Bay 12 Games Forum

For productivity, I've been gradually culling "crapfeeds" from my online life. Stick timewasting sites into the windows host files to redirect to nothing. I'd have to log into the admin account to change the settings so it's an effective block that reminds me to do something more productive. I also wrote a thread-culling script for bay12, it removes threads that I posted in only once from my "unread replies" page, so i only see topics I'm actually interested in.

I culled my facebook friends down to just close actual friends and relatives. Then, I recently decided to literally unfollowed everyone and everything in my facebook newsfeed. I don't even get any status updates now, so I basically have Facebook entirely at a point where I'm in control of what I view, without distractions from stuff I don't need to see.

For bonus points, use adblock, so even the intentional distractions get pushed aside.

...You intend to add nuclear power to Dwarf Fortress.

...

HOW ABOUT ALL OF MY YES. If my nerdiness on the subject can provide any useful information let me know!

I feel better now. Also, yes. Yes, yes indeed. One thing, if you can find it out, is how to make a power-producing building in RAW modding.

Quote from: CaptainMcClellan on March 11, 2015, 04:12:45 am

I know I said I wouldn't, but I have a legitimate sad this time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU I no longer see the purpose in my life.

Someone talk to me before I do something stupid. I've already stayed up all night and had to face the reality of a very bleak and painful future from the point of view of an already not-so-pleasant present. What is the point of persevering in the face of the futility that I face? As a human, I'm below average in my capabilities and old-fashioned in my reasoning. If even the best are being replaced, then what hope do I have? And without hope, I cannot function. I don't see how anyone could. It's not even as though I am liberated to do something else, it's more akin to being barred from what I want to do and then enslaved by those who won't do it but won't let me do it because they don't want to pay for me to eat. And even the arts aren't safe anymore, so I have reached an all-new level of purposelessness that makes me just wish I were dead. I... I guess I could hold on for my friends' sake, but what's the point in that? I'd spare them a lot of misery to just let them collapse in on themselves and die of their own accord and myself do the same. Someone, anyone, give me a reason why continuing my life on this wretched sphere is even remotely worth it? ( Don't say pleasure, because I have nearly none. And these were mainly rooted in hopes, dreams, and other meaningless escapisms. Now I am left with a life that has only misery, unless someone can find something to give me reason again. I suppose there's the afterlife and all that, but wouldn't I arrive there much more quickly if I took a shortcut? And even if I go to hell, then isn't that just the same as eternal hopelessness? So how would that be any different? )

Let me ask you something here, just one question:
Have you evaluated yourself fully, or are you just judging by what you can see now, and from the past?

As in, if you have the insight in as much to judge yourself by (the orange part) above, then is that all you see?
The human, as far as history goes, and as deep as insight and proverbial intellect goes, has potential as far as they can think--the video shows the idea made manifest not by one person but by a conglomeration of individuals over the history, and not from any single one country, but by a greater view than individualism can offer.
As far as your single reference goes--it is a generalization; technology requires support in order to function, as well as maintenance. My point here is that video, while inspiring in making an account for the greatness of what had been and a possibility to come, does not tell the exact fullness which excludes the futures of many, many people.
I mean, I could bring up a counterpoint here, as well as expound in more than twenty pages of formal paper on why that is only the iceberg of learning your own potential--as the sciences have proven, and as philosophy can move towards; technology requires support to function, yet the person as well as the society functions on thought, as a general basis.
The video has its foundation on Functionalism as a philosophy to prove its point. Granted, Functionalism is the same point upheld by society, in a majority number of areas, however it does not fully dominate it that society's viewpoint on the individual becomes very rigid in insight, and only oriented towards the output of those that comprise it.
Look at the video again, and notice how it describes from the viewpoint of function (and uses limiting terms as to the mental power of the mind when comparing what 'bots' can do, which is 'impossible' for humans to do), and not the other side of the coin in relation towards personal potential or purpose--goals are made, as much as a purpose is driven; the endpoint of a goal is not met if the viewer does not in the first place have any idea what they are oriented towards. [My point is that the video only comprises a tiny point of life, and has many, many spaces missing to fully encompass the purpose of a person--future, or present, especially given the VAST swath of information not present which is not even touched by the video at hand. It is very general, and covers the surface of how society would work and its efficiency. It misses out on a lot of points which support the points it has, as well as not expounding on how it can overcome what is to be--the future as well as the idea was not created by a bot, but by a mind. And that is one mystery still unsolved--the origin of thought.]
However the video also makes a good point in showing where the orientation of skill and focus may head--it brings out the age-old idea of labor and work and replaces it with the higher echelons of purpose: Thought and Idea. Like the granaries of old, which cut down on the number of people needed to provide basic, physiological supply, the video in itself shows the general outlook of where technology is headed.

Tiruin.

Yes I have evaluated myself fully, as fully as I am capable, not just in context of the past, but in context of my surroundings.

This is not a counterpoint and I blithely throw it back at you. The points that made, and the points this made, actually strengthen my arguments for my own inanity. And my incompatibility with this new world. And this new world's incompatibility with the world that exists. As put forth by the video taken in combinations with the articles, society is only going to become more disassociated with nature and, ironically in a world of connectivity, each other to a large extent as far to much is boiled down to a matter of data instead of experience. That is, humans are losing their ability to experience the world directly. I call for evidence the very fact that we so greatly take need to experience vicariously that which has become denied to us by circumstances driven by technological development as much as anything else. That technology and society are intertwined is common sense, and that technology is putting an ever increasing emphasis on dehumanization is symptomatic of the social ills that befall us all already. That it is a give and take means that with technology exaggerating an issue, it then superimposes it back upon society, which alters its technology accordingly in a vain development. That we are moving on to higher echelons of meaning is purely farcical. Look upon Moore, Chaucer and Langland for just a very few examples of the sort of meanings to which humanity has oft and always aspired and been able to achieve unaided by the technologies that we have today. Contrast with today when vanity is at an all time high and the notion that ever nuance of each person's life needs be left as a historical record. Why? Not for any sort of learning purpose, but for sheer self-aggrandizement! Not that people even think it out that far, we just photograph, and measure, and record, and on and on. What makes this especially confusing to me is that the thing we most photograph is ourself. I suppose, in a way, we're becoming a sort of art on a grand scale painted by those who have found the brush on which to paint with the human vectors. Indeed, you might equate it to an overseer of a Dwarf Fortress, except that it's not, at least in terms of humans. As per a human-God relationship, maybe, but that's rather tangential to my issues. Those that control these methods of automation, can and will, as they always have, crush people underfoot to achieve their own vain aggrandizement by means of meaningless gain, hoarding, and manipulating of the facts. It is the quintessence of fame, politics, power, and the higher echelons of business. Really, it is the quintessence of all those who have gone beyond a productive role. Like the Inner Circle of 1984 those who truly see and seize upon the blatant potentials of these emerging technologies will comprise a very small and very inconsiderate oligarchy who do little more than play with the toys that once were their fellow man. In that regard, I suppose humans have value. Of what good is a machine to a sadist? And even when it seems as though there is democracy, even when it seems like we've begun to see what's going on, we're nowhere close to the levels of corruption that what we call "power" uses to self-propagate. It has whole new horizons of abuse! The scope of power is limited by connections alone, and connections are nearly ubiquitous in any nation capable of even reading this text, so all it takes is the right influences and the right programs, the right subtle manipulations of a system that is not readily apparent for purpose of its ubiquitousness ( the so-called "Paradox of the Obvious" ) and once again, as perhaps we always were, the few who haven't the self-limitations to not enslave shall do just so in as much as it serves their ends. And while not always malevolent, these ends are often petty, irresponsible, and negligent. It's nothing new, but here's the difference. In the past, there was some hope of escape, some place you can sneak off to and rely solely on yourself, living in tandem with nature or starting your own country. Now, it is not so simple. The world is over-crowded and under constant surveillance by humans real and artificial whose motives are being bought by those who support their existence financially and gather unto themselves the resources requisite to ensure that these will continue, and may have little choice but to continue until some unquenchable thirst has been reached. To conclude, human avarice is like a loop that can only be terminated by the termination of the greedy, which will only happen by the force of the greedy - and now it has been nearly delimited entirely. Soon it probably will be entirely, but for now there is too much disagreement to allow for the revelation of that most obvious fact that the very few control the very many and are rapidly forming for themselves the tools to bring all unto an agreement - by coercion or no -  that will not really lead anywhere to the survival of the species. Again, the technology only has to be "better than the human". It's almost there. It's not to be worried that it'll gain sentience or anything like that, merely that those who own the technology can, and with little provocation will use it against what should be their equals. And not for reason of superior skill, just by reason of being propagated by the technology and the economy as to occlude just who, if anyone, is in charge. In the face of this, truly I'm powerless and if the well skilled who aren't deficient of mind, heart, and soul cannot prevail against this, what can? Change is coming, not because it was naturally accepted, but because it suits the ends of those who wanted things their way. Perhaps, I'm wrong. Perhaps it was naturally accepted by sheer force of laziness...

In short: I know that I will have no purpose in that world unless that purpose is given to me by forces outside of my control. And even then, that won't be an agreeable purpose, but I'll cling to it by nature of it's the purpose that will allow me to, for a time, prolong my existence in direct spite of my wish to terminate it. I don't know why it is that way, but it is. I don't know where either the desire to live or the desire to die came from, just that I have both and have to contend with both whilst looking for that purpose that is transcendent to this madness and will actually (I hope to hope, because I'm still having difficulty experiencing directly and processing everything, though it's improving and I don't feel so overwhelmingly crushed ) lead to the progress of mankind towards a truly better direction. I remain a bit pessimistic of that happening though and think that it will not be found in the cities or in the technology, but in the simple things. Not in simplifying the complex, but in deriving the complex from the simple, as much as we need it to survive. As of yet, we are headed for disaster, but there may be a few more turnabouts before total extinction. Who knows, perhaps my depressive rant will spark the catalyst for such a turnabout. That would be the most pleasant surprise I think I've ever had in my short life time. So, I have a direct hope now, in that this pain and time burn isn't totally for no reason or for to make others stumble as I've stumbled. I wouldn't have come for help if I didn't want it and didn't want to give it... And I think, somehow, I've gotten it. :/

Dude, you're speaking the words of every existentialist.
The thing is that existentialists are still alive.

Me?

The professionals are full of shit. It took them a week and a half to realize I wasn't homicidal.^* Not to mention they're no more capable of answering the questions that lie at the root of my problems than anyone else. Besides, it might be that I'm not supposed to survive and that the whole world is just waiting for me to die... Probably not, that would imply that there was some kind of grand-scale care for me amongst humanity, and that doesn't seem to be the case. Even so, the world's overpopulated, wouldn't my death ultimately be beneficial? I might just be making things worse by fighting it and it may be that the point here is to wear me down to the point where I am so willing to embrace death that I actually do it, in one silent, unannounced movement, unbeknownst to any and with provisions made so that they have the benefits of my would've been life without the detriments of actually having me exist. But even that is impossible. :/ The money and the resources would all come to nothing fast. The rich ensure this daily. So... if I can't win for losing, then what should I even do? Fighting the system is futile, and probably even wrong... but there's no reason for me to stay alive any longer than it takes to make last arrangements and find a way to exit quietly and politely, causing no stir and not even being counted among the statistic. Almost as if I never were, save that I cannot make my family forget, and the internet never forgets, so I will be so abused by persisting in people's memory. For where there is memory, there is pain of loss... and I cannot bear the pain of inflicting that. Especially on the few that would legitimately miss me. Ultimately, what does that matter, even? There's a few who would join me quickly thereafter and probably be justified in doing so. And the rest would eventually grow numb, and they too will be dead before long. Not long thereafter my memory would be totally erased and I would be gone, having contributed nothing and cost little. And that is what I consider the best case scenario here.

_{*Granted my accuser was and is a pathological liar and I said some pretty self-incriminating things, but there was no intent. Just another idle fantasy that came to nothing as soon as the issue was removed.}

Yeah. That's just the poll. The actual thread will be started up by the winner of the election who will be crowned at 3:15pm on Friday.

...Yeah. That sounds like things I've said before. Problem is, the horrors always come back stronger and I am always weaker and weaker in the face of them.

I can't even worry about it, I have to worry about how nonplussed I am about it, because my direct capability to deal with horrible things is broken right now. I couldn't cry even if I let myself, I think, because I tried and it didn't work. It just hurt with no relief.

I think this is what cynics refer to as "The utter soul-crushing reality wrecking the stupid idealist forever."