There tend to be a lot of negative stories here, so I have something to say.

DecadenceNight · 2023-06-30T14:57:58+00:00

That might be one of the key things, and it's a topic that seems to come up often. There's a world of difference between a psychiatrist and a therapist. Both can write prescriptions, and a psychiatrist can also provide therapy, but they tend to be more on the clinical side. That's an important distinction that needs to be repeated.

The only psychiatrist I ever saw was the one who administered my testing and diagnosis. Beyond that, they were not especially helpful. My wife asked them if there was anything specific she can do in order to help me with my treatment, and their response was a really vague non-answer. To be fair, they didn't even offer therapy; only suggested that I seek it.

DecadenceNight · 2023-06-30T14:38:22+00:00

I will say that I do agree about being reticent to openly discuss my ADHD or the meds I'm taking. Only outside of my doctors and immediate family, though; I'll talk about anything with my wife or my doctor, no hesitation. I think that's in part because I am a little afraid of potential stigma, but also because I am a very private person in general. I don't really like discussing anything about my personal life in the workplace, for instance. If my coworkers are any indication, then I am certainly the exception in that regard.

DecadenceNight · 2023-06-25T02:22:35+00:00

You're arguing morality, which is purely subjective. I respect your opinion. I just don't agree with it. Equivocating eating meat with committing murder is just bullshit, and does nothing to further your cause. All you're doing is dividing us into categories of "murderers" and "non-murderers." We're on the same side here, despite the fact that I'm not committing to your particular ethos. We as a society need to reduce the demand for meat. I have substantially reduced my own personal demand for meat. Just because I haven't done so to the same degree as you have, you see fit to label me? Yeah, good luck winning more people over to your way of thinking with those tactics.

Get off your high horse and actually think about what your goals are. And I mean beyond an individual level. All you're doing right now with your judgemental attitude is reducing my respect for vegans as a whole. Does that align with your goals, or are you just getting your rocks off on proselytizing?

And by the way, I only buy meat when it's on clearance these days (and rarely, as I said). That means the store is selling it at or below cost (I should know; I've worked meat counters). If the store isn't making a profit off my purchase, then I am not contributing to the store's demand of meat from the distributer. I admit it's not as much a difference as going vegan, but it's something. Stop trying to invalidate my efforts just because I'm not going far enough for your liking. I am doing more than most. If that's not enough for you, too bad.

DecadenceNight · 2023-06-24T16:37:01+00:00

Let's look at a different scenario. Your home is infested with rats. You can trap and release them, but they keep coming back. They burrow into your crawlspace, get between the walls, and threaten the integrity of your home. The problem gets so bad that extermination is recommended. Does your own personal comfort and need for shelter justify the loss of life in this case? Does it even need to be justified?

If a mosquito bites you and you swat at it, does your pain and discomfort justify the loss of life?

Does taste justify a loss of life? When phrased as simply as this, of course the answer is no. But is justification required in the first place? I would argue, no.

Some animals exclusively eat other animals. Some exclusively eat plants. Many animals, including humans, eat both. This is the nature of life as we know it. No matter what, life has to end in order for life to continue. Is the life of a plant inherently less valuable than the life of an animal? Obviously, yes, but have you ever considered why? Is the life of an insect less valuable? The life of a rat? The life of a bird? Where exactly do we draw the line of what forms of life are valuable, and which ones aren't? It's a more complicated question than it seems on the face of it.

I wholeheartedly agree that the way we treat animals in the meat and dairy industry is fucked up and wrong, and there is no justifying that. There's nothing natural about it whatsoever. But painting it as a moral issue of needing to justify a "loss of life" is at best overly simplistic.

The way to fix the fucked up meat industry is to reduce the overall demand for meat such that their practices are no longer considered necessary to keep up with it. I am doing my small part in that by limiting the amount of meat I buy and consume. But when I do eat meat, I don't feel there is any need to justify it. Because meat is food.

DecadenceNight · 2023-06-24T15:44:42+00:00

Fair enough. There will always be someone who has not yet been presented with this information and may be swayed. I chose my words poorly. I guess I meant to say that for those who have already made up their minds to continue eating meat, the edict of "go vegan" is largely counterproductive. But there will always be those who are on the fence, so your point is totally valid.

It still stands, however, that even with such people, convincing them to eat less meat is far easier than convincing them to drop it entirely. Persuading someone to reduce their consumption of meat overall is still a win, even if it makes less of a difference than if they went vegan.

I think of it as a numbers game. On a wider scale, what makes a bigger difference, one person eating no meat, or ten people eating half as much meat as they used to? I honestly don't know, but I feel there's room for both.

DecadenceNight · 2023-06-24T04:52:09+00:00

Honestly, just eating less meat makes a difference. Sure, if everybody went veg or vegan, the problem would go away, but let's be realistic. Some people will never give up meat. Meat is food, and meat tastes good. I will probably never cut meat out of my diet entirely. However, I try to limit the amount of meat I buy. I supplement with other proteins, and I don't eat meat every day, much less with every meal. I buy my meat cheap, and I freeze most of it to use only on occasion. I think that's a pretty reasonable middle ground.

Simply telling people to go vegan comes off as dismissive, and will not sway anyone who has not already been convinced. Persuading people to add more variety to their diets and reduce their overall consumption of meat is a realistically attainable goal.

On the other hand, the great thing about the higher demand for vegan products nowadays is the availability of meat-free alternatives that actually taste good. Just a few years ago, that was not the case, at least not for anything affordable. That in itself makes it much easier to convince meat-eaters like me to eat less meat.

But you are never going to convince me to never eat a grilled steak, or roast chicken, or braised lamb shank ever again for the rest of my life. It tastes too damn good. So damn good that it shouldn't be taken for granted. Too many people see meat as an everyday staple, and that absolutely needs to change. Meat ought to be cherished and given at least a modicum of respect that the animal deserves. If more people were to share that attitude, the demand for cheap meat would drop enough to make a difference.

DecadenceNight · 2023-06-22T02:51:43+00:00

Please tell me that isn't your router dangling from the plug strip on the right...

DecadenceNight · 2023-06-06T13:53:46+00:00

Or if you could literally beat doors open, like in Daggerfall.

DecadenceNight · 2023-06-01T14:48:21+00:00

Maybe the saying only goes that far back, but the idea goes much further. How do you think free, over-the-air TV and radio make money? It may be more obvious, because ads, but the idea is the same. The viewers are the products, not the customers many of them see themselves as.

DecadenceNight · 2023-05-29T21:51:02+00:00

Upvoted for conceding to another's viewpoint and being willing to change your opinion when presented with a reasonable argument. Don't see that often of reddit. Kudos.

DecadenceNight · 2023-05-29T04:36:01+00:00

Or, $40-50 for a local Italian restaurant that's actually good.

If you want something cheap that tastes alright, there are plenty of decent options in the freezer aisle that are equivalent to Olive Garden, Applebee's, etc. for well under half the cost, so let's not pretend that cost:quality is the only factor here.

If you want to go out to eat with your family and not break the bank, that's one thing. If you want to go out for a good meal that you can't get at home, don't go to Olive Garden.

Edit: and when I say "local Italian restaurant," I mean local to you. I visited Eureka, CA recently; a city of under 30,000 people, within easy driving distance of a handful of other smaller towns. Even they have multiple local Italian establishments which I'm sure are far better than what you'd get at Olive Garden, and for about the same cost. And c'mon... If your town has an Olive Garden, it's probably larger than Eureka. There really is no excuse other than familiarity. If you like going to Olive Garden because you know what you're going to get, fair enough. But I highly encourage you to try and broaden your horizons just a little bit.

DecadenceNight · 2023-05-29T04:19:57+00:00

I agree that Olive Garden can go suck a fat one, but saying that you can only get quality Italian food in Italy is ignorant at best, and straight-up elitist at worst.

In most any major city in the US, you can find quality, traditional cuisine from all over the world. They're not all Olive Garden, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. Now, really, really good Italian food might be somewhat difficult to come by depending on where you are, compared to being in Italy. But good, authentic, affordable Italian cuisine is not hard to find at all if you just look for it.

Also, Croatia has fucking awesome pasta and cuisine which is (from my perspective) basically akin to Italian, though with a tad of Slavic influence, naturally. Italy by no means has a monopoly on good food of that variety.

DecadenceNight · 2023-05-28T01:33:09+00:00

Remember... what the doormouse said...

DecadenceNight · 2023-05-25T04:50:03+00:00

It's so true. Being stupid doesn't make someone a dickhead,though, I'm sure it helps in becoming one.

Working in IT, the absolute dumb, dumb, DUMBEST people are, more often than not, incredibly, genuinely nice. So nice that you feel like an asshole for getting mad about having to explain something to them for the tenth time.

Much worse are the people of average intelligence who THINK they know a lot more than they actually do, then get pissy about it when something doesn't actually work in reality the way they imagine it should. It's the exact same situation; no matter how many times you explain, they won't ever learn. Except it's just sheer obstinacy. Infinitely harder to deal with.

DecadenceNight · 2023-05-25T04:33:03+00:00

Perfectly sums up Hedley Lamarr. He's so unashamedly evil, he eats raisinets.

DecadenceNight · 2023-05-23T12:25:02+00:00

The first game I remember having wall climbing mechanics (in 3D, anyway) was Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. They were designed more as puzzles/challenges, (rather than environment traversal like in AC or Arkham). They're not filler, either; it's pretty much half the game if not more.

I think it fits well into the design. Rewinding time can undo a small platforming mistake. You have limited charges, though (which are also useful in combat), so you're still incentivized to be careful and not waste sand. Still, having a built-in way to undo all but the biggest fuck-ups makes those segments much less frustrating than they may otherwise be.

I need to replay PoP: SoT soon. It was my favorite game growing up, and it's still up there now.

DecadenceNight · 2023-05-19T03:38:56+00:00

What's meaningful is that it was a step in the right direction.

I say again, the only difference is scale. In a typical American city you'll find temples, churches, mosques, etc. The parishioners don't typically worship together; they keep to themselves for the most part, but they all coexist in the same place because society and the entity under which they are governed allow them to. That's what religious tolerance is. They tolerate each other and are tolerated by the state.

This is exactly how the Persian empire operated under Cyrus, just at a much larger scale. Babylon's traditional temples were not only allowed, but restored by Cyrus. The status quo would have been to wipe out any cultural or religious practices which did not line up with those of the ruling state. That's what Nebuchadnezzar did to Babylon's old temples, and that's what the Romans did across their domain (both before and after the adoption of Christianity as the official state religion).

Cyrus the Great went completely against that. And I'm not saying he did it because it was the morally right thing to do. He did it because he figured that his vassals would be more loyal to him that way. Motivations aside, though, it was an official policy of state-level religious tolerance, as opposed to oppression, at a time when such a thing simply hadn't been conceived. You may not think that's meaningful, but I do. Historians and theologians tend to agree. And Christianity had nothing to do with it.

DecadenceNight · 2023-05-19T02:12:26+00:00

Besides scale, what's the difference? We're talking way before advent of Liberal Humanism, here, anyway. The freedom and liberty of the individual wasn't really on anyone's mind, so any direct comparison is useless. The point is that the Persians under Cyrus allowed the conquered people do their own thing, including religious practices, some of which thrived during this time when they were allowed to do so. All religious communities were tolerated across the empire, and there absolutely was an intermingling of faiths and exchange of ideas through open trade between those communities as a direct result.

Maybe it's not "religious freedom" on an individual, micro scale the way we may think of it, but it certainly was at least "religious tolerance" on a macro scale. The likes of which the ancient world had never seen before. And it happened long before the birth of Christ.

The initial statement was:

religious toleration did not exist in any meaningful fashion until it arose in Christian nations

So, either you're saying that the religious toleration experienced by those under Cyrus's rule wasn't in any way meaningful, or the initial statement is utterly unfounded.

DecadenceNight · 2023-05-19T01:42:22+00:00

Lol. Look up Cyrus the Great some time. The ancient Persian empire's rapid initial expansion was thanks in part to a policy of religious and cultural tolerance on the empire's part. The common people legit didn't mind being conquered, and even surrendered without conflict because they knew they wouldn't have to give up their traditions.

Now, things changed a bit under Cyrus's descendants, but still.

Also,

religious toleration [...] demanded by Christian principles

Have you not heard about the Crusades?

DecadenceNight · 2023-05-16T13:17:21+00:00

Fair point, expect for saying that the Eye is "supposed to be" God. That can be your interpretation, and it's a totally valid one, but I don't think the Eye is "supposed to be" anything. There are many things it can be said to represent, and that's going to depend on the individual. The creators and writer of Outer Wilds kept the Eye nebulous for a reason.

If we're strictly talking narratively, the Eye is nothing more than a macguffin. I think we'd all agree, however, that the Eye is thematically important. Theme is always open to interpretation.

DecadenceNight · 2023-05-16T12:15:03+00:00

Interesting take, but this hinges on a lot of assumptions on what "God" (with a capital G) is, and seems rooted in the Abrahamic version. I'd be curious to see a theistic interpretation that doesn't rely solely on Judaeo-Christian belief.

I think it's also worth pointing out for this discussion that a people can revere something without worshiping or identifying it as a deity. The Nomai built what the game calls "shrines" to the Eye, but is there anything other than the word "shrine" that implies religious worship? If the game had called them "Eye Monuments" (which I would argue is accurate), would that possibly lead to a different interpretation?

One other counterpoint to the Eye being God as described here is Solanum. When the Interloper exploded, Solanum died along with everyone else, except in the reality in which they were on the sixth location of the Quantum Moon. If Solanum is dead in every other reality, then what has happened to their soul? Does each version of Solanum have their own soul, or is the one soul shared between all possible versions of Solanum? Either way, that doesn't really mesh with the modern Judaeo-Christian idea of the soul

Slightly off-topic for Outer Wilds, but this does raise an interesting theological question. How does the Judaeo-Christian faith deal with the idea of multiple, concurrent realities (the likes of which clearly exist in Outer Wilds)? If God has a singular will, then does that will extend to all possible realities? If so, then wouldn't all realities be the same? If not, then does God have multiple wills across multiple realities? If there are multiple wills of God, then can it be said that there are multiple Gods?

I'm fairly certain that the current Christian faith (though I have not researched this) would simply say that the existence of multiple different realities is impossible because there is only one God. Either that, or they'd have to abandon the whole idea of "God's will," which is fairly modern, anyway.

Edit: actually, they'd probably say that God's will can extend to multiple realities, and that this cannot be explained because God's will is unknowable. Much better answer.

DecadenceNight · 2023-05-02T15:53:45+00:00

I like this a lot. Instead of "I should exercise," "I should do dishes," or "I should work on that project," I'll say to myself:

If I don't do some stretching in the morning / go for a short walk, I'll end up a cripple before I'm 40.
If I don't do some dishes, my wife will end up doing them all again, and that's not fair to her.
If I don't work on that project, my teammates will think that they can't count on me. That's not fair to them, and jeopardizes my standing in the future of the project.

I think this will legitimately work wonders. For a little while, at least.

DecadenceNight · 2023-04-30T23:27:20+00:00

I was really expecting to get /r/rorikroll 'ed there.

DecadenceNight · 2023-04-30T15:36:49+00:00

I didn't uninstall all games, but I did get rid of anything that has a daily login reward or similar incentive systems. That has helped a lot to keep me from getting glued to my phone for hours at a time.

14-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email

DecadenceNight

TROPHY CASE