Prince of Kitties

ToME 2, Yeek Paladin. That is all.

In that case, keep believing whatever it is you believe, and we'll go our separate ways.

Not to be a jerk, but I'm noticing a bit of a pattern here... You're making assertions, talking like they're facts, and being pretty vague when asked to back them up. That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it does mean people will have a hard time believing you.

IMO it's a bit early to attribute to malice what is adequately explained by ignorance. Stupid cultural ideas don't necessarily need any Authority enforcing them. Re transhumanism, I would say the problem is we're not ready for it socially, but that's assuming it ever gets off the ground technologically. I have very serious doubts about strong AI, brain augmentation, etc. I mean for crying out loud, we're still discovering new neurotransmitters; we probably haven't even catalogued have of them yet.

I don't think many people consider technology the sole measure of human achievement. Quite the opposite IMO; pop culture seems to have a huge anti-intellectual streak, and to go on at length about how AWESOME emotion is and how morally bankrupt logic is, when really either can lead you astray when carried to extremes. BTW I did learn some stuff about low-tech egalitarian societies in a Uni anthro class. People can live off the land and work maybe three hours a day, if that; life is (for the most part) jolly good. The anthro prof certainly seemed to think highly of these societies, and I can't blame him at all. Edit: also I must point out that there are different kinds of "technology." The Incan method of building stone walls would have been "low-tech" by our standards, but it's also lost, and we can't duplicate it without resorting to modern equipment. Herbal medicine is a technology. Blow darts and atlatls are a technology, and not necessarily easy to perfect; likewise well-designed thatch houses. Different societies have build different things, but you won't find any that dont' build anything. OTOH, I hate to say it, but if you want your species to survive really long-term you probably need the high-tech stuff. The difficulty IMO is in using it wisely (and not killing yourselves off with it before you can ensure your long-term survival).

... You know, I'm not even going to respond directly to this stuff any more. I'm getting tired of it. Suffice to say that I am not the sort of person you seem to think I am.

Meaning what, go primitive? Does that make a difference? Did it help Ted Kakzinski? Umm a) You're posting this on a web forum. Most of which is dedicated to silly computer games. It goes a little beyond convenient. If I did not live in a technological culture I'd probably be dead... Several times over. c) Sure, all societies are more or less imperfect. We haven't been around that long. It's a bit early to throw in the towel! What's good for life isn't necessarily good for people. Would you want a society based on natural selection? I sure wouldn't. Edit: N/M, I'm not going to argue this further. Also my computer's hard drive just started to fail. I must be turning into a bogon emitter.

I tend to think that, even given (hypothetical) complete omniscience, there could be situations where two highly ethical people come to different conclusions. The ethics of extreme situations can get pretty fuzzy. I personally lean towards "ends justify the means" thinking being wrong[1], but when inherently evil choices are forced upon people, I don't think they can be blamed for their attempts to make the best of it, or the fallout thereof. Re culture, I have to disagree with McKenna. This culture is not my friend, but I see no reason why a healthier and more helpful one couldn't be constructed over time. BTW, it's 2013 and everything that's physically possible hasn't happened quite yet. [1] Partly because this kind of thinking is a great way to rationalize almost anything. But mostly because, on an instinctual level, I cannot accept that the suffering of innocents is ever truly justified.

Key words there are "in discussion." "Create a new reality" and "create a new understanding of reality" mean entirely different things in common parlance. Likewise "create a new reality" and "create a new culture." Granted that we're part of reality by definition, so anything we do technically changes reality. But my point is, we have the tools to avoid unnecessary vagueness and misunderstanding; even if we don't have the tools to describe reality as it is. Edit: @Alorael, re circular reasoning. I think most of us employ some circular reasoning in ethical matters. (Why should I behave ethically? Because my sense of empathy tells me to, and if I don't, other people will suffer. Why should I listen to my empathy? Because I have to. Why should I concern myself with other people's suffering? I don't know, I just have to, and that's not negotiable. Etc.) Perhaps this is why governments, companies, and other institutions have such an easy time subverting people's personal ethics. But I can't really think of a better alternative.

This, pretty much exactly. The one thing I'd question is the ethical price. I'm quite sure that science and technology can be handled ethically, but human civilization is (collectively) not doing that IMO. Edit:

Umm, to tell the truth I'm quite nonreligious. I consider the possibility of God's existance, but I don't see how it makes a difference either way. (Even with ethics... No, especially with ethics. I don't claim to understand morality in absolute terms, but I don't think divine fiat is an adequate explanation for it.)

If I may comment on that... Ideally I would say that's how philosophy is useful. Questioning our assumptions about ethics is useful, for instance. I live in a country where perfectly nice, neighborly folk make casual remarks about turning other countries into glass parking lots; that hypocrisy (and many, many others) needs pointing out. My problem is more with a) the idea that anything and everything is a function of personal belief throwing out the logical concepts that actually allow us to argue about things e.g. I spoke at one point to a philosophy professor who said that the laws of physics were "cages of belief," and subject to change with our cultural beliefs and values. While I'll grant that our understanding of nature is hugely affected by our social beliefs (c.f. Aristotle), ascribing those beliefs power over nature seems ridiculous. Nature is like the proverbial elephant that we each know only a small part of. Me thinking the tail is a rope won't make the elephant stop being an elephant - and won't keep the elephant from getting angry if I give the "rope" a yank. Note BTW that I can easily see the application of such thinking to the social sciences. I just think that its application to physics is a case of (to use another proverb) the person with a hammer seeing nails everywhere. Edit: just to cover all bases, I'll also note that quantum mechanics is (AFAIK) based on observation, not belief. Measuring which photon goes through which slit will ruin the interference pattern, and not measuring will preserve the pattern, regardless of what the observer thinks they'll get. I mention this because on at least one occasion I've seen someone reference QM in defense of a "belief-centered reality" (or whatever one wants to call it).

@Lillith: instructors, not students. @Jewels: I guess I define "truth" differently? Otherwise I basically agree; OTOH it's becoming abundantly clear that I'm not qualified to speak on this subject, so I guess I'll say not more as well. Apologies all for my offensive ignorance in the OP.

I guess I'm not understanding the local jargon then... Okay, I have to admit that looking back at the OP I come across as way vague and pompous, and was indeed creating straw men. My apologies. To be honest, if you asked me to cite specific philosophers, I wouldn't be able to recall any; more just the general nature of the talk when I was taking philosophy courses in college. Much of it was to was in praise of subjective views of reality, the idea that science is inherently unethical, stuff like that. (Mind, the main thing I got from there was what I know of feminist theory, which makes a lot of very disturbing sense to me. I can't say I enjoy the fact, but at this point I've found much of it demonstrably true.)

One popular opinion I've run into in philosophy is the idea that all truth is relative, i.e. subjectivism. This is sometimes stated as the opposite of ideology. A lot of philosophical types seem to hang out here for some reason. So I figured I'd get you people engaged in a discussion, to whit: why is this idea so popular? 1. If all truth is relative, and all reality purely subjective, how can any useful scientific or ethical conclusions be arrived at? Doesn't this justify a solipsist perspective as much as any other? 2. As far as I can tell, subjectivism is impossible to prove or disprove. That being the case, and given (1) above, why assume it? If we're talking about unprovable concepts, isn't it better to assume the one that is more realistically helpful to more people? 3. Isn't subjectivism flatly self-contradictory, since it itself would have to be an objective truth to apply? Is contradiction just not a problem in some branches of philosophy? If so, how is that correlated with what we see of known reality? 4. I have seen it stated a few times that belief in the fundamental truth of one's own perspective is basically the root of all evil; and that subjectivism is the cure. I'll acknowledge that convictions can be dangerous, but why is pure subjectivism necessary, as opposed to just a healthy respect for one's own fallability? Am I making sense here, or am I just not understanding the local jargon?

Hey, no hard feelings. I looked at the CBoE code, and it came close to making my eyes bleed.

Putting down the Michael Flynn novel for now. He writes well, but it's slow going... And I just bought a copy of Transition (Iain M. Banks), so I'll probably be otherwise occupied for a while. On a related note, I found Flynn's blog today, and was disappointed to discover how much of it was Chesterton quotes.

Umm yeah, apologies to Jeff there; I realize this is very old code. I'm just used to seeing bitflags used for anything boolean in C/C++. (See for instance the Angband code base.)

I did try to do some of that, though clearly not enough... It seems to me that part of the problem is that the code needs a top-down redesign, which I don't think I have time or the know-how to pull off at the moment. Edit: gods though, I think this code is hurting my sanity. I mean typedef char Boolean; seriously?

Last night I made another experimental attempt to start a CBoE Java port. I began with the PC headers, creating a PlayerCharacter class based on the existing PC class and filling in a bunch of empty methods. Then I created an interface for holding the numerous constants... After which I started filling in methods, basing my code on what I saw in the relevant C++ source file. I got about halfway through the "kill" method before I realized I was doing something dreadfully wrong. Shortly thereafter I gave up. Clearly I was not using the right approach. The code base is pretty dreadful to look at, and perhaps Java was not a good choice of language for the job; but it seems to me I could do better than this... Does anyone here have experience with porting large programs from one language/paradigm to another? With refactoring big projects? What kind of techniques are usually involved? A top-down copy based on the existing program's data structures is not a good way to do this, I take it?

So... Two projects, no websites, no further news a month later. I guess we can write these off?

Ah, Steven Erickson. Always fun to have absolutely no clue what's going on in his gigantic mazework of events. Personally he lost me entirely on book 4 (though mostly due to lack of sympathy for a major character). IMO book 2 (Deadhouse Gates) was his best and most coherent, and had his most interesting characters and concepts. It also helped that it stood on its own a bit.

Oh yeah, what I'm reading. Up Jim River, Michael Flynn: found at a dollar store. Makes me think of a cross between Frank Herbert and James Joyce, and speaking of Mary Sues (and characters who aren't), the protagonist is an alcoholic veteran with seven or eight personalities. I'm not that far along yet, so I'm fervently hoping that Flynn can pull this thing off. Practical C++ Programming, Steve Oualline: restarting from the chapter on preprocessor macros. This time I plan to actually do all the excercises. Maybe I'll learn something, who knows...

Wait until you get to the Adem parts. It would be nicer if Kvothe got cut down to size by people who weren't even bigger Mary Sues. (Adem teacher: "Men become violent and destructive because they don't get enough nookie. And truth is purely relative. Say, Kvothe, would you like to have sex?") Edit: I'll also admit I liked Kvothe better when he was a virgin and didn't know how to fight. And when he wasn't making snide remarks comparing woman to musical instruments. Hubris is a very human failing, I think... There's a good reason it's popular for heroes. And yes, I loved the Earthsea trilogy. Especially the Nameless Ones. I have fond memories of the Nameless Ones scaring the stuffing out of me when I was a kid.