I by far agree with you and many others that the biblical, deist god has no basis for existence.
Is there a formal school of thought that scientifically regards the god phenomenon as an emergent property of conscience at a social level, much as we could study conscience as an emergent property of complex neurological activity, or the economy as an emergent property of the rules of commerce? Couldn't such a consequent god* model, even if very different in nature from the deist model, be studied by science and thus bridge the gap between those who feel its existence and those who want to explain it?
Burt Crepeault Canada
* I use the expression consequent god for two reasons: 1) it is logical and naturally explainable, as opposed to supernatural in essence; and 2) it comes as a consequence of conscience and therefore could be considered as a god of after, as opposed to a god of before in the creationist sense.
Well FUCK THAT, I will still be playing games as much when I am 60 as now that I am 30.
There there, now listen to this one sounding like a 10-year old saying 'I'm never going to kiss a girl'. If you haven't yet grasped that tastes change with time and that experiences begin to feel like "more of the same" after a while, I suggest you reread your post and take your own advice.
The question "Are you finding it harder, as you get more mature, to find something you want to play?" was clearly not intended at you.
From a purely functional perspective, this makes for better quality software in the end. More versions mean more unforeseen situations mean more testing mean in the end more bugs found and quashed.
why the fuck do we care so much about them getting ripped off and having some money taken away when we should be sterilizing them surgically?
Because...
You said it: they're morons with money. It's that same money banks need in order to keep growing. And as you know, growth of your customer base is the foundation of capitalism. You can't even sterilize them, that would be bad for business...
...but their implementations do. Except for rare cases, profit is directly proportional to the amount of effort put in implementation and marketing of your idea. Therefore:
1) publish the idea. Odds are, no one will pay attention to it anyway. 2) start working on its implementation, get the details figured out, remove the obstacles 3) start making a fuss about it, attract attention 4) if someone else tries to patent it, they can't: idea is not original because your initial publication is prior art
If you make money in this endeavor, bonus. If not, you'll have learned many things, perhaps made new friends, found partners, attracted some attention, made yourself a name, found a goal in life, etc.
I suppose the trend is unstoppable by now as we all jumped right into it with our credit and debit cards. Still, I'm always amazed that people willingly pay to pay, that is, give a fraction of the transaction to some third party, just for allowing the transaction to take place. In the good old days of cash, the passing of money from one hand to another was free. Now it appears that every time I need to pay for something, I need to pay a little more. Is that really acceptable? Am I the only one who's not too excited by this?
This is something I totally subscribe to. Popularity of violent games and movies is an indication that a good proportion of the human (arguably mostly male) population has battle fever, an urge to get involved in conflict and to come out the winner. I would guess that this inclination has been present in our species for a long, long time and is not about to recede -- just look at the world today. And when there is no real action, we indulge in games, competitions, sports. Hey, aren't the Olympics (the modern ones) based on a model (the ancient ones) that is a proxy for war? Games have long been an outlet for people, allowing to fill a need that cannot be filled in reality at the moment. I can't go out and be a bad-ass hero that bludgeons hordes of ennemies? So be it, I'll rent a Vin Diesel movie or play Halo. Makes me feel good to a point that I would even stay away from the real thing. Enroll in the army and go make peace in Afghanistan? No thanks. That cowardly attitude, magnified to an increasing fraction of population, means peace, the real one. Pass the word.
Well, history has shown us that occasional revolutions and civil wars are also necessities to social balance.
After a few centuries of relative freedom, we seem to be going back toward Big Power these days. In a few more centuries (or decades in this era of disposable empires), the necessities of the ruling class will be counterbalanced by others. Let's just hope that the 21st century will allow us to do it cleanly this time...
I'm putting my money on the fact that they *don't* know the identity of the programmer but have a pretty short list all of whom are under surveillance. Saying they know who it is might provoke some panic reaction on the programmer's part like, say, running out of the house with a suitcase and a terrified gaze. The rest is future history.
When I think about it all, there is a great parallel that can be drawn from the VHS-to-DVD consumer move that is currently occurring. Bear with me, I'll get to the point shortly.
So, what are the factors that made DVDs widely accepted and adopted? Yes, better picture and sound. Yes, a smaller, more convenient format. But to me, above all, it was better contents that made people switch to DVDs. You don't just buy or rent the movie, you have extra scenes, alternate endings, bloopers, interviews, etc. Hollywood could have put all of that on VHS as well but they didn't. They wanted us to switch to DVD and we have, based on contents. You just have to listen to any DVD movie advertisement to be convinced. The emphasis is on contents, not technical merits.
Now, why can't it be the same for music? Technical merits of digital music are well known by now. When I start seeing music companies think outside the box and provide me with an enhanced listening experience, such as 5.1 surround, lyrics, clips, mind dazzling visual effects, special editions to name just a few that quickly jump to mind, and which is only available from their service, then I'll think it's worthwhile to subscribe to it and pay to download. Until then, I want nothing of the lazy, uncreative, retarded way of thinking displayed by dinosaur companies who are trying to sell me the same old crap.
Face it guys, you dropped the ball. No amount of trying to sell me what is now free will ever change that. Sell me something else that I'll want to buy.
Hmmm, very good point. What I'm hearing from the above is that for all of us who grew up playing games on Commodore64 or TRS-80 in the high-school years, later went on to college and bought our first PC, witnessed myriads of great original games such as the ones mentioned above, also witnessed the gaming industry becoming monstruously big, there are a few facts to consider:
1- We are now in our thirties and have learned to demand a little bit more out of life's experiences
2- We still like playing games. Sorry, can't grow out of it...
But, no matter what technological advances there has been lately, it is still very difficult to find quality in a game. Personally, I'm not as impressed by cool graphics as with a good storyline. I don't care if the game spits out 10 zillion polygons per second and will require the latest and greatest Matrox/ATI/NVidia hardware to run it. No, this is what I want in a game:
1- A entertaining plot. A game to me is entertainment much like a movie or a book, and I refuse to be entertained by gung-ho Joe going in to kill every monster and retrieve a precious access key so he can move on to the next level and do the same.
2- A realistic environment. I know it makes for good adrenaline to enter an arena alone against hundreds of villains and decimate them, but it doesn't work for me anymore, hasn't in a long time.
Now I know there are games out there that fit that description nicely. I just wish there were more...
I must think that I'm not alone feeling like this, yes?
Slashdot Mirror
Professor Dawkins,
I by far agree with you and many others that the biblical, deist god has no basis for existence.
Is there a formal school of thought that scientifically regards the god phenomenon as an emergent property of conscience at a social level, much as we could study conscience as an emergent property of complex neurological activity, or the economy as an emergent property of the rules of commerce? Couldn't such a consequent god* model, even if very different in nature from the deist model, be studied by science and thus bridge the gap between those who feel its existence and those who want to explain it?
Burt Crepeault
Canada
* I use the expression consequent god for two reasons: 1) it is logical and naturally explainable, as opposed to supernatural in essence; and 2) it comes as a consequence of conscience and therefore could be considered as a god of after, as opposed to a god of before in the creationist sense.
Well FUCK THAT, I will still be playing games as much when I am 60 as now that I am 30.
There there, now listen to this one sounding like a 10-year old saying 'I'm never going to kiss a girl'. If you haven't yet grasped that tastes change with time and that experiences begin to feel like "more of the same" after a while, I suggest you reread your post and take your own advice.
The question "Are you finding it harder, as you get more mature, to find something you want to play?" was clearly not intended at you.
From a purely functional perspective, this makes for better quality software in the end. More versions mean more unforeseen situations mean more testing mean in the end more bugs found and quashed.
why the fuck do we care so much about them getting ripped off and having some money taken away when we should be sterilizing them surgically?
Because...
You said it: they're morons with money. It's that same money banks need in order to keep growing. And as you know, growth of your customer base is the foundation of capitalism. You can't even sterilize them, that would be bad for business...
Mainstream films are not made by creative people, they're made by business people.
Weapons, blah blah, speed, blah blah (yawn).
It's not history. The real question here is: how much gold did they find on board?
...but their implementations do. Except for rare cases, profit is directly proportional to the amount of effort put in implementation and marketing of your idea. Therefore:
1) publish the idea. Odds are, no one will pay attention to it anyway.
2) start working on its implementation, get the details figured out, remove the obstacles
3) start making a fuss about it, attract attention
4) if someone else tries to patent it, they can't: idea is not original because your initial publication is prior art
If you make money in this endeavor, bonus. If not, you'll have learned many things, perhaps made new friends, found partners, attracted some attention, made yourself a name, found a goal in life, etc.
I suppose the trend is unstoppable by now as we all jumped right into it with our credit and debit cards. Still, I'm always amazed that people willingly pay to pay, that is, give a fraction of the transaction to some third party, just for allowing the transaction to take place. In the good old days of cash, the passing of money from one hand to another was free. Now it appears that every time I need to pay for something, I need to pay a little more. Is that really acceptable? Am I the only one who's not too excited by this?
This is something I totally subscribe to. Popularity of violent games and movies is an indication that a good proportion of the human (arguably mostly male) population has battle fever, an urge to get involved in conflict and to come out the winner. I would guess that this inclination has been present in our species for a long, long time and is not about to recede -- just look at the world today. And when there is no real action, we indulge in games, competitions, sports. Hey, aren't the Olympics (the modern ones) based on a model (the ancient ones) that is a proxy for war? Games have long been an outlet for people, allowing to fill a need that cannot be filled in reality at the moment. I can't go out and be a bad-ass hero that bludgeons hordes of ennemies? So be it, I'll rent a Vin Diesel movie or play Halo. Makes me feel good to a point that I would even stay away from the real thing. Enroll in the army and go make peace in Afghanistan? No thanks. That cowardly attitude, magnified to an increasing fraction of population, means peace, the real one. Pass the word.
[... hopeful, if naive, attempt to address this problem...] http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1114137
Well, history has shown us that occasional revolutions and civil wars are also necessities to social balance. After a few centuries of relative freedom, we seem to be going back toward Big Power these days. In a few more centuries (or decades in this era of disposable empires), the necessities of the ruling class will be counterbalanced by others. Let's just hope that the 21st century will allow us to do it cleanly this time...
I'm putting my money on the fact that they *don't* know the identity of the programmer but have a pretty short list all of whom are under surveillance. Saying they know who it is might provoke some panic reaction on the programmer's part like, say, running out of the house with a suitcase and a terrified gaze. The rest is future history.
Sounds like weeks of fun ahead, mopping up a ton of evaporating helium, chatting along like a flock of canaries. No really...
...just like the US has long lost its role as the leader of the UN Security Council...
Whoa, all this heated discussion made me dig for an oldie, still one of my favourites...
So, what are the factors that made DVDs widely accepted and adopted? Yes, better picture and sound. Yes, a smaller, more convenient format. But to me, above all, it was better contents that made people switch to DVDs. You don't just buy or rent the movie, you have extra scenes, alternate endings, bloopers, interviews, etc. Hollywood could have put all of that on VHS as well but they didn't. They wanted us to switch to DVD and we have, based on contents. You just have to listen to any DVD movie advertisement to be convinced. The emphasis is on contents, not technical merits.
Now, why can't it be the same for music? Technical merits of digital music are well known by now. When I start seeing music companies think outside the box and provide me with an enhanced listening experience, such as 5.1 surround, lyrics, clips, mind dazzling visual effects, special editions to name just a few that quickly jump to mind, and which is only available from their service, then I'll think it's worthwhile to subscribe to it and pay to download. Until then, I want nothing of the lazy, uncreative, retarded way of thinking displayed by dinosaur companies who are trying to sell me the same old crap.
Face it guys, you dropped the ball. No amount of trying to sell me what is now free will ever change that. Sell me something else that I'll want to buy.
1- We are now in our thirties and have learned to demand a little bit more out of life's experiences
2- We still like playing games. Sorry, can't grow out of it...
But, no matter what technological advances there has been lately, it is still very difficult to find quality in a game. Personally, I'm not as impressed by cool graphics as with a good storyline. I don't care if the game spits out 10 zillion polygons per second and will require the latest and greatest Matrox/ATI/NVidia hardware to run it. No, this is what I want in a game:
1- A entertaining plot. A game to me is entertainment much like a movie or a book, and I refuse to be entertained by gung-ho Joe going in to kill every monster and retrieve a precious access key so he can move on to the next level and do the same.
2- A realistic environment. I know it makes for good adrenaline to enter an arena alone against hundreds of villains and decimate them, but it doesn't work for me anymore, hasn't in a long time.
Now I know there are games out there that fit that description nicely. I just wish there were more...
I must think that I'm not alone feeling like this, yes?