Well, I'm glad you're as omniscient as to know about such sections in advance, but the rest of us are more fallible and less inclined to spend 30 hours researching if we'll like a 10 hour game.
Most often it boils down to discovering that, basically, I'm in the game I don't like. Sorta on the wrong train. It may be kinda dumb to be in it to start with, but there we go, it happened. Why shouldn't I quit?
And the examples in my original message up the thread do apply too.
- I have 1000$. Do I invest them in enterprise X, Y or Z? Which of them is best suited to my goal? (In this case, making a ROI.) Why shouldn't I quit investing in X if Z is a better investment?
- I have one move to make in Go. Do I support groups of pieces X, Y or Z? Which of them is the best move towards my goal? (Of defeating the opponent.) Why shouldn't I quit trying to save group of pieces X if Z is a better use of one move?
- I have an hour to waste and want to be entertained. I could play game X, or I could do other things Y and Z. Which could be other games, but also watching a movie, or deciding to do something productive instead now and do the entertainment later, or whatever. Which do I do? Which of them will get me more entertained? Why shouldn't I quit game X if popping in the DVD for Z will entertain me more?
Well, it's probably not a bad name for it, but in all fairness it's not just the women.
E.g., I explicitly mentioned the Paladin, and he's not just a guy there, but one of the hardest cases to wrap my mind around. I mean, they spend the whole game characterizing him as the guy who does what's right for the people, and fights evil just because he's a Paladin... and then, bam, he'll refuse to fight the Ultimate Evil Boss (TM) because I talked to the Ranger more than to him. WTF? What kind of a two-year-old's reaction is that? And where's that whole paladin ethos now?
And it's pretty much gotten worse recently. I mean, far from me to suggest it's because they were also selling a DLC with presents to improve the mood of party members, but in Dragon Age otherwise pretty much the only role you could actually role-play and have your party members stay with you was that of a sycophant. You had to pretend to be the good and honourable guy to one character, the might-makes-right insensitive prick/cunt to the other, while reassuring another that you too love backstabbing innocents and kicking puppies, while being the mopey goth who hates all humanity to a fourth, and so on, while also managing who's within earshot when you do that. Pretty much any having a consistent personality of your own is punished by the game swift and hard. And even then you get random unpredictable twists like the devout fundie party member throwing a fit and liking you less, if you bring some soldiers religious symbols to raise their morale before a fight. (She thinks real faith has to come from within, see?) So better save often and try with a different party when that happens.
But yeah, you're right, that's my problem: I'm starting to find it difficult to take some characters seriously any more.
Eh, it could be worse. E.g., another Bioware specialty, the impulsive turncoat who you _do_ get to put out of his/her misery yourself because he actually joins the bad guy and starts attacking you.
I mean, my end battle of NWN2 went something like this. Mind you, not _literally_, but a decent "artist's impression":
So you've spent countless hours gathering your team, solving their side quests, listening to their sob stories, and training and arming them for the final confrontation with the incarnation of supreme evil. Just as you're done listening to his mandatory gloating and command your team to draw your weapons, your druid interrupts:
Druid: "Err, actually I'm joining him against you." You: "What the...? This is the guy who killed all your friends, desecrated your sacred grove, and tried to kill you. Repeatedly. And you're joining him?" Druid: "Err, yes, but you never bought me a pony!" You: "Lady, there are no ponies in this game." Druid: "Excuses, excuses. And you only listened to me sob about how mom loved my sister more than me 100 times, disregarding my emotional need to do that before and after each rest." You: "Lady, it's D&D. We've been hitting rest every 5 minutes so you can remember your spells. Far from me to suggest seeing a neurologist, but... anyway, there's no freaking way anyone'll start _that_ talk again every 5 minutes." Druid: "Hrmpf! That's just the kind of insensitivity I'm talking about! Well, I'm off!" You: "Damn! Ok, anyone else feel like sharing anything like that?" Paladin: "Actually, I'm switching sides too." You: "What the hell? Dude, why? I thought we were like brothers!" Paladin: "Your blatant disregard of the lawful good ethos, that's why. I counted no less than 5 cases of jay walking, 2 broken promises to find someone's lost kitten and respectively heirloom underpants, 4 cases of public drunkenness..." You: "Ok, ok, I get the idea. But that guy is chaotic evil and your sworn arch-enemy!" Paladin: "Eh, I'll just atone afterwards." You: "Fuck! Anyone else?" Rogue: "Me too." You: "But... but... didn't I buy you all that stuff, and go on all your silly quests to find your long lost puppy and chuck eggs at your ex-boyfriend's house, and all that?" Rogue: "Yeah, but you never read me bedtime stories, and made fun of my cap with cat ears, and seemed to enjoy telling me that there's no Santa." You: "Lady, you're twenty-eight years old. That's twenty years overdue to learn about Santa." Rogue: "Hrm. Meanie. Besides, just look at him. He's sooo dreamy with those bulging muscles and red glowing eyes..." Evil Boss: "I'LL RIP YOUR HEART OUT AND EAT IT!" Rogue: "Oooh, kinky!"
It may even seem palatable when it's, say, the immature nerd stereotype of a sorceress that does an impulsive jumping ship because she thinks you (as a male character) like the male mage more than her. It's more of a WTF when it's the mature, level headed mage guy who is on a mission to stop the Evil Boss deserts to him and fights you, because he thinks you like the sorceress more than him.
I mean, fuck, I'm even all understanding about other lifestyles and orientations and all, but trying to kill me for liking the girl more is a bit extreme;)
Or like in KOTOR where, because Bastilla got kidnapped and tortured by Darth Malak, while I on the other hand am on a quest to save her, of course the next time I meet Bastilla, she tries to kill me for Malak. I mean, gee, Stockholm Syndrome is good and fine, but when you start killing people for the guy that kidnapped and tortured you, you're taking it a tad too far;)
That's a good point, but for what it's worse, I'd say those too are actually cases of "verisimilitude" rather than "realism". Well, probably even "verisimilitude" is a bit too much, but let's go with that. Basically it just has to superficially resemble the real thing.
E.g., the farming simulation you mention actually isn't very much like actual farming. You don't get to plough and sow for months, then wait a few more months, then finally get the results of your work and... well, actually mostly you'd make ends meet with the government subsidy more than the crop. Any game where it takes a click or two to plough and plant an acre of whatever, then you click to get the crop when you wake up next morning, is not a very realistic simulator.
Basically even for those, really, it's about entertainment not realism.
But the game itself is just a means to an end: to be entertained for a few hours. If what you described is entertaining for you, fine, then keep doing it. If for someone else it isn't, then why would they want to continue doing a mean that doesn't lead to the end they want? Isn't it like not quitting riding the wrong train?
Even for you, there must be _some_ kind of gameplay that you don't like or find boring. Trivial example: if one "puzzle" simply required running around a house 100 times, with nothing else happening. Would you continue playing the game even though it asks you to do something that's not actually entertaining you? Why?
Yes, but going on about how it's like reality, is kinda silly in a thread where that's actually the whole complaint. If I wanted something that's exactly like reality, I'd be in reality, not in a computer game.
What I want from a game is something _entertaining_. Realism or any other considerations are not the primary qualities there. They're only good if they help make a more entertaining experience, and should just get the fuck out of the way if not. It's that simple.
In fact, I'd go on a limb and say that even those chanting the silly "but it's like REALITY" mantra, wouldn't really want a game that is exactly like reality. An actual true-to-reality simulation of a medieval adventure would probably be more like:
You're not some noble adventurer, you're a serf (about 80% of the population was.) If you get off your master's demesne to explore anything, you're now a wanted fugitive. You'll likely spend the rest of your miserable life ploughing, reaping and helping maintain the castle and roads in the meantime. The most you'll contribute to a war is having your grain plundered by the enemy or "levied" by your own side. You'll probably die of a horrible disease before reaching 40 years old. Game over.
Well, ok, that's not much fun. Let's try something else. *Flips through the list of Nethack classes*
Ok, you're a knight. Most of the year you're supposed to manage 5 peasant families, and see to it that they produce enough to pay the taxes _and_ survive until next year, and maintain the roads, and pay for your horse and armour, etc. Most knights actually ploughed and reaped themselves too, to make ends meet, especially if they lost a battle differently and are still paying their own ransom. Think: like being saddled with a mortgage for life, except it's just for doing your duty to your king, not for buying a fancy car or house. In the only time when you're not doing that, you're supposed to be doing battle for your liege lord.
Even a scratch during one of these battles can infect and kill you. But that's ok because on such campaigns you're more likely to die of some disease (even kings died of dysentery) than by the sword. And whatever doesn't kill you, will hurt like hell and make you less healthy, not stronger.
The only time you'll actually have enough free time to go exploring dungeons is after 40, which even for most knights means you're a "senior citizen", basically. And probably by now thankful to _not_ risk your life every year. But that's ok, because there are no such dungeons to explore anyway.
And if you do find one, see above: even a 1 inch deep poke with a sword can outright kill or disable you, not just lower your HP for a while. And even a scratch can infect and again kill you.
Hmm, ok, maybe that's not it either... *Flips through the classes some more* Rogue. Well, that's easy, you'd be poor, do a couple of thefts and get hanged. You don't get to explore any dungeons either.
Hmm, well, let's be generous and pretend the rogue is actually a mercenary, which is a more realistic medieval role, and we just decided we want realism:
You're a mercenary, just by virtue that you were the second son and got kicked unceremoniously on the street when your elder brother inherited the family estate. You got treated like dirt by the knights all your life, and used as "wall fodder" in every single assault, before the more valuable troops. You're very unlikely to survive more than a couple of campaigns and causes of death include not just the enemy and disease, but also historically documented cases of the knights on your side charging through the mercenaries at the enemy. E.g., at Crecy, the French knights actually actively hacked down their own retreating crossbowmen mercenaries. In some battles you actually get to fight without pants so you can shit yourself while fighting. Yeah, dysentery was that bad. (See, Agincourt.) Each battle brings you a reminder that if captured, the nobles and knights will be ransomed, but your kind will get hanged. Y
Gaming 101: Never quit until the screen says "Game Over"
Aye, that's what I tell people who insist I should quit smoking and drinkin. Mah daddy didn't raise no quitter;)
More seriously, wtf? That strikes me as an incredibly stupid idea. Life is full of situations where quitting is actually the logical alternative.
Trivial example: sending yet another thousand to that poor Nigerian widow, for yet another unexpected bank fee. Less people would end up in huge debt if they just quit instead of throwing more good money after bad.
Equally trivial example: business. Keeping dumping more money in a business that loses them hand over fist can be an a bad idea, and quitting can actually be the sane thing to do. If you think otherwise, tell that to all the stagecoach companies in the 19'th century.
But really, the same goes for war, gambling, or just about anything else.
Even in games, one of the first things you learn in Go is to not throw good pieces after bad, i.e., to know when to quit trying to save a group that's beyond saving. Not only you'll typically end up increasing the other guy's score if you keep at it, but even if he does let you save that group, it's because it's giving him time to take the rest of the board. Knowing when to let go of a group or stop following a ladder is the first step to graduating from noob, so to speak.
Which brings us to entertainment. WTF? If the purpose is to get entertained, what kind of idiot would argue that you should continue doing something that stopped being entertaining, just in the name of some idiotic "not being a quitter?" Would you argue one also shouldn't change TV channels if some uninteresting crap just started? Why or why not? It's as much being a "quitter" as changing the game disc in the computer.
The problem with taking Picard's "solutions" too seriously, is that in his case it was other people's problems, and they were even forbidden to get too involved in them.
Sorta like how if a US battleship lands in the middle of a rapidly escalating trade dispute between the islands of East Bumfuckistand and West Bumfuckistan, the captain isn't supposed to drag the USA into it or do his own gunboat diplomacy. The _correct_ answer there is to get the fuck out as quick as possible, and not end up being the guy who started WW3. Let them sort it out or let the UN and diplomats sort it out, your job as a captain just isn't to do diplomacy.
Star Trek does give its captains a lot more room to, basically, be immature big kids playing soldiers, but that just makes it even less of a model to take in a real life situation.
In this case however it's not someone else's problem. The autism scare scam has caused thousands of deaths and a resurgence in diseases that were previously just about extinct in the western world, and it caused those problems in our own nations. They're not the problem of some other nation (or planet in ST's case), they're _our_ problems. We _are_ the ones who get to sort out the mess in our own backyard.
Well, buying and training slaves for it was expensive too, so, yes, usually the shows didn't involve whole armies. But larger ones existed too. E.g., since you mention Caesar, he wanted to sponsor a show with so many gladiator pairs that the Senate forced him to reduce it, because it boiled down to a small army of armed men in Rome.
That sounds fair. Rich people create all of the jobs. Why should the job creators be punished by paying taxes?
Well, that is, if you count slavery as "creating jobs". Those latifundia (great estates) were worked almost exclusively with slaves who not only had no freedom and could be crucified on a whim (even freedmen could be reverted to slaves and crucified on a whim, btw), but were often fed bare subsistence ratios or even less than that. There are documented cases where slaves were basically left to forage for themselves or starve, because the owner wanted to capitalize on a spike in grain price by selling all the grain instead of feeding the slaves with some of it. E.g., that's exactly what caused the slave revolt in Sicily, a.k.a., the First Servile War.
And far from creating jobs, that's what created that class of poor "on the dole" in Rome. Their jobs had been "outsorced" to barbarian slaves because it was cheaper, and really there wasn't anyone giving them a job.
And basically the overall effect, if you listen to Pliny The Elder is that it ruined everyone else in Italy and was starting to do the same in the provinces, practically in the same century as it was made official.
On the whole, thanks for illustrating why I tell people to stop doing bullshit pseudo-historical parallels between present day and Rome, when they want to support their canned talking points. Your claim of creating jobs is flat out wrong for Rome, and in the opposite direction, the fact that that Roman system just impoverished millions of people and replaced workers with slaves... I really don't think you want to make that parallel for the present day rich. Call it just a hunch, but I really don't think you were going for _that_ parallel with that "creating jobs" rhetoric:p
What about "inheritance tax"? IIRC starting with either Tiberius or Caligula the senatorial class had to leave a substantial part of their estate to the emperor or have their will declared invalid and the entire estate seized.
I wouldn't call the 5% inheritance tax of Augustus to be all that substantial, actually, and certainly didn't even put a dent in the Latifundia. And hardly did much to balance the military expenses. In fact it barely almost covered the discharge bonus (think: pension) of soldiers who managed to not get killed during their very long term of service.
And most soldiers would be given land instead at discharge, which in 1 or 2 generations ended owned by the rich and no longer paying taxes. So if anything that discharge bonus was a way to leak even public land into the ownership of those who didn't pay taxes for it.
At a basic level, the difference is that in one case it's "growth or plunder", while in Rome's case it had to be "plunder". One has two options, the other has one.
Well, sorta, but not exactly. The Roman Empire didn't have to expand its economy per se, it had to keep attacking more countries to plunder them. Trajan needed the gold of Dacia to pay for his war in Persia, and so on. When they ran out of places to plunder, the collapse started. Then came a devaluing of coinage of EPIC proportions, attempts at price fixing, enlistment dropped like a rock because the soldiers' wage and "pension" (so to speak) became worth almost nothing, etc.
The economy of Rome is even funnier than that, actually.
For a start, it a right-wing paradise of sorts, in that the Senatorial class -- which was non-elected and hereditary by now in the Empire times that you mention -- paid no taxes, although they owned most of the land. Although many also set up merchant enterprises in the name of their freedmen, with them owning most "shares" so to speak and taking most profits... and again paying no tax whatsoever for that either.
As the rich quickly gobbled up more and more of the former free men's farms, essentially more and more of the Roman economy didn't contribute a cent any more to the state.
I would say that the spending of private coins to import stuff from the East was a much more minor factor than the fact that none of those coins would go into taxes anyway.
Imperial Rome almost at no point actually had a sustainable economy per se. It was a robber economy, simply put. They _had_ to keep expanding and plundering new countries, even to keep paying their legions.
Heck, they plundered even their own citizens, as essentially they paid all the wages in overvalued silver coins and demanded the taxes only in gold.
So, like, if the Superbowl in the US gets canceled, they are going to Hell in a handbasket?
It's certainly more supportable than the opposite "OMG, we're going to hell because some people have fun" theory. Though still in a fallacious way.
But mostly it just shows that if you just hand-pick a pair of events connected only by chronology, you can argue just about anything. E.g., Rome expanded the quickest after they introduced crucifixion (learned from the Carthaginians actually, with the cross-bar being a Roman twist) and imploded the fastest after Constantine abolished crucifixion. So, hmm, maybe that's the real key to building a successful empire;)
This is Slashdot. We don't read, we just post. Read history? Hell, most of us don't even bother to read the article summaries.
I'm ok with that too, actually, but then really I expect such people to not use pseudo-history for their canned moralizing points.
Sorry to break your bullshit bubble, but Rome had its first gladiatorial combats in 310 BC, according to Livy, and yes often accompanied to distributing food to the poor. Not only it wasn't the beginning of the end, but it was followed by its most rapid expansion centuries. In the couple of centuries after those, Rome went from being a debatable leader of a leader of city states spanning barely half of Italy to an empire sprawled all around the Mediterranean, not to mention most of modern France and half of Britain.
If anything, historians from the era tend to agree that sponsoring lavish shows to boost morale actually served well to do just that, and helped Rome rebound after such massive defeats as Canae and emerge more powerful than ever before.
It would be more than 500 years after that, or still almost three centuries even after the peak of the popularity of gladiatorial combats in the 1st century BC, that Rome even started to decline. And almost 800 years after that, in 476 AD that the Western Empire fell.
Even if you want to go for a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy to associate the two, actually Rome fell shortly after they _stopped_ holding gladiatorial combats. So, hmm, maybe actually the bad sign is when you can't even afford to have fun any more?
So, sorry, but linking such shows to Rome's decline is fucking idiotic. If you want to make a historical case, do read some history first.
Nice generalization of the point of view of anyone who might oppose it. Too bad it's bullshit, though.
The idea that some of us like is, basically, this "[i][b]No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury,[/b] except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, [b]nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;[/b] nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation[/b][/i]". My bolding.
You may recognize it as the fifth amendment of the USA constitution, and a fundamental principle of the rule of the law. Or may not. You gun and violence nuts seem to only care about the second.
(Oh, and BTW, the non-bolded part about the exception in the armed or naval forces, doesn't mean "rentacop on a commercial vessel".)
Yeah, bullshit strawman rhetoric about "sympathy for the criminal" make fine talking points to regurgitate, but a more fundamental point is that we usually require a jury to decide if someone is a criminal. We don't like to just take one guy's word that someone else was breaking the law.
We tried just trusting the baron or king, but it didn't work so well. That's why we started asking for judgment of the peers as early as the Magna Carta, in 1215.
At any rate, I wouldn't make a rentacop sniper a sort of Judge Death of the high seas. Even in the army, which is usually held to higher standards, it turns out that some bored people killed civilians just for sport. And crooked cops abusing their badge to beat someone up or invent evidence is pretty much a stereotype. I'd rather not get to hear "oh, well, they looked like they were coming this way and I could swear one had a bazooka" (that nobody else ever saw or found) about some local fishing boat at half a mile away.
Briefly, if I wouldn't trust a cop or state official to just decide in one second who's a criminal and who's not, and swiftly apply deadly punishment, I don't trust a private person with that either. Yes, I'm sure you'd always identify them right, and all, bla, bla, bla, but [i]other[/i] people occasionally get to decide that some abortion cop, or minister from another sect's church, or the local post office staff, or the local congresswoman deserves a bullet in the head. Or that some disabled ex-cop in Iraq deserves death just for being Arab. I mean, WTH, we had the story about a nut shooting a congresswoman just today on the front page. _That's_ the kind of guys we don't like to trust with deciding who deserves to die and who deserves to live. And we're kinda bad at knowing in advance who'll go schizophrenic next year.
I dunno. Will people instead risk their job and freedom... just to make some dickweed richer?
I mean, as long as it was some rhetoric about government transparency and accountability and all, sure, I can see how it would resonate right with a lot of people. But if that information just ends up "owned" by Assange and used to make some money for _him_, then wth, those people leaking stuff are just some unpaid sharecroppers.
And really, the right idea is that the government and information about the government belongs to the _people_. And, wth, at what point does that become "owned by Assange" or "for sale to the highest bidder"?
Disclaimer: I'm not entirely unbiased there. I've had the brief misfortune of being a coder on a MUD whose admins and all were very heavy on the OSS, openness and whatnot rhetoric. Then it turns out they're only for openness when it isn't about "their" code, meaning actually the code contributed by idealistic peons like yours truly. In fact, it was a whole surrealistic paranoia where everyone is out to steal "their" files and you had to jump through hoops and be treated like a spy to even get the headers you need to contribute such code. Now the situation isn't entirely similar, and it doesn't make me a freedom fighter or anything. But just saying that I happen to know first hand how it feels to contribute something in the name of some idealistic noble goal, and see it turned into someone else's property and glory. And it's a very bitter pill.
And I can't help think how the guy who risked losing his job or going to jail to contribute those documents must feel when he reads that they're now Assange's private property, and that it's about making Assange money rather than any idealistic noble goal. I mean, wth, I didn't risk anything and still felt majorly shafted. How does it feel to think "I might go to jail if found out and/or be the guy nobody hires any more because of that, but damn, I made Assange some money"? Probably not fun.
Well, I didn't use to, but for the last several years straight I've been increasingly exposed to the "OMG, end of world in 2012" stupidity, so I did what any self-respecting nerd would do: I went and RTFM... err... well, I read about it first. You know, just to know exactly what did the Mayans say about it. How's the world going to end according to them? How l33t were their skillz in calculating galactic alignments after all? You know, to know how exactly should I take that date. Can I blow all my bank account on hookers and crack just the day before, or is it plus-minus a decade and I should start early with the hookers and crack just in case, or what?;)
Turns out that their l33t astronomy skillz existed only in von Dänniken's delusional bullshit, and there was nothing for them to calculate anyway since they didn't prophecise any end of world for that date.
Er. I went to the gringo capital of south america. They told me the myan calander was based on a combination of solar & lunar cycles. Took something like 72 years to converge.(?)
Yes, sorta. Not exactly, but sorta. That was yet another Mayan calendar, the fourth and most ridiculous of them all, the Calendar Round. Instead of telling you a year, month and day by one calendar, they told you just the month and day in two different calendars, the Tzolkin and the Haab. Which did have a 52 year cycle, and the added advantage that nobody had a fucking clue when a date had happened or will happen anyway, without doing some maths.
So basically you wouldn't get told that someone was born on the 6'th of June of 1966, but something like that they were born on the 8'th of the 13'th month by the Haab calendar and the 19'th of the 4'th month by Tzolkin. Which unless you pull out the calculator, leaves you still in the dark exactly in what year did those dates coincide.
Plus, yes, it had a 52 year cycle. So basically even if you figured out that your prospective bride's birthday works out to 21 years old... it could also mean 73 years old, or if you're really unlucky 125 years old. Online dating must have really sucked for the Mayans;)
I would more like assume that they're not serfs, and don't work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There'll be enough time for them to do their job _and_ watch a movie now and then. Sometimes even together with a few co-workers and start comparing notes.
It's even worse than that, really. It's not just "who cares about Mayans". It's that, really, they're trusting a calendar from back when the Mayans were as primitive as to not even figure out the length of a year (the Long Count uses 360 day years; seriously) and a culture who even at its apex only managed to count the days in the cycles of Venus (you know, the most bloody visible thing up there after the Sun and Moon) to tell them about galactic events. And they turn the end of a Mayan century into some kind of prophecy, although the Mayans never made such a prophecy. It's so fucking stupid, it's depressing.
To repeat a previous post (hey, it's Slashdot, you're used to dupes), for those who happen to still not know what that mayan thing is actually about:
Let's start from the start. The Mayans didn't count in base 10, but in base 20, presumably because they could count on their toes too. (No, really, look at their digits.) Thank goodness they didn't come up with a male-only maths, eh?
So they started with a year based on 260 day years, the so called Tzolkin calendar. If now you went "wait, that can't be right, it would skip through the actual year like crazy", congrats, you'd be smarter than the Mayans.
Then came the Long Count calendar, which was 360 days long, or 18 months of 20 days each. (Told you they were big on 20.) This is actually the calendar used in the 2012 (non)prophecy.
Yes, that's right. Those poor idiots are actually trusting a civilization to tell them about galactic alignments... who isn't even advanced enough to figure out the length of the year. Nor had the smarts to reset it to some equinoxe or such each year, like the lunisolar calendars used around here by even the most primitive ancient cultures. Yeah, that's the guy to trust with galactic calculations, right?;)
To make it more stupid, even the Mayans eventually got a better calendar than that, the Haab calendar. Which finally padded the year to 365 days long, putting them finally on par with what the Egyptians had had, oh, only a couple of millennia before them. But anyway, a doomsday calculation based on the Long Count is already based on a calendar which is obsolete and crap even by Mayan standards.
So, anyway, a Long Count year was 18 months of 20 days each.
From there it went kinda like for us with decades, centuries and milenia, except in base 20.
So for us a decade is 10 years, for them a katun is 20 years.
For us a century is 10x10 years, for them a baktun is 20x20 years.
For us a millennium is 10x10x10 years, for them a piktun is 20x20x20 years.
All that happens in 2012 or 2013 is the end of a baktun. Yes, it's not even millennialism. The piktun (base-20 millenium) won't end for another couple thousand years or so.
That scare isn't even like Y2K, it's more like being scared of the rollover from 699 AD to 700 AD. I mean, WTF, it's not even running out of digits or anything.
And again that's _all_ there is to it, because there is no actual Mayan prophecy for that date.
But I guess that won't stop the doomsday idiots from waiting for their Rapture on that day. What else is new?
Wish it was so, actually. I've been hearing about a lot of doomsday dates between 2001 and 2012. Granted, not as high profile, but there is no shortage of idiots in the market for it, and of either other idiots or con artists filling the supply for that demand.
In fact, even a very summary googling shows that there hasn't been a single year between 2002 and present that didn't have such end-of-world prophecies. For 2002, for example, there have been at least FIVE fairly public prophecies that it's the end of the world as we know it. At least one of them, Paul Smirnov's, actually got the date updated twice when it failed to happen when prophesized. And then updated again for 2003. (Some people just don't take the hint to shut up and pretend they didn't make the claim.) 2003 saw another 4 fairly high profile prophecies. And another 4 for 2004. And so on.
And that's just counting those who made the news, not every deranged guy out there.
So, yeah, I _wish_ that people were at least sane enough to only fall for such bullshit every 11 years, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
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Well, I'm glad you're as omniscient as to know about such sections in advance, but the rest of us are more fallible and less inclined to spend 30 hours researching if we'll like a 10 hour game.
Most often it boils down to discovering that, basically, I'm in the game I don't like. Sorta on the wrong train. It may be kinda dumb to be in it to start with, but there we go, it happened. Why shouldn't I quit?
And the examples in my original message up the thread do apply too.
- I have 1000$. Do I invest them in enterprise X, Y or Z? Which of them is best suited to my goal? (In this case, making a ROI.) Why shouldn't I quit investing in X if Z is a better investment?
- I have one move to make in Go. Do I support groups of pieces X, Y or Z? Which of them is the best move towards my goal? (Of defeating the opponent.) Why shouldn't I quit trying to save group of pieces X if Z is a better use of one move?
- I have an hour to waste and want to be entertained. I could play game X, or I could do other things Y and Z. Which could be other games, but also watching a movie, or deciding to do something productive instead now and do the entertainment later, or whatever. Which do I do? Which of them will get me more entertained? Why shouldn't I quit game X if popping in the DVD for Z will entertain me more?
Well, it's probably not a bad name for it, but in all fairness it's not just the women.
E.g., I explicitly mentioned the Paladin, and he's not just a guy there, but one of the hardest cases to wrap my mind around. I mean, they spend the whole game characterizing him as the guy who does what's right for the people, and fights evil just because he's a Paladin... and then, bam, he'll refuse to fight the Ultimate Evil Boss (TM) because I talked to the Ranger more than to him. WTF? What kind of a two-year-old's reaction is that? And where's that whole paladin ethos now?
And it's pretty much gotten worse recently. I mean, far from me to suggest it's because they were also selling a DLC with presents to improve the mood of party members, but in Dragon Age otherwise pretty much the only role you could actually role-play and have your party members stay with you was that of a sycophant. You had to pretend to be the good and honourable guy to one character, the might-makes-right insensitive prick/cunt to the other, while reassuring another that you too love backstabbing innocents and kicking puppies, while being the mopey goth who hates all humanity to a fourth, and so on, while also managing who's within earshot when you do that. Pretty much any having a consistent personality of your own is punished by the game swift and hard. And even then you get random unpredictable twists like the devout fundie party member throwing a fit and liking you less, if you bring some soldiers religious symbols to raise their morale before a fight. (She thinks real faith has to come from within, see?) So better save often and try with a different party when that happens.
But yeah, you're right, that's my problem: I'm starting to find it difficult to take some characters seriously any more.
Eh, it could be worse. E.g., another Bioware specialty, the impulsive turncoat who you _do_ get to put out of his/her misery yourself because he actually joins the bad guy and starts attacking you.
I mean, my end battle of NWN2 went something like this. Mind you, not _literally_, but a decent "artist's impression":
So you've spent countless hours gathering your team, solving their side quests, listening to their sob stories, and training and arming them for the final confrontation with the incarnation of supreme evil. Just as you're done listening to his mandatory gloating and command your team to draw your weapons, your druid interrupts:
Druid: "Err, actually I'm joining him against you."
You: "What the...? This is the guy who killed all your friends, desecrated your sacred grove, and tried to kill you. Repeatedly. And you're joining him?"
Druid: "Err, yes, but you never bought me a pony!"
You: "Lady, there are no ponies in this game."
Druid: "Excuses, excuses. And you only listened to me sob about how mom loved my sister more than me 100 times, disregarding my emotional need to do that before and after each rest."
You: "Lady, it's D&D. We've been hitting rest every 5 minutes so you can remember your spells. Far from me to suggest seeing a neurologist, but... anyway, there's no freaking way anyone'll start _that_ talk again every 5 minutes."
Druid: "Hrmpf! That's just the kind of insensitivity I'm talking about! Well, I'm off!"
You: "Damn! Ok, anyone else feel like sharing anything like that?"
Paladin: "Actually, I'm switching sides too."
You: "What the hell? Dude, why? I thought we were like brothers!"
Paladin: "Your blatant disregard of the lawful good ethos, that's why. I counted no less than 5 cases of jay walking, 2 broken promises to find someone's lost kitten and respectively heirloom underpants, 4 cases of public drunkenness..."
You: "Ok, ok, I get the idea. But that guy is chaotic evil and your sworn arch-enemy!"
Paladin: "Eh, I'll just atone afterwards."
You: "Fuck! Anyone else?"
Rogue: "Me too."
You: "But... but... didn't I buy you all that stuff, and go on all your silly quests to find your long lost puppy and chuck eggs at your ex-boyfriend's house, and all that?"
Rogue: "Yeah, but you never read me bedtime stories, and made fun of my cap with cat ears, and seemed to enjoy telling me that there's no Santa."
You: "Lady, you're twenty-eight years old. That's twenty years overdue to learn about Santa."
Rogue: "Hrm. Meanie. Besides, just look at him. He's sooo dreamy with those bulging muscles and red glowing eyes..."
Evil Boss: "I'LL RIP YOUR HEART OUT AND EAT IT!"
Rogue: "Oooh, kinky!"
It may even seem palatable when it's, say, the immature nerd stereotype of a sorceress that does an impulsive jumping ship because she thinks you (as a male character) like the male mage more than her. It's more of a WTF when it's the mature, level headed mage guy who is on a mission to stop the Evil Boss deserts to him and fights you, because he thinks you like the sorceress more than him.
I mean, fuck, I'm even all understanding about other lifestyles and orientations and all, but trying to kill me for liking the girl more is a bit extreme ;)
Or like in KOTOR where, because Bastilla got kidnapped and tortured by Darth Malak, while I on the other hand am on a quest to save her, of course the next time I meet Bastilla, she tries to kill me for Malak. I mean, gee, Stockholm Syndrome is good and fine, but when you start killing people for the guy that kidnapped and tortured you, you're taking it a tad too far ;)
That's a good point, but for what it's worse, I'd say those too are actually cases of "verisimilitude" rather than "realism". Well, probably even "verisimilitude" is a bit too much, but let's go with that. Basically it just has to superficially resemble the real thing.
E.g., the farming simulation you mention actually isn't very much like actual farming. You don't get to plough and sow for months, then wait a few more months, then finally get the results of your work and... well, actually mostly you'd make ends meet with the government subsidy more than the crop. Any game where it takes a click or two to plough and plant an acre of whatever, then you click to get the crop when you wake up next morning, is not a very realistic simulator.
Basically even for those, really, it's about entertainment not realism.
But the game itself is just a means to an end: to be entertained for a few hours. If what you described is entertaining for you, fine, then keep doing it. If for someone else it isn't, then why would they want to continue doing a mean that doesn't lead to the end they want? Isn't it like not quitting riding the wrong train?
Even for you, there must be _some_ kind of gameplay that you don't like or find boring. Trivial example: if one "puzzle" simply required running around a house 100 times, with nothing else happening. Would you continue playing the game even though it asks you to do something that's not actually entertaining you? Why?
Yes, but going on about how it's like reality, is kinda silly in a thread where that's actually the whole complaint. If I wanted something that's exactly like reality, I'd be in reality, not in a computer game.
What I want from a game is something _entertaining_. Realism or any other considerations are not the primary qualities there. They're only good if they help make a more entertaining experience, and should just get the fuck out of the way if not. It's that simple.
In fact, I'd go on a limb and say that even those chanting the silly "but it's like REALITY" mantra, wouldn't really want a game that is exactly like reality. An actual true-to-reality simulation of a medieval adventure would probably be more like:
You're not some noble adventurer, you're a serf (about 80% of the population was.) If you get off your master's demesne to explore anything, you're now a wanted fugitive. You'll likely spend the rest of your miserable life ploughing, reaping and helping maintain the castle and roads in the meantime. The most you'll contribute to a war is having your grain plundered by the enemy or "levied" by your own side. You'll probably die of a horrible disease before reaching 40 years old. Game over.
Well, ok, that's not much fun. Let's try something else. *Flips through the list of Nethack classes*
Ok, you're a knight. Most of the year you're supposed to manage 5 peasant families, and see to it that they produce enough to pay the taxes _and_ survive until next year, and maintain the roads, and pay for your horse and armour, etc. Most knights actually ploughed and reaped themselves too, to make ends meet, especially if they lost a battle differently and are still paying their own ransom. Think: like being saddled with a mortgage for life, except it's just for doing your duty to your king, not for buying a fancy car or house. In the only time when you're not doing that, you're supposed to be doing battle for your liege lord.
Even a scratch during one of these battles can infect and kill you. But that's ok because on such campaigns you're more likely to die of some disease (even kings died of dysentery) than by the sword. And whatever doesn't kill you, will hurt like hell and make you less healthy, not stronger.
The only time you'll actually have enough free time to go exploring dungeons is after 40, which even for most knights means you're a "senior citizen", basically. And probably by now thankful to _not_ risk your life every year. But that's ok, because there are no such dungeons to explore anyway.
And if you do find one, see above: even a 1 inch deep poke with a sword can outright kill or disable you, not just lower your HP for a while. And even a scratch can infect and again kill you.
Hmm, ok, maybe that's not it either... *Flips through the classes some more* Rogue. Well, that's easy, you'd be poor, do a couple of thefts and get hanged. You don't get to explore any dungeons either.
Hmm, well, let's be generous and pretend the rogue is actually a mercenary, which is a more realistic medieval role, and we just decided we want realism:
You're a mercenary, just by virtue that you were the second son and got kicked unceremoniously on the street when your elder brother inherited the family estate. You got treated like dirt by the knights all your life, and used as "wall fodder" in every single assault, before the more valuable troops. You're very unlikely to survive more than a couple of campaigns and causes of death include not just the enemy and disease, but also historically documented cases of the knights on your side charging through the mercenaries at the enemy. E.g., at Crecy, the French knights actually actively hacked down their own retreating crossbowmen mercenaries. In some battles you actually get to fight without pants so you can shit yourself while fighting. Yeah, dysentery was that bad. (See, Agincourt.) Each battle brings you a reminder that if captured, the nobles and knights will be ransomed, but your kind will get hanged. Y
Aye, that's what I tell people who insist I should quit smoking and drinkin. Mah daddy didn't raise no quitter ;)
More seriously, wtf? That strikes me as an incredibly stupid idea. Life is full of situations where quitting is actually the logical alternative.
Trivial example: sending yet another thousand to that poor Nigerian widow, for yet another unexpected bank fee. Less people would end up in huge debt if they just quit instead of throwing more good money after bad.
Equally trivial example: business. Keeping dumping more money in a business that loses them hand over fist can be an a bad idea, and quitting can actually be the sane thing to do. If you think otherwise, tell that to all the stagecoach companies in the 19'th century.
But really, the same goes for war, gambling, or just about anything else.
Even in games, one of the first things you learn in Go is to not throw good pieces after bad, i.e., to know when to quit trying to save a group that's beyond saving. Not only you'll typically end up increasing the other guy's score if you keep at it, but even if he does let you save that group, it's because it's giving him time to take the rest of the board. Knowing when to let go of a group or stop following a ladder is the first step to graduating from noob, so to speak.
Which brings us to entertainment. WTF? If the purpose is to get entertained, what kind of idiot would argue that you should continue doing something that stopped being entertaining, just in the name of some idiotic "not being a quitter?" Would you argue one also shouldn't change TV channels if some uninteresting crap just started? Why or why not? It's as much being a "quitter" as changing the game disc in the computer.
The problem with taking Picard's "solutions" too seriously, is that in his case it was other people's problems, and they were even forbidden to get too involved in them.
Sorta like how if a US battleship lands in the middle of a rapidly escalating trade dispute between the islands of East Bumfuckistand and West Bumfuckistan, the captain isn't supposed to drag the USA into it or do his own gunboat diplomacy. The _correct_ answer there is to get the fuck out as quick as possible, and not end up being the guy who started WW3. Let them sort it out or let the UN and diplomats sort it out, your job as a captain just isn't to do diplomacy.
Star Trek does give its captains a lot more room to, basically, be immature big kids playing soldiers, but that just makes it even less of a model to take in a real life situation.
In this case however it's not someone else's problem. The autism scare scam has caused thousands of deaths and a resurgence in diseases that were previously just about extinct in the western world, and it caused those problems in our own nations. They're not the problem of some other nation (or planet in ST's case), they're _our_ problems. We _are_ the ones who get to sort out the mess in our own backyard.
Well, buying and training slaves for it was expensive too, so, yes, usually the shows didn't involve whole armies. But larger ones existed too. E.g., since you mention Caesar, he wanted to sponsor a show with so many gladiator pairs that the Senate forced him to reduce it, because it boiled down to a small army of armed men in Rome.
Well, that is, if you count slavery as "creating jobs". Those latifundia (great estates) were worked almost exclusively with slaves who not only had no freedom and could be crucified on a whim (even freedmen could be reverted to slaves and crucified on a whim, btw), but were often fed bare subsistence ratios or even less than that. There are documented cases where slaves were basically left to forage for themselves or starve, because the owner wanted to capitalize on a spike in grain price by selling all the grain instead of feeding the slaves with some of it. E.g., that's exactly what caused the slave revolt in Sicily, a.k.a., the First Servile War.
And far from creating jobs, that's what created that class of poor "on the dole" in Rome. Their jobs had been "outsorced" to barbarian slaves because it was cheaper, and really there wasn't anyone giving them a job.
And basically the overall effect, if you listen to Pliny The Elder is that it ruined everyone else in Italy and was starting to do the same in the provinces, practically in the same century as it was made official.
On the whole, thanks for illustrating why I tell people to stop doing bullshit pseudo-historical parallels between present day and Rome, when they want to support their canned talking points. Your claim of creating jobs is flat out wrong for Rome, and in the opposite direction, the fact that that Roman system just impoverished millions of people and replaced workers with slaves... I really don't think you want to make that parallel for the present day rich. Call it just a hunch, but I really don't think you were going for _that_ parallel with that "creating jobs" rhetoric :p
I wouldn't call the 5% inheritance tax of Augustus to be all that substantial, actually, and certainly didn't even put a dent in the Latifundia. And hardly did much to balance the military expenses. In fact it barely almost covered the discharge bonus (think: pension) of soldiers who managed to not get killed during their very long term of service.
And most soldiers would be given land instead at discharge, which in 1 or 2 generations ended owned by the rich and no longer paying taxes. So if anything that discharge bonus was a way to leak even public land into the ownership of those who didn't pay taxes for it.
At a basic level, the difference is that in one case it's "growth or plunder", while in Rome's case it had to be "plunder". One has two options, the other has one.
Well, sorta, but not exactly. The Roman Empire didn't have to expand its economy per se, it had to keep attacking more countries to plunder them. Trajan needed the gold of Dacia to pay for his war in Persia, and so on. When they ran out of places to plunder, the collapse started. Then came a devaluing of coinage of EPIC proportions, attempts at price fixing, enlistment dropped like a rock because the soldiers' wage and "pension" (so to speak) became worth almost nothing, etc.
The economy of Rome is even funnier than that, actually.
For a start, it a right-wing paradise of sorts, in that the Senatorial class -- which was non-elected and hereditary by now in the Empire times that you mention -- paid no taxes, although they owned most of the land. Although many also set up merchant enterprises in the name of their freedmen, with them owning most "shares" so to speak and taking most profits... and again paying no tax whatsoever for that either.
As the rich quickly gobbled up more and more of the former free men's farms, essentially more and more of the Roman economy didn't contribute a cent any more to the state.
I would say that the spending of private coins to import stuff from the East was a much more minor factor than the fact that none of those coins would go into taxes anyway.
Imperial Rome almost at no point actually had a sustainable economy per se. It was a robber economy, simply put. They _had_ to keep expanding and plundering new countries, even to keep paying their legions.
Heck, they plundered even their own citizens, as essentially they paid all the wages in overvalued silver coins and demanded the taxes only in gold.
It's certainly more supportable than the opposite "OMG, we're going to hell because some people have fun" theory. Though still in a fallacious way.
But mostly it just shows that if you just hand-pick a pair of events connected only by chronology, you can argue just about anything. E.g., Rome expanded the quickest after they introduced crucifixion (learned from the Carthaginians actually, with the cross-bar being a Roman twist) and imploded the fastest after Constantine abolished crucifixion. So, hmm, maybe that's the real key to building a successful empire ;)
I'm ok with that too, actually, but then really I expect such people to not use pseudo-history for their canned moralizing points.
Sorry to break your bullshit bubble, but Rome had its first gladiatorial combats in 310 BC, according to Livy, and yes often accompanied to distributing food to the poor. Not only it wasn't the beginning of the end, but it was followed by its most rapid expansion centuries. In the couple of centuries after those, Rome went from being a debatable leader of a leader of city states spanning barely half of Italy to an empire sprawled all around the Mediterranean, not to mention most of modern France and half of Britain.
If anything, historians from the era tend to agree that sponsoring lavish shows to boost morale actually served well to do just that, and helped Rome rebound after such massive defeats as Canae and emerge more powerful than ever before.
It would be more than 500 years after that, or still almost three centuries even after the peak of the popularity of gladiatorial combats in the 1st century BC, that Rome even started to decline. And almost 800 years after that, in 476 AD that the Western Empire fell.
Even if you want to go for a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy to associate the two, actually Rome fell shortly after they _stopped_ holding gladiatorial combats. So, hmm, maybe actually the bad sign is when you can't even afford to have fun any more?
So, sorry, but linking such shows to Rome's decline is fucking idiotic. If you want to make a historical case, do read some history first.
Nice generalization of the point of view of anyone who might oppose it. Too bad it's bullshit, though.
The idea that some of us like is, basically, this "[i][b]No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury,[/b] except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, [b]nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;[/b] nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation[/b][/i]". My bolding.
You may recognize it as the fifth amendment of the USA constitution, and a fundamental principle of the rule of the law. Or may not. You gun and violence nuts seem to only care about the second.
(Oh, and BTW, the non-bolded part about the exception in the armed or naval forces, doesn't mean "rentacop on a commercial vessel".)
Yeah, bullshit strawman rhetoric about "sympathy for the criminal" make fine talking points to regurgitate, but a more fundamental point is that we usually require a jury to decide if someone is a criminal. We don't like to just take one guy's word that someone else was breaking the law.
We tried just trusting the baron or king, but it didn't work so well. That's why we started asking for judgment of the peers as early as the Magna Carta, in 1215.
At any rate, I wouldn't make a rentacop sniper a sort of Judge Death of the high seas. Even in the army, which is usually held to higher standards, it turns out that some bored people killed civilians just for sport. And crooked cops abusing their badge to beat someone up or invent evidence is pretty much a stereotype. I'd rather not get to hear "oh, well, they looked like they were coming this way and I could swear one had a bazooka" (that nobody else ever saw or found) about some local fishing boat at half a mile away.
Briefly, if I wouldn't trust a cop or state official to just decide in one second who's a criminal and who's not, and swiftly apply deadly punishment, I don't trust a private person with that either. Yes, I'm sure you'd always identify them right, and all, bla, bla, bla, but [i]other[/i] people occasionally get to decide that some abortion cop, or minister from another sect's church, or the local post office staff, or the local congresswoman deserves a bullet in the head. Or that some disabled ex-cop in Iraq deserves death just for being Arab. I mean, WTH, we had the story about a nut shooting a congresswoman just today on the front page. _That's_ the kind of guys we don't like to trust with deciding who deserves to die and who deserves to live. And we're kinda bad at knowing in advance who'll go schizophrenic next year.
I dunno. Will people instead risk their job and freedom... just to make some dickweed richer?
I mean, as long as it was some rhetoric about government transparency and accountability and all, sure, I can see how it would resonate right with a lot of people. But if that information just ends up "owned" by Assange and used to make some money for _him_, then wth, those people leaking stuff are just some unpaid sharecroppers.
And really, the right idea is that the government and information about the government belongs to the _people_. And, wth, at what point does that become "owned by Assange" or "for sale to the highest bidder"?
Disclaimer: I'm not entirely unbiased there. I've had the brief misfortune of being a coder on a MUD whose admins and all were very heavy on the OSS, openness and whatnot rhetoric. Then it turns out they're only for openness when it isn't about "their" code, meaning actually the code contributed by idealistic peons like yours truly. In fact, it was a whole surrealistic paranoia where everyone is out to steal "their" files and you had to jump through hoops and be treated like a spy to even get the headers you need to contribute such code. Now the situation isn't entirely similar, and it doesn't make me a freedom fighter or anything. But just saying that I happen to know first hand how it feels to contribute something in the name of some idealistic noble goal, and see it turned into someone else's property and glory. And it's a very bitter pill.
And I can't help think how the guy who risked losing his job or going to jail to contribute those documents must feel when he reads that they're now Assange's private property, and that it's about making Assange money rather than any idealistic noble goal. I mean, wth, I didn't risk anything and still felt majorly shafted. How does it feel to think "I might go to jail if found out and/or be the guy nobody hires any more because of that, but damn, I made Assange some money"? Probably not fun.
Well, I didn't use to, but for the last several years straight I've been increasingly exposed to the "OMG, end of world in 2012" stupidity, so I did what any self-respecting nerd would do: I went and RTFM... err... well, I read about it first. You know, just to know exactly what did the Mayans say about it. How's the world going to end according to them? How l33t were their skillz in calculating galactic alignments after all? You know, to know how exactly should I take that date. Can I blow all my bank account on hookers and crack just the day before, or is it plus-minus a decade and I should start early with the hookers and crack just in case, or what? ;)
Turns out that their l33t astronomy skillz existed only in von Dänniken's delusional bullshit, and there was nothing for them to calculate anyway since they didn't prophecise any end of world for that date.
Yes, sorta. Not exactly, but sorta. That was yet another Mayan calendar, the fourth and most ridiculous of them all, the Calendar Round. Instead of telling you a year, month and day by one calendar, they told you just the month and day in two different calendars, the Tzolkin and the Haab. Which did have a 52 year cycle, and the added advantage that nobody had a fucking clue when a date had happened or will happen anyway, without doing some maths.
So basically you wouldn't get told that someone was born on the 6'th of June of 1966, but something like that they were born on the 8'th of the 13'th month by the Haab calendar and the 19'th of the 4'th month by Tzolkin. Which unless you pull out the calculator, leaves you still in the dark exactly in what year did those dates coincide.
Plus, yes, it had a 52 year cycle. So basically even if you figured out that your prospective bride's birthday works out to 21 years old... it could also mean 73 years old, or if you're really unlucky 125 years old. Online dating must have really sucked for the Mayans ;)
Well, sounds like your Prophet was smarter than ours, or at least wasn't going for a quick apocalyptic scare.
I would more like assume that they're not serfs, and don't work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There'll be enough time for them to do their job _and_ watch a movie now and then. Sometimes even together with a few co-workers and start comparing notes.
Point taken.
It's even worse than that, really. It's not just "who cares about Mayans". It's that, really, they're trusting a calendar from back when the Mayans were as primitive as to not even figure out the length of a year (the Long Count uses 360 day years; seriously) and a culture who even at its apex only managed to count the days in the cycles of Venus (you know, the most bloody visible thing up there after the Sun and Moon) to tell them about galactic events. And they turn the end of a Mayan century into some kind of prophecy, although the Mayans never made such a prophecy. It's so fucking stupid, it's depressing.
To repeat a previous post (hey, it's Slashdot, you're used to dupes), for those who happen to still not know what that mayan thing is actually about:
Let's start from the start. The Mayans didn't count in base 10, but in base 20, presumably because they could count on their toes too. (No, really, look at their digits.) Thank goodness they didn't come up with a male-only maths, eh?
So they started with a year based on 260 day years, the so called Tzolkin calendar. If now you went "wait, that can't be right, it would skip through the actual year like crazy", congrats, you'd be smarter than the Mayans.
Then came the Long Count calendar, which was 360 days long, or 18 months of 20 days each. (Told you they were big on 20.) This is actually the calendar used in the 2012 (non)prophecy.
Yes, that's right. Those poor idiots are actually trusting a civilization to tell them about galactic alignments... who isn't even advanced enough to figure out the length of the year. Nor had the smarts to reset it to some equinoxe or such each year, like the lunisolar calendars used around here by even the most primitive ancient cultures. Yeah, that's the guy to trust with galactic calculations, right? ;)
To make it more stupid, even the Mayans eventually got a better calendar than that, the Haab calendar. Which finally padded the year to 365 days long, putting them finally on par with what the Egyptians had had, oh, only a couple of millennia before them. But anyway, a doomsday calculation based on the Long Count is already based on a calendar which is obsolete and crap even by Mayan standards.
So, anyway, a Long Count year was 18 months of 20 days each.
From there it went kinda like for us with decades, centuries and milenia, except in base 20.
So for us a decade is 10 years, for them a katun is 20 years.
For us a century is 10x10 years, for them a baktun is 20x20 years.
For us a millennium is 10x10x10 years, for them a piktun is 20x20x20 years.
All that happens in 2012 or 2013 is the end of a baktun. Yes, it's not even millennialism. The piktun (base-20 millenium) won't end for another couple thousand years or so.
That scare isn't even like Y2K, it's more like being scared of the rollover from 699 AD to 700 AD. I mean, WTF, it's not even running out of digits or anything.
And again that's _all_ there is to it, because there is no actual Mayan prophecy for that date.
But I guess that won't stop the doomsday idiots from waiting for their Rapture on that day. What else is new?
Wish it was so, actually. I've been hearing about a lot of doomsday dates between 2001 and 2012. Granted, not as high profile, but there is no shortage of idiots in the market for it, and of either other idiots or con artists filling the supply for that demand.
In fact, even a very summary googling shows that there hasn't been a single year between 2002 and present that didn't have such end-of-world prophecies. For 2002, for example, there have been at least FIVE fairly public prophecies that it's the end of the world as we know it. At least one of them, Paul Smirnov's, actually got the date updated twice when it failed to happen when prophesized. And then updated again for 2003. (Some people just don't take the hint to shut up and pretend they didn't make the claim.) 2003 saw another 4 fairly high profile prophecies. And another 4 for 2004. And so on.
And that's just counting those who made the news, not every deranged guy out there.
So, yeah, I _wish_ that people were at least sane enough to only fall for such bullshit every 11 years, but that doesn't seem to be the case.