Profile for Najosz Thjsza Kjras
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Najosz Thjsza Kjras |
| Member number | 6388 |
| Title | Lifecrafter |
| Postcount | 794 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| Genetic Templating in Averum? in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Monday, November 13 2006 17:14
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quote:Kel, your train of delicious irony is less impressive when you consider I reserve as much bile for LP as I do for Avernum. :P Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Genetic Templating in Averum? in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Monday, November 13 2006 10:59
Profile
quote:Just like someone made black people out of mud, right? The biggest problem I have with Vahnatai Creationism is exactly that: it's creationism. It robs the gravity and dignity a race can draw from emerging from random circumstances. I mean, if the Sliths and Nephils were preordained by the big, bad Vahnatai, so what about any of their personal or social problems? We can just start over with a better model. The theory only satisfies anyone because they have boners for the Vahnatai (looking at Drakey here). 'Human Creationism' would be every bit as chauvinistic and dull, it's just that it doesn't have the romantic tinge of VC and so that isn't excused away. Given what we know about the Vahnatai, really, isn't human creationism more realistic? Hell - unless you count the half-assed throw-ins in A1 (which I refuse to), humanity has no evidence of Vahnatai presence before the War! Yeah, they emerged from crystal coffins - but isn't it perfectly possible those were incubation chambers? It's many times more plausible, given what the canon supplies us, that some human wizard - maybe even one we know of, like Garzahd - created the Vahnatai from whole cloth, and gave their culture apparent age to hide his or her perfidy. (Their structures and artifacts are transcendently magical in origin - whether or not Human Creationism is true, their edifices were created mostly by magic.) I don't like the theory that much - it'd be mostly good as a twist ending, and now I've put it out in the open it's ruined for even that. But it's more plausible and every bit as attractive than the asinine VC theory. quote:Avernum is for savages, and Blades of Avernum is horrible. Not only has it failed to produce a compelling body of work, but its presence essentially strangled the BoE community. Convenient enough for Vogel, because the BoE community was always the one clearest on exactly how devoted he is to his customer base - forcing it out of business was probably the best career move he ever made. Nethergate taught Jeff that he has a large enough fanbase who want OMG VANHATAI~~~ badly enough that anything novel or compelling is a threat. That's why he's been making two games over and over since Nethergate came out. (Exile 3 ... in three dimensions!!! Valley of Dying Things... in real-time!!!) And you're going to keep up lining up and liking it because no one ever taught you to respect the Goddamn classics. To you, Avernum is prettier and more yifftastic than Exile. To anyone who was around for both, Avernum is nowhere near better enough to justify several years' worth of it. And don't even get me started on Geneforge, you faddish morons. --- In response to Vahnatai Creationism, I offer that my own canon isn't much better - hell, if anything, it's worse. But it's worse because I can tell a hell of a story with it being worse; the only story you can tell with VC is OMG VANHATAI~~~, and that gets old after a while if you are not Drakey. Still, I prefer biological causes in fiction for the exact reason I prefer them in reality - plausibility. As all potential life becomes food for life the moment abiogenesis occurs, all potential sapients become food for sapients the moment intelligence develops. There's a window of a few thousand years there, which is far too little for any meaningful evolution in that regard. Humans never developed into subspecies in any serious way ('races' are less distinct than any animal subspecies, in spite of public perception), but that's partially because the human population has been more or less contigious for most of its long history. How could we change that? Well, make the pre-tool-age longer, for one; make the territory less fertile so more nomadic behavior is necessary before the intelligence develops to create complex tools and social mechanisms. So instead of a number of interrelated tribes wandering around a small area, you have tribes of Sapiens antecessor spread to the far winds and developing under different conditions. How exactly you get Nephils and Humans and giants and trogolos is a tricky question, and one I don't have the exact capacity to answer. But the reason that they all exist, and later coexist and are genetically compatible, is that Sapiens antecessor took a lot longer developing higher intelligence than Homo sapiens, and was allowed more time to diverge at the edges. The surviving progeny of S. antecessor include S. titanus, S. felidus, and S. homo; possibly goblins and gremlins as well. More complex is the cave system. I'd propose another single ancestral species, arising under much the same conditions - and with the waterfalls and pits and such, it'd be very easy for tribes to separate from one another more or less permanently and develop in dramatically diverging fashions. Draconis antecessor is a common ancestor to dragons, drakes, sliths, hydras, and Vahnatai, with hydras being the closest to D. antecessor in terms of intelligence. Obscure sapients can be considered extreme isolates (e.g. aranea and GIFTS), and if all else fails otherworldly (e.g. fairies, demons) or magical constructs (e.g. intelligent roaches and unicorns). However, and here is my prime maxim for the canon: Never invoke the supernatural until all natural means have been exhausted. 'A wizard did it' works only when a wizard obviously did it (how the hell could an animal whose clearest relative was domesticated evolve higher intelligence naturally?). Between the VC story and my story, one of them proposes twenty million years of life, death, and change; the other proposes a big, strong Vahnatai waving his big, strong Vahnatai hand and making everything as it is and ever shall be, amen. I know which I find more compelling. Even if every detail of my story were miserably wrong, I'd be far more satisfied with a canon established from the same basic maxim than any kind of 'creationism'. No waving of magic wands unless absolutely necessary. [ Monday, November 13, 2006 11:35: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Your religion in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Monday, November 13 2006 10:49
Profile
quote:Imban of Ilome, Patron Saint of Violent Generosity. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| We've lost our Sarchasm... in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Monday, November 13 2006 09:49
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quote:YOU ARE TOO FAT FOR WORDS Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| A question about a question in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Friday, November 10 2006 21:06
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quote:Canuck. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Episode VI: Return Of The Abominable Photo Thread in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Friday, November 10 2006 10:42
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quote:It is Devo. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Post election gloating in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Friday, November 10 2006 08:58
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quote:George Bush makes Richard Nixon look like an innocent schoolgirl. He's done so much wrong it's difficult to know where to even begin. quote:Lieberman won the election because the Republicans buried their own man in the Connecticut race. Connecticut Republicans generally voted Lieberman; all he needed was marginal Democrats and independents to take the state. Lamont was the better man, but eh. [ Friday, November 10, 2006 09:06: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| 1994 Backwards Is 2006 in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Thursday, November 9 2006 00:07
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quote:For monkey business. Ash: Explain, then, why that pissed-offedness translated to a stem cell bill (in the border South, no less!), the first defeat for a same-sex marriage ban so far (in Arizona, no less!), anti-abortion measures defeated whenever they came up (incl. SD's hateful swing at Roe v. Wade), et cetera. It's not the kind of thing that will lead to a red flag over Washington in 2008 - this is no revolution - but the American voter is pushing left, and hard. (EDIT: Originally in 1917. Emergency article cram writing will put your mind in two countries at once sometimes.) [ Thursday, November 09, 2006 02:34: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Episode VI: Return Of The Abominable Photo Thread in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Tuesday, November 7 2006 23:21
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quote:Firm, evangelical smiles, all. Kudos all around. quote:<sw>OMG GURL</sw> [ Tuesday, November 07, 2006 23:21: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| 1994 Backwards Is 2006 in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Tuesday, November 7 2006 23:17
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The Democrats have, as any idiot can see, kicked ass this year. As it turns out, contrary to any popular analysis, so has the Left. Gay marriage bans have generally won very narrowly - and they seem to be facing their first defeat as legislature in Arizona: less than the sweep predicted. Marijuana laws failed, but by surprisingly narrow margins - 44% for in Nevada, as opposed to the polled 36%. Minimum wage laws have passed in every state they have been proposed, most by preposterous margins. Montana, one of the more reactionary hick states in the country, passed a minimum wage increase by over forty points. It might be hyperbolic, but I'm calling it right now: November 2006 will be remembered as the beginning of a new America, a stronger America, a better America. This has certainly not been a revolution - but it's certainly the biggest development in my lifetime. Our national nightmare is over. [ Wednesday, November 08, 2006 01:06: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Episode VI: Return Of The Abominable Photo Thread in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Tuesday, November 7 2006 12:16
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It's that time again. Strut your sexy/horrible stuff!  This is me and my fiancee on Halloween. I am a princess; she is a catgirl. Aww. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| The Spiderweb Art Movement. in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Tuesday, November 7 2006 10:03
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I have no doubt it went as they always go:  Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Jeff Vogel's View From the Bottom #6 in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Tuesday, November 7 2006 10:01
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quote:The average Internet user today is every bit as bright as the average Internet user 10 years ago. It's just that 10 years ago you were in middle school and everyone looked a lot smarter than they are. :P Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Jeff Vogel's View From the Bottom #6 in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Monday, November 6 2006 17:50
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quote:So, in other words, WoW is a better game? quote:I'd argue that MMORPGs are addictive in the same fashion gambling is, and in fact make money using a roughly similar model. Any game can be 'addictive' that way - although certain games are better at it than others, esp. RPGs - but only MMORPGs pull a constant revenue for being addictive. I was big into a proto-MMO called Legends of Kesmai as a youth. Now, not so much. It's probably just the cheapskate in me talking, but I seriously balk at the idea of paying for a game by playtime. It allows developers to do about twice the work and make several dozen times the profit from each individual player. [ Monday, November 06, 2006 17:54: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| New Bond Movie in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Monday, November 6 2006 17:47
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quote:The trailer actually makes it look pretty good. I might eventually (emphasis eventually: not an active fan of the franchise.) Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Humans Only in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Sunday, November 5 2006 23:25
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quote:Please bear my children. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| To Battle in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Sunday, November 5 2006 23:17
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quote:More poor philosophy from Tullegolar: ad hominem attacks ('sure is easy if you don't have to defend it!') in the place of actual debate on an issue. Additionally, he seems to dramatically overstate the pacifist tendencies of SW, offering no particular evidence for doing so - but of course, we know he does that. quote:Here we have a confusion of purposes: the introduction questions how well pacifist philosophy holds up in practicality, whereas the second clause asks its proponents to address it in theory. quote:The confusion of purposes means that this assumption is far less reasonable: we're supposed to consider these real circumstances, but apply unreal paradigms to them. A good ethicist never greases his conclusions. quote:This doesn't relate to 'ideology' at all, does it? quote:All of this reflects a fundamental confusion of purpopses which you, dear reader, would be best to avoid. They call this the fallacy of disparate comparisons - here, the hypothetical war is against a diametrically opposed faction whose total victory is entirely contingent on your personal participation, yet any personal philosophy you might hold to - primarily the philosophy of pacifism - is framed in realist terms. In this fashion, Tullegolar either due to disingenuity or laziness frames the entire discussion as not a serious meeting of the minds but crude proselytization. The world is too dangerous a place for you to bother being good, it all boils down to. Of course, his point of view is now, as always, wrong. The world isn't too dangerous a place to bother being good, because the conditions given are as flawed and unpredictable as the philosophies themselves, both being governed by the conduct of flawed and unpredictable human beings. In laboratory conditions, philosophy is as powerful as practicalities. In the laboratory of history, meanwhile, whether or not we are willing to meet ET's absurd, knuckle-dragging challenge - to tolerate him impugning our bravery for refusing to extinguish human lives - we all aspire to the bravery it would take a German, 1939 vintage, to resist the pull of #2, #3, #4, or #5. [ Sunday, November 05, 2006 23:23: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Learnin' me my letters. in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Sunday, November 5 2006 12:34
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1) Where are you going to school (Or where did you)? University of Nevada Las Vegas. Hopefully next year, University of Washington. 2) Was it your first choice? My first choice was Reed, but they weren't so enthused about me. Goddamn literati elitniky. 3) Do you wish you had gone somewhere differently? Not a day goes by I don't. 4) Are you now, or will you ever be, a member of the Communist Party? I know a few bars of the Internationale. Does that count? Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Humans Only in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Saturday, November 4 2006 23:13
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quote:Always check your facts before you make an argument based on what you think they may be. If Tullegolar had been aware of medical ethics, he would be aware that doctors have no such right, and indeed any reasonable physician would reject out of hand the 'right' to not heal someone in need as grotesque and immoral. quote:Ouch, generalizations! Never base an argument on these bad boys, readers: Tullegolar poses a world in which all animals behave like certain cats when they die. This is obviously not the case, as anyone who has had a dog die could tell you. The lesson here? Avoid making arguments from areas of which you are ignorant; you will always make an ass of yourself. Certainly never make things up to prove a point; if you have to do so, it's time to reassess the validity of that point. Philosophy isn't a game; you don't score points for winning. [ Saturday, November 04, 2006 23:18: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Humans Only in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Saturday, November 4 2006 21:33
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quote:Can someone answer this question? It's not a particularly useful one, so I leave it up to whoever else would like to. quote:Ah, classic ET. Here he uses weak again; it's a term he's yet to give a coherent definition for, and which represents everything he dislikes. Never make everything you hate into a single overarching negative. It's possible to do so coherently, but very, very difficult, and almost never constructive. Once more, never try and develop a philosophical justification for a personal odium; it will almost never fit into a larger, coherent philosophy. ET's snide dismissal of human duties to animals is, you will find, difficult to justify coherently without making some interesting implications. If animals do not have rights because they are incapable of defending those rights, what of the handicapped? If animals do not have rights because they are incapable of fully understanding pain, what of children and the severely retarded? Either of those are serious philosophical challenges to which ET's uncurious, top-down method of inquiry has left him blind. Avoid this error yourself; whether you wind up wrong or right, at least you will be coherent and succeptible to later correction. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Global warming is getting tired, as a threat. in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Saturday, November 4 2006 21:21
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It doesn't work so well if you don't have an Australian accent. (It would seem that brings baisin and bison together - both sounding kinda like boison.) Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Humans Only in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Saturday, November 4 2006 21:18
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quote:Here ET engages in a serious misunderstanding of the nature of human life. Does 'existing for the sake of existing' mean anything different from 'existing to further the species'? 'The sake of existing' would seem to be 'furthering the species', would it not? In essence, he's ascribed purpose to human life (a dramatic step which you shouldn't do without showing your figurative math) in order to denigrate animal life. He also apparently wishes to avoid the question of whether animals possess reason, but cannot do so: his primary arguments hinge on humans being capable of foreplanning and reason. What lesson should you take from this, mon lecteur, mon frere? There are a couple. Pick a moral foundation and stick with it. If an ethical dilemma shakes you from that, that's fine - but you have a lot of reassessment to do. You cannot, as ET does, glibly fly from platform to platform seeking ammunition, as they all prescribe dramatically differing and contradictory systems of ethics.Never start from the assumption and move down. Sometimes good philosophy will give you surprising answers, and cherry-picking assumptions will keep you away from them. If I had tried to find a justification for animal experimentation based on a gut approval of it, I wouldn't have found it to be troublingly equivalent to infanticide.Treat every question of duty with the gravity it deserves. There has been serious, thoughtful, and thought-provoking writing on whether or not plants, fungi, and inanimate objects possess rights which humans are bound to respect. It's intellectually lazy to glibly deny consideration to a group based on your personal preconceptions. [ Saturday, November 04, 2006 21:24: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Humans Only in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Saturday, November 4 2006 20:50
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quote:You are the lowest slime I have ever had the misfortune to encounter and I will no longer be dignifying your idiotic posts with address in the second person. From now on any response I make to you will be for the sole purpose of edifying any passers-by as to why you are wrong. I neither can nor wish to edify you any further. Now, as I was saying: quote:Immanuel Kant argues that, because animals do not have reason, people have no duties towards them. However, he acknowledges that animals can suffer, and feels that treating animals cruelly reflects a personal cruelty that is readily extended to humans. Kant's perspective on the matter is the most clear-cut. (He also included an appeal in his original work to other creatures with reason - in his case, I do believe he was getting at angels and the supernatural, but it applies equally well to dolphins or great apes or aliens, if they are also capable of reason.) Other philosophical perspectives have broad room for debate. Utilitarianism hosts perspectives as diverse as animal-experimentation advocates and Peter Singer, who believes animals, suffering pain, deserve equal consideration to humans. (This is not to say they should have equal rights - but then, neither do all humans; what sense would it make for a man to have a right to an abortion?) quote:Rights theory is more complex; a Lockeian perspective, as ET seems to have crudely grasped here, can be construed to embody almost direct hostility to the rights of animals. However, the problem with Locke in animal ethics is that under a condition of defenselessness - lower animals, the crippled, what have you - the right to life, property, and the pursuit of happiness are are curtailed by an inability to persecute violators of the same, and the philosophy becomes very muddy. Locke can be used as an excuse to justify animal cruelty, but it isn't a coherent ethical platform for animal (or environmental) ethics. quote:Remember, gentle reader, that human ethics are formed as much by duties as by rights. Whether or not animals have any particular rights per se, it's an important open question of philosophy what kind of duties we have to animals. quote:Note that ET has shifted philosophical paradigms here, which is a no-no: he has clearly cherry-picked an ethical conclusion and abandoned one set of moral grounds when it became untenable. Here he appeals to a utilitarian perspective: the suffering of animals is less because they are incapable of addressing it. Peter Singer, pretty much the major philosopher of the animal rights movement, would counter that suffering is suffering, whoever suffers it, and must be avoided. Personally, I'm of the school that there are two factors to be avoided - pain and suffering. Suffering is caused by an understanding of pain, among other things, and is contingent upon rudimentary reasoning. An adult given a vaccination endures pain, but does not suffer; a jilted lover suffers, but endures no pain. Animals are capable of suffering, but to what degree is up in the air - and most animal pain is just pain. Pain is ethically significant - you don't want to cause it for no reason - but it is trumped by suffering. This is why we have vaccinations and chemotherapy and animal experimentation. What makes this ethically challenging is this: a human infant does not, so far as we know, have the power of reason necessary to suffer on the same level as an adult human, or even an adult great ape. On its face, this philosophy justifies cruelty to infants under the same circumstances as cruelty to animals. I do not really know of a way to solve that, but I'm working on it. [ Saturday, November 04, 2006 21:07: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| No tag backs! in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Friday, November 3 2006 21:31
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quote:I love how you refuse to respond to anything I say, instead spewing manager-ese platitudes about people being 'wolves, sheep, or shepherds'. I suppose those wolves are an action item we ought to double-click on if we want to leverage our sheep-shepherd synergies, right? Let's increase our shepherd mindshare. You sure are pissy about people being 'office drones' for someone who talks like he was born in a copy room. Projecting much? [ Friday, November 03, 2006 21:32: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
| Humans Only in General | |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Friday, November 3 2006 21:13
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quote:That is because the Muslims are outside of our monkeysphere. This is all biology. For the record, philosophy is pretty damn useless at determining how humans actually are, because 'how humans actually are' is governed by discrete chemical and biological processes - nothing more, nothing less. [ Friday, November 03, 2006 21:17: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |