Superstitions

[tmv]

thrive on low education level

Careful! There are some people here on the forum who would say the exact opposite, at least regarding conspiracy theories. Be prepared for some heavy return fire.

 

[raxo2222]

Careful! There are some people here on the forum who would say the exact opposite, at least regarding conspiracy theories. Be prepared for some heavy return fire.

I guess there just would different sets of favourite conspirancies based on education level

In game conspirancies could be divided in few groups.
For example anti-science conspirancies building could lower education, research, and add unhealthiness but add to culture, as some people would use these to fuel their creativity.

Political conspirancy theories building would raise crime, and unhappines, also lower espionage output and add culture for being dirty source of creativity
Political conspirancy also would cause instability, no idea how it it could affect anarchy/city rebellion length, as people don't trust goverment

 

[Noriad2]

Fake conspiracies are created to distract from the real conspiracies.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Careful! There are some people here on the forum who would say the exact opposite, at least regarding conspiracy theories. Be prepared for some heavy return fire.

Much as we disagree on, I'm still finding I love having your commentary here! lol We at least argue rationally.

So you are saying, that educated people are more prone to believe in autism causing vaccines, flat earth, pyramid-building aliens, climate change being hoax and some more stuff than less educated people?

So are you saying that you can prove autism is not caused by vaccines? Or that the Pyramids at Giza do not show a level of precision and knowledge that doesn't at least shatter our preconceptions about the process of our derival of knowledge as a species?

Education can certainly mislead folks as to what's true and what's not. Often not intentionally. Anything that registers as an outlandish idea will be rejected en masse for most until the body of evidence adds up to a massive slap in the paradigm. The problem is just that right there, people are brought up with expectations of what is and what is not and it takes a tremendous amount of evidence over the top for people to finally start feeling like they can believe what they saw as outlandish. Just keep in mind the giant squid was thought a myth until very recently. There may be more truth to many myths than we assume.

In short, we should not allow ourselves to scoff at the beliefs of others until we have at least taken a serious look at all the information surrounding the case with an IMPARTIAL view, which is almost impossible for most people.

And then you have:

Fake conspiracies are created to distract from the real conspiracies.

So true. SO true. And BS is added to true undercurrent information so as to further confound the story or to take people with unusual insight and twist that insight into supporting exactly what they think they are resisting. There's been a lot of that of late.


In short... stop making any assumptions about what's real or not. Obviously, the Earth isn't flat. But at one point in time, the idea that it was a sphere was considered a nutcase conspiracy theory. Sure, rely only on what you know, but don't be so quick to cast off anything you cannot personally disprove.

 

[Harrier]

Obviously, the Earth isn't flat.

How dare you suggest such an outrageos theory. Shame on you.

 

[raxo2222]

Cleaning up thread - I want to suggest game mechanic pls.

So basically we should have different conspirancy mega-groups for different education levels in game
Negative education levels - they believe in stuff, that directly harms them (not trusting science) (+unheathiness -education -research)
Positive education levels - they believe in stuff, that makes them unhappy (not trusting authority) (+unhappiness +crime +instability)
Close to 0 education levels requiring conspirancies should have bit of every malus.
Conspirancy theories would also interact with civics.
Also they would add culture.

These would exist until some tech makes possible do debunk or approve them swiftly enough to not make any impact on civilization.
Of course these would be very general. And these conspirancies would be much different from what we choose do believe today or not.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Unusual claims require extraordinary evidence.

As far as ancient alien theory is concerned, I'd contend there's far more evidence for that than the contrary. It also makes more sense in a lot of ways and answers to a few huge gaps in our historical model.

But hey... if a person isn't willing to explore the bodies of research on the subject to see what evidence exists, and it's not put in their face by 'educators', nor proposed in a convincing format on television where it's not subtly made out to be an entire field of presumption without solid facts to back those assertions, then why would anyone think there's anything to it right? In fact, one might suspect that it's quite possible that the manner in which the information is being delivered is being used to color things to the point that it mocks those who have put together any valid models, which just goes to suggest there could be political motive in making the whole field of study sound irrational. Or perhaps some corporate execs just feel it just makes the show more entertaining, and thus watchable by a larger audience, to mock its own premises perhaps.

Look, the ultimate point here is that all a conspiracy theorist is is someone who sees that there are problems with the given answers to things, potential motives to hide the truth, and some evidence to support a premise that answers to these inconsistencies. It's about reading the movements under the blanket of surface evidence and trying to determine what may lie beneath, with the knowledge that it is not likely to be nothing, given that there are movements there, and the movements are as of yet unexplained. My dog, in otherwords, is a great conspiracy theorist when he locates my feet under the blanket and nibbles on my toes.

More often than not, it's the best guess to the as of yet undetermined.

The body of evidence on UFO visitations is gigantic. And it leads to a lot of questions about agendas and who's piloting the craft. It very well could be us and if it is, boy there is there some amazing high tech stuff we have that nobody knows about and even if that's true, did we really invent it or just back-engineer it? If we know THEY are there due to the huge compilation of that body of evidence by those admittedly ordered to gather that evidence on behalf of the government, then why the secrecy? Why the failure to be on super high response against the potential for ET attack? Have we met with THEM already? Or are we perhaps already owned by them and always have been, albeit largely left to our own design and self-development? There's so much to this subject... I probably shouldn't have brought all this up again.

My point is, even if you feel that unusual conclusions should be backed by a huge body of evidence and that there isn't enough, I say perhaps it's more that you haven't been exposed to enough in some cases. Most of us are smart enough to utilize a natural sense of Occum's Razor in our logical processes and from there it's mostly a matter of how much we've been exposed to that determines where we fall in our belief. Those of us who explore the outer limits of possible explanations to things that nag us due to remaining unexplained, often do at least keep an open mind.

AKA, I'm a big enthusiast of Ancient Alien theory but no matter how much I feel it's the best model to answer to so many things we haven't been able to answer for about human history, I still do keep an open mind that it could all be explained in a more mundane manner. However, even an alternative theory we've been able to show is possible doesn't automatically mean that alternative theory must be true. It's not about just the small details but the big picture that emerges as well.

 

[Noriad2]

Spreading conspiracy theories is a known spy operation.
----------------------
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_INFEKTION (with the 'K' from KGB)

Operation INFEKTION was a KGB disinformation campaign to spread information that the United States invented HIV/AIDS[2] as part of a biological weapons research project at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

In 1992, Director of Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Yevgeny Primakov admitted that the KGB was behind the Soviet newspaper articles claiming that AIDS was created by the US government.
-----------------------
For who is interested in subversion and politics, there are several interesting video lectures on youtube starring former KGB officer Yuri Bezmenov talking about the programs of the KGB to undermine Western societies. It wouldn't surprise me if the current SJW madness on USA universities is the long term result of KGB programs of putting subversive persons in power in various key positions in education and government.

 

[raxo2222]

But what about my suggestions? I just wanted to have some "myths" use coupled with education level and civics that change effects of these "myths"
Of course there would be single building for these myths being sum of all conspirancy theories, that could ever exist at given education level.
Also there would be simpler urban legends superstision, that would act just like your average superstision, that appears in Industrial+ era.

 

[Thunderbrd]

But what about my suggestions? I just wanted to have some "myths" use coupled with education level and civics that change effects of these "myths"
Of course there would be single building for these myths being sum of all conspirancy theories, that could ever exist at given education level.
Also there would be simpler urban legends superstision, that would act just like your average superstision, that appears in Industrial+ era.

I'm leaning towards wanting to include this sort of thing as elements that emerge in the ideas project stuff. Take a look at the thread for that. It should handle all rumors, stories and myths as well as many other more direct game elements. It would track the spread of concepts and the interaction of cultures. What you are suggesting is a set of fringe ideas that are currently unproveable. I dont think education should be used to guide the concept because it gets too suggestive as to whether they can assumed to be correct or not.

 

[raxo2222]

I'm leaning towards wanting to include this sort of thing as elements that emerge in the ideas project stuff. Take a look at the thread for that. It should handle all rumors, stories and myths as well as many other more direct game elements. It would track the spread of concepts and the interaction of cultures. What you are suggesting is a set of fringe ideas that are currently unproveable. I dont think education should be used to guide the concept because it gets too suggestive as to whether they can assumed to be correct or not.

And crimes/disease/pests are simulated here (umpleasant stuff that is).
Im not suggesting this or that fringe idea for this or that education level.
I was suggesting single "Fringe Ideas" building to emulate our modern "folklore" based on education level.
So instead of this lets bypass this completly and just add happiness/healthiness modifiers directly to education levels.
Low education levels -> +Happiness, +Unhealthiness
High education levels -> +Unhappines, +Health
Also civics itself could interact with education level pseudobuildings by changing happines/health mechanics.

 

[Thunderbrd]

And crimes/disease/pests are simulated here (umpleasant stuff that is).

Simulated where exactly? In education?

So instead of this lets bypass this completly and just add happiness/healthiness modifiers directly to education levels.
Low education levels -> +Happiness, +Unhealthiness
High education levels -> +Unhappines, +Health

I'm not seeing a strong enough case to suggest that education levels directly should impact happiness/health, but if it did, I think you have the scale correct. In a lot of ways I've built in similar factors, just more indirectly, such as birth rate influences and anarchy time.

 

[raxo2222]

Simulated where exactly? In education?

I'm not seeing a strong enough case to suggest that education levels directly should impact happiness/health, but if it did, I think you have the scale correct. In a lot of ways I've built in similar factors, just more indirectly, such as birth rate influences and anarchy time.

I meant generally as bad properties.

Hmmm can your ideas project interact with properties (and directly with their autobuildings) and vice versa?

 

[Thunderbrd]

It should be able to eventually. Autobuildings would be potentially possible with Ideas and any time you introduce something that can produce an object that has that many tag potentials, you're enabling quite a few options.

 

[Enchanteur]

With some religions (let's say if player get christianism, and inquisition) a random negative event can be :
Your People think someone is a witch (choices) :
- burn it : you loose a citizen but get a bonus (happy, or more).
- Arrest it : this is not a permanent lost of citizen
- Forgive : do nothing but people are hunnapy + problems maybe more bad than just loose a citizen.

 

[JosEPh_II]

With some religions (let's say if player get christianism, and inquisition) a random negative event can be :
Your People think someone is a witch (choices) :
- burn it : you loose a citizen but get a bonus (happy, or more).
- Arrest it : this is not a permanent lost of citizen
- Forgive : do nothing but people are hunnapy + problems maybe more bad than just loose a citizen.

Terrible ideas.

 

[Lord Meire]

Vampire myths have the potential to get pretty interesting. Depending on the culture, they've got all sorts of strange habits and protection methods associated with them.

Arguably the biggest effect should be a large happiness malus that can be remedied with various protection sub-beliefs like "They can't get in your house if you don't invite them in first." or "If you scatter a handful of rice they'll stop chasing you to count all the grains."

Cultures that burn their dead should be relatively immune to it as the idea is thought to have originated when somebody exhumed a body and found the hair and nails "growing" and the flesh oddly well preserved- which apparently gave the impression that they weren't actually dead despite being underground in a box for a week or so.

 

[BUDDHAALIEN]

That sounds funny. I wish more options when you set your civics on intolerant, that i must use more times inquisitors than only erase the normal religions. there must not be more religions for that. a superstition special building would be cool where i can remove it with inquisitions or heretikbuilding. more resistance of the citizens when you set intolerant civ would make the game more interesting. Maybe new special buildings with missionaries would be cool that they can build for every religion a unique building.Like Sharia which reduce crime but increase unhealthyness or taoist believe for physical immortality.Maybe when you construct a monogamie special building it makes the muslims in the city unhappy and increase unhappyness when Islam is in the citie or polygamie where you cities have -20 growing but it makes the christians unhappy when there are christians in the city.and it can be only neutral when you set the civic secular and when you set your civic on atheism it makes the atheist very unhappy this buildings.A special event that a religious civil war is in a city when there is a argue between religions that they don´t like each other much. When i could use my missionaries for more than only spreed religions would it be very cool.
What I totaly hate is that I can´t build monasteries when I research modern physics. Maybe communities or the monasteries have -10 % science instead of that when you research modern physics would be much cooler.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Maybe education levels would hurry or slow other property propagation, for superstitions? Or, y'know, it feels like there should be some synergy between education and the uses of Story Tellers and Bards and them.

 

[Thunderbrd]

superstitions are ideas and I can see them and other stories being converted to a type of Idea on the Ideas Project (there's a thread on that) and if and when that is done then I can also see education having an influence on the spread level perhaps, or on its effects.