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Goldengirl

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Everything posted by Goldengirl

  1. Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. You'll be back. They always come back.
  2. Does this trend hold when looking at per capita amounts of paper? The population has gone up quite a bit since the 60's and 70's, too, y'know.
  3. L'Affaire Saint-Fiacre, by Simenon. One of his Maigret detective novels. I enjoy that I can still do fairly well at figuring out mysteries even when the text is in French.
  4. There is a time and place for black coffee and the flavored coffees. Normally, I go with black coffee just because it is superior tasting. However, when I don't want to deal with that specific taste, but still want the caffeine kick, I go with the flavored coffees.
  5. The problem, I think, with a Geneforge wiki is that there's no central motivation. Unlike the Encyclopedia Ermariana, which itself is rather emaciated in later years from lack of attention, there's no community centered around the Geneforge universe. There were Blades of Exile, and to a lesser extent Blades of Avernum, communities who actively developed the Exile/Avernum universe, and thus needed a reference to see what already existed. With Geneforge, there is no such need, save for a few people doing fanfics. And a few people do not a wiki make. Why do you want a Geneforge wiki? That's basically what I'm trying to get at.
  6. Barring the game being too difficult and/or technical issues, I always play and finish the games I buy. That said, if I get them for free from elsewhere, then it's another story.
  7. Which wiki are you talking about? People started so many... Post a link?
  8. I should clarify this explicitly now. I do not believe in Lacanian, or Freudian, psychoanalysis. I was just giving an (extremely) brief explanation of Lacanian thought. Lacan's ideas about the structuring of mental processes merely gave me inspiration for further analysis. They are a useful way, for me, to conceptualize how people think; it's an analogy that I utilize to comprehend, not necessarily an idea that I hold to be true. Ultimately, I think his ideas are as unscientific (unable to be proven) as Freud's, and I would loathe to see his methods applied towards the treatment of people with psychological issues. I agree with Lillith's assessment, but even nuts have some nutritional value that can be extracted, even if with a large grain of salt. Neurons are complicated. I've taken enough psychology courses to know that I will not ever understand them fully (though I could make great strides to learn more fully what we already know, it's just not where I want to focus). You'd be right in saying that that person probably wouldn't have a thought process we would understand. The thoughts probably wouldn't be "Why is it so dark?" because the person wouldn't have any conception of light or dark, lacking a sense of sight. What the thoughts would be, though, we don't know sense we have so much thought based on our senses. Of course, we can't find out from asking the person, either, as we lack a means of communication.
  9. Eh, I put him on the same level as Freud, more or less.
  10. This has been a topic that has interested me and provoked me into further study ever since I read Orwell's 1984 and started thinking about the possibility of something like Newspeak actually existing. I've read literature on the topic by people such as Roland Bleiker, Eva Waniek and Erik Vogt, Laura Shepherd, and Lera Boroditsky. They've come at it from the viewpoint of gender, psychology, and critical resistance, so it's a fairly varied approach. If anyone can recommend more authors (links appreciated) I'd be indebted. The person who really revolutionized my thinking on the matter, though, was Jacques Lacan, who theorized that the mind itself is set up as a language - signifier and signified. We can see this in some sense with neurons, in that they form connections of meaning with representations of the physical world. Moreover, because each of our networks of language may differ, we ultimately will always have the "Lack" of an ability to objectively and Truthfully describe reality. Thus, all is subjective, as I'll explain more later. Ultimately, though, I don't think it matters too much about the actual validity of the hypothesis that Lacan proposed. Rather, it serves as a convenient conceptual framework for understanding the world. This, then, gives me my definition of language - it is a specific way of describing the world. Consider, for instance, a factory. A Marxist might see this as an instance of the oppression of the working class, capitalists as a means to productivity, a worker as a means for sustaining oneself, environmentalists as a cause of pollution, etc. Thus, each of those are describing it with different languages based on their own lives and experiences - subjectively different. English, German, or any other language merely provides the diction and syntax for the expression of those languages; one could call them meta-languages, in that regard. They aren't neutral or objective descriptions of the world, as the connotative forces of each individual language manipulates and pulls the meanings of the words, giving them subjectivity. I do not believe, though, in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that language defines what we think. Rather, though, I believe that it helps to frame the modes of thought that are available, and the descriptions of things that we hold are highly correlated with our thoughts. Sometimes we view things as threats, and describe them as such; acting to secure ourselves against them follows easily, which can create a security crisis based on threat construction. So, if a discourse on a certain subject portrays it as a threat, it is more likely to align itself with that definition culturally as a reaction to the threat construction. For example, Iran is popularly discussed as a threat to the United States, and therefore hostility towards Iran is perpetuated in some regards, which forces Iran to seek to give itself a means of protection so it doesn't become the next Iraq. However, this is not an absolute; cultural reappropriation exists, and meanings can be subverted. Reality doesn't have to be aligned with thought. Early on, though, as children we take for granted the assumptions and popular discourses that we are taught as true. As we grow older, we can critique and challenge those assumptions, but they still leave a cultural imprint on us and help to keep society, in many senses, rooted in its traditions. The interplay between culture and the individual occurs in this fashion, then; the messages that are sent to people through society as youth and into adulthood are absorbed, only to sometimes be challenged. To not challenge them is to let the social norms and cultural roles of society define you, though this isn't necessarily a bad thing.
  11. Goldengirl

    Is it even worth asking whether Atrus is worth ten thousand posts? He's probably written so many descriptive and linking books that ten thousand posts pales in comparison! Congrtulations, Aran.
  12. We already have that thread, as a matter of fact, and the argument about moral relativity and inherent morality. I, for one, admire some of the characters that have been despised here. Specifically, I am fans of both Gladwell and Rawal. They are practitioners of Machiavellian politics, which many people would categorize as evil. But to them, it's the ends, not the means; that's what gives them depth as actual characters rather than cookie-cutter villains.
  13. Well, in that case, Commander Ed is Goldstein. He even exists in text solely now, buried in the mythos of Dikiyoba's first script... where he shall hopefully remain for eternity.
  14. I suppose the only meat I've eaten that I'd consider unusual is alligator. Triumph was right; it does taste like chicken, though particularly tough chicken. I wouldn't go out of my way to eat it again, though I certainly wouldn't refuse it either. One note on the poll system, though. In this case, with this topic, it clearly doesn't matter, but for more sensitive topics it could be a problem. Currently, the poll system lets me see who voted for every single option. Can we possibly disable this?
  15. Nonsense. With the loss of an easily seen top ten posters list, TM is down the memory hole. The rebel cause against the mods, if anything, was led by Emperor Tullegolar, though that too is down the memory hole.
  16. Congratulations on the latest addition to the team!
  17. The Awakened represent a middle way that could divert potential revolutionaries from the Taker cause. Therefore, the sooner they are defeated, the sooner they can be integrated into the rebellion that the Takers desire.
  18. Congratulations Nikki! I trust that the freeze ray will only be used for the eradication of spambots.
  19. My favourite character: Bennhold. The entire quest series leading up to his capture made him out to be such a legend, so intriguing. Meeting him was a bit anti-climactic, but even then he was a great fight, and in the meantime it was fascinating to explore his mythos to find him. My least favourite character: Hard to say, but I was unimpressed with the fortune teller in the Dera Reaches. There was nothing wrong with the character, per se, but I feel like it would have been better not to include the fortune teller at all unless new information could be given. To each their own, I suppose. My favourite creation: I'm making my analysis marginal, so only evaluating the changes made between this game and Generge IV. That said, I choose the pod creatures, the new ones that you can't Shape but you have to fight multiple times. They slow you down and swarm you if you aren't careful. Oh, what fun it would have been to Shape them. My least favourite creation: I don't really like Drakons in this game. Normally there's nothing more BA than strutting through battlefields with a Drakon destroying everything in its wake. However, they were mostly unimpressive as actual creations, and one can't use the Ur-Drakon very practically since it's locked up till the endgame. Rebels can't even make them. My favourite spell: Mental magic is the best magic, and therefore I'm going with mass madness. It's the perfect description of how the fight actually goes, too, after successfully casting it. My least favourite spell: I'm forgetting the name, but the poison spell that you get as the second spell in battle magic, right after firebolt. Useless. My favourite sect: In terms of the ending, I like the rebels best. However, the rebels lucked into a good ending that wasn't a Drakon dictatorship; Astoria is far preferable without knowing what will happen. My least favourite sect: Taygen. He was the most annoying to kill of all the Shaper Councillors, and also he just wasn't very effective. I could understand his "get tough on creations" policy if it actually yielded positive results, but Dera Reaches is still a mess and the creations are only misbehaving more, if anything. My favourite area: Fort Rockfall. It shows that even the military genius of Alwan is fallible, but the desperateness of the situation of the defenders is even more admirable. It would have been good to be able to participate in the Battle of Fort Rockfall, if your actions lead to it happening. My least favourite area: That one in the Dera Reaches with all of the energy pylons and the Unbound that wanders around and attacks you occasionally. I dislike greatly when puzzles are unsolvable - you cannot deactivate all of the pylons, for instance.
  20. I'm not sure if that correlation holds true. I actually believe that one must have the implants to see the picture. Or rather, everyone who has implants has already seen the picture next Thursday.
  21. Alas, I can no longer leave every post with a symbol on it as has been my routine since I joined. I suppose I shall just have to incorporate that symbol into the body of my text now, or else let that gimmick die.
  22. This move clearly behooves Spiderweb very well. Congratulations to another excellent addition to the mod team!
  23. Slarty used to do monthly statistics on who posted the most, where they did there posting, etc. The task became grueling enough that he designed a bot to do the legwork for him, leaving him to do his famed Slartanalysis of what remained. As was already said, though, that only encouraged more posting, with inclinations towards being vacuous. As such, posting competitions shouldn't really be advocated.
  24. Goldengirl

    500!!!

    Congratulations. I was going to post here to offer the quote I carry in my signature as approbation, but I see that it's already been done. Nonetheless, it's good to see milestones being reached meaningfully.
  25. Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity No, what I said was that because concepts are connected to reality, they may mean multitudes of things. Also, the concept of elephants is just as much a thing that exists only in our minds, subjectively, as the concept of evil. The concept also somehow points to something real, like actual elephants. But so does the concept of evil. This is true, that elephants also exist solely as a concept within our mind. The difference between elephants and morality in this context is that one is a category of physical being and the other is a social abstraction. That is, we can detect what an elephant is with our senses, in the right circumstances. That cannot be said for morality. Quote: Nietzsche wasn't a very rigorous thinker. His notion of eternal recurrence, for example, shows a basic misunderstanding of infinity. That kind of 'brief survey of different cultures' is actually a pretty awful example of sociological cherry-picking and special pleading. At the wings of the bell curve you can find all sorts of things, but human moral judgements are and have been consistent to a very large degree. His notion about the eternal recurrence is irrelevant. First of all, though I can't remember where I read it, but even just sensible analysis shows that the eternal recurrence is for use as a philosophical device, not a scientific assertion. It is a tool to measure the value of our life; could we bear to live this life forever? If not, adjust so it is possible. But even if you discount Nietzsche as a person, you haven't refuted the point that our ideas about morality have changed over time and in different cultures, which the Genealogy shows. You call my examples extreme, but I'm dubious. Patriarchy, which is decried as immoral by the feminist movement, has been existent for a long time. War is murder deemed legal by the state; murder, too, has often had its detractors. Infanticide, too, has been pretty widely practiced in societies such as Japan and India - places with population pressure - while being deplored by the West. You can dismiss my examples as cherry-picking or as extreme, but I cannot follow any sort of rubric by which you take certain actions as normal and others as extreme. Quote: You seem to be equating usefulness with lack of controversy. I don't see how this follows. It would be nice if people only disagreed about unreal things, but unfortunately reality is complex and confusing, so we often disagree strongly about real things as well as imaginary ones. Some of the things we disagree about are nonetheless extremely useful. For instance, it would be very nice to understand cancer, or high-temperature superconductivity; currently there are many competing theories. The enthusiasm with which people disagree about concepts is in fact a measure of how useful they find the concepts involved. People don't fight much about things for which they have no use. What I'm trying to do in conflating usefulness and lack of controversy is to say that, since morality can be bent to justify all sorts of things, why bother? It clearly is not too discriminating, then; perhaps we should eliminate it as a concept we use, and exist as amoral agents? Why do we bother with morality? And, perhaps more importantly, why should we?
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