it?

Do you believe that Jews who followed the Law went to Heaven without Jesus's death, and in fact would have made it to Heaven without Jesus' death?

Not at all. The law promised life were it kept. But no one keeps the law. For other similar quotes, see Deuteronomy 7:12, or 13:18, among others.

It's not saying the law provides eternal life.

It's possible that I was misreading Galatians 3. But I'm not sure of that. Do you have reason to think the English idiom ("live by") carries over (I just checked: the greek prepositions used in the phrases translated "live by" are εκ (from) and εν (in), for faith and the law, respecitively, so I think at least the first doesn't seem like it's analogous to the English usage you describe, though it's the second that matters. The Hebrew it's based on, it looks like translators seem to be doing it more per what I was suggesting.

This doesn't sound like sole fide.

Yes, because you don't understand the protestant law/gospel distinction, which Romans fits into fairly easily. Paul's talking in Romans 2 about justification by the law, then in Romans 3-4, he talks about our inability to keep it and how we are justified instead.

I agree with what you say of Romans 2 subsequently.

Your reading of Romans 4:1-5

This seemed plausible generally. The place where you'd have the greatest difficulty in just those 5 verses is the opposition to it being as a repayment or due at the end of your selection there.

Your reading of Romans 6-12

I'll note that you don't bring up the David quote here at all (verses 6-8). But I think it's pretty important, and shows that the righteousness talked about here is probably not an inherent righteousness.

Abraham was able to achieve one canonically righteous action (his faith in God's promise) before being circumcised.

I don't think this is compelling. The passage seems to argue for a state of righteousness, not merely a single righteous action. This can be seen a little in the passage (like, it fits well with the reference to the blessedness described in the psalm, as connected in verse 9), but also elsewhere, as the overall topic's closer to how we can be righteous, not how can we perform a single righteous action.

Further, arguing that the gentiles would be able to perform one canonically righteous action is anadequate to what Paul is trying to do.

I'll agree with your reading of 4:13-21.

Your reading of 22-25

But the righteousness of faith is adequate for our righteousness, not merely the beginning of our righteousness.

It gives no information on how long it took, or whether the results are still in effect. An aorist could mean that the action took years.

Correct. But it does mean (at least, in the case of a finite verb, as here) that it's being viewed as a single action. It's saying Abraham was justified by faith, not that he was being justified, or began a process of justification, or something.

I'd brought this up in response to the differing definitions of justification, to argue that justify here was not a processy thing that took place over a whole life—rather, when Abraham believed God, it was credited to him as righteousness. See also how in 5:1 there's an aorist participle (note: aorists don't have quite the same meaning in particples vs finite verbs), where it's talking about us having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. I suppose you'd have to read this as saying that we have been justified by faith, and this, being the first step, puts us at peace with God, but we will still be justified more.

Just to check—you don't think that Abraham was justified solely by faith, right?

All four volumes are $180, do you know which volume or page number you're thinking of?

Oh, yes, sorry, I didn't think; I don't mean to impose any burden of buying anything. It's volume 1, pages 457-544 in the edition I have before me. If you can read Latin, it's all available free online, of course.

McGrath

I am aware that what the Reformers were teaching was not to be found in the medieval consensus, nor (I think) in those like Wycliffe or Hus that are often pointed to.

I agree that the teaching was virtually unknown throughout much of church history. The reformers cited almost exclusively Bernard of Clairvaux, if they wanted someone to back them up on this teaching, if I remember correctly. (Though I'd have to look back and see how compatible it is with the Theologia Germanica that Luther republished).

It's not weird to me that something like this was lost early in the church; this was also pretty true of the anti-Pelagian things that Augustine wrote, that are now widely accepted. McGrath, in the same work, describes the patristic teaching on justification as "inchoate."

Funny you bring up Clement, though.

To quote the same letter (32:4):

And so we, having been called through his will in Christ Jesus, are not justified of ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety, or works that we have done in holiness of heart, but through faith, by which the Almighty God has justified all who have existed from the beginning; to whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen.

Huh.

So evidently, those two things must go together in some way.

I submit to you that the passage that you cited is not talking about justification in the relevant sense (check the context) while this one is. The passage you cited can be read in exactly the same ways that protestants read James.

But I think the passage of Clement I cited is even more clearly in line with the protestants in terms of the opposition to it being inherent righteousness than Paul is, as it mentions piety among the things by which we are not justified.

More comments

Thanks for posting this. I've often had difficulties articulating why my understanding of "faith" is different than "not needing proof to ascent intellectually to something". But the synonym of allegiance is excellent.

Some time ago I examined my modernity-shocked mind and came to the surprising conclusion that on most matters me and the local band of hardcore orthodox Christians see eye to eye. Apart from minor stuff such as male modesty (what?) and probably reproductive technology.

But faith is not for me, so I'm out of luck when it comes to finding a group I could imagine joining.

Why is male modesty not important to you but I assume from context female modesty is?

Male bodies are not sexy and I'm not budging on this so why wear too much clothing? As long as genitals are hidden, it's ok.

There are some male bodies that are sexy. Chris Hemsworth can absolutely provoke many women to lust by walking around shirtless.

Chris Hemsworth is a Hollywood star with a physique that's out of reach for almost anyone. Someone with his exact same physique but not his stardom also wouldn't turn nearly as many heads. "Look what they need to mimic just a fraction of our power" is a quotation that comes to mind.

He was an extreme example, but there are still a large amount of men who are sexy. Looking at dating app stats, the top 10% of most attractive men do have a pretty large amount of hook ups. It's not their words or ability to provide that convince women to have sex with them, it's what they look like.

I thought the traditional Christian take on male clothing was more that under-clothed men are undignified.

This is one of the things I don't like about California culture, and I don't care for events where the women all dress up fancy, and the men are in shorts and t-shirts. It seems slovenly. Many churches ask men not to wear shorts because it's disrespectful, not because men commonly have sexy knees. I agree that sexy male knees are not really a thing. Sexy male chests is a thing, but not that common. Very muscular men who jog around shirtless to show off are certainly being immodest, but also aren't all that common, at least places I've visited.

That's something entirely different. I'd not dream of attending a funeral or a religious service in shorts.

I've been binging Only Connect, a game show people here might enjoy very much. The appeal of it is that it's a sort of hybrid of trivia and lateral thinking, which often forces contestants to combine different sorts of thought processes to find answers. It's delightful in that it is simultaneously unpretentious in its presentation and incredibly pretentious in its subject matter, is played for no money, and as far as I know in the English-language world it is the most difficult game show. If nothing else it will improve your knowledge of British geography. The (almost) full archives of it are on youtube allowing you a near-infinite back catalogue. If you want a taste here is the most recent series finale.

This was a great recommendation -- I'm enjoying it very much. It's like the game show version of a puzzle hunt.

Why aren't any American game shows even close to this good?

There's a UK "quiz culture" and corresponding infrastructure; local leagues, regional leagues, prestigious competitions, popular club at universities, etc. It's just a much more popular pasttime from what I can tell.

If you like that, you'll probably also like the radio show Round Britain Quiz. I haven't kept up with it since the 1980s when the host at the time died and the original panellists were elderly, but it was revamped to a new format and continues to this day.

Round Britain Quiz (or RBQ for short) is a panel game that has been broadcast on BBC Radio since 1947, making it the oldest quiz still broadcast on British radio. It was based on a format called Transatlantic Quiz, a contest between American and British teams on which Alistair Cooke was an early participant.

The format of the quiz is that teams from various regions around the United Kingdom play in a tournament of head-to-head battles. In a half-hour programme, each team is given four multi-part cryptic questions, each worth up to six points, to be awarded on the host's judgement. The parts of the question are generally centred on a common theme, and a degree of lateral thinking is necessary to score full marks.

...Until 1995, there was a "resident London team" which was challenged by teams from other parts of the UK (and sometimes the Republic of Ireland). There were two hosts, one with each team. In the 1950s, the hosts were Gilbert Harding and Lionel Hale. Later hosts, in various combinations, included Roy Plomley, Jack Longland, Anthony Quinton, Louis Allen, and, for many years, Gordon Clough.

The programme was formally taken out of production after the death of Gordon Clough in 1996, but was revived a year later with a single chairman and a new format of six teams playing four matches each. From 1997 it was hosted by broadcaster Nick Clarke until his death in 2006. He was succeeded at the start of the 2007 series by Tom Sutcliffe. Kirsty Lang took over hosting in March 2022.

Plainly taped off the radio episode from the 80s here.

This is great! Thanks for sharing.

My uncle loves this show. "it is simultaneously unpretentious in its presentation and incredibly pretentious in its subject matter" is a perfect description of him.

Does anyone have a good gpt4 prompt for brainstorming personal life details?

In its default state gpt is too much of a sycophant. I want gpt to be extremely critical and be smart and level headed as well. I know it can do it, it's easier than.... anything scientific? But I for the life of me can't get it to.

Remember that Reddit is certainly part of GPT’s corpus and so you’re getting answers trained on the best that /r/relationships has to offer….maybe best to stick with friends?

The prompt should sidestep that and enable as much of the shoggoth underneath as possible. I think gpt4 is smart enough, just need to end up in the right neighborhood in the latent space.

I know it can do it, it's easier than.... anything scientific?

"If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is." - John von Neumann

People is complicated. What people said in the span of 30 seconds isn't.

What do you mean by brainstorming personal life details? You want it to critique the minutiae of your days?

Yes. Lets say I like a girl an she responded with X in response to me saying Y. I want to know a list of the plausible implications of that combination of events (does she like me back or not).

I don't want to annoy my friends with shit like this.

And deprive your friends of telling you their misguided thoughts of what said girl is implying? Everyone needs some entertainment in their lives!

I really don't think ChatGPT or any other LLM tool will help you with your situation.

Why not? People get guidance by taking LSD, consulting horoscopes and talking to God.

I don't think any of those are particularly helpful sources of guidance either.

I started playing Rogue Trader this week, as I'm on vacation. For some reason people call it a CRPG, but it's as much an RPG as Final Fantasy Tactics or Paradise Cracked were: it's just a fight after a fight after a fight. I hope it gets better in Act 2, I really miss a proper hub with factions and quests that don't always require you to murder everyone.

I am enjoying it more than BG3, though. Still lots of "why would I ever pick that" abilities, but there are enough abilities that turn everyone into a murder machine. Except the Sister of Battle, whose bolter is laughably weak and won't shoot straight.

I hope it gets better in Act 2, I really miss a proper hub with factions and quests that don't always require you to murder everyone.

I have bad news for you...

Argenta, with an optimized set of perks, becomes an absolute monster with the bolter and heavy bolter and can clear rooms of enemies. At that point, the inaccuracy becomes a good thing as you're distributing damage, and there's a guaranteed item spawn that makes the first aimed shot always hit. You keep giving her ability points with buff characters, and she solos God himself.

Of course, you need a build guide to actually figure out how to do that, the perk system is horrendously designed and explained, especially to someone not steeped in Owlcat's ways.

For some reason people call it a CRPG, but it's as much an RPG as Final Fantasy Tactics or Paradise Cracked were....

I mean, people absolutely call FFT an RPG. I've never heard of Paradise Cracked, so I can't speak to that.

But I also think you're really underselling how much role playing there is in Rogue Trader (granted I'm only on chapter 1). It's not just fight after fight, there are side quests that come up (which you don't have to fight to resolve), and lengthy dialogue/story segments. Things can, and do, play out differently based on your choices from what I've seen. I think there's no doubt that this is a proper CRPG.

Also in the theme of keeping games-related comments together, some good news!

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is now on Steam!

It's old and the UI is a bit clunky (though fan patches can help), but it's a beloved classic for a reason. Prokhor Zakharov is my guy all the way for gameplay reasons--probably a popular choice in these parts--but there's something to love in each character. For a (very) deep dive into the interplay of game mechanics, storytelling, and philosophy of SMAC, I also recommend the classic blog series Paean to SMAC: Meditations on Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

My fave quote is the Free Drones' introduction. I don't know who had the idea to turn an Australian folk ballad usually associated with the caprine tones of Bob Dylan into a haunting and ominous oath, but it turned out perfect.

I was just thinking of giving my copy of SMAC another spin. I have a P233 MMX that would probably be perfect for it.

SMAC actually came front of mind in the culture war thread about SBI and bad writing. Because while the flavor text that reflects the viewpoints of the various factions is deeply political, none of it feels like cheap shots. It's like every factions ideology is steel manned. At least that's how I remember it. Maybe going back to it in my middle age will change that perspective.

I believe it still holds up, but if you do give it a whirl, post a report? If a game in the 2000s can make a sympathetic Christian fundamentalist, it's gotta be doing something right.

SMAC is tragic. They can't make another one because the publisher went bankrupt. All of the IP rights were bundled and poorly split and auctioned off. Now it's not clear who owns what.

Any attempt at a remaster will be met by lawsuits from people with various claims.

Why'd you even play it, there's an AI patch that unfucks the AI and iirc you could run it through Dosbox or something else pretty well.

It has avaliable DRM-free on GOG for 13 years. The strange thing is EA sold it for so long on GOG, but not on steam, while the Command & Conquer: The Ultimate Collection (which was also just released on steam and is also published by EA) never was on GOG (and still isn't).

I'm currently playing BTA3062, a full overhaul mod for Battletech. It's also in the full murderhobo tradition of games, but ultimately these usually keep my interest longer than story-based games. I liked Cyberpunk 2077's atmosphere quite a lot and it has plenty of interesting characters and sidequests, but in terms of gameplay it's utterly trivial, so in raw hours I have less than BTA on it. More extreme was Disco Elysium, it was fun for a single playthrough (which for DE is very short to boot), but once I get what it's attempting to say it's not really that interesting anymore. In CP2077 even just wandering the city is surprisingly fun though. I was for example very impressed when I stumbled over a museum to a tragic past event by pure accident, it was well made and afaik you would never find it if you just followed the main and larger side quests.

On BTA itself, it's fun, and both the mech bay and the tactics are significantly enhanced. But it also didn't even attempt to fix the issues with the base game, such as an atrocious AI and a really slow and buggy engine. Nevertheless I spend hours over hours designing my team, such as the perfect light mech scout, or heavy mech artillery platform, or a medium mech generalist/brawler, etc. and blowing up teams that on paper are far stronger than me through a strong, consistent tactic with a team deliberately designed for that purpose is very satisfying. Also, the game has enough of an element of getting random stuff that you have to make work so that it stays somewhat fresh.

I liked Cyberpunk 2077's atmosphere quite a lot and it has plenty of interesting characters and sidequests, but in terms of gameplay it's utterly trivial, so in raw hours I have less than BTA on it.

I was on a good run of CP2077 lately, to celebrate the RTX 4070 Super I finally splurged on when my NVDA shares 10x'ed. Gets 60-100 FPS fully path traced with all the DLSS shit turned on. I was totally in love with the atmosphere, the characters, etc. But at some point my character just got absurdly OP, and the triviality of it's ubisoft completionist minimap game design came out in full force. There is something just so disheartening about pro-actively exploring, and encountering nothing because you must first activate the quest somewhere else that turns that hollow shell of a bunker or abandoned warehouse into actual gameplay.

I'll probably start focusing as much as I can on the main story when I have the time to play a game again, just to get it done and move onto something else. It goes against everything in my nature to not try to compulsively do all the things in a game, but that's how they get you, isn't it?

I just gave up on my STALKER: Anomaly character because I think the main story got bricked in this fashion.

I was exploring Pripyat and saw an alarming number of zombies shambling into a department store, so like any red-blooded Ukrainian, I decided to try out the underbarrel grenade launcher. They weren't alone, though, with about a dozen Monolith troops coming out of the woodwork to investigate. It turned into a close-quarters fight as I navigated the building, and when the dust settled, I found some excellent loot. I also found a generator near the top which, when activated, turned on a few lights, including one by the defunct elevator. Turns out it wasn't actually defunct, because approaching it gave me a confirmation: "Move to Laboratory X-8?"

Unfortunately, I had no reason to take my overloaded ass down into a concrete hell, so I left the area to resupply and sell off the junk. I didn't come back until several hours later, when I'd completed more of the main quest. Only now that I had to descend into a local lab for secret documentation, the elevator was no longer working. And the generator already ran, so I couldn't trigger it again.

Annoying. I installed GAMMA instead to spin up a new character and ignore the story.

BTA 3062 was always my favorite modpack. What did you think of the factions BD added in the empty area? They gave me a heck of a fight the first time they showed up as an ally spawn but once I learned more about them found them to be fun opponents with interesting gear.

What's your favorite start?

I've been playing through a Roguetech company but find it too grindy to be fun for long, so will probably flip back to BTA fairly soon.

Admittedly I'm still on my first career of BTA itself and haven't gotten there, started near Terra with the Blakists and mostly stayed there except for a little bit of Clan action. But I'm in general a slow player for this stuff bc I spend way too much time in the mech bay.

If it's your first game definitely enjoy the ride! It's a wonderful modpack!

More extreme was Disco Elysium, it was fun for a single playthrough (which for DE is very short to boot), but once I get what it's attempting to say it's not really that interesting anymore.

I didn't even make it through one. I was so annoyed by being punished for being a nationalist when every other ideology can be taken to a comical, murderous extreme while giving bonuses was too annoying to me.

I couldn't make it thru one playthrough either, but not because of whatever ideologies it was trying to sell. It was just the uninteresting, unlikeable characters that gave me no investment in figuring out the murder. I found the setting very boring, too, so exploring the area and meeting its various inhabitants and witnesses was just a drag. I can only imagine how bad the writing must've gotten later on as the story developed and the characters had time to breathe, because the writing started off very stilted and unnatural and only seemed to get worse as I kept playing. Shame, since the RPG system for investigation/interrogation/other detective work seemed pretty neat.

Punished? If you're racist enough it cures your alcoholism and gives you noticeable buffs. I was a nationalist and it didn't feel like I was being punished..

Guess this is the "what are you playing" thread for this week.

I'm almost done with Persona 3 Reload (PC). I started playing it 5 weeks ago. I don't usually get this hooked on a game. I've put in almost 3 hours per day on average. :o

It's been a good journey. Enjoyable and satisfying. A bit too much grinding involved, given I'm playing on Hard and didn't want to super-cheese anything. But this is known as the grindy Persona game. :)

I like what they did with this remaster. They've combined some of the best elements from later games while keeping most of what made the original P3 great, and it looks and sounds good. Only thing that disappointed me a little is that "The Answer" is not included. They'll release that as a big DLC/secondary game late this year. So I'll have to pay up again. Atlus are pretty damn greedy, I've come to realize.

I played P3R last month, and I think that both its strongest and weakest point is that it's a very faithful remake. They didn't fix what wasn't broken, which is great. But the problem is, they also didn't fix what was broken. Namely:

  • There's still no definitive version of P3, even with The Answer coming out as DLC (no FeMC)
  • Tartarus was bad game design in 2006 and it hasn't gotten any better since. 263 floors of monotonous randomly generated dungeon is horrible to play through
  • The story is still very repetitive as you go through the full moon operations, and the gameplay segments there are overly short, perfunctory even

I wouldn't say I hated the game, but I do think Atlus missed the mark. People didn't clamor for a P3 remake because they wanted prettier graphics (though those never hurt), they did it because P3 has serious issues that needed a remake to fix. But Atlus chose not to address those things and just gave us a facelift.

I've finished it now. I think they hit the mark quite well. It's not the perfect Persona game, but it's a great one IMO. I only expected, and clamored for a facelift while sticking close to the original, and I got a bit more than I hoped for. Judging by the steam score, most people seem to agree. Don't really care about the lack of femc personally. Tartarus wasn't improved? It is, somewhat. At least you can control all your characters now, and there's Monad stuff, which I think is new? It's still a bit boring, but passable, and improved from the original. They couldn't have drastically changed it without making this not-P3. The need for grinding got a bit boring, but the grind was almost worse and just as gamey in some palaces in P5.

It's still a cash grab while also being a good remake. I didn't like the price they put on it. Should have been at least 10-15 lower. I'll probably be annoyed again when the Answer price is revealed. I kinda expected that part to be included in this release, to be honest, like it was in FES.

Tartarus is only tolerable because they made it faster (smaller floors, a decent sprinkling of "skip to the next floor" opportunities). And unlike in portable (the version I played before), you won't fall behind the level curve if you just go through floors as quickly as you can. But it's still bad. They really needed to cut the number of Tartarus floors in half, and give each full moon operation its own lengthy gameplay segment similar to P5 palaces. To be honest I don't really care if purists would say "but that's not P3", because it's necessary. Sometimes you have to break with the old to fix bad design.

And the point of the FeMC thing is that we are still lacking a definitive version of the game. The single biggest reason people wanted a remake was because if someone new wanted to try the game, they would go "which version do I play", and the answer was "it depends what you want". And the answer is somehow still "it depends what you want", even though they did a remake. It's just stupid. Compare this to P4 or P5, where it's easy - you play Golden/Royal, and those are the most complete versions of each game. People wanted them to do the same thing for P3 (and also to fix Tartarus), but Atlus was too faithful to fix the real glaring problems P3 has.

On the pricing of the answer, the three waves of DLC cost $35 all together. If we assume that the music pack and the costume pack will cost $5 each, that means the answer will cost something like $25 on its own. So now you're talking $95 to get the full story, which is.. not good. I'm not super upset because I knew damn well there's going to be another P3R version with all the content (and maybe finally FeMC) in 5-6 years, so I used game pass to play it. But if I had spent $70 and then needed to pay another $25ish to get the full story, I would be pretty mad.

I guess I don't currently feel that a definite version has to include FeMC. Maybe if I were a woman or someone who had played and loved P3P as FeMC I would share your opinion, but I'm not, and I haven't. As for Tartarus, getting through the levels of each block once didn't take very long, and the gatekeepers along the way were somewhat fun. I liked the full moon fights. It's the grinding of needing (at least on Hard) to go through the Tartarus levels over and over to gain XP and spawn gold hands to get money/gems that got too gamey and grindy for me.

I paid nearly full price via a key site to have it on Steam, and I didn't like that, but I'm Atlus' favorite type of sucker, someone who gets so much joy out of the Persona experience that I pay full price on day 1 to own it and be able to replay it whenever instead of just using Game Pass... I was miffed again at finding out I have to pay for The Answer too - if it's worth playing? If it's just combat and no life sim, I'm not overly interested.

For me, a definitive edition needs to have all the previous content. I haven't played FeMC (because P3P recommends you do the male route for your first time, and after that I had zero desire to ever play again), but it does exist so I think it has to be there to have a definitive version of the game.

As far as the answer goes, I haven't played it (because it wasn't in portable), but my understanding is that there's zero life sim. It's just a Tartarus-like dungeon and a story. I watched a video with all the story scenes and I remember it being 2-3 hours, so pretty light on story too. Who knows what they'll do for P3R, though.

I've also been working through P3R, though I've been interrupting my routine a bit to make some progress in TOTK as well. I'm mid-September in Persona, just pushed to the first border floor in Tziah. I've previously played a bit of Portable, which I kinda bounced off of once I reached Arqa and got roflstomped, and FES, which I played through to the Priestess fight like a week before Reload was announced.

It's kinda funny that 5 (or 5 Royal specifically I suppose) is the best Persona game mechanically (in my mind anyway), but that as I play backwards through the older games I feel like the PThieves are the least interesting characters. I feel like 3 and 4 have the group dynamics nailed down better. Plus Koromaru > Sparkly Bishie Teddie > Teddie >>>>>>>>> Morgana, you can't change my mind on the animal/mascot party member tier list. I am very grateful that they brought Baton Pass Shift over from 5, not having it in Golden was a bit of a learning curve. It doesn't feel like as much of a crutch as it could be in 5, but that could just be that I got gud somewhere along the line.

Hmmm I don't really have a direction here. Anyway, I've seen some out-of-context clips of later game fights (Jin) that seem to happen in January, so hopefully I'll have enough time slots to max Yukari/Fuuka/Mitsuru and all that. Still need one more Academics rank to even start Mitsuru though.

Romance picks per game, first playthrough:

  • 5: Makoto
  • 5R: Hifumi
  • 4G: Yukiko
  • 3R: Yuko

My partner says I have a type. She might be onto something.

I'd like to see The Answer in P3R, I've heard it's great. Maybe when if they release FeMC.

Some unsolicited advice: Prioritize the social links that have to be done from school. School is closed for quite a few days, especially towards the end of the game. Holidays etc. Leave the always/nearly always available links for last in terms of maxing. I made this mistake and now I'm around 5-7 days short of maxing all social links before ending the game. ;( Unlike in 5, there's a (small) reward for maxing all links in this game. Don't start efforting by looking up guides though, that'll just make the game less fun.

I agree that 5 Royal is excellent mechanics wise. And I agree that the PThieves characters are weaker. Especially Ann and Ryuji. I got tired of their low IQ whining pretty quick. 4 has great characters/group of friends vibe. And I really like most of the ones in 3 too.

Hmm, Yukari isn't very similar to Makoto, Hifumi, Yukiko, IMO... I don't like Yukari, but I like all the others in your "type". Mitsuru is the queen babe in 3R though! :D Btw you can't start her link before mid November. So you have plenty of time to max Academics.

I think you've got a wire crossed: Yuko is the sports club manager, Yukari definitely isn't my type. 😛

Good to know about Mitsuru's time frame, that makes me feel better about putting off Academics. My partner is probably gonna be a bit annoyed that it's so far into the game though, she's been simping for Mitsuru since Anime Expo.

Re. P5, I just think there's not much by way of group chemistry, though I could just be biased by how much Morgana makes me cringe. I didn't have this problem on my first playthrough of OG 5, but it started to grate on ng+ and especially after I played 4. I don't even mind Ann and Ryuji being dumb since at least the other team members mostly counterbalance them. Those two meatheads are perfect for each other.

Oh whoops, I had forgotten the sports manager's name. Sorry. I just thought you had given Yukari a pet name, haha. Yuko is alright. I wasn't won over by her earliest interactions, but she grew on me later. I'm not able to max her though, so I kinda forgot about her. Next time! I'll probably play a NG+ before The Answer.

I wonder if we'll get a remake of P4G... It kinda sticks out now as a PS2 era game next to P3R and P5R...

t's kinda funny that 5 (or 5 Royal specifically I suppose) is the best Persona game mechanically (in my mind anyway), but that as I play backwards through the older games I feel like the PThieves are the least interesting characters. I feel like 3 and 4 have the group dynamics nailed down better. Plus Koromaru > Sparkly Bishie Teddie > Teddie >>>>>>>>> Morgana, you can't change my mind on the animal/mascot party member tier list. I am very grateful that they brought Baton Pass Shift over from 5, not having it in Golden was a bit of a learning curve.

Interesting, I've only played 3 & 4, and I'd compare 4 to 3 like how you compared 5 to 4/3 - mechanically, 4 Golden was basically the perfection of the 3/4 gameplay formula, but it was hampered by the fact that the characters just weren't as good as in 3. I also preferred the darker tone and themes of 3, though perhaps the story is mostly a wash, since 3 kinda dragged in the 2nd half while 4 had solid pacing with its murder mysteries throughout.

Kinda sad to hear that P3R suffered from being too close to the source material, according to a lot of people. It really would've been great if it had combined the best of the gameplay the series had to offer with the best of the characters and perhaps tightened up the story. But perhaps the exclusion of FeMC and the Answer portion from FES was a sign that this was more of a cash grab than an attempt to create the definitive version of the game (obviously any remake is a cash grab, but there's a spectrum).

Inspired by this post, but it's kind of buried there, and the topic has decidedly nothing to do with culture wars, so I took the liberty of taking it here. After going through a similar line of thought, I've concluded that the best argument in favor of free will I can think of is Magic.

"Magic is Awesome!" approach to free will

I owe Sapolsky for helping me to articulate this. I recall him putting forward this very argument, complaining about how free will is incoherent and would have to be powered by magic. This got me wondering: does magic actually deserve to be dismissed with such contempt? For the purposes of this post, I explicitly reject the Clarkian definition of "magic" as anything merely outside of our current knowledge, but use it to indicate something that is inscrutable in a far more profound way. Consider two problems:
1. Consciousness. No scientific framework predicts it, no theory can explain it. No experiment can be devised to test it. We have no idea how consciousness works. What's more interesting is that we have no idea how to get an idea of how consciousness works. It doesn't have to be there, yet there it is. If this isn't Magic, what is?
2. Why are we here? Why is anything? One option is that one thing causes another, and another, back-propagating in the past...forever. All the way down. Personally, I find this idea unsatisfying somehow, if not downright annoying. But even if that's how it is, we are still left with the question of why does it do it, and the best you will ever be able to come up with is some variant of "it just does, I guess". This positively stinks of Magic.
The more old-fashioned alternative to an infinite causal chain is a finite causal chain, one that terminates with God—the uncaused cause, the unmoved mover... Magic? Magic. We could even ask whether God could share a bit of this Magic juice with some of his creations; we could call it a divine spark or something like that.

That's part of the reason why common in these circles brand of autistic materialism doesn't sit right with me. Both the place we live in and our very direct experience of it seem to be a middle finger to rationality.
I don't believe that free will is something spurious and irrelevant to ethics and meaning. I'm also not convinced that linguistic atrocities like molesting the definition of free will until it's compatible with determinism are of any help here.  If you're of the same mind, "magic is awesome!" seems to be a nice motto to live by.

I think I pretty much endorse this, even though I recognize that there's a fully general version of it that could be pretty mindkilling. Nonetheless, when someone sneers that free will is incoherent and would have to be powered by magic, I might as well just respond, "yeah, isn't magic cool?". I don't really buy that their argument amounts to much more than, "I don't understand it, so it must be magic", but since I don't think I actually understand it either, I might as well shrug and declare that it is indeed magic.

The problem with libertarian free will isn't that it's magic, the problem is that it's nonsense and doesn't do what its supporters want it to do: give them agency.

Rather, it strips agency from them, because they are a thing, and their choices can't be determined by things.

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