Random Thoughts IV: the Abyss Gazes Back

[Mouthwash]

Yes, I understanding the toeing the party line is what wins you respect around here. It would be interesting to see my posts suddenly being treated honestly and upvoted, were I to switch my politics tomorrow.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yes, I understanding the toeing the party line is what wins you respect around here. It would be interesting to see my posts suddenly being treated honestly and upvoted, were I to switch my politics tomorrow.

If by "switch your politics" you mean "stop advocating for Israel to conduct genocide without suffering consequence," then, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if you were treated differently. But that's hardly my fault.

 

[Mouthwash]

^ The kind of crazy that gets upvoted on CFC. Fortunately, I think it's just a half-dozen hardcore believers backing each other up.

 

[Traitorfish]

Yes, I understanding the toeing the party line is what wins you respect around here. It would be interesting to see my posts suddenly being treated honestly and upvoted, were I to switch my politics tomorrow.

You know as well as the rest of us that you're a born contrarian. Have a little faith in yourself.

I actually did try to read the article, but it was very long and didn't seem to go anywhere, so I stopped around the point his boss tried to beat up one of the other employees. Would have benefited from a clear thesis statement up front.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

^ The kind of crazy that gets upvoted on CFC. Fortunately, I think it's just a half-dozen hardcore believers backing each other up.

Think again. CFC is a community, much like the community of states. You want to espouse a view that most everyone thinks is ugly and still be treated like a rose. This is not surprising, since it is a solid parallel to your "defense" of Israel. I have my own issues where my views aren't in accord with community standards. I've aired them enough to know the conflict exists and know that everyone else knows that the conflict exists. If the conflict was sufficient cause for me to stop participating I would do so, but since it isn't I mostly just stay away from those issues. People who come here with their single issue harping and then cry because people boot them around baffle me, but I enjoy a good booting around as much as the next guy.

I can get along with a bar full of rednecks long enough to finish my beer and leave. It's their bar. I consider that a valuable skill and a good outlook on life.

 

[Ryika]

Sometimes I wonder why I didn't make a thread about a topic when it was in the news. "NPC theory" - the satirical theory that all the people who just mindlessly follow everything that's hot right now, literally have no mind and are just NPCs - is such a funny concept that it would surely have lead to some amusing conversations, but creating a thread now feels pointless.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Sometimes I wonder why I didn't make a thread about a topic when it was in the news. "NPC theory" - the satirical theory that all the people who just mindlessly follow everything that's hot right now, literally have no mind and are just NPCs - is such a funny concept that it would surely have lead to some amusing conversations, but creating a thread now feels pointless.

[redacted], almost all threads are pointless. If you think it would be fun, do it to it.




There was a perhaps inappropriately familiar term of endearment in there, sorry.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Can anyone deny that this describes the world we live in pretty accurately?

His big finish was "go live in a cave". I tried, but he pretty much failed as a writer.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

His big finish was "go live in a cave". I tried, but he pretty much failed as a writer.

He wrote himself into a box. There was nothing he could do to top the big reveal that they had invented a "conflict bomb." He needed to end the story with that and leave the reader to ponder the consequences, because he couldn't make the drama of the consequences continue to ramp up. Recognizing when you are writing too far is hard...especially in situations where you are paid by the word.

 

[Arakhor]

I thought that the article was far too long to read without context.

 

[Ryika]

Got Shadow of Mordor from the humble bundle. It's the game of the year edition, so you get three free Runes that you can equip; those are pretty strong and make the start of the game somewhat easier. Those annoyed me, because they're basically free upgrades, but I still used them because they were in my inventory anyway, so why not. Now I realized I can disable the DLC that adds the runes and make them vanish from my inventory.

So the logical conclusion I have to draw now, is, according to my brain, that I must now disable these "Easy start"- DLCs, and restart the game from the very beginning. That's pretty... bad logic, I'm aware of that, but my stupid head really wants me to restart. I think those are autistic tendencies. :O

 

[yung.carl.jung]

let it flow thru you

I would've restarted as well for the record

 

[Traitorfish]

Sometimes I wonder why I didn't make a thread about a topic when it was in the news. "NPC theory" - the satirical theory that all the people who just mindlessly follow everything that's hot right now, literally have no mind and are just NPCs - is such a funny concept that it would surely have lead to some amusing conversations, but creating a thread now feels pointless.

It's really no so much a theory as it is what every introverted young man has privately believed about the rest of the human race since the beginning of time. All they've done is memeified it.

 

[Ryika]

It's really no so much a theory as it is what every introverted young man has privately believed about the rest of the human race since the beginning of time. All they've done is memeified it.

No, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what what "NPC Theory" is about. It's not about who one should care about, or that other people "don't matter", it's a satirical theory meant to explain the prevalence of the culture of groupthink and the blind adherence to ideology that we see around us.

Or at least, that's what it was in the beginning, these days it seems like the only people using it are right-wingers who want an easy way to dismiss the opinions of left-wingers. In a way it has become the "You're a Russian Troll." of the right.

 

[Traitorfish]

No, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what what "NPC Theory" is about. It's not about who one should care about, or that other people "don't matter", it's a satirical theory meant to explain the prevalence of the culture of groupthink and the blind adherence to ideology that we see around us.

It's not a theory, though. It doesn't explain anything. It's just smugness, presented as a meme. It's that XKCD comic, but without irony.

I'm not even saying it's not funny, because watching people get worked up at the accusation that what they imagine to be their most deeply-held principles are just things they heard somebody else say can be pretty entertaining. But it's not that deep.

 

[Ryika]

It's not a theory, though. It doesn't explain anything.

Not sure what's so hard to understand about the concept of a satirical theory. It's satire presented in the form of a pseudo-scientific theory; the authors know that it is false and that it does not explain anything. It is literally created in a way that makes sure the theory cannot explain anything because the premise - that there is a fixed amount of "souls" that exist in the universe and that as a result to allow for further population growth, npcs had to be added to the mix - is itself unscientific.

The joke here is to take an already silly premise and build more "lore" around it. And yeah, it's not even a particularly good joke; what made it funny are the reactions people had to the "theory"; claims of demonetization and similarly, unreflecting nonsense that give the theory, even though its very core it intentionally flawed, more credibility.

In a way, it's like the popular feminist saying that "The comments under every article about feminism justify feminism."; a circular argument that has no bearing in reality, but is internally consistent if one accepts the false premises of the argument.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I realized yesterday my dog has his own favorite route for our walks.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Yes, I understanding the toeing the party line is what wins you respect around here. It would be interesting to see my posts suddenly being treated honestly and upvoted, were I to switch my politics tomorrow.

It's certainly true that Tim's "credibility" rating system seems to be based largely around levels of agreement, rather than actual credibility.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It's certainly true that Tim's "credibility" rating system seems to be based largely around levels of agreement, rather than actual credibility.

The key to being a leader is recognizing where the crowd is going to go so you can get there first. Back to this:

Think again. CFC is a community, much like the community of states. You want to espouse a view that most everyone thinks is ugly and still be treated like a rose. This is not surprising, since it is a solid parallel to your "defense" of Israel. I have my own issues where my views aren't in accord with community standards. I've aired them enough to know the conflict exists and know that everyone else knows that the conflict exists. If the conflict was sufficient cause for me to stop participating I would do so, but since it isn't I mostly just stay away from those issues. People who come here with their single issue harping and then cry because people boot them around baffle me, but I enjoy a good booting around as much as the next guy.

I can get along with a bar full of rednecks long enough to finish my beer and leave. It's their bar. I consider that a valuable skill and a good outlook on life.

If I have some vested interest in this bar full of rednecks, like for example I have been hired to sell MAGA hats, I not only can get along long enough to finish my beer, I can hang in there long enough to knock the snot out of the next dirty lib'rul that comes along spreading their evil lib'rul ways. It would take a mighty good commission structure on those hats, but it is a skill that I have.

I have no vested interest here at CFC. I come here for the people I like, and enjoy kicking around the people they don't since I don't either. What I do not get is why those people choose to get kicked around repeatedly.

 

[Snerk]

When I grow up I want to be a Snerksup2nothin.