cygnosis

joined 2 years ago
[–] cygnosis 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He's referring to the fact that the Effective Altruism / Less Wrong crowd seems to be focused almost entirely on preventing an AI apocalypse at some point in the future, and they use a lot of obscure math and logic to explain why it's much more important than dealing with war, homelessness, climate change, or any of the other issues that are causing actual humans to suffer today or are 100% certain to cause suffering in the near future.

[–] cygnosis 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As a kid, probably Lode Runner. It ran on my pc. Some arcade games were fun. I enjoyed Asteroids. Colossal Cave, and the Infocom games like Planetfall were fun too. Though what really hooked me was Doom. It was the first real 3d FPS game and it blew my mind. It's been my favorite genre ever since.

[–] cygnosis 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It pays to watch ad-free videos or else it gets the hose again.

[–] cygnosis 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

dang, cosmology is weird. I went to reply about the big bang, the age of the universe, and how it can't be infinite, but instead decided to look it up. I really don't understand this stuff.

[–] cygnosis 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've struggled with this for my whole life (and I'm not young) but haven't succeeded in developing my willpower much at all. I think it's just part of your 'personality'. In quotes because you can change your personality somewhat with therapy or other growth techniques, but it takes a lot of work and there is no guarantee it will happen.

That said, I do use commitment devices to substitute for willpower sometimes. One that works for me is to join a class or group for exercise or other things. In my case it has worked for meditation, exercise, martial arts, and others. I find that when I wake up and feel like 'I just want to lie around and play video games all day' I then remind myself 'the folks at the group will notice I'm gone, I'll have to explain it, and It would feel better to just attend'. And so I get my exercise. Usually. If my brain can convince me I'm not feeling well I still skip out sometimes.

[–] cygnosis 1 points 1 year ago

Just finished Breathedge. Subnautica in space? Sort of, but with a 'ha, aren't we game developers funny' kind of humor. Portal is an immersive game that's really funny. The humor in Breathedge, however, insures you can never really settle in to the game. Even so, It's most impressive what such a small team was able to accomplish.

Just started Plague Tale: Innocence. Stealth survival with hordes of rats - a little creepy and I'm not really expecting an uplifting ending, but we'll see how it goes.

[–] cygnosis 5 points 1 year ago

Things like Impossible Burgers, absolutely. I tried one once and it was so much like an actual meat burger it grossed me out. But I will make a seitan corned beef to put in a Reuben sandwich just because it's an awesome sandwich.

[–] cygnosis 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Which is an issue if those artists want to copyright their work. So far the US has maintained that AI generated art is not subject to copyright protection.

[–] cygnosis 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

First of all it's completely understandable for you to feel frustrated and stressed in a situation like this. You really don't have the power to fix other people's problems. Have you ever been to a therapist? The one constant among good therapists is that they don't give you advice. They don't tell you what to do. And they don't try to fix the problems in your life. But they do end up helping you. So what do they know that the rest of us don't? They know that the best way to help someone is to listen supportively, to validate their feelings, and to give them a chance to think about their life while leaning on the emotional support of someone who cares about them. There's more but that's a good start. And if you can do that you really are helping a lot more than you think.

Take as an example, a conversation I had with my wife today (remembered as well as I can). She was in a really bad mood and wasn't talking with me.
I asked her "what's got you feeling down today?"
She angrily said she didn't want to talk with me about it because she knew what I would say and she didn't want to hear it.
(That, by the way, is a pretty clear hint that someone is not in present time emotionally.)
I said "so you're saying I'm never supportive of you when you're upset?"
She said "I'm feeling overworked and stressed. There's always too much to do. And I know you are just going to say you also have too much to do."
I said "I did say 'I feel the same way' once when you said you could use a day off. But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate that you're overworked. I understand. There's a lot going on right now and it's hard to keep up."
She continued talking about how she felt. I continued validating her feelings. And she cheered up and her mood improved.

My point is, "just being there" is code for listening supportively, validating someone's feelings, and helping them regain the balance they need to address their problems themselves.

Edit: to be clear, I'm no saint. Sometimes I'm the grumpy one and my wife is the paitent one. It works both ways.

[–] cygnosis 3 points 1 year ago

The issue with quests in RDR2 is that they give you no autonomy. Most games set a quest objective and give you a dozen ways to achieve it. RDR2 forces you to follow the exact path through the quest that the game wants you to take. If you deviate it either fails to progress or simply fails the quest. It felt more to me like an interactive movie than a game in that respect, though you get full freedom outside of quests.

[–] cygnosis 43 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Enshittification in action.

"Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die."

Facebook, TikTok, Amazon, it's everywhere. Once a platform has lock-in from users it turns its attention to vendors. Then once they're locked in it rakes in the profits until nobody can tolerate it any more and something else takes its place.

[–] cygnosis 6 points 1 year ago

14 years. The reddit protest was a great way to exit an unhealthy relationship with a site that was devouring way too much of my time. But now lemmy is slowly starting to draw me in more and more...

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