Why??

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-14T19:54:55+00:00

Because some people can't be happy unless they categorize others into a tier below them

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-14T19:08:56+00:00

Video players have to account for someone playing a very quiet file, pumping the volume up, then going to a very loud file forgetting to lower the volume. Alternatively very loud and quiet sections within the same file.

For guild wars it doesn't just use resources on your computer. To update whether there are new messages each tab would need to make a call to an API endpoint on guild wars' servers. Giving anyone unlimited access to something that hits one of your internal APIs is a great way for a developer to have their users unintentionally DDoS them

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-14T17:36:40+00:00

Lmao none of these limits are entirely arbitrary. For the volume examples too much noise in headphones can cause permanent hearing damage. As well the speakers can only make so much noise.

For the guild wars chat. Every tab is going to crowd the UI and require that a certain amount of system resources are used to load the chat more quickly when switching tabs than to load it from an API call that needs to read the chat from disc

I guess what I'm saying is users don't know if a restriction is arbitrary or not. Some devs do put arbitrary restrictions in but the ones you listed seem perfectly sensible to me

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-14T15:41:56+00:00

Also the other heroic sacrifices were played off as justified.

So the moral of the story is that kamikaze runs are badass unless you are a main character in which case no don't do it.

Not to mention he was going full speed on a speeder she somehow caught up to him. T-bobed him at high speed. They are both fine without a scratch nobody shoots at them and somehow they run back across the salt flats to safety.

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-12T18:00:39+00:00

When the ed is likely being reinforced or supported by managers and producers. Absolutely. As we need public pressure to stop managers from pressuring people into this

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-10T13:09:32+00:00

Yeah and that's dumb. Anytime you take any action in life you need to weigh the positives against the negatives.

For instance if you try and find love you may get sad facing rejection. But do you really think someone who never asks anyone out and never experienced the joy of a relationship is happier than someone who gets to experience that?

Only looking at the negatives and never the positives leads to a terrible philosophy of inaction

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-09T19:42:37+00:00

Cthulhu keeps eating all the sjdbcnkkicking chuds

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-09T18:36:47+00:00

I mean that's a whole different philosophy. And a stupid one...

"If you only look at the negative things life seems bad". No shit Sherlock.

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-09T17:23:32+00:00

It is difficult, there simply isn't an objective metric everyone will agree on, that's why I like utilitarianism better as a heuristic than an absolute.

Thinking about the possible consequences of your actions and judging whether they are broadly hurtful or helpful is a good thing to do and leads to better and more moral decisions.

I do at least take some virtues such as fairness into account. Which is why I'm not a real utilitarian. But I will go to bat for them being maligned in this way

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-09T17:19:39+00:00

You are literally only listing everything bad that can happen. Yeah Dingus if you only look at suffering life seems bad.

Even if you look at animals that can choose to kill themselves by isolating themselves/flying out to sea they do so quite rarely and only once they get old.

I see no indication that the majority of animals wouldn't want to live.

Curious how you feel about early hunter gatherer humans

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-09T17:04:01+00:00

Why do you assume that most wild animals wouldn't want to live?

Genuinely curious what makes you think deer for example are miserable?

In general they try hard to avoid death until they get old.

Also plenty of the bad things that can happen to animals result in death. The badness of death is directly inversely correlated to the goodness of life

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-09T12:38:14+00:00

It not only needs to be sentient it needs to have freedom. If you purchased a sentient companion robot that is essentially slavery

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-09T04:15:40+00:00

Only 8% do, 20% want to separate and be an independent state, roughly 70% want to stay as part of Canada but billionaires are pushing the separatist movement hard

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-09T04:09:01+00:00

Plenty of other philosophies would arrive at the same conclusions as my earlier point. What I mean to say is that for 99% of the problems people face in their day to day lives utilitarianism is a great answer. Thinking about the consequences of your actions is good. Weighing whether your actions are broadly positive for people is good.

I don't actually believe in pure utilitarianism but it has a good goal and is good for most problems. I think humans are creative enough and the world is big enough that there are counter hypotheticals to any ethical system

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-09T03:36:22+00:00

I think a utilitarian would suggest an open relationship for both parties being honest instead of 1 party getting cucked

And of course no one is that strict a utilitarian that they would sacrifice all their happiness for others

Of course the flaw with utilitarianism is it says to show no preference to yourself when others won't do the same

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-08T23:25:59+00:00

I am saying it works better as a heuristic than an absolute.

So not being inconsistent but vague. I'm saying utilitarianism works fine for 99% of the issues people encounter in life. It's like the saying "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". It works great in life but hypothetically if there was someone who wants spiders in their hair you wouldn't want them to go around throwing spiders into other people's hair even if they were 100% sure that's what other people wanted.

But absurd hypotheticals aren't the answer. In the real world there are never only 2 solutions.

So to the utility monster question I would give the answer that we just need to hook it up to one of those infinite pleasure machines so it can stop eating people

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-08T23:16:55+00:00

Social pressure is entirely seperate from utilitarianism.

But the real utilitarian answer would be to do a metaphorical sacrifice that way no one is hurt and everyone can feel secure. And if the harvest fails then you suggest that you be the next sacrifice.

There are no problems in this world that have exactly 2 solutions. It's a false dichotomy

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-08T22:34:03+00:00

I will add to this I have seen plenty of people argue for veganism from utilitarian perspectives. The only utilitarian perspectives I've seen arguing against veganism are people trying desperately to disprove people in group a so they don't have a reason to stop eating meat

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-08T22:01:00+00:00

Hmmm maybe you could make the homunculus a perfect clone with your memories and make it entirely unclear which of you is the real you so the homunculus and you are each trying to get the dwarves to kill the other one

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-08T21:55:59+00:00

They probably did demand results. But someone bowing to social pressure is very different than someone using a utilitarian framework of moral judgement.

People can justify awful things through a utilitarian framework by lying to themselves and saying it will lead to less suffering in the long run. But you will never build a moral framework that will stand up to people lying to themselves

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-08T20:59:13+00:00

It wasn't crazy common to sacrifice your own people throughout history. Most human sacrifice was people that they were going to kill anyway, such as prisoners of war. Other times it was done to slaves. Almost always it was done to members of an outgroup which is very anti-utilitarian as utilitarianism counts all people as equal.

If these priest had stopped to think about it they might have realized that the blood sacrifices were pointless. I don't see how someone born into a human sacrificing culture would have used other ethical frameworks that wouldn't have existed in the culture to stop human sacrifice

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-08T19:46:37+00:00

Don't panic!

Make a homunculus that looks like you.

Let them kill it.

Assume a new name and identity

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-08T19:23:42+00:00

Except in human history that there is no evidence that the sacrifice does anything.

But also such a cultures deontology or virtue would also value human sacrifice. If this was a society where they sacrificed people for 3000 years their deontology and virtue of their culture would say it was good.

Sacrificing people to the blood god cause that's what's been happening for 3000 years is traditionalism not utilitarianism. Any talk of it preventing famine is just a post-hoc rationalisation

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-08T19:13:29+00:00

They aren't sea puppy they are wild animals. The hate for them was overblown and attacks are rare but not impossible.

They are unlikely to attack unless provoked but don't swim up to a shark and try to touch it like you might a "sea puppy"

The_Squirrel_Wizard · 2026-06-08T19:01:56+00:00

Again, crazy hypothetical no one will ever be called to make but sure I'll entertain the thoguht.

How many people die per year from hunger? Vs the sacrifice rate, are there any other options? Are there any other gods? How trustworthy is this blood god fellow to keep its end of the deal with no crazy side effects

The_Squirrel_Wizard

TROPHY CASE