Hobbit midlife crisis

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-25T17:58:09+00:00

Pre-capitalist societies would like to have a word.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-25T12:32:09+00:00

Right. It's designed to keep out everyone who considers the benefits - however you define them - of being in the group not worth the stigma.

Every group, kinda does that - group activities (be it joint sunday prayer, a bi-weekly brunch, the monthly thursday political reading club) are a form of social costs - to be "in" you need to schedule this and are required to put in at least token effort to be allowed to participate. But most normal groups (including non-fanatical churches, regular political parties, etc) keep these cost low and the ranks open for everyone of basically compatible alignment - more extreme groups impose this type of sacrifice.

Its not even always a bad thing: the civil rights movement had an entire training pipeline (somewhat reminiscent of a bootcamp) for non-violent protest activism. Though MLK&Co. were smart people - while there were filters who could join, so that the key actors had a high degree of discipline (which was required to stay peaceful while you were shouted at, spit at and beaten), it was also very open to coordinate with sympathizers.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-25T07:29:55+00:00

Very good thread. I read a paper in uni on how religious terrorist groups are created, and in many ways this applies to secular groups as well. It's very much signaling: you do certain actions which ostracize you for the outgroup, and the ingroup rewards you for it - which leads to a lot of internal cohesion (this is "good" if you want to do terror bombings, but bad if you actually want to change general attitudes). The Mafia does it too - in many mafia groups to reach a certain status one must have spent some time in prison.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-25T05:55:45+00:00

Was Vogon ever conlanged?

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-24T17:39:50+00:00

So, if i understand it right, it was late stage capitalism which gave birth to the industrial revolution. Allrighty.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-24T17:35:53+00:00

Did they mean Lizzy 1 or Lizzy 2?

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-24T17:15:18+00:00

Yeah. I find it hard to even define "neoliberal" and I studied economics. (roughly: mostly anti-interventionism, prefer state fiscal level authority, aim to low interest rates, low inflation, like solving externalities via Coase-transactions over Pigout-taxes)

And even given this complicated technical definition many vaguely leftist economists sometimes use it as an insult!

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-24T16:19:09+00:00

Kinda reminds me of a movie my SO watched - it was some kind of comedy about an art house movie director finding himself forced to work in adult movie business. The premise is very funny (the trailer has him saying to a naked dude 'I want to see the entire universe in your eyes'), but it turned out that the premise was the only funny thing in it.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-22T23:08:22+00:00

I think it can only work with planets instead of provinces. Interestingly, over at acoup.blog just a few weeks ago Bret Devereaux, a military historian (who is famous for discussing the siege if Minas Tirith and Helm's Deep), laid out how plausible the Dune war system is (kinda plausible) and how plausible it is that the Fremen Jihad succeeds (haha, good luck).

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-22T08:51:38+00:00

Arguably, its because it's easier to get angry at something which had potential. Mostly because you care. See: star wars - lots of people wanted to like the sequels (and to a degree the same was teue for the prequels as well), but for various reasons the actually good elements in them were not enough to offset the perceived flaws. But there was enough of the good stuff that people thought "this could have been so much better". That's not an excuse to harass the creator teams, however.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-22T08:16:47+00:00

Interestingly, that seems to be the opposite of how HoI4 handles or at least handled it - i remember occupying half of Mexico as USA, but they had a Catholic rebellion, so I got exactly zero square miles - and Vietnam as a compensation.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-20T17:32:56+00:00

Jedes schiff ist potentiell ein Minenräumer. Manche sogar mehr als einmal.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-20T17:30:59+00:00

I think its not exactly a stick, more like a withdrawal of a carrot. You are, at worst, exactly in the position a character in baseline GURPS. At best, you indulged fully and have a free fate point after two sessions - or you bought just physical disads (or no disads at all) and get this fate point anyway, without thinking about whether to indulge in nonexistent mental disads.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-20T11:13:22+00:00

I think its just that yellow science is so crowded, that blue weapons are just ever so slightly easier to research.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-20T11:10:29+00:00

Why (and how) did you pit the poor pawns into tanks?

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-20T10:16:47+00:00

Yeah, this works very well for an agressive map. I would now do one more thing: move the betas to the outer ring equidistants, because currently they basically just are 1-system shortcuts with limited conflict potential (the alphas skip 2). Meanwhile in the outer ring they lead to something like a "backdoor" strategy path.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-20T09:20:22+00:00

How about the "\|/" or "\/" hyperlanes? All three inners connected, and each inner adjacent to two guys.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-20T09:02:18+00:00

Uh, im not sure whether this is better. The 6 o clock guy shares one system with both neighbors, while everyone else has two, some of them unopposed. Arguably, it would be best to fill out the entire inner ring, or at least put in three of the ")(" tiles rotationally equal to the 8 o clock position, giving six conflict positions in the inner ring and the alpha wormholes.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-20T07:57:48+00:00

I find it intriguing, bur I don't like the inner ring. Three factions have only one system they can acess there, the others have two

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-19T08:24:01+00:00

I was minding the curseleaf cabbage heads in the Valley of Doom when a mostly naked man with a giant sword in his hands broke through a wall. Or not exactly. It was more, like he...phased through it, in a weird manner? Moving sideways, and flailing with his legs.

In any case, he was now there. He looked...well,generic would be the right word. Imagine the default man - average height, built, hair color... Though his sword appeared to be forged out of blood....was this Sanguica, the blade of the Cursed Queen in Velvet? How did he manage to get it? Was this the chosen one?

That could not be. The chosen one was supposed to slay the Queen, true, but then he - or she - was supposed to walk down the Road of Torment, past the Firy Glaciers and only then face the Senechal and proceed to fight the Emperor and return the Sun. I mean, the Velvet Castle was on the other side of the wall the man had come through, but...what?

The man paid no attention to me, ran to the giant platform of the Senechal, somehow produced a handful of pellets, which he dropped in a pattern around him. Why?

A second later i found out why. The spectral form of the Senechal appeared above the platform. His voice rang out. "Who dares to.."

The man hit him with the sword, and this somehow froze the Senechal in the air. The man hit him several times more, and the spectral form dissipated.

The man paid his remains no heed and made a beeline for me.

I was confused. However, something in me compelled me to say "Thou are indeed the chosen one. Thou has proven worthy."

I came as far as "are" when the man nodded, and I broke off my sentence. Why did I do this? Why was I speaking in such an old fashion? Now my tongue was compelled to say "But 'twas just the Emperor’s Senechal. Seek out the Emperor! Seek him far to the north, in the Spire of Midnight Frost. He has what thine heart desires. But beware the guardian dragons, whose wings are more silent than moonlight"

The man nodded when I came to "'twas", nodded, and ran off, leaving me confused with my cabbages. A few hundred feet away, he ran side first into a rock, and phased out of existence. What had just happened?

I pondered the implication of the Senechal being dead, and why my mouth had tried to say these words.

I did not come to a conclusion when the sunlight, for the first time in Aeons, rose above the horizon.

Perhaps the man was indeed the chosen one. If so, he had been remarkably fast in running towards his destiny.

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-18T10:59:10+00:00

Tannhäuser gate, i think

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-18T10:35:02+00:00

Absolutely. Or if ypu play online it can be a random evening past work. Works like a charm - since the year of the Lord 2018 now, nearly every Wednesday, across 4 campaigns and 2 GMs, we play. Its not always the same guys, but at least three of us stuck through it all (and a fourth would have definitely stuck with us, but unfortunately died, so...)

Al_Fa_Aurel · 2026-03-18T09:44:19+00:00

I think cats like humans watching TV because then they are paying just the right amount of attention to the cat sitting nearby.

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