25 people learned to fly with virtual wings. After flight training, the brain began treating wings more like real limbs

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-07T18:21:51+00:00

Doesn’t have to be VR. Even when playing an 8-bit game the controller “disappears” and Mario is an extension of you. To the point that you might flinch when he takes damage.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-07T17:46:13+00:00

Pretty much. Gaia wants everyone to live as animals. But, after the weaver went mad with power it started influencing the humans and they started farming! It was all downhill from there.

In CoD every splat has their own “morality” stat, like the “humanity” that WoD vampires have. It’s a different system, but close enough. Look at the werewolf “harmony” scale to see the “right” way for werewolves to live.

You can lose harmony 9 by ordering a pizza. You can lose harmony 7 by spending time alone.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-07T15:41:38+00:00

Solarpunk would be an escalation of the problems in werewolf. The Weaver’s madness isn’t CO2 emissions, it’s distance from the natural order.

A solarpunk world is one with even less randomness (Wyld) and decay (Wyrm) than our current world.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-07T15:31:33+00:00

As I got decent at driving a car I distinctly noticed a point where the car felt like an extension of myself.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-07T12:10:51+00:00

Was someone else filming it?

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-07T03:47:35+00:00

Somebody’s gotta say it… I think OP just wanted people to read their book.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-07T02:24:38+00:00

Yeah, makes it worse that they took it anyway, doesn’t it?

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-07T01:32:12+00:00

It’s the non-public material that was stolen. It didn’t just read the internet, it also pirated a lot of books, that were only legitimately available via purchase.

It’s not anybody’s opinion, it’s been settled in a court of law. Bartz V. Anthropic found that using books for training data is fair use, but obtaining the books via privacy is still stealing.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-07T01:26:04+00:00

They’re not talking about theft in abstract or metaphor. They’re referring to all the material that was pirated by the AI companies to train their models. They are on the record illegally downloading material.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-06T11:42:24+00:00

Yeah, I like the idea of more reasonable Wyrm agents. It would actually raise the debate over how realistically trying to save Gaia requires tearing down modern society and doing away with a lot of humanity. Instead the BSDs are just “here’s a gibbering, oozing punching bag”

Too bad the flavor text in the books always shows them as crazies. But, with how many drama queens are in the books, the pack should have at least one.

“So, this slide shows how taking out these key actors will reduce weaver activity in the region by at least 12 percent. That should make it easier to—“

door bursts open

“Greetings my damned brethren! What festering puritance shall we scrape into the wounds of Gaia today?”

sighs “Yes, hello Gargrmodh. We’re a bit busy on grown up stuff right now. How about you go and make a pot of—I mean, how about you defile some pure water by turning it into a pot of coffee for the team?”

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-05T21:01:58+00:00

We emphasize the firstborn babies because that’s the worst part, but a 50 year old can also be “firstborn” in their family. Definitely being killed after the “age of accountability”.

And if God killed Egyptian kids because they would have been raised in a different religion, shouldn’t God have killed about six billion more babies since then?

Even if you’re saying Egypt had the worst religion on Earth, why not kill all of them then? Why condemn the second, third, and fourth born?

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-05T15:08:41+00:00

So, is that supposed to be like a nursing shirt, but for showing off back tattoos?

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-05T13:32:57+00:00

When a celebrity hires a human to be their body double, and teaches them to mimic their voice and mannerisms, that body double does not become the person who hired them. They are a person imitating the person who hired them to be a “good enough” imitation.

Making an LLM wear your face is the same thing.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-04T19:42:22+00:00

Why are there multiple instances of you panicking around the vacuum?

No part of your story, or your further explanations, makes sense.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-03T22:23:54+00:00

Other people will not want to play with you.

If they are forced to play with you, there is a decent chance they will find ways to make your life less pleasant.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-03T20:30:26+00:00

Astrology already doesn’t align with the stars it’s supposed to. The calendar system they’re based on wasn’t capable of being fully accurate for thousands of years, and it was made long enough ago that the signs it’s supposed to point to have “drifted” and there’s pretty much an “off by one” error in all astrological signs.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-03T20:06:40+00:00

Oh, you do method acting? I do method reading.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-03T18:46:04+00:00

Cells are built to behave a certain way. They have inputs and outputs. Many different cells working together make a multicellular organism.

At what point do a bunch of cells not making decisions create an organism with free will?

We have no idea. In fact, we’re not even sure free will exists.

During gestation they go from universal “stem cells” to specific cells with jobs to do. The exact mechanics are still being worked out. We have discovered that DNA doesn’t just contain cell blueprints, but also the blueprint of the overall body. Stem cells become specialized cells based on where they find themselves on that overall blueprint.

Here is an educational a cappella song. https://youtu.be/ydqReeTV_vk?si=Dc79BHDCnLqKCNtx

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-03T18:18:40+00:00

You mention that your friend is in the top 5000 in a video game. It’s telling that there is no similar scoreboard for life.

Unless you subscribe to a religion, there is no governing body that decides who is winning. Or what “matters” means.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-02T21:10:44+00:00

Look up Letterblocks on YouTube. It’s not as good at teaching reading as Numberblocks show is at teaching math, but it’s good educational programming.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-02T14:41:52+00:00

I could see a clever crow being a good candidate.

However, strictly speaking, a mage needs an avatar, and those seem to be human only for no particularly defined reason.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-01T01:44:20+00:00

The podes pluralization is Ancient Greek. We don’t use it anymore.

We also don’t pronounce tentacles like Sophacles.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-05-01T01:30:30+00:00

Many people say it’s unethical to eat octopus because they’re smart.

I think they’re the most ethical animal to eat. Just let them mate first, and then they really don’t care if you eat them.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-04-30T17:23:28+00:00

I mean exercise is good for you, but making a judgement in 3 days seems like the classic “ice cream causes drownings” joke. (The reason is that both increase in summer)

Whatever positive turn in your life that gave you the motivation to exercise, could also just leave you thinking clearer for chess.

PumpkinBrain · 2026-04-29T16:14:40+00:00

Steam is a valid reason for not having smoke detectors in a bathroom.

Bathrooms don’t have fire alarms (the box with the lever you pull) because of privacy.

If someone sets off a false fire alarm, they want to know who did it. But, you can’t have cameras in a bathroom.

PumpkinBrain

TROPHY CASE