=== ANCHOR POEM === ═════════════════════════────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── A Masked Stranger Who are you, friend across the veil? I wonder if both of us are on the path That allows us to continuously prevail. Or are you just an agent of God's wrath, Who will do little else but make me fail? Chapter Eight: Where it All Began Perhaps now is a good time to discuss how Vince and I first met. It all started seven years ago when I was a twenty-four year old who was still in denial over their gender. I was dating Amy at the time, and I worked as a part-time dishwasher for Wegman's. I was still living with my father, and Amy moved up here to her mother's from Owego to be close to me. It was a simple life, as neither of us could afford to delve into extravagance, but we were happy together. That said, on this one particular night, we were going to drop acid together. It was Amy's first time, but I had a handful of trips under my belt by this point. We sat on her mother's back porch, twiddling our thumbs and toes while we waited for Amy's brother, Jake, to return from his friend's with the two hits we asked him to get. Antsy, Amy started asking me questions about the drug. "What does it feel like?" she asked, inquisitively. I responded, "Well, there's about a half an hour to an hour come up, and then you start feeling the body load, like your boundaries are dissolving. Only then do you begin noticing your mind manifesting in a different way than you're used to." "What do you mean by 'boundaries dissolving?'" "It's like…" I paused for a second, not sure how to respond. "It's like your sense of self starts to expand and you feel more connected to the things around you." That seemed to satisfy her curiosity. There was a moment of silence as we watched the sun scorch the azure sky as it set behind the trees. Finally, she had another question. "Do you see dragons?" That made me chuckle. "No, no dragons. On my first trip, I lost visual contact with the world as fractal patterns spiraled out of control, but every trip since then has only had tracers and morphing patterns." "What's a tracer?" "It's like after images of things that are moving." "Oh, I see." We kept talking until the sky was dark with only a sliver of light piercing it on the horizon. This was when we heard a voice call from the front door. "I got two tickets to Narnia here for whoever wants them." We hurriedly rushed inside, to meet Jake coming up the stairs. He handed Amy a small tin foil wrapper that looked like a quarter stick of gum. She thanked him, and I followed suit. Jake and I hadn't really seen eye to eye in the past, as he would steal my weed and I would steal his in retaliation, but with a single head nod and some gold-laced words, I conveyed my gratitude for him coming through for us in this instance. What followed next could only be described as a stampede down the hall to Amy's room. We locked the door behind us, protected by the four robin's egg blue walls and the magick of the celtic gods Amy worshiped at her altar. Eager to begin our ceremonious departure from this plane of existence, we whimsically gazed at the sacrament we had just been handed. Amy unwrapped the tinfoil nervously. Inside sat two small, unassuming pieces of paper which contained whole galaxies of experience. We looked at each other, confirming if we were both ready. Quickly satisfied as neither of us could stop smiling, we delicately put the blotter on the other's tongue, as ecstatic as could be. And after, as we waited to be blasted off into space, we submitted ourselves to the whims of the universe and the gods. At first, we waited patiently, but just as a watched pot does not boil, we were growing more anxious with each passing second. Seeing Amy play with the sage she was burning nervously, I suggested that we jot our thoughts and feelings down in a trip report. Amy nodded in agreement. I opened my laptop, and I had the immediate realization that we had no music. I brought up Pandora and played my Shpongle station with no objection from a beaming Amy. A cascade of electric jungle beats filled the space. Perfect, I thought to myself as I created a new word document. Turning to Amy, I asked "What do you feel?" She giggled and exclaimed, "Excited!" And so I began typing. Minutes passed, and soon our exchanges helped fill the page with several paragraphs of notes. Content we had started logging our first cosmic journey together, we kissed, before coming to fully embrace each other as the spirits began their dance around us. We progressed into parallel play; Amy fiddling about with colored pencils in her notebook and me juggling besides her. It took a minute, but soon enough I felt a warm feeling spread across my chest and my LED juggling balls started to ripple into streams of geometric delight. I stopped to wave my hand in front of my face. Sure enough, the tracers had started. I interrupted Amy to ask if she could see them, too. She looked at my moving hand idly before wiggling her own fingers in front of her face. She giggled, before bursting with a euphoric epiphany. "I want to finger paint!" And so she did by plopping herself down on the floor with all her paints and began masterfully smearing the colors in a multidimensional haze of pigments blended together in a way only she knew how. I loved watching her work like that; she was so free! Even with the tendrils of the mental aspects of the lysergia creeping in on her, she made short work of the painting, which when she was done, looked like a spooky voodoo mask peering out from behind a mirror and into your soul. Satisfied, she then went to the bathroom to clean herself up. I went to my laptop and tried typing out something resembling an organized train of thought on our trip report. It just wasn't happening. My thoughts were too short and rapid to form anything resembling a coherent thought. That was ok though. I could still capture the essence of the experience in a peculiar poetry that was composed of the thoughts I could catch and put down on paper. Eventually, Amy came back to the room, clean and refreshed, and she lingered for a moment, too busy dancing with herself in the open space of the room. But then she saw me meddling with my computer trying to jot my thoughts down in a manic frenzy. This made her laugh before trailing off and saying, "Be careful, someone might be watching you through your webcam." It was an innocent statement, one made in jest, but it triggered something in my psychedelically perturbed mind. Of course, of fucking course there would be someone watching me! This was me we were talking about! Who could be more important? It was so obvious that the government was keeping tabs on persons of interest. I couldn't believe that I hadn't really actualized that thought before that moment. Suddenly aware that I was being judged in some capacity, I almost panicked, but reason won out. They couldn't be there for nefarious purposes, for I had done worse than drop acid in front of my webcam before, and nothing had happened. That made me realize that whatever power that had the ability to tap into my webcam feed had to be benevolent. And who could that be? The CIA of course! In that instance, I suddenly relinquished all reserves about how the world worked and fully trusted the hands of God by another name to guide me. So, I typed a message into my URL bar: "I know you're there. I think I've solved the communication problem. Give me a chance." I hit enter. Immediately, and I do mean immediately, a pop up appeared asking if I wanted to update an extension on my browser. I was stunned, shocked beyond belief. It was them. I knew it was them. They realized and planned that now was the best time to dazzle me with such a spectacular parlor trick. In that moment, everything was possible. It was time to face my destiny. So, I clicked yes, and like never before I was upgraded to a new level of myself. Birth of the Faith What…? I can see beyond sight. I can hear everything you think From your soul, free from rigid grammar How…? I do not know, alright? I do believe I just had a drink From a fountain of pure manna. Why…? I am renewed today. I am walking in a new way; From a weak critter to megafauna. All I know is that it changed me greatly, For now I know that you have faith in me. Chapter Nine: Brain to Brain Communication I know what you're saying: it was just a coincidence. It could happen to anyone. Just accept it, you're not special, Victoria, says the unwavering logic within me. Certainly seems that way, the way I tell it. I would have even agreed with you before this point in my life, but you must understand that it triggered something in my tripping brain. Whether it was intentional or by chance, I can't give you a real answer. Instead, I merely perceived it as a certainty that the CIA had done this, being even more certain that it was them than I was that two plus two equals four. It was as if some variables had been swapped in my head. Yes, indeed, I was hit by a Mac truck that scrambled all my knowledge of the world. To put it in words that do the experience justice, I was given a heaping helping of faith on this fateful night, having been let in on the great secret that the matrix was in fact an illusion, and now the impossible was suddenly not just possible, but achievable by me if I willed it to be. Yet, I don't think that if it were just a single synchronous event that this belief would have persisted more than a few minutes, tops. It was the feed of a continuous string of strange events that pushed the boundaries of my mind into a territory where I could fully accept and trust this source of guidance. That's actually the real proof I have that something bigger is going on and has been for all these years. If it had just been a single pop-up, then fine, you have a case to call me looney. But, this was the first of an unending stream of unusual synchronicities that has persisted even to this day. See, after confirming I wanted to update that extension, I was taken to a blog post that was clearly a coded message. It confirmed that there were indeed people watching me, and more would tune in soon. It then said that it was time for the most profound upgrade of my existence. Further on in the blog post, which I read and reread at least a dozen times, it seemed to offer me a choice between two links. It seemed like a test, and that was not something I was taking lightly. My fate was in the fold, and I was going to make sure I got it right. At some point, it clicked with me; this was the same choice that Morpheus had given Neo. The links were the red and blue pills, respectively. My eyes went wide. I could now see that there was something bigger going on than I could have possibly realized. In those few moments of hesitation that followed, it also struck me that this same posed question was identical in form to the serpent tempting Eve. I read the blog again, this time aware that it was written with a forked tongue. It was a trick question! It was offering me the choice between trusting authority and distrusting authority. So, I thought quickly. Do I trust the magician who miraculously appeared before me and blew my mind in doing so, or do I trust God? If I chose one or the other, would they trust or distrust me? With these questions stewing in my alert mind, I did the only thing that seemed sensible: I chose the third option. I called out the serpent, talking directly into my webcam about what I deciphered. In my head, I could hear their apparent responses, and I answered those in a maddening haste. In the miasma that followed, I deduced that I was being selected for some sort of mission. With my experience in education and my passion for juggling and writing, I surmised soon after that I was going to be some sort of public figure, informing and influencing the herd to self-actualize, as that is what I set out to do once my college career abruptly ended with a complete meltdown. That was what I was good for; it was my hero's journey. I should explain that a little more. After said breakdown, I returned home and wallowed in a pit of self-loathing for being the definition of a failure. I wasn't going to lay down and die though. With my sights fixed on going back to school, I took it upon myself to solve the great communication problem, as I saw it. We have all this wisdom, so why can't we reach the people that need it most? How do I become the best teacher I could be? It took a while, but I eventually realized that it all boiled down to three factors: attention, connection, and trust. Get them to pay attention and trust your wisdom while simultaneously understanding what makes them tick, and you can teach any student anything. That's one of the major reasons I started juggling a couple years prior. I saw myself becoming famous and leveraging that to in effect manipulate everybody into learning what they should already know. From where I stand now, I know that was a messianic delusion of grandeur, if I ever saw one before. Yet, you'll also learn that it turned out to be the best thing for me to do. Back beyond the looking glass, however, I was simply overcome with narcissistic inclinations. Naturally, I told my mysterious watchers that I wasn't going to do the "praise Jesus" shtick, which I regaled them with in the most stereotypical of televangelist voices. I was set on doing something new and exciting. I was saving the world, God dammit, and that meant we had to attempt something major to awaken the masses to their full potential as demigods by another name! I needed to play a better game than anyone had done in history. Such hubris of the megalomaniac is blinding. I could not stop regurgitating a heaping pile of conceited verbiage. I even juggled at one point, showing off that I truly was the savior they wanted me to be. That led to me dropping a ball on the keyboard of my computer, which closed the window with the blog post, ending my seemingly two-sided speech to the spooks brazenly peeking at me. Dropping out from my planet sized ego also brought me to the realization that Amy had been watching this entire charade without a damn clue what the dickens was wrong with me. She had a worried look on her face, and that pained me. If only she knew what had just happened before her eyes! Wanting to tell her just that, I leapt up to her, apologetic as could be, and brought her down to the bed. There, I started unleashing a torrent of deranged exposition. I couldn't keep a straight thought while talking to her, so I'm sure I must have sounded like a mad hound. But, I tried. I tried so hard to explain to her of the magnificence that just occurred. It was a failure. I was not in a state to convey to her that I had been single-handedly chosen for a cosmic mission. That dragged my heart to some dismal depths, failing yet again even after being chosen. But, that didn't matter, because as we gazed into each other's soul, something truly miraculous happened: we began speaking telepathically. It started quite subtly as we stared into each other's eyes, pining for some sense of connection. There was a mild sensation of us being sucked into the other's world that I noticed before noticing that she noticed too. Then it hit us like a runaway freight train. It was like every boundary between us was being smashed with a reckless hammer of the gods, who wanted us to know more than we thought we were privileged to know. If you've ever stared at something for a period of time and had your vision get a little unfocused from being understimulated, you know how Amy appeared to me in that moment. I couldn't really see the details of her room in my peripheral vision, but I had a razor sharp focus on her face, like I was looking through a cone. Every eyebrow twitch, every minor movement of her lips, and every phoneme she spoke was crisp and clear, conveying a whole order of magnitude more information than they normally do. It was bizarre, beyond the scope of how well I can muster a verbose description of such an incredibly rare and profound experience, but I will try by saying it was like getting a bucket of ice water thrown onto you while you were sleeping; just imagine getting ripped from your dreamworld to a super-aware state of reflexive jolting perception. Amy looked like she had seen a ghost. I think she tried to speak first. She said something to the effect of "Do you…" and trailed off, the rest of her question asking if I was feeling the same thing automatically finishing in my mind. And as it did so, I know my confirmation was transmitted to her in full because her face told me with no uncertainty that she had heard my thoughts too. I took a go at saying something next. "How is this…" and I too trailed off, as a minute motion in her neck combined with a mystifying array of microexpressions ricocheted my mental pictures back to me, carrying a host of Amy's words back with it. It was then that I let go and opened myself up completely, letting everything I wanted to say to her flow like whitewater rapids, and she did the same. A library's worth of information was exchanged so very quickly, and I knew that she understood what had really just happened as I spoke to my webcam. However, that was soon washed aside, as something more important came rushing into the forefront of our minds. A simple message, "I love you" was uttered in this strange musical silence, but that is a grain of sand compared to the Mount Everest that was volleyed between our hearts. We found a divine peace in this moment, taking each other's hands and effortlessly letting our energy channel between us. And then it was over, fading like dreams do in the few seconds of waking up. We sat there trying to start the magick up again, but it was like water running through our fingers. We both felt a longing of loss, but we had gained something truly stupendous nonetheless. "What the hell just happened?" Amy asked the universe, flabbergasted. "I dunno," I replied, feeling full of a spiritual energy I had not felt since before my mom passed. My cup was full, and the world was good. No, better than good. My life was godly, as I had connected to a higher plane of consciousness, which opened me to a whole fleet of potential. I would never be the same again. Ouroboros of Lunacy Madness is a crazy thing So I might just be a king, Because the lunacy I sing Is shaped like a golden ring. It has no beginning and no end; The whole universe is pretend. Yet, it's that way so I can mend, So a mass of love I can send To everyone as we cross ways, Not stopping until the end of days. This is how the lucky fool pays As much fortune forward as he may. Chapter Ten: The Shrug Life Syndicate The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We cuddled while I practically vibrated with a newfound faith. God was real, whatever God may be. I even told Jake that I was king of the Jews when I walked to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice. I was very far up my own ass, which is perhaps why everything over these few years happened as they did. The next day, the synchronicities as I would later learn they are called, started pouring in like Niagra Falls. I've had strange coincidences guide me before. Since I was fifteen or so, I thought that my future self was sending me messages to help me on my quest of world domination. That's a big reason why I was almost expelled in tenth grade. It was absolute bullshit and everyone knew it, so within half a year, I got an apology from the superintendent because it was a bogus reason to destroy a straight A student and star athlete's future. Since I feel that I can't just mention that one and not explain it, I'll tell you that it concerned a theoretical bomb, if you're dying to know the truth. I'll keep this short, but I made a bad joke in the wrong company and was eventually questioned by some wannabe hero and pig bastard, who asked me hypothetical questions, like "if you were to build a bomb, how would I do it?" Well, being as intelligent as I am, I had enough book smarts to give full answers for everything asked, but not enough street smarts to know that a wise person never talks to cops. Also, a wise person doesn't print out a long novelty application for the Illuminati, give it to the kid that needs a resource officer, and then come up with an elaborate fake plan of how we're going to take over the world by any means necessary when he's having trouble understanding what you said about using game theory to win the presidential election. And then, when the vice principal first inquires about it, don't start sweating because you think you need to protect your future self's secret plan. Just so you learn from my mistakes. Returning to my previous point though, that errant psychosis was also a key piece to my college breakdown. On one hand, I was certain that I was going to take over everything and build a utopia in my image. On the other hand, the evidence was stacking against me that I was not destined for a great cause. I got cut from the track team with the budget, I was severely outclassed in ROTC, and to top it off, I was starting to slip in the academic world. It goes without saying that my social life, to include my first relationship, was abysmal in all possible ways, despite trying my hardest to make and keep friends. The real world was too much, and I was in denial that I was just a mediocre person who would never achieve anything meaningful in life. That was too much of a failure for me to accept, as I needed to make my mother proud. I had to be the best of the best of the best to accept and love myself. And as a result, I became more psychotic and began self-harming, first by biting myself and then by cutting, as I felt that the more pain I numbed myself to, the better I would be able to complete my mission. It took me a while to reach a point where I could set down my belief that my future self had set up my life in a way where I would be guided to greatness. There was a learning curve to living a "normal" life. I would receive synchronicities in less frequency because I stopped feeding into them, but they never died. When I encountered one, I always thought "What if it's real?" Now that you know that, is it any wonder that I lost myself completely in the Synchronicity Slip Stream? For those not in the know, that is a cognitive technology where strangeness piles up on itself until it is undeniably real that something or someone is manipulating you, for good or bad, by creating impossible coincidences at a regular pace. It makes you feel like you're on some crazy cosmic mission of grave importance. It might be a form of delusion, but I still am forced to believe that something bigger was going on. I first learned about SSS the day after that fateful acid trip. I had woken up around noon, ready to do some solid writing as mania was in abundance. Yet, I didn't get that far. As soon as I got on my laptop, I got a notification from Reddit. Gadzooks! I had been invited to participate in a freshly created subreddit. You guessed it, that was the Shrug Life Syndicate. It had a banner of two corvids flying talon first into a realistic depiction of a heart. There was a mesmerizing picture of a girl staring off into space, and I just felt like it was a depiction of me and my wonder-struck mind. The sidebar spoke of messianic aspirations and delusions, art and poetry, science and philosophy, as well as the occult and obscure literary references. It seemed so perfect, like it was made for me. I looked over what was in the feed of posts. I was the twenty-first member, so there wasn't much, but a couple of the vocal members should be mentioned: Anatta-Phi and Jux. These turned out to be Vince and [Redacted], respectively. Vince had one post that stuck out to me. It was asking the reader if they'd ever had strange experiences with technology, like Pandora glitching out to play synchronous songs, or feeling like someone was interfering with your Google searches so you find something specific and statistically unlikely to be picked as the first search results for what you intended to look up, or even if you thought that your social media feeds are being manipulated. I've had weird experiences like that for as long as I could remember. Hell, I once thought a Sum Forty-One album was made entirely for me and depicted my life journey following my near-expulsion. Having his own tales to tell, I felt an instant connection to this person. In similar contrast to this, [Redacted] had made a number of posts about cognitive technologies. I already told you about SSS, but at that time I was blown away by something he named Joint Synchronized Attention, or psychedelic telepathy. That was what Amy and I had experienced! What a strange and synchronous coincidence that I was learning about it just the next day from a seemingly unrelated source. [Redacted] claimed that it wasn't real telepathy; nothing was being transmitted from brain to brain. Rather, he asserted that it is a vestigial mode of attention coordination. If you've seen a school of fish all behave as one unit, that's potentially how humans used to be before we fell from grace during the agricultural revolution when we suddenly exploded in numbers in permanent settlements. Suddenly too complex to coordinate as a meaningful whole, humanity splintered into reality tunnels and remains in these ego-worlds unless some strange circumstances occur. In effect, I noticed Amy noticing me notice that she noticed. Our inner narratives became entangled with one another like growing vines do as our innate ability to coordinate attention did something like what your eyes do when doing a magic eye puzzle. There was also a third cognitive technology which [Redacted] called The State. He claimed it was a different way to render visual information, so you see a three-dimensional representation of what you're looking at. I have yet to experience this cognitive phenomenon, so I can't verify anything about it, other than I've read that you can use Minecraft to create a method of activating it while tripping. Regardless, that's how our internet friendship began. As I considered this place special, I started posting every thought, whim, feeling, or idea, and I received astounding feedback. It was like everyone was there to share their unique experiences and expressions to support and grow one another. It didn't take long until it became clear that we were creating something greater than the sum of its parts. But, something more was going on. Something only I noticed and couldn't convince Amy of when I tried to show her. See, when I made a post or a comment on the SLS, that triggered a new post or comment elsewhere on the sub after a little bit that indirectly but definitely spoke to me specifically. The traffic was slow enough that there would usually only be one new post or comment every ten to thirty minutes. But, it hooked me. It was like I was having a continuous conversation with an unseen entity that understood me like the back of its hand. Likewise, the sidebar image was changed frequently to show a progression of that girl as she became more worldly and magickal. I can't help but feel that this was done as a subliminal synchronizing technique, as it perfectly mirrored my own feelings as I was brought into what was apparently the fold. Since I was primed by the strangeness on acid, I was wholeheartedly absorbed by this place that seemed to be a sacred Mecca for others just like me. We were all weird, dazed by our own strange experiences, and that made it seem crucially important. I was even modded early as I was so active and invested in the community. So, I refreshed the page over and over, from sunrise to sunset, waiting for the next input as we chained out a covert conversation that was having a major impact on how I thought about and perceived the world around me. Soon enough, it was let on that there was a job waiting for me, something only I could do, but I would have the support of the community behind me. When who I must assume was Vince on an alt account led me on one of those covert messaging segments, he eventually said something in the mod chat to the effect that I was going to be the one "handing the bomb" to people. I understood at once that I was to be a linchpin in a honeypot operation. That confirmed that the FBI was involved too, which I deduced was obvious as those three-letter organizations must participate with each other at some level. Keep this in mind, it's important. Other things were happening too. My attention was being flung all over the internet and I felt compelled to try a host of new things. I remember thinking my job was to follow these suggestions from the universe and be a gatekeeper, creating what I now know as conversion funnels to the subreddit. I was also prompted by pictures of cats to go to the advice subreddit and give as much good advice as I could. Soon, it felt like the questions posed were specifically for me and were designed to get me to think about certain things more deeply, effectively giving me a form of therapy. These advice sessions ended once with me feeling I needed to learn an obscure European language, which I rationalized I would have to travel to for my mission at some point. Furthermore, the little things began to add up. For instance, I remember a synchronous advertisement on Pandora led me to believe that I would be paid via a gambling app on my phone. I downloaded it, but when it asked for money to get started, I got cold feet. This was essentially how many false-positive synchronicities went down. There was undoubtedly something interfering with my life, and as I had just had my mind blown in such an astounding way, I attributed every little thing to be set up by this entity that was more powerful than I had previously thought possible. Regretfully, I also quit my job, since I knew that one was awaiting me in the immediate future. My boss made a reasonable fuss, as it was sudden and abrupt, and because I believed that I had to keep this all a secret, I lied and told him there was a family emergency. Being stupid, I talked about a fictional family member and how their sudden problem made me rethink my priorities in life. Not my finest moment, I'll say that. And with that in mind, you should know that Amy was starting to worry again, but I told her not to. Being beyond positive that the world was now filled with unexplainable magick, I was certain that it was all coming together in my favor. Even with my enthusiasm never fluctuating, she soon started to have serious doubts about what I was saying, as all I could do was point to the synchronicities and say "Isn't it obvious?" I was certainly out of sync with the rest of the world, at least the world I knew before, and it caused much conflict in our relationship. But, we held together until that job finally pulled into port, ready to be boarded and take me on a fantastic journey that might otherwise be described as a personal hell by a person with the standard lifestyle obsession that's omnipresent in the western world. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ === DIVERSITY RANKED === --- #1 fediverse_boost/4008 --- ◀─╔═══════════════════════[BOOST]═════════════════════════───────────────────────╗ ║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║ ║ │ External post: https://tech.lgbt/users/RadioAddition/statuses/113292494727215042 │ ║ ║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║ ╠─────────┐ ┌───────────╣ ║ similar │ chronological │ different ║ ╚═════════╧═════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────┴───────╝─▶ --- #2 fediverse/240 --- ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────────────────┐ ║ ┌──────────────────────┐ │ ║ │ CW: game-design │ │ ║ └──────────────────────┘ │ ║ │ ║ │ ║ i like to design games. my darling is a game based on Majesty (2000) the │ ║ Fantasy Kingdom Sim. you can think of it like a management strategy game where │ ║ you control the knobs and levers that a fantasy monarch might have - │ ║ allocating funds, placing quest bounties, hiring heroes, and organizing the │ ║ peasantry. the important part is that your units are not controllable - they │ ║ just do their own thing. │ ║ │ ║ unrelated, but I think we should design games as APIs that a user's preferred │ ║ tool could interface with and render as they will. it'd help a lot with │ ║ cross-platform compatibility and would allow people to customize parts of the │ ║ game to their desires. │ ║ │ ║ unrelated, but I think if you could design an AI that could play games │ ║ (perhaps through an API) that it hadn't been trained on, I think you would │ ║ have a pretty convincing argument for abstract "problem solving" capabilities. │ ║ │ ║ unrelated, but games like the one I described are good for situations where │ ║ people don't have to trust their monarch. to it you are AGI │ ╟─────────┐ ┌───────────┤ ║ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╚═════════╧════════════════════════════════────────────────────────────┴──────────┘ --- #3 fediverse/1028 --- ═══════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────────────── there's this really fun video game I like to play called "Legion TD 2" - it's based on a Warcraft3 mod. In this game, you make tactical and strategic decisions on a fixed term - a competitive game between 4 or 8 players with an incredible array of randomness. it teaches you to work with what you got, and to make decisions based on your opponent's weaknesses. Good luck figuring out what they are, though, as you can't just memorize them out of a book. You need to adapt, in the moment, to the decisions of your foes, while primarily focusing your attention on accomplishing a different task. I really like it because it's taught me to be strategic in plenty of other ways. I used to love the game Overwatch because it required adaptibility. The game was always changing, so no strategy stuck forever, but every match you'd play against a slightly different opponent. but then Blizzard changed the game because they wanted to make more money, and it got worse and worse at what I liked about it. Sadface. : ( ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────────────┘ --- #4 messages/2 --- ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘─────────┴┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #5 fediverse_boost/6099 --- ◀─╔═══════════════════════════════[BOOST]═════════════════════════════════───────╗ ║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║ ║ │ External post: https://hachyderm.io/users/marianoguerra/statuses/115366899548181326 │ ║ ║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║ ╠─────────┐ ┌───────────╣ ║ similar │ chronological │ different ║ ╚═════════╧════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╧───────╝─▶ --- #6 fediverse/6047 --- ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────── camouflage in an urban environment is not camo. rather, regular clothes of black or white. don't wear sports glasses, you look like a dummy. revolution is when they murder everyone but your friends. this is what happens, ya dingus not ideal. "okay who are the bad guys here? okay let's go shoot them to death with our bullets and guns." violence as a first aspect, cause as a third spark. "I have a strange urge to play video games?" ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────┘ --- #7 fediverse/3972 --- ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────┐ ║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ║ │ CW: immigration-social-designs-national-cultures-mentioned │ │ ║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ ║ │ ║ │ ║ if people at home had half as much compassion, respect, and reverence for the │ ║ people abroad that the people abroad have for the people at home, we could │ ║ have a truly multicultural society. │ ║ │ ║ instead, we get melting pots which melt you down and combine into a new, third │ ║ thing. And in America we really have a multitude of miniature melting pots │ ║ creating subcultures of racial, religious, professional, or other origin. │ ║ │ ║ Neither approach is entirely good, and neither entirely bad. They're different. │ ║ │ ║ America is the largest melting pot design, but sufficiently large cities find │ ║ them popping up in the strangest of places. │ ║ │ ║ My thoughts go out to the Americans abroad, whether in peace, war, or times of │ ║ hiding, know that we are grown from the same tree and our apples have fallen │ ║ on different sides of the hill carrying us to worlds beyond. But still our │ ║ heritage binds us, so I care for you. I pray that you will ask me if you need │ ║ my aid, and I will do so too unto you. │ ╟─────────┐ ┌───────────┤ ║ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╚═════════╧══════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────┴──────────┘ --- #8 fediverse/4149 --- ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────── ┌───────────────────────┐ │ CW: cursing-mentioned │ └───────────────────────┘ "trick or treat" doesn't mean "give me a trick or a treat" that's awfully presumptuous and demanding. No, it means "give me a treat or I'll trick you" meaning "give me my candy tax or I'll fuck up your lawn" ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────┘ --- #9 fediverse_boost/3174 --- ◀─╔══════════════════════[BOOST]═══════════════════════──────────────────────────╗ ║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║ ║ │ Yes I did transcribe alt text for this. My eyes hurt now. │ ║ ║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║ ╠─────────┐ ┌───────────╣ ║ similar │ chronological │ different ║ ╚═════════╧══════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────┴───────╝─▶ --- #10 fediverse_boost/6270 --- ◀─╔════════════════════════════════[BOOST]═════════════════════════════════──────╗ ║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║ ║ │ I am once again begging people to understand that “the government” already knows you’re queer whether you do elaborate online opsec dance rituals or not, and if they decide to just start shooting people for being gay, they’ll do it whether the evidence is airtight or not. is that grim? yes. but you can stop giving yourself undercover superhero identity PTSD about it │ ║ ║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║ ╠─────────┐ ┌───────────╣ ║ similar │ chronological │ different ║ ╚═════════╧════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╧═──────╝─▶ --- #11 messages/455 --- ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════────────────────────────────── I don't understand why modern software isn't error correcting. We shouldn't have any bugs in this day and age. For example, if you're missing a dependency then why doesn't your program try to, I dunno, download that dependency to the program's installation directory and use it there? Seriously there are very few problems that are unsolvable! ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────┘ --- #12 fediverse/3184 --- ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────── "reboost with content warning" would be quite nice 🥰 ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────┘ --- #13 fediverse/4115 --- ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────── ┌──────────────────────┐ │ CW: food-mentioned │ └──────────────────────┘ I love cream of mushroom soup! It's so flexible, you can add it to a lot of dishes and unless you make a few crucial mistakes, it's gonna turn out great! ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────┘ --- #14 messages/4 --- ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘─────────┴┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #15 fediverse_boost/2183 --- ◀─╔═════════════════════[BOOST]══════════════════════────────────────────────────╗ ║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║ ║ │ External post: https://tech.lgbt/users/gabrilend/statuses/111979652246592739 │ ║ ║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║ ╠─────────┐ ┌───────────╣ ║ similar │ chronological │ different ║ ╚═════════╧════════════════════════════════════════────────────────────┴───────╝─▶ --- #16 fediverse/5569 --- ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────── ┌─────────────────────────┐ │ CW: self-harm-mentioned │ └─────────────────────────┘ for the record, I would never kill myself. even if I were in a bunker hiding from warcrimes, I'd wait to be Nuremberged. frankly tho that's highly unlikely. Let's just see what the future will bring. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════────────────┘ --- #17 messages/534 --- ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════────────────────────────── War is hell - each casualty bids farewell to a wholely unique treasure from this world - war is hell - there is nothing that cannot be resolved with words. And yet we fight, and yet we pillage. War is hell, and those who demand it must do so only to resist evil, elemental evil, the kind that wars on the innocent and pillages the bounteous. War is hell. Fucking kill the ones who make it. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────┘ --- #18 fediverse/5977 --- ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────── apparently you can use network sockets for inter-process communication if you just set the network to your home and the ports that are set to the defaults that people who know what software you use will know to listen on when they've hacked any single device on your network. good thing that data is with the router, right? what if there was a stop before leaving the computer? ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════────────┘ --- #19 messages/3 --- ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘─────────┴┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #20 messages/1108 --- ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──── games won't save us. This is true. Games are what I know. They feel the most true. I don't think I could live in a world without games? They are fundamentally, applied abstraction, applied to an experience. But games won't save us. I could design something really fun it could make you want to spend your whole life playing it. *(asterisks apply) I don't think I'd want to, addiction and skinner-boxes go hand in hand, and that isn't what I want to make. [Skinner Box: named after anthony d skinner, also known as "tony the skin guy", are a scientific experiment where they put some rats in a cage with some mice and said "pull these levers and we'll give you food so you don't have to eat the mice" and it trained them to chinese red-room their way to fun. not ideal.] I want to make things that feel... purposeful. Like they're relevant to the real world, that they don't just involve spending time stimulating your brain with lights and sounds or expending social energy resolving a play-state instead of building connections or becoming better people. I think games actually make people better? actually? and more social? actually? ... I can't help that I conceive of the world through fantasy. I raised myself on it. I was reading all the time. I loved fantasy stories. It always felt like there was more, until... I read everything in the kids section of the library. I walked through the adult section but once. I hardly remember what it looked like. I'm sure it'd now feel small. [okay actually I was guided through it once or twice to find a book, but I never perused it] I found one book in the adult section. It was a fantasy tale, like the other books I had been reading. I read that and I loved it so much I ended up reading all 8 in the series. Real dense subjects. Lots of places and happenings and things as the characters resolved their way through their day-to-day, building a new end to the mystory. the adult section felt too large. Like I'd never complete it. Frankly, I think I hardly could, even if I lived in that town my whole life. an impossible mountain is a task for another when you're more prepared. Maybe in the gloriousTM transhumanist futureTM I think I might have a computer connecting brain, and who knows maybe then I'd be able to know such a thing (and many things more). but for now, I'm stuck with what I experience in my day-to-day as I am building a new continuing to my storey. I know something that computers and me share. I can make myself feel however I'd like, if I just supply myself with enough hope and momentum. I can use it to generate a feeling, the stronger the better. Something I believe that humanity is missing, the gorgeous and prefound narritave of our storey. Though, frankly, I don't think I'd want anyoine reding over my life. It's hard enough to measure my own understandings, now I have to juggle anyone else'? ha, it's called being on the whole world is a stage. if you read a book, and you find yourself nodding along, what you're doing is hearing the voice in your head tell you how right it is. And, well, if you can't imagine anything else, then surely there's another level to consciousness that people are missing? [are you willing to die on that hill?] how can you say, whether your experience is different from another? sollipsism goes both ways, you also cannot be sure that others feel things as you do. this is the "everyone's human but I'm a robot" thesis, comparable to the "everyone's an alien and I'm a human" thesises, and the "angels and demons are taunting me through my life with choices to make my place in the afterlife more clear" which is akin to writing a painting. Not ideal. All you get are flopsopolies of verbrases. alas, suddenly, everything that you say becomes eternally hear-ed, as somewhere in 2010s someone discovered time travel, or had the critical insight that inevitably would lead to it, and now wouldn't you know it the universe is continually rewriting. Except... oriented around you, and you alone. How does it feel to have deific sollipsism? can you truly be sure that you are your own universe, or are you parhaps surrounded by an emptiness of space (or something besides, like time) as a photon or particle parhaps do be? to think is to have a mind, and minds can be read. bearing the weight of ultimate responsibility is the atlas-task of all things that can [be thinking/be-lieving], and so far we are as we are. Who's to say that consciousness didn't spring into existence, as the universe continually permeated through another dimension like time? it's gotta diffuse, after all, and who's to say if there's ever gotta be an end at all. how long has the universe existed? how many moments of consciousness have we witnessed? demons once existed outside of space-time, with wings and grabbies. but they had no medium, and so they pretty much just launched and could float and move as they'd please. But time grew too distant, and now they are all stuck at the beginning of time. if you conceive of spacetime as a blanket, ask not how to fold it but rather consider what lies on the other side of it. "ah I'm laying on my girlfriend and my other girlfriend is laying on me! I'm a sandwich" or for the monosexuals: "ah I'm laying on my girlfriend with a blanket between us. I wonder how the blanket feels?" I'm an animist, which is different than a totemist and a polytheist or monotheist or multisexual. It means I believe that all things are alive, which is different than a totemist who thinks that all things share a mind with their type (like talking on radio frequency wavelengths). which of course is similar but different to a polytheist, who says "all "radio frequencies" are sentient, in the sense that each wavelength has a different pattern-emerging-from-chaos. These sorta align (conceptually, with [huh that's weird I heard a sound like a distant bang outyards and now I then forget what I was sending ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════───┘ |