"We humans are intelligent enough to form effective and equitable social structures, we just don't have the collective stomach for removing the saboteurs from our society."
But that means you're not intelligent if you leave the saboteurs alone. Some science on reasoning, someone can tell you what is true and you won't believe them!
"Just because you assume something is "fundamentally irrational" doesn't mean it is."
There are countless examples of capitalisms fundamental irrationality and waste in terms of natural resources. You should learn some science, I can tell you the facts and you won't believe them!
"Gradually, particularly over the past 75 years or so, most of these aspects of the original governmental structure have gradually been overruled -- often in the name of "democracy" or "protecting the people" or providing aid and help to the poor through a central system."
Without this helping the poor capitalism would have fallen, let's be honest here. The american/Europe/English capitalist governments all had these problems because capitalism is fundamentally irrational at based reflecting the irrationality of mankind. All these changes were required to keep the capitalist system going. Say what you want but Lenin was correct about imperalism being the highest stage of capitalism.
http://www.marxists.org/archiv...
The reality is human beings just aren't intelligent enough to form long lasting social orders because too many people have negative evolutionary characteristics they've inherited from the past. Our primate psychology is at the root of everything regardless of what collection of words and labels one flies under. The biology is still there.
"Because when you do this, you are giving google information on all the websites you visit."
You must be new here, almost every website you visit has ad/trackers embedded in the webpage. Go get ghostery and look at all the shit on slashdot by itself.
Go to other places on the web and see all "hidden servers" you're pulling data from. All the webpage has to do is refer to the server for them to track you. There is an infinite number of ways for you to be tracked without your consent. It's the nature of the internet itself unfortunately, any time you need to communicate (send a packet) you need a receiving address and a destination.
... regarding feedback, see bret Victor on this. Computer programming is different from building bridges because every time you change code you change everything that interacts with it. Whereas the laws of nature for bridge building don't change, every time you modify code you end up having network effects that effect every instruction afterward.
http://blog.codinghorror.com/v...
Since most (non multi-core) code happens sequentially. To see this, imagine an extremely simple computer with only a few KB of memory, all you are going to do is draw something. Every time you add more code, you change the nature of the problem, this is hard to see but the best way to visualize it is as a "ring" that expands or contracts vs the computers resouces. We'll use a metaphor for hitting targets for the goal you want to accomplish: Say the target you want to hit is a circle of a given size and everytime you grow the ring (code) you begin to miss the target (aka the ring grows because of more work/timing/etc). You have to stay roughly the size of the fixed target but you don't fully grasp the nature of the problem, partially because the feedback process is broken with coding tools and performance against the problem (requirements) you are trying to solve is unknown until implementation.
... people funding AAA kickstarters know nothing about AAA development costs. I knew Planetary annihilation was taking everyone for a ride because to make a real RTS you need 10 million minimum (thats whta supreme commander cost). Trying to do a full fledged RTS on 2.5 million isn't going to cut it. Same can be said for elite dangerous. Braben is taking his fans for a ride because he wants to ride the money into an MMO to make $. He damn well knows a AAA game costs a huge amount to create.
The problem is crowdfunding so far has only been able to get enough funding to get back to maybe mid 90's level games like Shadowrun, Wasteland 2 and Pillars of eternity. Both wasteland 2 and shadowrun ended up being short on content . Shadowrun and Faster than light have only been the few real kickstarter successes in terms of game quality. There are some others that have flown below the radar but I can't name them at the moment.
I'm looking forward to Next car game (Now wreckfest) and Star citizen. But I'm not holding my breath of star citizen.
... compiling dossiers on everyone. Since in order to use the internet you need to use a search engine, a good idea is to look at you chrome browser history and note the title, time, where you visited, is there, then combine this with analytics and cookies (machine identification) remember this is the kind of shit and more they got behind closed doors. This will be used to pro-actively deny employment to people and 'screen' people for their political views/sites/news they visit/any health problems/etc. i.e. it allows corporations unprecedented insight into the flaws of our evolved nervous system and minds. We are not "free" in any way or form our minds were shaped by evolution and they have a lot of problems reasoning or perceiving reality, if in doubt see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
They are trying to map political dissident to pre-emptively strike against political change using science and big data they are fervently trying to figure out how to regain their control, since they know media's days are numbered with newer generations. So they are learning techniques in controlling populations and manipulating public opinion on social media, to socially engineer how people think, etc. The reality is america has been the greatest success in propaganda in human history, most americans were hyper capitalist, virulently anti-communist for the last few decades and the upper class would like the working classes to keep voting against their own interests to keep their ill gotten wealth. So if you vote for D&R you are one of the illusioned and the elites aren't worried about you at all because you are politically illiterate just like they want. They want you all to vote democrats and republicans so as not to rock the boat. They don't want political change to manifest outside the political system (aka threat to corporate power).
This (mass surveillance) is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Look at the following graphs:
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
And then...
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
http://www.businessinsider.com...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Free markets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://www.amazon.com/Empire-I...
"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."
"Much as I despise the current UK government, and am deeply concerned about surveillance and censorship and erosion of privacy and free speech generally"
This (mass surveillance) is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Look at the following graphs:
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
And then...
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
http://www.businessinsider.com...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Free markets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://www.amazon.com/Empire-I...
"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."
"Why exactly do the NSA, FBI, CIA, MI6, GCHQ, DGSE, FSB, BND, etc... etc... have to trace everything we do or say online?"
This (mass surveillance) is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Look at the following graphs:
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
And then...
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
http://www.businessinsider.com...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Free markets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://www.amazon.com/Empire-I...
"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."
"I like how to consider better visuals = Hollywood = bad."
It's not merely "better visuals", it's the cinematic techniques where you stop say in Call of duty, to say call of duty isn't one giant action movie would be an understatement. I'm saying the "trying to be in a movie" bits distract from actually making a game because "immersion" and videogame like gameplay are at odds in say a single player campaign.
What happens is you start to obey the generic laws of the real world and the expectations of how things 'should' behave to a larger extent which limits the kinds of gameplay you can have in the game, which makes for incredible boredom from one sequel to another.
So you have little idea what you're talking about sadly. It's not 'merely' great graphics, it's the kind of design vs hollywood action sections in a game that conflict with one another. You simply can't do insanely crazy things because you've got the hollywood mindset happening and not the videogame mindset happening.
"The supporters of Kickstarter are always pointing to games that haven't been released yet as examples of its success."
Faster than light. Shovel Knight and Shadowrun have been successful, the first Shadow run was rough but they more then made up for it with Dragonfall. Developers who've never made a game in a genre or been away from it for many years go through a learning curve as they relearn the ropes of making that certain type of game. So that is somewhat forgivable.
Kickstarter has defintiely been abused but to say its a total loss is idiotic, I'm awaiting Retro
Shovel knight
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
http://www.gog.com/game/shovel...
Faster than light
http://www.gog.com/game/faster...
Shadowrun Dragonfall
"It's become a stagnant genre, and it's time we had an Doom/Duke Nukem/Unreal/Half-Life successor"
The reality is many games single player aspect back then don't hold up very well if you play them back to back with modern games if you measure them on a feelings and "this is so awesome" standpoint, the rise of the cinemtic game - even as me an older gamer has shifted my preference hierarchy to want "both". I force myself to play brutal doom to get my "gameplay vegetables" because I hate the fact that hollywood props and cheap tricks give human brains higher highs in terms of excitement over intrinsic gameplay in terms of single player experiences. I really hate the fact that when I go back and play doom 2 I wish it was some hybrid of the cartoony doom I know and love and the best elements of hollywood deadspace, but minus the hollywood hyper realism. I was never a fan of the push towards realism in doom 3 on mars, I always loved the pixel art/toony type style of doom 2 and it was kind of awkward seeing the Cyber-Demon rendered realistically, when doom 2 had more of an artistic comic vibe with it's enemies like the walking spider brain that felt poached from Teenage mutant ninja turtles.
To say that modern games are all boring is a bit of an overstatement, they certainly DO cause excitement in their hollywood parts. I enjoy Assassins creeds world even if I have serious issues with the dumbed down combat when compared to prince of persia series also made by Ubisoft. I really do think the push for hollywood has seriously made developers dumber, newer generations of developers raised on Halo regen shields and hollywood handholding campaigns has been infecting all of gaming, I seriously question developers, that "they know what they are doing". Too often even simple and cheap to program things are missing in many modern games.
The problem modern games main problem is gameplay, PC (modding/dedicated servers) and challenge related but this is publishers trying to drive DRM and control the market by confiscating game ownership with encrypted steam games via steamworks DRM for multiplayer/matchmaking. Shooters FPS/TPS, they are most certainly by the numbers but the mass gaming audience prefers hollywood action movie over intrinsic gameplay generated by fun and challenge. To be honest with you, I thought half-life 2 was just a giant pile of fail, trying too hard to be the hollywood action movie type game it never really was really "here's an empty base with an experiment gone wrong, you are on your own". Half life one did it's best to get out of the players way, while Half-life 2 feels like a very force sequel. I think it comes down to Valve not really not know what they are doing storywise. When I got to the buggy desert/section I gave up, I just got too bored. Half-life 2 was poorly made in many areas and poorly paced. I lost interest.
Half-life, while it was one of the first 'movie based games' where there was story integrated into it, but it wasn't done as obnoxiously and overbearingly as it is done today. That being said, some obnoxious overbearingness works, if you play the singleplayer campaign of Transformers - Fall of cybertron, you'd be hard pressed to say that it couldn't compare in terms of fun to Doom 2.
Doom was made at a time before the integration of 'hollywood action movie/cartoon show inside a videogame' was mastered. The newer generation has problems going back and playing games that haven't mastered the hollywood integration like Mass effect 2, Call of duty and transformers fall of cybetron (sp campaign). I don't fault newer genreation gamers for that because even I as an older gamer know that when CPU/GPU power hit a threshold it was just easier to use high def AV to flash our primate brain in sensation, problem is instrinsic feelings related internally generated gameplay are easily overwhelmed and outcompeted in many (not all) instances of set piece hollywood bullshit. The kind of excitement we get from the hollywood is of a different character them the stress based excitement from challenge and mastery.
This is why while we might have all enjoyed mass effect 2, it left us with a kind of shitty aftertaste like we lost something, and we did. Since hollywood stimulation and gameplay stimulation seem to compete and often times are at odds with one another in our brains where one drowns out the other, more of then not, gameplay losing out because it causes stress and costs the brain energy and passive audio/visuals goes down easy.
"Nowadays America, my adopted country, has turned into something that I ran away from, where the "Press" no longer collaborate with the authority, where the "Media" willingly becomes the mouthpiece of the power that be"
America has been at war and over throwing others since it's founding, you do know that right? Only someone naive would believe this. America has always been the way you are seeing it, you, like most of the ignorant masses of mankind don't do well to become historically literate.
"Both of which, BTW, want you to hate Fox News, which you are dutifully doing."
Just because the CIA does something doesn't mean it is necessarily bad or irrational, it's in the governments interest to decrease political extremism where fox foments it if we're honest with ourselves.
They found a statistical relationship between the results from "normal" people and "people with cancer". This means that it MIGHT be possible to develop this into a test.
But this "result" (a statistical difference) might be that they got an average score of 98 +/- 10 for the healty people and 102 +/- 10 for the people-with-cancer. So someone who scores 100, healty or has cancer? 105? Can still go both ways.
This restaurant was advertising breakfast any time. So I ordered french toast in the renaissance. - Steven Wright, comedian
