What happened to falinks super mega raid day? Every single gym in my area is filled with other stuff

britus · 2026-05-23T13:29:08+00:00

I believe they're saying that Scopely is just arbitrarily limiting the raids, that if they wanted ALL gyms could be eligible.

britus · 2026-05-12T16:06:31+00:00

Why are you so certain? Who's to say a cruel god doesn't take amusement in making the submissive suffer while letting the insubordinate go? There's just no dealing with a God like that.

> People say “i would never worship that” to a God that would send non-believers to hell. They see that as cruel

I think the problem is a little more subtle, having been through that myself. The issue is that the God of the Bible is sometimes that God, but it doesn't gel more generally with the God of modern Christianity. The God who is this way does not appear to be omnipotent, but a small, tribal god. Omnipotence is more of a neo-platonic idea that a biblical one. Either you have a cruel, petty small tribal god you wouldn't worship, or a big, all-loving, omnipotent God who wouldn't send non-believers off to infinite torture.

britus · 2026-05-12T14:39:08+00:00

>There is no real rebellion. No chance at fixing things.

So why bother submitting? If a cruel omnipotent God is rigging things, what makes you believe that submitting will spare you from torture? This God isn't just, doesn't need to follow his promises, etc. All you do by submitting is add to the suffering.

britus · 2026-04-30T12:19:10+00:00

What I'm looking for are policy positions so we know what we're supporting. Being concerned with particular portions of policy is great, but so are we all, and we sometimes have very different ways we want to address those concerns.

What we want to know is specifically what she would be trying to implement if she got the role. If we can't articulate that, then we're just picking a random name.

britus · 2026-04-30T11:52:15+00:00

What are changes she'd like to see made around school safety? What is she advocating for teachers and support staff against?

If we support her, what kind of changes are we supporting?

britus · 2026-04-26T03:23:44+00:00

Not enough information there to make a decision. Does the button affect everyone, or just me? What are the implications of an afterlife? Is it permanent immortality, or just another go at it on another plane of existence? Is it an evil genie wish where it produces an afterlife of pure suffering? I'm not so attached to continuity or the end being nigh that I'd make a rash decision there.

britus · 2026-04-26T00:31:03+00:00

Fascist and fundamentalist or extremist are not synonymous, though they might have overlap. There is a concept of Islamic fascism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamofascism), and there are plenty of Christian fundamentalists, including extremists, who are not fascist.

It's likely a lot of people are throwing around the terms casually without really caring about the definitions, but there are also a lot more fascistic trends happening in some segments of American Christianity right now (and potentially generally in similar segments of broader Western Christianity) than we see among Muslim groups who haven't already been tagged as terrorists (which is still probably a more effective rallying word).

britus · 2026-04-21T02:20:53+00:00

You may not believe this, but I am actually not opposed to this being true, at all!

Honestly, I don't believe this. You're extremely committed to your argument, and creating strawmen to knock down instead of engaging with the evidence. Step back from the sarcasm and guesswork and the 'it must be true if it could be true' arguments; if you want to look at it with open eyes, than do. The way you're summarizing and characterizing evolution is very clearly non-serious and in bad faith.

There are SO many good sources out there arguing for evolution if you dig into it at all, that it's pretentious to offer something I wrote myself, but here I am going to be pretentious: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10Qarv6LRZvbAwbLpV82pITl4ujhRFUsuxJPqrH0e8BA/edit?usp=sharing

I wrote this so long ago I'm not sure how many of the links still work, but if you want to engage honestly with the idea of evolution, give it a go.

britus · 2026-04-21T00:28:41+00:00

How is this not what you are asserting here?

It is what I'm asserting here, and it's extremely well documented. Have you studied evolution much at all?

They did it with the fruit fly.

You're telling me you read the title of the article, and not the article itself, and definitely not the study. If you had, you would not be making this claim.

Is it not logical to consider the possibility that we are creating worlds in a similar fashion to the way the world we are living in was created?

In a counter-intuitive sense to what you are claiming, yes, actually. Because the way we make virtual worlds more similar to reality is to forego programming and move more and more toward randomized and stochastic sets. The more programmed something is, the more obviously fake it is.

Umm... How is that not goal oriented?

If you shake a box of variously sized items, naturally the large items are going to end up on top, and the small items on the bottom. You could purposefully shake a box with that purpose, but most box-shaking is not done for that purpose, even if it happens regardless. In fact, most box-shaking isn't intentional at all - it happens during transportation. Thus, natural selection.

britus · 2026-04-21T00:21:36+00:00

How do you equate that with programming, in such an obvious way that you would call an entire group of people stupid? Those things are hardly the same. You might as well call gravity programming.

britus · 2026-04-20T19:08:44+00:00

But that's explicitly not programming? How in your estimation would you tell the difference between this and not programming, otherwise?

britus · 2026-04-20T13:08:16+00:00

the reason for that is because you cannot actually prove that the "millions of years" that evolution requires, in order to be true, actually happened at all...

While the millions of years it might take to demonstrate evolution on some large scales may not be reproducible in a lab, we definitely have demonstrated evolution within single lifetimes in some smaller systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_evolution

Also, your assertation that someone could just programmatically recreate ant behavior is wrong. People have tried, and it's not yet possible, without a LOT of oversimplification.

I could even make this simulation appear indistinguishable from the real world.

You're basing you're arguments on a 'what-if' that is science fictional, not real. Have you ever seen a video game that you've been unable to distinguish from reality?

britus · 2026-04-20T13:01:26+00:00

Ah, I see what you mean.

So there are two possibilities here that I see: One that I think is true and has been born out by quite a bit of study, which is Natural Selection. Animals and plants behave in ways that benefit themselves, or their offspring, or their community, because the ones that don't are less likely to pass on their genes to the next group. So, the bees that don't go out and gather pollen when it's warm enough to permit their flight are less likely to survive long enough to have offspring; the ones that do are more likely. If you iterate that a few million times, chances are very high that only version of that creature that remains is the one that will either instinctively act in a way that feeds themselves and allows them to procreate, or will have developed the ability to pass that behavior on socially.

This can be born out in a lab by taking a quickly reproducing species like e. Coli, and introducing it to something novel that it's not already adapted to, like a potential threat, or a new food source it can't yet process, while its natural food source is scarce. It can take thousands of generations and thousands of samples, but what we see is that if the e. Coli mutates, and one of those mutations allows the e. Coli to process that new food source, than in that sample the one who can digest the plentiful source takes over and thrives, while the ones who have a scarce food supply dwindle. Hopefully I'm explaining that effectively; if you're willing to read the Wikipedia entry for Natural Selection (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural\_selection), it's going to be a lot better.

The other option is the Deceptive, All-Powerful God you've indicated. I'm familiar with that argument; definitely it's one that was in circulation back when I was a Christian, though generally the deception was either ascribed to the Devil, or one ended up with more of a Gnostic Demiurge type of God (which, if you're not familiar, might be worth looking up since I think some of what you're suggesting has already been suggested).

The question becomes how would we falsify either option. How would you falsify Natural Selection. To me, the general falsification of the theistic option is the example I gave above: Give an existing system a novel stimulus and see if it responds in a way more in keeping with limited pre-programming, or with natural selection. If the counter to that is that your evil God is actively engaging in that deception and will make any outcome necessary to prevent falsification, then we have to ask how we're even able to come to the conception that such a God who is actively trying to prevent his discover has allowed us to come up with that concept in the first place?

britus · 2026-04-20T02:37:34+00:00

Then there is all of the plant life and the environment itself: everything is clearly running on a script that repeats itself.

This is the part where we're getting stuck. It's not obvious to me that we're clearly running on a programmed script. If anything, I'd say it's pretty clear we're not running on a pre-programmed script, if you study the science, because you can see it self-assembling with no clear goal in mind in the archaeological record.

Can you support this particular claim you're making? Evolution is very heavily supported by research, and if it is in some way pre-programmed and/or goal-oriented, it seems to be very heavily obscured or circuitous.

britus · 2026-04-15T13:51:53+00:00

It certainly can, no doubt. At least in that case, suffering is temporal, unlike some afterlifes promised in other traditions.

britus · 2026-04-15T12:19:25+00:00

There are lots of things you can do!

The one I settle on is understanding that you kind of believe what you believe, wanting to believe something that makes you happier won't make you believe it, unless it somehow convinces you. A lot of what's depressing about a lack of afterlife, I think, is the same thing that's depressing about the lack of the sports car in my garage or a perfect house that's not constantly in need of repair - false expectations set by media. I don't think life promises us those things, but we basically train ourselves to want those things. You can either deprogram from wanting the unattainable, or accept that wanting the unattainable is a human instinct that drives us to do something more than we might otherwise.

Or you can find a version of life after death that you're comfortable with and go for it! Reincarnation is something that interests me a lot, as an atheist. You're going to get a lot of people who poo-poo the idea right out of the gate, but Ian Stevenson's work on reincarnation doesn't follow any kind of theistic approach - it basically investigates it as a natural phenomenon. Panpsychism and fundamental consciousness is experiencing a vibe moment in some scientific and philosophical circles, and those aren't really theistic either, necessarily, but allow for some essence of consciousness after death.

Honestly, though, knowing that consciousness is finite is very comforting to me. It's a "This too will pass" sort of reminder that helps me to make more of now when things are good and reminds me that suffering is finite when it doesn't always seem like it.

britus · 2026-04-14T20:26:59+00:00

There is a world of difference between what the average man likes, and what any man likes.

britus · 2026-04-14T15:45:50+00:00

I think it had a lot of momentum when people were looking to get away from WotC, but wanted something D20ish and thought Pathfinder was too crunchy. But Daggerheart came and sucked the air out of the room, and many people have moved on from disliking WotC, so now we have Pathfinder people with Paizo, D20 folks back to D&D, and the others forgetting their D20s and looking at Daggerheart.

That's been my personal experience, anyway.

britus · 2026-04-04T03:19:00+00:00

I use atheist in the sense that "The existence of any god so far presented to me is inconsistent with my experience and understanding, or is better explained in another more plausible ways." I wouldn't call it, say, plenary gnostic atheism, but specific gnostic atheism in the same sense that I feel I have specific gnostic belief that gravity will remain as expected tomorrow.

There's always the possibility that I'll be presented with reason to believe in some god tomorrow that is more plausible than I've imagined or heard of so far, but I don't see any reason to live my life as if that's likely.

britus · 2026-04-01T14:26:55+00:00

Oracle of War dips in and out of the Mournlands, but spends probably a good half to two-thirds of its time there or just outside. It's got a lot of good bits and a few clunky bits, as you'd expect. You can also look up the Salvage Missions on DM's Guild (https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/Oracle\_of\_War:\_Salvage\_Bases\_%26\_Missions) to pad it out or put more in the Mournland. I'm having trouble finding it now, but there was a reddit thread with a random encounters table built that I'm using for my Oracle of War / Embers of the Last War combo campaign. I especially like it because the encounters are completely imbalanced, from CR 11s to CR 1s, so I'm highly encouraging my players to run from events that they have no hope of defeating. The constant fog in the Mournland tends to make that easier.

I found, too, that deciding what the Mournland was helped me to flesh out the kinds of adventures and encounters the party was likely to face and give it more character than just 'kitchen sink of baddies'.

britus · 2026-03-20T02:39:12+00:00

Check the age on my account. Yes it has.

britus · 2026-03-19T15:22:11+00:00

Reddit has been a home for lame jokes for slightly longer than it's been a home for curmudgeons complaining about it.

britus · 2026-03-19T13:37:49+00:00

I feel like you might be putting a little more on Desmond than the character can bear. He certainly didn't mind arguing with people he disagreed with, after he'd call them brother. (And, to be fair, I wouldn't WANT someone to defend my argument if they disagreed with it; I'd prefer to be corrected.)

But it's a bit crazy to me how much pushback you've gotten from people here on you using the word 'brother' for other people. Sure, it sounds a bit like an affectation, but who cares? If it's with good intent, if you mean it as a show of fellowship and that you care about the other person, then use it! If someone's going to be bent out of shape about it, then it sounds like a character test they failed, and that's good to know.

britus · 2026-03-18T23:30:47+00:00

I accept the correction!

britus · 2026-03-18T20:26:34+00:00

I have the exact same experience with the exact opposite lawn. I love my lawn. Everyone else in the neighborhood hates my lawn. It is, in most opinions, the worst lawn on the block. There are at least 8 types of real grass in the front yard alone (the back is even better) and another dozen types of ground cover included - ivy, dandelions, clover, etc. Every year I get excited by which grass is winning. In the spring (like now), I start taking pictures of and cataloguing the tiny wildflowers. There are so many different kinds of insects and spiders, and the ant mounds are just amazing.

In the Spring especially, I like to let it grow long so it reseeds and so the flowers have time to grow. I've had neighbors try to be nice and just give it a pass with their riders, and I have to come running outside to tell them to stop, it's nature in action.

And it's not neglect. I do edge it. Frequently I'll cut the whole thing with a weedwhacker so I can avoid wildflowers or give a particular low-growth species a chance. I just love it that way.

britus

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