‮!olleH

  • 2 Posts
  • 80 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 7th, 2023

help-circle


  • I love that game. I think it’s the only game that presents dissociation and “functional depression” if that is even a phrase. There is a feeling of an unreliable narrator, but not to the extent of outright lies or hallucinations. Just everything looks out of place, disgusting, ugly and stupid.

    Playing the game I feel like I am pretending to be functional in a world I despise, among people I find disgusting or irrelevant.

    It’s something.


  • Atrio: The Dark Wild - has you control a clone with a limited life span. When you die and resume from a new clone, the old clone corpse is lying around and you can harvest it for parts necessary to continue the story.

    Sifu - when you “die” your character ages and gets stronger before trying again.

    Karateka - plays a lot like a regular game with lives, but it’s not the same life. Every time you have to resume from a new life, it’s a different person attempting to get to the end.

    Shadow of Mordor - when you are killed by an orc, you resurrect from a spirit. The orc, however, gets high-fives from all his mates and gets promoted, plus some new skills. Next time you see him he will call you out.

    Hades - the entire story is based around you repeatedly failing and dying.

    Super Meat Boy - well basically you die and restart, but when you finally beat the level, you get an instant replay with all your failed attempts simultaneously playing on top of it. The effect is more glorious the more you struggled to beat the level.








  • Longtermism is a cardboard halo. A thin excuse to act in complete self-interest while pretending it is good for humanity.

    The further into the future we try to think, the more different factors and uncertainty dominate. This leaves you room to put in any argument you feel like, to make any prediction you feel like. So you pick something vaguely romantic or appealing to some relatively popular opinion, and hey you’re golden.

    I am approached by a beggar. What do I - the longterminist - do?

    I feel like being kind today. My longterminist argument is that every bit of happiness and relief today carries compound interest into the future, and by giving this person some money today, they are content and don’t have to resort to thievery, which again makes another person have a safe day and have mental energy to do a lot of good tomorrow. The goodness becomes bigger every step, over time. I give them $100. It’s pretty obvious, really.

    They smell and I don’t want to deal with that right now. My longterminist argument is that helping out beggars actually just perpetuates a problem in society. If people can’t function in society without random help, it’s just a ticking bomb of a humanitarian disaster. Giving them money just postpones the time until the crisis is too big to ignore, and allows it to grow further. No, this is a problem that society needs to handle right now, and by giving money to this person I’m just helping the problem stay hidden. I ignore them and walk on by. It’s pretty obvious, really.

    My wife left me and I want other people to hurt like I do. My longterminist argument is that unfortunately, these people are rejects of society and I can’t fix that. But we can prevent them from harassing productive citizens that work hard to create a better future. If fewer beggars make commuters sad and it gives a 1% improvement in productivity, that’s a huge compound improvement in a few hundred years. So I kick him in the leg, yell at him, and call the police on him and say he tried to assault me. It’s a bit cold-hearted, but it’s obviously good long term.