And your sources are? And did you even consider that full nuclear power cycle is basically infinite energy (will last millions of years with current resources) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fuel_cycle
And if you dont trust wikipedia google for it -there is plenty reputable sources on the subject. Nuclear power is THE solution, but majority of people are too stupid to understand it , and majority of those who understand are powerless to do anything about it , and minority of those who understands it and has power are not interested (since they own stake in coal/oil companies) . And btw say thanks to Jimmy fuckin' Carter for setting back nuclear power back for 70 years (and who knows for how much more)
Regardless how problematic nuclear waste from reactors might be ( and BTW it is not - with full nuclear fuel cycle), you should put it into perspective -TODAY coal power plants throw more nuclear waste straight in the air than all nuclear power plants do . that is not counting other non radioactive waste coal puts in the air . All those factors combined kill millions of people each year -more than nuclear power ever done in the whole history,and that's counting Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well
I would prefer most dirty and bad nuclear power plants , which meltdown in Chernobyl like accidents each 10 years -that is still more safe and healthy than what we currently do.
So "average guy" has to resort to 300 pound women? How the fuck it is even odds,when average guy can not expect success with average women, but has to resort to begemots instead? Now really imagine you are average guy with good job , relatvely smart, with some issues,but nothing really terrible - you would expect that guy to want something not worse than himself, not fat asses and post menopausal old ladies.
the only versions they'll ever sell are in new machines via the Microsoft tax.
And you know that this is plenty,right? I saw numbers somewhere that 200 mln PCs are sold each year - give or take 100 mln but it is still a lot . In 5 years most everyone will have Vista simply because it came with their PCs (subtract the tiny minority of Macs , custom built boxes and those 4% of "desktop Linux year" boxes).
Yeah actually if anything MSFS is a lot more realistic and prepares you a lot better to fly a real aircraft than CS preapres you for street gun combat.
Well I do not know to what degree it applies to RL.In Some games (especially hitman series) human death can be considered to be shown realistically (they curve one the floor in pain when hit in stomach, scream in pain and horror , their brains get on the walls with head shots,and blood spills).It also rewards cold blooded calculated killing without remorse.
But in the game you are terminator with steady perfect aim,awesome physique , unlimited lives and rather unrealistic opposition which is incredibly dumb and ineffective. Game can not prepare you to do same trick in RL -you need real,hardcore training with real weapons,real targets and under real fire. Like Gene Hackman's character in Unforgiven said - being cool under fire is what makes you dangerous, not shooting targets at practice range. Guess what? -such activity is actually rewarded and praised and it is called military service.
So if I wanted be a killer I would join military, not playing silly video games. Until the time when you can control gun in RL same way you control it in video games,and be exposed to same condition in video games you are exposed in RL they make a lousy killer trainer.
It is basically boils down to whether such a simple thing as theoretical Turing machine can be intelligent . And for most people its just inconceivable that "in theory " very big look-up tables are intelligent (essentially what chinese room is) .
Many also miss the point that Turing machine with tapes that large are not practical,neither look-up table are, and essentially are impossible (due to time/space limitations).Computers and humans on the other hand are more sophisticated (despite being reducible to Turing machines in logic experiments).
Well that is because AK and M4 are most versatile guns . But people do buy other guns as well either due to lack of money (deagle, tmp, mp5, famas, galil),either for special purpose ( p90, shotties for office like maps, aug, sg550 for big maps) and of course snipers. I do not see anything being broken. And as old saying goes - "If it ain'broken do not fuckin fix it" .
I think you're a tad foolish in your views. EVERYTHING has something of value that we walk away with, including MMORPGs.
I can agree with that.Just some things have much higher value than the others,to the scale that some things are essentially meaningless and pointless. I am not "cheapening" them - I just put them on the same scale as RL achievements,and as sad as it is -Virtual achievements are just..uhmm.. "virtual" on that scale.
What you don't seem to realize is that ANYTHING can be regarded as addicting in nature. The whole purpose of entertainment is to give ourselves a break from the rest of our lives, and most people have a lot of shit to deal with. If it gets overwhelming and they become depressed or anxious or just can't handle it, they're going to take longer breaks so that they can have more entertainment and experience less of whatever is bothering them. However, if you can figure out what's bothering them, and help them solve the problem, there's a good chance they'll be able to get back on track.
I realise that very well. And my point is that some things are fine to be addictive,while some are not . And which are fine and which are not are defined by their usefulness to the goal. Which brings us to the question what is "The Goal"? :
So what you're saying is that, rather than be human, you'd wish for us to be transformed or modified into something else, like the Borg or some other soulless entity obsessed with work.
See I want intelligent being to get pleasure from objectively useful activity (useful and meaningful I define as working towards goal I describe here : http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=196233&cid=160 85734 ).Tragedy is that me personally (and majority of humanity) can not get pleasure from it . And many become depressed or anxious or just can't handle it
You do realize that working too much is just as detrimental to one's physical and mental health as any other thing taken in large quantities, right?
Of course, once we're all drones in your little world, families and shit will be a thing of the past, and we can all focus on being addicted to the office. You'll forgive me if I don't jump for joy.
I don't define work us being paper pusher in the office -au contraire I mean creative work , inventions,discovery, technological and engineering perfection and so on. And I do want for those involved to get real pleasure from it -better than sex, cocaine and WoW taken together, just from useful activity. You may not jump from joy at that perspective now(as you are only human) but my point is that it would be much better if you and me could and have it as natural state.
you may call it borg, skynet or whatever - but objectively it is better than humans and human society.
Well those examples were to the statement "where you can have an opportunity to manage 39 other people ".Now why they are useful? - because those skills are applicable in RL much better than anything you can learn in MMORPG .
And to the meaning of life -yes I found the answer for myself, though I don't think I can explain that in the short comment on slashdot well enough so you can at least see my point.But I will try :
In short meaning of life is to evolve to more perfect forms , perfect is defined in terms of mastery over energy and matter. -ultimate goal is absolute , godlike powers ( or as far as you can go towards that goal) .
Now for humanity this is goal is too far away to aim for -we have a much closer goal. -We have to perfect our nature, or,better - make the next step in evolution of intelligence (which is AI ) . That is because main road blocks to progress towards the goal is our our limited intellect and constraints of our biological body,instincts and society.AI is the best thing we can do to make the next step on perfection spiral , it is also our advantage that we can direct consciously this step, unlike the last one (which was homo sapience brain happened by chance in a process of evolution).
And not the least of the benefits of AI is to be able to receive pleasure from useful activity (you can just program to receive fun from 24/7 job,learning , research, and then reprogram as needed according to priorities ). While humans cannot be -we are hard wired big deal to receive pleasure from same activities primates do (sex,food,social status) , and we are in danger of being addicted to artificial pointless pleasures ( all kinds of chemical and psychological addictions). If you notice the people who are truly great are not only exceptionally bright , but also happen to receive pleasure from productive activity.Sad part is that combination is extremely rare ( less than 0.01% I estimate ).
p.s. Now I am ready to get moderated down for absolute craziness and lunatism;)
Yea I agree that %99.99 people wont matter ( most probably including me). But here is the problems with letting people "intelligently maximize pleasure over lifetime? - They do not do it intelligently.
And while doing so they waste resources . We (humans) should fight those bad tendencies in our nature, not nurture them. And the first step ( as banal as it sounds) is to acknowledge the problem that pointless consumerism and hedonism are bad .
Now I can say that by wasting resources they promote competition for said resource, which leads to progress - but I really do not believe that. At the speed we are wasting resources we may end up in nuclear war , which will erase all the progress we made so far.
Lol why are you so pissed off like I personally ruined your CS experience. I didn't play much with my aimbot against people -I wrote it for fun and 3 reasons :
1)I saw the source of aimbot and explanation of dll injection techniques it was using, 2)I was interested in system programming aspect 3)It is extremely entertaining watching your creation in action
You know it was more fun to write it and watch the perfect precision and lightning reaction time of your baby,than actually scoring the shot yourself, coupled with some intersting (to me at that time) programming techniques and satisfaction to finally make it work. Also sense of power this thing provides was amazing as well (.. I know it sounds nerdy , but I was imagining I was writing code for terminator aiming algorithm -the better one,which would not miss stupid Sarah Connor in bar , but instead land perfect headshots:) ) - it is one of a kind experience.
Its one thing to "know" and another thing to make it happen. -You can receive fun and pleasure from creating something , not only by consuming.
I suppose most of the mobs you kill while leveling are 'brainless'. However that's not what this game is about. The teamwork involved in doing endgame raids is a very real skill to have IRL. When you have 40 people all in the same voice channel on Ventrilo, with one person leading, everyone has to have discipline and listening skills
Oh I have that experience.- before I laid off MMORPG crack pipe I wasted a fair share of my time on them . And not only in raiding vs scripted mobs when all you can lose is one evening,but participating in pvp battles with 100s of real people, when the stake is the city in guild members put thousands hours of their time (game was Shadowbane) . Guess what all those "teamwork skills " is still not applicable to RL.
It's very rare that you will need the ability to simultaneously work with 39 other people on the exact same goal in real life.
umm really? How about playing team sports? Managing a buisness? Joining the army and leading men in combat? Leet skills of shouting "target player/mob x (depnding if its pve or pvp), heal heal me fuckers" on teamspeak does not apply there does it...
I learned that the only thing you can "learn" in virtual world which can be applicable to real world is hacking skills. - e.g. when you write aimbot for CS and dll injection -that some system programming skills . Reverse engineering for MMORPG protocols and writing radar programs are pretty good skills too ( you learn a lot about networking and reverse engineering). As well as advanced botting (writing AI for bots to perform action in the game). Getting my hands on CS aimbot and making my own was pretty much biggest gain from 4 years of playing CS ever (and as a good consequence I completely lost interest to FPS for 2 years- when 300 lines of code completely "pwn" any human player you cant help but think of pointlessness of a game)
But IMHO very few things in games themselves are actually valuable skills - some basic psychology,especially in competitive PVP, but really you cant apply to RL world directly. - anything from RL world is more valuable in this aspect .
I agree with that . Problem is they are all waste of time - they are virtual politics and virtual communities. And while social and community aspects might be very real, said communities cannot accomplish nothing and are essentially meaningless. Who will remember uber guild XXX from game NNN who did "that first" , "owned" server or other such BS? -Really nobody in a few years .
Problem is exactly that those pointless activity suck people in -like drugs.Instead of doing something in real world ( if you are into politics -there are plenty of opportunities in RL) they replace it with meaningless surrogate.
Not really -if you read non-fiction books you get some bits of knowledge (while it may not help you at least it is real) . I can say that I am addicted to wikipedia and slashdot - difference from WoW that here and there I actually get some useful info . Is there anything useful I got from a dozen of MMORPGS? - very little. Some insights into human psychology and online community but everything related to actual games is pure junk. And actually those insights are better if you just study those games - not play them .
There are various forms of entertainment and some of them are bad and addictive(like drugs, excessive alcohol, tv , mmorpgs). It is better for example to do sports as entertainment -as it keeps you fit. It is better to go fuck random girls every night as it builds up your social skills and friends network. It is better to play chess/bridge/etc -as it keeps your brain busy.
And yes in fact I think everyone should devote 100% of time to productive work -problem is humans are not build that way, majority of us cannot be happy working 100% of time,we need "entertainment". -There is no solution for this ATM as it requires changing human nature (or,which is preferable, replace humans with something better). And while humans are not perfect - solution is to work around those things,not get hooked up to next drug( chemical or psychological) .
"In 20 or 30 years the technology will be here to create incredibly more realistic and immersive worlds," he says. "There will be a world that fits the fantasy of any life you want to lead." Those deep into WOW, of course, are already living that future. "Yes, it's just a game," says Joi Ito. "The way that the real world is a game."
In 20-30 years those deep into crack like WoW will have no influence on the real world whatsoever. There are still real life tangible resources (energy for example) and living in virtual world will not make you exempt from basic laws of physics and biology.When competition for resources gets harsher what mmmorrpg addict will have to show for it? Their ubah leet lvl capped characters in epic gear? Their skills of killing brainless mobs? -guess what those are all irrelevant skills in RL.
Slashdot Mirror
Because all really bright people are really evil. Muahhahahhahaha
Well because jews are smarter? :e
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligenc
There are links to actual research there if wikipedia is not good enough
Duck and Cover!
On a serious note why would you want to live if something really serious happens. Any large scale nuclear war will make survivors envy the dead.
And your sources are? And did you even consider that full nuclear power cycle is basically infinite energy (will last millions of years with current resources) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fuel_cycle
And if you dont trust wikipedia google for it -there is plenty reputable sources on the subject. Nuclear power is THE solution, but majority of people are too stupid to understand it , and majority of those who understand are powerless to do anything about it , and minority of those who understands it and has power are not interested (since they own stake in coal/oil companies) . And btw say thanks to Jimmy fuckin' Carter for setting back nuclear power back for 70 years (and who knows for how much more)
1) Where does all the radiactive waste get put?
,and that's counting Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well
Regardless how problematic nuclear waste from reactors might be ( and BTW it is not - with full nuclear fuel cycle), you should put it into perspective -TODAY coal power plants throw more nuclear waste straight in the air than all nuclear power plants do . that is not counting other non radioactive waste coal puts in the air . All those factors combined kill millions of people each year -more than nuclear power ever done in the whole history
I would prefer most dirty and bad nuclear power plants , which meltdown in Chernobyl like accidents each 10 years -that is still more safe and healthy than what we currently do.
So "average guy" has to resort to 300 pound women? How the fuck it is even odds ,when average guy can not expect success with average women, but has to resort to begemots instead? Now really imagine you are average guy with good job , relatvely smart, with some issues ,but nothing really terrible - you would expect that guy to want something not worse than himself, not fat asses and post menopausal old ladies.
the only versions they'll ever sell are in new machines via the Microsoft tax.
,right? I saw numbers somewhere that 200 mln PCs are sold each year - give or take 100 mln but it is still a lot . In 5 years most everyone will have Vista simply because it came with their PCs (subtract the tiny minority of Macs , custom built boxes and those 4% of "desktop Linux year" boxes).
And you know that this is plenty
Yeah actually if anything MSFS is a lot more realistic and prepares you a lot better to fly a real aircraft than CS preapres you for street gun combat.
Well I do not know to what degree it applies to RL.In Some games (especially hitman series) human death can be considered to be shown realistically (they curve one the floor in pain when hit in stomach, scream in pain and horror , their brains get on the walls with head shots ,and blood spills).It also rewards cold blooded calculated killing without remorse.
,awesome physique , unlimited lives and rather unrealistic opposition which is incredibly dumb and ineffective. Game can not prepare you to do same trick in RL -you need real ,hardcore training with real weapons ,real targets and under real fire. Like Gene Hackman's character in Unforgiven said - being cool under fire is what makes you dangerous, not shooting targets at practice range. Guess what? -such activity is actually rewarded and praised and it is called military service.
,and be exposed to same condition in video games you are exposed in RL they make a lousy killer trainer.
But in the game you are terminator with steady perfect aim
So if I wanted be a killer I would join military, not playing silly video games. Until the time when you can control gun in RL same way you control it in video games
Really? Remind me why nobody doing anything about coal power plants? or global warming? People want food ,sleep and sex. And with least effort.
It is basically boils down to whether such a simple thing as theoretical Turing machine can be intelligent . And for most people its just inconceivable that "in theory " very big look-up tables are intelligent (essentially what chinese room is) .
,neither look-up table are, and essentially are impossible (due to time/space limitations) .Computers and humans on the other hand are more sophisticated (despite being reducible to Turing machines in logic experiments).
Many also miss the point that Turing machine with tapes that large are not practical
Well duh do not use coal/oil plants. Use something like fast breeder reactors and use full fuel cycle (instead of burying it in yuccah mountain).
But yeah.. -I know not gonna happen. Because current corporate lobbies do not exactly benefit from clean and ubiquitous energy .
Well that is because AK and M4 are most versatile guns . But people do buy other guns as well either due to lack of money (deagle, tmp, mp5, famas, galil) ,either for special purpose ( p90, shotties for office like maps, aug, sg550 for big maps) and of course snipers. I do not see anything being broken. And as old saying goes - "If it ain'broken do not fuckin fix it" .
Mark parent "informative" .I just imagined 1.5 bill worth of chicken shit... and how it smells. - I do not want repeat the experience
Get a 2nd job, sell your car, home, kidney, kids .Should be like this
Man you got the order wrong
sell kids kidneys , kids themselves, car,home , 2nd job
I can agree with that
I realise that very well. And my point is that some things are fine to be addictive
See I want intelligent being to get pleasure from objectively useful activity (useful and meaningful I define as working towards goal I describe here : http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=196233&cid=16
I don't define work us being paper pusher in the office -au contraire I mean creative work , inventions
you may call it borg, skynet or whatever - but objectively it is better than humans and human society.
Well those examples were to the statement "where you can have an opportunity to manage 39 other people " .Now why they are useful? - because those skills are applicable in RL much better than anything you can learn in MMORPG .
.But I will try :
,better - make the next step in evolution of intelligence (which is AI ) . That is because main road blocks to progress towards the goal is our our limited intellect and constraints of our biological body ,instincts and society.AI is the best thing we can do to make the next step on perfection spiral , it is also our advantage that we can direct consciously this step, unlike the last one (which was homo sapience brain happened by chance in a process of evolution).
,food ,social status) , and we are in danger of being addicted to artificial pointless pleasures ( all kinds of chemical and psychological addictions). If you notice the people who are truly great are not only exceptionally bright , but also happen to receive pleasure from productive activity .Sad part is that combination is extremely rare ( less than 0.01% I estimate ).
;)
And to the meaning of life -yes I found the answer for myself, though I don't think I can explain that in the short comment on slashdot well enough so you can at least see my point
In short meaning of life is to evolve to more perfect forms , perfect is defined in terms of mastery over energy and matter. -ultimate goal is absolute , godlike powers ( or as far as you can go towards that goal) .
Now for humanity this is goal is too far away to aim for -we have a much closer goal. -We have to perfect our nature, or
And not the least of the benefits of AI is to be able to receive pleasure from useful activity (you can just program to receive fun from 24/7 job,learning , research, and then reprogram as needed according to priorities ). While humans cannot be -we are hard wired big deal to receive pleasure from same activities primates do (sex
p.s. Now I am ready to get moderated down for absolute craziness and lunatism
Yea I agree that %99.99 people wont matter ( most probably including me). But here is the problems with letting people "intelligently maximize pleasure over lifetime? - They do not do it intelligently.
And while doing so they waste resources . We (humans) should fight those bad tendencies in our nature, not nurture them. And the first step ( as banal as it sounds) is to acknowledge the problem that pointless consumerism and hedonism are bad .
Now I can say that by wasting resources they promote competition for said resource, which leads to progress - but I really do not believe that. At the speed we are wasting resources we may end up in nuclear war , which will erase all the progress we made so far.
Lol why are you so pissed off like I personally ruined your CS experience. I didn't play much with my aimbot against people -I wrote it for fun and 3 reasons :
.. I know it sounds nerdy , but I was imagining I was writing code for terminator aiming algorithm -the better one ,which would not miss stupid Sarah Connor in bar , but instead land perfect headshots :) ) - it is one of a kind experience.
1)I saw the source of aimbot and explanation of dll injection techniques it was using,
2)I was interested in system programming aspect
3)It is extremely entertaining watching your creation in action
You know it was more fun to write it and watch the perfect precision and lightning reaction time of your baby,than actually scoring the shot yourself, coupled with some intersting (to me at that time) programming techniques and satisfaction to finally make it work. Also sense of power this thing provides was amazing as well (
Its one thing to "know" and another thing to make it happen. -You can receive fun and pleasure from creating something , not only by consuming.
I suppose most of the mobs you kill while leveling are 'brainless'. However that's not what this game is about. The teamwork involved in doing endgame raids is a very real skill to have IRL. When you have 40 people all in the same voice channel on Ventrilo, with one person leading, everyone has to have discipline and listening skills
,but participating in pvp battles with 100s of real people, when the stake is the city in guild members put thousands hours of their time (game was Shadowbane) . Guess what all those "teamwork skills " is still not applicable to RL.
Oh I have that experience.- before I laid off MMORPG crack pipe I wasted a fair share of my time on them . And not only in raiding vs scripted mobs when all you can lose is one evening
It's very rare that you will need the ability to simultaneously work with 39 other people on the exact same goal in real life.
umm really? How about playing team sports? Managing a buisness? Joining the army and leading men in combat? Leet skills of shouting "target player/mob x (depnding if its pve or pvp), heal heal me fuckers" on teamspeak does not apply there does it...
I learned that the only thing you can "learn" in virtual world which can be applicable to real world is hacking skills. - e.g. when you write aimbot for CS and dll injection -that some system programming skills . Reverse engineering for MMORPG protocols and writing radar programs are pretty good skills too ( you learn a lot about networking and reverse engineering). As well as advanced botting (writing AI for bots to perform action in the game). Getting my hands on CS aimbot and making my own was pretty much biggest gain from 4 years of playing CS ever (and as a good consequence I completely lost interest to FPS for 2 years- when 300 lines of code completely "pwn" any human player you cant help but think of pointlessness of a game)
,especially in competitive PVP, but really you cant apply to RL world directly. - anything from RL world is more valuable in this aspect .
But IMHO very few things in games themselves are actually valuable skills - some basic psychology
I agree with that . Problem is they are all waste of time - they are virtual politics and virtual communities. And while social and community aspects might be very real, said communities cannot accomplish nothing and are essentially meaningless. Who will remember uber guild XXX from game NNN who did "that first" , "owned" server or other such BS? -Really nobody in a few years .
.Instead of doing something in real world ( if you are into politics -there are plenty of opportunities in RL) they replace it with meaningless surrogate.
Problem is exactly that those pointless activity suck people in -like drugs
Not really -if you read non-fiction books you get some bits of knowledge (while it may not help you at least it is real) . I can say that I am addicted to wikipedia and slashdot - difference from WoW that here and there I actually get some useful info . Is there anything useful I got from a dozen of MMORPGS? - very little. Some insights into human psychology and online community but everything related to actual games is pure junk. And actually those insights are better if you just study those games - not play them .
/etc -as it keeps your brain busy.
,we need "entertainment". -There is no solution for this ATM as it requires changing human nature (or ,which is preferable, replace humans with something better). And while humans are not perfect - solution is to work around those things ,not get hooked up to next drug( chemical or psychological) .
There are various forms of entertainment and some of them are bad and addictive(like drugs, excessive alcohol, tv , mmorpgs). It is better for example to do sports as entertainment -as it keeps you fit. It is better to go fuck random girls every night as it builds up your social skills and friends network. It is better to play chess/bridge
And yes in fact I think everyone should devote 100% of time to productive work -problem is humans are not build that way, majority of us cannot be happy working 100% of time
"In 20 or 30 years the technology will be here to create incredibly more realistic and immersive worlds," he says. "There will be a world that fits the fantasy of any life you want to lead." Those deep into WOW, of course, are already living that future. "Yes, it's just a game," says Joi Ito. "The way that the real world is a game."
.When competition for resources gets harsher what mmmorrpg addict will have to show for it? Their ubah leet lvl capped characters in epic gear? Their skills of killing brainless mobs? -guess what those are all irrelevant skills in RL.
In 20-30 years those deep into crack like WoW will have no influence on the real world whatsoever. There are still real life tangible resources (energy for example) and living in virtual world will not make you exempt from basic laws of physics and biology
Good advice .People listen: putting time in MMORPG is not worth as all you can win is a sore butt and s few records in database .