I've been thinking about what it means to be a geek lately. Unfortunately, there's a hint of truth to the idea that geek culture is one built on compulsive consumption. Games, movies, TV, comics: all the things that identify geek culture are shamelessly and actively exploited by groups that either never cared about the artistry of these media, or have been driven to forget what love they had. This is pretty fucking clear when you look at how many comic book movies have been scheduled and how they've been handled. All of that shit is a big part of our social presence, but I feel like its too easy to assume these things are what make us geeks. They fucking aren't.
Geek culture isn't about Captain America or Batman or Warcraft; its about loving something so much you involve yourself with it. That's a weird thing to say, but bare with me. Geeks aren't just known for playing games and watching movies, we're known for dressing up as those people, writing our own fiction in those worlds, and relentlessly deconstructing and examining seemingly random aspects of those stories. That last one is important because it really is the bit that unifies us. The tricky part is that isn't some random expression of appreciation for a specific genre or medium, that's a personality trait. Geeks can and do geek out over anything they're into. It's not about what you obsess over, its about the passion. Foodies are geeks, ask them about their favorite food and tell me it doesn't feel exactly like talking to a LARPer about their character. The same is true about people who're really into politics, folks who get weird about sports, and pretty much anybody who enjoys their job after ten years.
The reason I'm all fuckered about this is that I've been dragged (largely through my own shitty, comment-reading habits) into some of the more aggressive discussions about how we're all evil, or stupid, or bigoted. I really hope I don't have to point out how fucking absurd that is. The problem is that we are really, really easily led. Once the mode of exploitation is determined (comics, games, and movies for many of us) the immediately popular aspects of that mode are flogged well past the point of meaninglessness. It happened with Batman, it happened with Final Fantasy, and it happened with politics. The trouble arises from the fact that when huge portions of your obsession have been highjacked and refined to the least common denominator for easy marketing; you get defensive about weird things, you stop thinking about what you really believe.
I don't know how we're going to get away from that, its a little too easy to capitalize and monopolize on people's obsessions. But I do know that we can't really afford to be complicit in our own exploitation anymore. So I don't know, boycott EA games, or MCU movies, or whatever evil you feel like you can do without. Better yet, try to create something of your own for other geeks to cling to. Foodies, sports nuts, Gamers; we aren't really different groups, we are one people with many passions.
Showing posts with label neeeeeeeerd!. Show all posts
Showing posts with label neeeeeeeerd!. Show all posts
Monday, May 11, 2015
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Acting Appropriately Stupid
So, in one of my recent posts I talked about how I have been enjoying tabletop RPGing lately, and I just wanted to talk about a game that is very fun and easy to pick up and play in a couple of hours. This RPG is called "It came from the late late late show" and was released a long ass time ago in 1989, but you can still find copies of the first and second editions on ebay for like ten bucks (I got mine from a friend in college).
The basic premise of the game is your players are actors in a bad horror/sci fi movie and they have to play through the plot. The director can throw monsters at them and play as all of the extras and co stars. Its a cute Idea that is executed very well. Players can do things like "call in a stunt double" who takes damage for them or call for a commercial break in which the actors can come up with a strategy to beat the monster(s). The director can also force the players to "act appropriately stupid". You know how in horror movies where a person will do something stupid to force movement in the plot and/or make a situation exciting? Acting appropriately stupid is a mechanic that forces that. That being said, its not hard to get the players to go along with it in the first place. In the three or four games of it I have run I have never had to use it.
If you like bad horror movies, this is a great game that allows you to make your own with your friends. Its got some great mechanics that make playing it a blast and its very simple and easy to play, even for people new to gaming as a whole. I highly recommend it.
The basic premise of the game is your players are actors in a bad horror/sci fi movie and they have to play through the plot. The director can throw monsters at them and play as all of the extras and co stars. Its a cute Idea that is executed very well. Players can do things like "call in a stunt double" who takes damage for them or call for a commercial break in which the actors can come up with a strategy to beat the monster(s). The director can also force the players to "act appropriately stupid". You know how in horror movies where a person will do something stupid to force movement in the plot and/or make a situation exciting? Acting appropriately stupid is a mechanic that forces that. That being said, its not hard to get the players to go along with it in the first place. In the three or four games of it I have run I have never had to use it.
If you like bad horror movies, this is a great game that allows you to make your own with your friends. Its got some great mechanics that make playing it a blast and its very simple and easy to play, even for people new to gaming as a whole. I highly recommend it.
Monday, March 9, 2015
Wade-Giles Fuckery, and Not Deadpool/Buffy Slashfic
Alright folks, this is going to be a (hopefully) short nerd rant. We all know by this point that I have no patience for traditions built on bad ground. Today's shining shit shack of social standards revolves around the process of romanizing languages. I appreciate the value of converting non-english languages into characters comprehensible to english speakers/readers, it would just be great if we made any effort to do that. For instance the Gaelic word Samhain is pronounced sowwan or sahwin. That third letter is a fucking m and has no goddamn place in that word. I've heard the argument that its silent but silent letters are a hold out of a system whereby people use the ability to write "accurately" to enforce social barriers, so fuck that arbitrary elitist bullshit.
Arguably the most pronounced example of this stupidity is Wade-Giles transliteration. This is a method of converting Chinese, which is nuanced and beautiful, into English without any consideration for how those words are spoken. You may have noticed this renders the technique essentially useless for actually learning or communicating the fucking language. There is a chart at the bottom of that link that compares different phonemes and how they are written in Wade-Giles, which was established by two brits at the height of british cuntblubbery in China, and Pinyin, which is the method actually used by the people who speak the language. If you check that list you'll notice that WG seems to have valued exotic spelling conventions over anything even vaguely approaching accuracy.
This isn't super uncommon in romanizing languages, but it is fucking absurd. We romanize languages so that we can learn that language or at least be able to pronounce relevant words without sounding like a fucking moron. So I vote that we start actually writing things phonetically, or at very least consulting with native speakers before we decide how we ought to pronounce their words. Maybe someday we can live in a world where Daoism doesn't set off spell check and its foundational book isn't written as onomatopoeia for an old timey cash register.
Arguably the most pronounced example of this stupidity is Wade-Giles transliteration. This is a method of converting Chinese, which is nuanced and beautiful, into English without any consideration for how those words are spoken. You may have noticed this renders the technique essentially useless for actually learning or communicating the fucking language. There is a chart at the bottom of that link that compares different phonemes and how they are written in Wade-Giles, which was established by two brits at the height of british cuntblubbery in China, and Pinyin, which is the method actually used by the people who speak the language. If you check that list you'll notice that WG seems to have valued exotic spelling conventions over anything even vaguely approaching accuracy.
This isn't super uncommon in romanizing languages, but it is fucking absurd. We romanize languages so that we can learn that language or at least be able to pronounce relevant words without sounding like a fucking moron. So I vote that we start actually writing things phonetically, or at very least consulting with native speakers before we decide how we ought to pronounce their words. Maybe someday we can live in a world where Daoism doesn't set off spell check and its foundational book isn't written as onomatopoeia for an old timey cash register.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
New-Old world
Recently Eshi has been running a D&D campaign that I have been playing in. I have had mixed feelings about tabletop RPGs in the past. The play-acting is awkward, at least for me. I have problems with confidence in the first place, but needing to talk everything through in a realistic manner while pretending to be someone else feels off to me. You also need to interact with other people, and that's always awkward for me. Something that I think scares away more people is that there are often way to many established rules to make the experience an easy one to just jump into.
In the past I have tried to get into games like this, but either they fall apart quickly because people loose interest or the GM is a dick who uses the game as a power fantasy (all the players shall fall before MY MIGHT!). This time though the game has been going well. Eshi is a good GM and getting to play around more than I have in the past has made me appreciate the games mechanics more.
The biggest difference from, say, video game RPGs is that you can do anything you want. Don't like a rule because it is a little unfair to players? Change it. Want to be a class that doesn't exist? Make it. Want to be able to solve problems in ways that aren't preprogrammed into a scenario? Do it. It is also way easier to identify with your character because you get to make decisions about how that character acts. If you didn't want to only choose dialog that was pre-written for you, you can. That level of customization is hard to get in a video game (mods in PC games get close), and makes tabletops way better in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong, I still like video games and play them often, but tabletop scratches an itch that I didn't know I had. If you are on the fence about trying tabletop RPGs, or if you want more out of a game in terms of customization or just stuff to do, get some people together and try some D&D or Whitewolf, you might have a good time.
In the past I have tried to get into games like this, but either they fall apart quickly because people loose interest or the GM is a dick who uses the game as a power fantasy (all the players shall fall before MY MIGHT!). This time though the game has been going well. Eshi is a good GM and getting to play around more than I have in the past has made me appreciate the games mechanics more.
The biggest difference from, say, video game RPGs is that you can do anything you want. Don't like a rule because it is a little unfair to players? Change it. Want to be a class that doesn't exist? Make it. Want to be able to solve problems in ways that aren't preprogrammed into a scenario? Do it. It is also way easier to identify with your character because you get to make decisions about how that character acts. If you didn't want to only choose dialog that was pre-written for you, you can. That level of customization is hard to get in a video game (mods in PC games get close), and makes tabletops way better in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong, I still like video games and play them often, but tabletop scratches an itch that I didn't know I had. If you are on the fence about trying tabletop RPGs, or if you want more out of a game in terms of customization or just stuff to do, get some people together and try some D&D or Whitewolf, you might have a good time.
Monday, March 2, 2015
The Z Word
I've been playing a great deal of Dying Light lately, and its brought to mind some issues I have with the whole zombie genre. First, let me say that I'm not one of the hipster/geeks that hates zombies because they're all mainstream now. I will gladly agree that zombie fiction has gotten entirely too pervasive and easily exploited. Do we need zombie romance movies? No, that's fucking gross. Does almost every threat to mankind need to be zombies? Fuck no, try harder Hollywood. I love zombie fiction, largely because of the fact that the zombies are the least interesting part of it. Its a rich, effective device that allows all sorts of commentary and satire to thrive when used well.
My concern rises from the habit in zombie fiction to over value the zombies themselves. Now, I don't mean that the hungry dead shouldn't be a pressing and inevitable threat, but zombies (real, shambling, moaning corpses; if your zombies still have any chance of being "cured" i.e. victims of a communicable anger problem, you're just being dishonest) are scary enough on their own. Zombies are a pervasive, constant and yet still surprising concern. They can and will be everywhere, you will never really be safe from them and they can and do just come out of nowhere. This makes for an amazing threat... so stop fucking giving them superpowers. Considering how often the basic premise of so many zombie movies is that man is the real monster (all of which after 1970 are lazy and derivative), the zombies themselves ought not be magic superbeings.
In games like Dying Light the whole idea is that mankind is fucking terrible given even the slightest provocation. The high number of heavily mutated undead is unnecessary because the normal undead often come out of nowhere. Really, the greatest threats are being surprised by zombies (the primary fear of which comes from a problem the game resolves in the first 5 minutes of cut scene), the consumptive evil of other survivors, or just the straight up vile asscovering of the political forces deciding the fate of the survivors. I could be okay with them saying that the fresh dead are still limber enough to be runners, sure, scary and understandable. However, some zombies being nine feet tall and built like the Goddamn Mountain puts a look on my face like a disappointed sibling. Pretty much all of the enemies in the game stop being particularly difficult to kill about half way through so making special monsters that are marginally more difficult kinda cheapens the narrative.
This is, admittedly a very niche argument. I realize that me bitching about the narrative and design weaknesses of a genre predicated upon the wakening of the dead, hungry and mindless, to murder and consume the living is yelling in the dark at best. However, as we've discussed previously, our fiction both shapes and represents us, so allowing and encouraging shitty fiction is a disservice to all of us. Also, I'm a huge geek, this is what I do.
My concern rises from the habit in zombie fiction to over value the zombies themselves. Now, I don't mean that the hungry dead shouldn't be a pressing and inevitable threat, but zombies (real, shambling, moaning corpses; if your zombies still have any chance of being "cured" i.e. victims of a communicable anger problem, you're just being dishonest) are scary enough on their own. Zombies are a pervasive, constant and yet still surprising concern. They can and will be everywhere, you will never really be safe from them and they can and do just come out of nowhere. This makes for an amazing threat... so stop fucking giving them superpowers. Considering how often the basic premise of so many zombie movies is that man is the real monster (all of which after 1970 are lazy and derivative), the zombies themselves ought not be magic superbeings.
In games like Dying Light the whole idea is that mankind is fucking terrible given even the slightest provocation. The high number of heavily mutated undead is unnecessary because the normal undead often come out of nowhere. Really, the greatest threats are being surprised by zombies (the primary fear of which comes from a problem the game resolves in the first 5 minutes of cut scene), the consumptive evil of other survivors, or just the straight up vile asscovering of the political forces deciding the fate of the survivors. I could be okay with them saying that the fresh dead are still limber enough to be runners, sure, scary and understandable. However, some zombies being nine feet tall and built like the Goddamn Mountain puts a look on my face like a disappointed sibling. Pretty much all of the enemies in the game stop being particularly difficult to kill about half way through so making special monsters that are marginally more difficult kinda cheapens the narrative.
This is, admittedly a very niche argument. I realize that me bitching about the narrative and design weaknesses of a genre predicated upon the wakening of the dead, hungry and mindless, to murder and consume the living is yelling in the dark at best. However, as we've discussed previously, our fiction both shapes and represents us, so allowing and encouraging shitty fiction is a disservice to all of us. Also, I'm a huge geek, this is what I do.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Doctor Bond, Professional Spider-man
James Bond, Doctor Who, and Spider-man. What do these three people have in common? All of them are caucasian, male, and have racist fans. OK, that might seem a little hyperbolic, and it is, but its also mostly true. I bring this up because last week a certain sycophantic, obnoxious, racist ass-hat said that Idris Elba couldn't be Bond because he is black. Not only did he get his facts wrong by claiming James Bond is always supposed to be white and Scottish (despite that he has been played by Scottish, English, Australian, and Welsh actors), but he openly admits to being racist about it.
Look, I get that people who like pop culture tend to want to see more of the same with no changes lest it ruin their show, but grow the fuck up. It doesn't fit with the way you think it "should be" so its automatically ruined? Is James Bond being white (or even male for that matter) that integral to what makes James Bond, James Bond? I always thought Bond was a badass because he did all the cool spy stuff and was charming and witty while he did it. Race and sex have nothing to do with it.
The same type of thing happened when Peter Capaldi got cast as the current Doctor. In the weeks leading up to the announcement people argued about who should get the part, and a disturbing amount of fans only wanted to see a white, British, male get the part. This is ridiculous, just because it is a change doesn't mean that the show won't be as good. It might be better. Spider-man being biracial also sparked an outcry from people. They all claim to be purists, and I think they are, just not in the way they think.
Basically, what I am saying is that the best part of pop culture artifacts like the Doctor and Spider-man are cool because of what they do and how they do it. Gender and Race have nothing to do with that, and thus don't matter. Spider-man could still swing around and lay out "hilarious" one liners even if they were African American. James Bond could still kill everyone in spectre in cool spy-y ways even if they were Jane Bond. Stop trying to enforce your insecurities on other people.
For the record I think Idris Elba would be a good James Bond. I would also Love to see Chiwetel Ejiofor get the part as well, but thats mostly because I have had a man crush on him since I saw him in Serenity. Natalie Dormer could also do a good job with Bond. Make the casting call on ability, not to fit the character people expect. Hell, maybe they will shake up these over-done characters. The second one of these "white male only" roles gets someone who is not a white or male and does a great job with it, the more people will get over this prejudice. And if they don't, fuck em, the world will turn on despite their hangups.We can't expect to survive (even in a pop culture sense) if we keep pandering to the weak and stupid.
Look, I get that people who like pop culture tend to want to see more of the same with no changes lest it ruin their show, but grow the fuck up. It doesn't fit with the way you think it "should be" so its automatically ruined? Is James Bond being white (or even male for that matter) that integral to what makes James Bond, James Bond? I always thought Bond was a badass because he did all the cool spy stuff and was charming and witty while he did it. Race and sex have nothing to do with it.
The same type of thing happened when Peter Capaldi got cast as the current Doctor. In the weeks leading up to the announcement people argued about who should get the part, and a disturbing amount of fans only wanted to see a white, British, male get the part. This is ridiculous, just because it is a change doesn't mean that the show won't be as good. It might be better. Spider-man being biracial also sparked an outcry from people. They all claim to be purists, and I think they are, just not in the way they think.
Basically, what I am saying is that the best part of pop culture artifacts like the Doctor and Spider-man are cool because of what they do and how they do it. Gender and Race have nothing to do with that, and thus don't matter. Spider-man could still swing around and lay out "hilarious" one liners even if they were African American. James Bond could still kill everyone in spectre in cool spy-y ways even if they were Jane Bond. Stop trying to enforce your insecurities on other people.
For the record I think Idris Elba would be a good James Bond. I would also Love to see Chiwetel Ejiofor get the part as well, but thats mostly because I have had a man crush on him since I saw him in Serenity. Natalie Dormer could also do a good job with Bond. Make the casting call on ability, not to fit the character people expect. Hell, maybe they will shake up these over-done characters. The second one of these "white male only" roles gets someone who is not a white or male and does a great job with it, the more people will get over this prejudice. And if they don't, fuck em, the world will turn on despite their hangups.We can't expect to survive (even in a pop culture sense) if we keep pandering to the weak and stupid.
Friday, December 26, 2014
See, Gamers Don't HAVE to be Jerks
We have talked about fans on this blog before. I once mentioned that the worst thing about some franchises is the fans that surround them. I was being hyperbolic when I talked about that. Not all fans are bad. Yesterday is a great example of this. Yesterday a bunch of people in the Pokemon community got together and did something nice for new players. In the latest generation of games there is a tool known as "wonder trade" where you can upload a pokemon and trade it for a random pokemon. On Christmas this year a bunch of people started uploading starter pokemon and other rare/nifty pokemon to give the newbies something cool as a Christmas gift when they start their adventures in Honnen. This is a bunch of players going out of their way to be nice to people just starting out.
I have been playing Pokemon since it came out in 1996. I was the perfect age for the target market back then, 10. It was not my first RPG type game, I played a lot of Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy Adventure (which was actually a Dragon Quest game) when I was a kid, but it was my first experience with a game that gave me a ton of control over my party. I got to choose from an impressive list of characters for my party, I could name them, and was forced to think about how to set up a party that would cover all of my bases so I wouldn't get caught unawares. I know what some of you are thinking, "you had to do all of that in Final Fantasy VI too" but FFVI's had a lot less customizability and the story was a little over my head as a stupid ten year old (such as genocide being a thing. Also an implied tentacle rape from one of tho bosses in the opera house scene) I bought Pokemon Red because there was a dragon on the games case and I have always thought dragons were cool (NEEEEEEEEEERRRRRD) and fell instantly in love.They are solid games, despite the dubious premise, and its great to see the community coming together to do something not shitty.
Fans helping new people fall in love with a good game is a great cause. Being nice is something that a disturbingly large amount gamers have a lot of trouble with, so its good to see a bunch of people get together and help kids feel good about a game. Especially in the face of general crappy behavior yesterday too.
I have been playing Pokemon since it came out in 1996. I was the perfect age for the target market back then, 10. It was not my first RPG type game, I played a lot of Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy Adventure (which was actually a Dragon Quest game) when I was a kid, but it was my first experience with a game that gave me a ton of control over my party. I got to choose from an impressive list of characters for my party, I could name them, and was forced to think about how to set up a party that would cover all of my bases so I wouldn't get caught unawares. I know what some of you are thinking, "you had to do all of that in Final Fantasy VI too" but FFVI's had a lot less customizability and the story was a little over my head as a stupid ten year old (such as genocide being a thing. Also an implied tentacle rape from one of tho bosses in the opera house scene) I bought Pokemon Red because there was a dragon on the games case and I have always thought dragons were cool (NEEEEEEEEEERRRRRD) and fell instantly in love.They are solid games, despite the dubious premise, and its great to see the community coming together to do something not shitty.
Fans helping new people fall in love with a good game is a great cause. Being nice is something that a disturbingly large amount gamers have a lot of trouble with, so its good to see a bunch of people get together and help kids feel good about a game. Especially in the face of general crappy behavior yesterday too.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
SPAAAAAAAAACEEEEEE! I'mma Go To Space.
Brian and I have expressed our general approval of scientific progress on several occasions around these parts. One of our biggest interests along those lines is space travel. The exploration of planets outside our own, the possible revelations waiting for us in the Deep Black, its the stuff nerd boners are made of. I think most people are probably on board with us on this, space is exciting, I mean seriously, kids wanting to grow up to be astronauts is cliche` common. So why aren't we out there? Why has the biggest intellectual resource for space exploration been whittled down to a bunch of politicians grumbling at each other?
The most common excuse I've seen sited in regards to why we shouldn't bother, you know, exploring the universe, is that it isn't a worthwhile expense. There are no words to express how absolutely, fundamentally fucking wrong that is, nor am I possessed of the patience to describe how many levels this argument fucks up on. Of course, that's never stopped me from trying before and its certainly not going to stop me here.
Point 1: Ugh, Fuck You. We live in a world where economic worth is entirely the product of (usually enforced) scarcity and perceived advantage. If the powers that be wanted the money made available it would be.
Point 2: You know what? Fuck you some more. Even if we're buying into the "market factors" bullshit as a stumbling block to scientific progress, that progress is its own reward. There is no such thing as a "worthless" scientific discovery. Even the weird penis ratio studies that we keep throwing money at (but exploring the infinite bounty of space is just not worth it) tell us things about the human body, psychology, how hormones do and don't effect development. These studies are functionally one step below naval gazing but they still inform us of new things, confirm or deny old things, and lead us to further inquiry. Failure to recognize the value of scientific progress to the level that denies space exploration represents a complete failure as a modern human.
Point 3: Na uh! Lets talk about the fact of extra terrestrial life. Its out there. See the period? There is no room for argument on that subject. I'm not saying that little grey men abduct red necks for sodomy experiments. I am saying that the universe is unimaginably vast, assuming that we are unique in that universe represents a degree of hubris that ought to be terminal. Absolutely any contact with extraterrestrial life would explode the limits of modern science, open up entire new fields of inquiry on every front, and give us opportunities we can't even fully conceive of. Even if that life develops exactly as we have, that says so very much about how reality works its staggering.
Point 4: Bite Me. Let's give the nay sayers as much charity as I can bare. If the questions to be answered mean nothing. If the progress to be made is meaningless. If science for science sake is of no value to their tiny, malformed brains. Even if all of that is true, space is just fucking full of resources. There are compounds found in asteroids that can't be found anywhere on earth. There are exoplanets that rain fucking diamond, carbon arrangements that can't occur naturally on our planet. Asteroids litter our solar system just fucking lousy with raw material begging to be mined. From an economic perspective even the colossal expenditures involved in space flight can just be passed onto consumers as our fears of finite resources fade ever farther away. sure it means we can't be gutted as badly for the resources themselves, but the cost of acquisition would more than cover it if they're really insistent about being an avaricious cuntbag about it.
So next time you read a newsfeed about some senator or wrong-heaed media mouthpiece bitching about how much NASA is costing us and how worthless space programs are, take a minute to write them. Tell them what an ignorant, shortsighted shit-licker they are. I suppose you could be more politic about it than that, but I don't see the point in mincing words with the enemy.
The most common excuse I've seen sited in regards to why we shouldn't bother, you know, exploring the universe, is that it isn't a worthwhile expense. There are no words to express how absolutely, fundamentally fucking wrong that is, nor am I possessed of the patience to describe how many levels this argument fucks up on. Of course, that's never stopped me from trying before and its certainly not going to stop me here.
Point 1: Ugh, Fuck You. We live in a world where economic worth is entirely the product of (usually enforced) scarcity and perceived advantage. If the powers that be wanted the money made available it would be.
Point 2: You know what? Fuck you some more. Even if we're buying into the "market factors" bullshit as a stumbling block to scientific progress, that progress is its own reward. There is no such thing as a "worthless" scientific discovery. Even the weird penis ratio studies that we keep throwing money at (but exploring the infinite bounty of space is just not worth it) tell us things about the human body, psychology, how hormones do and don't effect development. These studies are functionally one step below naval gazing but they still inform us of new things, confirm or deny old things, and lead us to further inquiry. Failure to recognize the value of scientific progress to the level that denies space exploration represents a complete failure as a modern human.
Point 3: Na uh! Lets talk about the fact of extra terrestrial life. Its out there. See the period? There is no room for argument on that subject. I'm not saying that little grey men abduct red necks for sodomy experiments. I am saying that the universe is unimaginably vast, assuming that we are unique in that universe represents a degree of hubris that ought to be terminal. Absolutely any contact with extraterrestrial life would explode the limits of modern science, open up entire new fields of inquiry on every front, and give us opportunities we can't even fully conceive of. Even if that life develops exactly as we have, that says so very much about how reality works its staggering.
Point 4: Bite Me. Let's give the nay sayers as much charity as I can bare. If the questions to be answered mean nothing. If the progress to be made is meaningless. If science for science sake is of no value to their tiny, malformed brains. Even if all of that is true, space is just fucking full of resources. There are compounds found in asteroids that can't be found anywhere on earth. There are exoplanets that rain fucking diamond, carbon arrangements that can't occur naturally on our planet. Asteroids litter our solar system just fucking lousy with raw material begging to be mined. From an economic perspective even the colossal expenditures involved in space flight can just be passed onto consumers as our fears of finite resources fade ever farther away. sure it means we can't be gutted as badly for the resources themselves, but the cost of acquisition would more than cover it if they're really insistent about being an avaricious cuntbag about it.
So next time you read a newsfeed about some senator or wrong-heaed media mouthpiece bitching about how much NASA is costing us and how worthless space programs are, take a minute to write them. Tell them what an ignorant, shortsighted shit-licker they are. I suppose you could be more politic about it than that, but I don't see the point in mincing words with the enemy.
Friday, December 5, 2014
Gygax is My Spirit Animal
I'm late, I know. I'm bad at things and my heart is made of smelly cheese. Rather than self-flagellate over my established failings in punctuality I'm going to ramble about gaming some more.
I've written about my possibly unhealthy obsession with pen and paper gaming before, and none of that has changed. I fucking love tabletop gaming, rolling dice might as well be an aphrodisiac. That said some aspects do run afoul of my pickier sensibilities from time to time. As I've mentioned before, I game for the high degree of customization and adaptability available in a pen and paper situation. I dig the complexity of options and versatility of interactions; which makes it troublesome to me how many systems are trying so hard to become video games. When a system goes from versatile feats based on the development of skills and abilities to a series of powers or maneuvers dependent on level I see a problem. I will admit that its largely an issue of nuance but its a little difference that matters. One option encourages the growth and development of an interesting and at least relatively unique character and the other rewards you for your numbers going up by making your numbers go up.
I'm probably being a bit of a fuddy-duddy about this but I don't really care. I understand that there are perceived market factors in play, the new generations of gamers like a simplified system or whatever. I understand the desire to streamline what can be kind of ridiculously convoluted systems. Seriously, just the licensed books for D&D 3.5 numbers in the high sixties. But the effort to streamline also seems to act as a restrictive measure on the flexibility of the system. While I understand that nobody, especially me, wants to pay a thousand bucks to get a nice, relatively complete set of books; the methods used to clarify the system also demand a higher degree of specificity in the use of power. Classes that once stood as starting points in the development of a character and bases for roleplay options have started shifting into the MMO vernacular. You don't talk about the paladin in terms of her dedication and righteousness, you talk about her capacity as a tank and the control value of her powers. We don't talk about the sorcerer in terms of what his innate connection to magic does to his mind or what his draconic heritage means for his future, we talk about his DPS. I'm not saying the trend in the new systems makes this kind of roleplay impossible, but it is so much easier to ignore the story-potential of a character when more and more the only thing we're given rules for is how that character is equipped to kill shit. I know I'm picking on D&D pretty hard, and they are by no means the only perpetrators, but I feel like they lead the way, I mean D&D has been The Big Name in tabletop for a lot of years.
I feel like an old man yelling at these damn kids for their newfangled power cards and skilltrees, why back in my day you had to pass a tumble check just to get your armor on or whatever. I'm not saying that there aren't any good things to be had from the new breed (13th age has some interesting showings in the mechanics department) but I'm always left wanting more, and not in a good way. Give me some real skills, give me a chance to love my character for more than their ability to one shot a group of mooks, for fucks sake give me more control over my character than I'm liable to find in a Bioware game and we can talk. Until then I can't see myself spending money on, much less running, the new wave. I can't imagine I represent much of a loss in their profits but that's fine, I'm plenty capable of enjoying myself with some 3rd ed D&D or homebrew oWoD. Maybe I'm not alone. Hopefully, I'm not alone. If so, good luck out there. I hope to see you all at the table someday.
I've written about my possibly unhealthy obsession with pen and paper gaming before, and none of that has changed. I fucking love tabletop gaming, rolling dice might as well be an aphrodisiac. That said some aspects do run afoul of my pickier sensibilities from time to time. As I've mentioned before, I game for the high degree of customization and adaptability available in a pen and paper situation. I dig the complexity of options and versatility of interactions; which makes it troublesome to me how many systems are trying so hard to become video games. When a system goes from versatile feats based on the development of skills and abilities to a series of powers or maneuvers dependent on level I see a problem. I will admit that its largely an issue of nuance but its a little difference that matters. One option encourages the growth and development of an interesting and at least relatively unique character and the other rewards you for your numbers going up by making your numbers go up.
I'm probably being a bit of a fuddy-duddy about this but I don't really care. I understand that there are perceived market factors in play, the new generations of gamers like a simplified system or whatever. I understand the desire to streamline what can be kind of ridiculously convoluted systems. Seriously, just the licensed books for D&D 3.5 numbers in the high sixties. But the effort to streamline also seems to act as a restrictive measure on the flexibility of the system. While I understand that nobody, especially me, wants to pay a thousand bucks to get a nice, relatively complete set of books; the methods used to clarify the system also demand a higher degree of specificity in the use of power. Classes that once stood as starting points in the development of a character and bases for roleplay options have started shifting into the MMO vernacular. You don't talk about the paladin in terms of her dedication and righteousness, you talk about her capacity as a tank and the control value of her powers. We don't talk about the sorcerer in terms of what his innate connection to magic does to his mind or what his draconic heritage means for his future, we talk about his DPS. I'm not saying the trend in the new systems makes this kind of roleplay impossible, but it is so much easier to ignore the story-potential of a character when more and more the only thing we're given rules for is how that character is equipped to kill shit. I know I'm picking on D&D pretty hard, and they are by no means the only perpetrators, but I feel like they lead the way, I mean D&D has been The Big Name in tabletop for a lot of years.
I feel like an old man yelling at these damn kids for their newfangled power cards and skilltrees, why back in my day you had to pass a tumble check just to get your armor on or whatever. I'm not saying that there aren't any good things to be had from the new breed (13th age has some interesting showings in the mechanics department) but I'm always left wanting more, and not in a good way. Give me some real skills, give me a chance to love my character for more than their ability to one shot a group of mooks, for fucks sake give me more control over my character than I'm liable to find in a Bioware game and we can talk. Until then I can't see myself spending money on, much less running, the new wave. I can't imagine I represent much of a loss in their profits but that's fine, I'm plenty capable of enjoying myself with some 3rd ed D&D or homebrew oWoD. Maybe I'm not alone. Hopefully, I'm not alone. If so, good luck out there. I hope to see you all at the table someday.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Kinda Whatevs Presents: Weekly Cinemeh
Here is our first list of movies we watched and what we thought of them. We didn't know if we wanted a theme or not, and just decided to do foreign films as a make-shift theme. We will try to do better with that in the future, if we decide to make themes a thing.
Spoilers abound, so read at your own risk.
Week of 10/27
1: Stalled
Stalled was an odd movie for me. It was very funny in bits, but also pulled some of the crappy stuff that most horror pulls nowadays. It is basically a movie about the worst day in a guys life, a guy who, while working a shit job, is stuck in a bathroom after zombies attack. It was fun, with a couple of very unique scenes that had Eshi and I rolling. If you just want to watch a silly zombie movie on Halloween with a couple of friends, this is a great contender.
Other than those couple of laughs it was a fairly standard zombie movie that pulls something that all to many zombie movies pull. I hate it when a zombie movie decides that it needs to have message or make a point. Horror doesn't need to make a point, that's not why most people watch them, but I understand if you want to, just do it better. If they were subtle about it I would have less an issue with it, but when its this ham-fisted it just seems lazy.
(Eshi) I liked this movie, it wasn't good but it was a lot of fun. It doesn't bother me as much as it does Brian when they include messages in their horror movies, what bothers me is when they cram it down your throat unashamedly. Stalled gets into that territory a bit but I can't entirely blame them, subtlety is a troublesome proposition in modern film.
2: Beyond Outrage
This is the sequel to a movie that Eshi and I loved, Outrage, and both deal with modern yakuza infighting/some level of police corruption. Takeshi Kitano (also known as Beat Takeshi) wrote, directed and starred in both, and he is amazing. He has a nice atmosphere about him, and he did a good job showing the political movements in the yakuza that underlie most of the actions they undertake. Beyond Outrage continues the story of the first movie 5 years later, and has a corrupt cop trying to orchestrate a gang war to further his own ambitions (and he is fucking bad at it).
The movie is the right level of violent, only being overt about it when it needs to accentuate the importance of certain kinds of symbolic violence. A scene that shows this well is when a character bites his own goddamn finger off to show submission to someone he is trying to ask a favor of. This is a great way to make sure that the audience is not so desensitized to violence that important uses of it still have impact. This is antithesis to how most American gangland movies/TV shows seems to lack nuance when it comes to showing violence.
(Eshi) Beat Takeshi is a fucking artist.
3: Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas
Age of Uprising is a French/German film (originally titled just "Michael Kohlhaas") based on a novella about this guy. Michael Kohlhaas is a 16th century German merchant who seeks revenge/justice for being wronged by a corrupt Baron. This movie is bleak and heavy. It is basically an exploration of justice and whether justice served from the self is better than justice served from the courts and or God.
The movie struggles a bit near the end and ends kind of anti-climatically and things felt kind of unresolved for me. Kohlhaas gets what he wanted but its ultimately unsatisfying, and I am not sure if that was meant to be that way. It could be that the movie was trying to point out that the justice from the justice system and justice meted out by the hurt party are both, at some point, unsatisfactory to society. If so it does a great job of making the viewer feel that way.
Mads Mikkelson is also fantastic. I think that he is one of the best actors I have seen in a while, not just with this movie but with Flame y Citron and the TV show Hannibal. He emotes well, and does a great service when it comes to the dark, oppressive tone of the film.
(Eshi) I cannot stress how oppressive this movie is. It takes place almost entirely in the countryside and yet never for a second does it feel more open than a firmly planted casket. I spent the entire film completely immersed in the futility so masterfully created. Brian mentioned that the film is a commentary on Justice. The most interesting demonstration of this for me was the absolute worthlessness of the theologian character. That single character and his interjection of how a "good christian" finds justice, and how completely he fails to engage, was spectacular.
4: Las brujas de Zugarramurdi (In the US as Witching and Bitching)
LBDZ is a horror/comedy that takes a satirical look at gender politics, and does a great job with it. Both the protagonists, represented as some very badly misogynist, self-centered criminals, and the antagonists, "feminist" and literally man-eating evil witches, are shown as being bad due to the hard line they take when it comes to their positions. Only when the two sides (or at least one person from each side) work together and trust each other does any kind of good relationship occur.
This is the first movie that I have ever seen from Spain and I was very impressed. It was great at creating a surreal, and in an odd way kind of whimsical, depiction of the world; with people acting normal in situations where running away would have been more than appropriate. I would suggest watching it with an open mind as it took a while for us to realize that it was supposed to be a satire and not poorly veiled assholery.
(Eshi) This was the least sexist film about sexism I've ever seen. Through and through it displayed an honesty and earnestness about a subject that is nearly impossible to be honest and earnest about. Also, one of the only movies I've seen that even remotely handles a child character well.
5: The Woman in Black
The last movie in our list this week was The Woman in Black and it was solid, if slightly disappointing. Its a movie about a sad lawyer who goes off to a hamlet in northern England to deal with a dead woman's will, and while he is out there shit goes down. Its a sadly vanilla story with a good, but very telegraphed, ending. Daniel Radcliffe is good at what he does, and the rest of the acting was pretty solid. The movie as a whole though feels flat. Its all stuff we have seen before done well, but not so well as to be exceptional.
I have written about how I feel about horror before, and I want to add something to my list of things that need toning down and or elimination: musical cues. If I am supposed to be scared and you have done a good job setting it up, I will be. You don't need to add tense music only at all the exact times in which shit is going down. WiB does this for every jump scare to "enhance" them, and that just felt cheap. This is especially unacceptable when it ruins the really well established scares.
(Eshi) There were things I really enjoyed about this movie. The environment was beautifully arranged, there were a few well developed scares, and Daniel Radcliffe is one of the rare male actors who can play tortured and empathetic without just being pathetic. Other than my appreciation of set direction and a growing respect for Danny Rads, however, this one was a bit bland, more than bordering on stereotypical. Would be a good third movie in a five movie horror marathon.
Spoilers abound, so read at your own risk.
Week of 10/27
1: Stalled
Stalled was an odd movie for me. It was very funny in bits, but also pulled some of the crappy stuff that most horror pulls nowadays. It is basically a movie about the worst day in a guys life, a guy who, while working a shit job, is stuck in a bathroom after zombies attack. It was fun, with a couple of very unique scenes that had Eshi and I rolling. If you just want to watch a silly zombie movie on Halloween with a couple of friends, this is a great contender.
Other than those couple of laughs it was a fairly standard zombie movie that pulls something that all to many zombie movies pull. I hate it when a zombie movie decides that it needs to have message or make a point. Horror doesn't need to make a point, that's not why most people watch them, but I understand if you want to, just do it better. If they were subtle about it I would have less an issue with it, but when its this ham-fisted it just seems lazy.
(Eshi) I liked this movie, it wasn't good but it was a lot of fun. It doesn't bother me as much as it does Brian when they include messages in their horror movies, what bothers me is when they cram it down your throat unashamedly. Stalled gets into that territory a bit but I can't entirely blame them, subtlety is a troublesome proposition in modern film.
2: Beyond Outrage
This is the sequel to a movie that Eshi and I loved, Outrage, and both deal with modern yakuza infighting/some level of police corruption. Takeshi Kitano (also known as Beat Takeshi) wrote, directed and starred in both, and he is amazing. He has a nice atmosphere about him, and he did a good job showing the political movements in the yakuza that underlie most of the actions they undertake. Beyond Outrage continues the story of the first movie 5 years later, and has a corrupt cop trying to orchestrate a gang war to further his own ambitions (and he is fucking bad at it).
The movie is the right level of violent, only being overt about it when it needs to accentuate the importance of certain kinds of symbolic violence. A scene that shows this well is when a character bites his own goddamn finger off to show submission to someone he is trying to ask a favor of. This is a great way to make sure that the audience is not so desensitized to violence that important uses of it still have impact. This is antithesis to how most American gangland movies/TV shows seems to lack nuance when it comes to showing violence.
(Eshi) Beat Takeshi is a fucking artist.
3: Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas
Age of Uprising is a French/German film (originally titled just "Michael Kohlhaas") based on a novella about this guy. Michael Kohlhaas is a 16th century German merchant who seeks revenge/justice for being wronged by a corrupt Baron. This movie is bleak and heavy. It is basically an exploration of justice and whether justice served from the self is better than justice served from the courts and or God.
The movie struggles a bit near the end and ends kind of anti-climatically and things felt kind of unresolved for me. Kohlhaas gets what he wanted but its ultimately unsatisfying, and I am not sure if that was meant to be that way. It could be that the movie was trying to point out that the justice from the justice system and justice meted out by the hurt party are both, at some point, unsatisfactory to society. If so it does a great job of making the viewer feel that way.
Mads Mikkelson is also fantastic. I think that he is one of the best actors I have seen in a while, not just with this movie but with Flame y Citron and the TV show Hannibal. He emotes well, and does a great service when it comes to the dark, oppressive tone of the film.
(Eshi) I cannot stress how oppressive this movie is. It takes place almost entirely in the countryside and yet never for a second does it feel more open than a firmly planted casket. I spent the entire film completely immersed in the futility so masterfully created. Brian mentioned that the film is a commentary on Justice. The most interesting demonstration of this for me was the absolute worthlessness of the theologian character. That single character and his interjection of how a "good christian" finds justice, and how completely he fails to engage, was spectacular.
4: Las brujas de Zugarramurdi (In the US as Witching and Bitching)
LBDZ is a horror/comedy that takes a satirical look at gender politics, and does a great job with it. Both the protagonists, represented as some very badly misogynist, self-centered criminals, and the antagonists, "feminist" and literally man-eating evil witches, are shown as being bad due to the hard line they take when it comes to their positions. Only when the two sides (or at least one person from each side) work together and trust each other does any kind of good relationship occur.
This is the first movie that I have ever seen from Spain and I was very impressed. It was great at creating a surreal, and in an odd way kind of whimsical, depiction of the world; with people acting normal in situations where running away would have been more than appropriate. I would suggest watching it with an open mind as it took a while for us to realize that it was supposed to be a satire and not poorly veiled assholery.
(Eshi) This was the least sexist film about sexism I've ever seen. Through and through it displayed an honesty and earnestness about a subject that is nearly impossible to be honest and earnest about. Also, one of the only movies I've seen that even remotely handles a child character well.
5: The Woman in Black
The last movie in our list this week was The Woman in Black and it was solid, if slightly disappointing. Its a movie about a sad lawyer who goes off to a hamlet in northern England to deal with a dead woman's will, and while he is out there shit goes down. Its a sadly vanilla story with a good, but very telegraphed, ending. Daniel Radcliffe is good at what he does, and the rest of the acting was pretty solid. The movie as a whole though feels flat. Its all stuff we have seen before done well, but not so well as to be exceptional.
I have written about how I feel about horror before, and I want to add something to my list of things that need toning down and or elimination: musical cues. If I am supposed to be scared and you have done a good job setting it up, I will be. You don't need to add tense music only at all the exact times in which shit is going down. WiB does this for every jump scare to "enhance" them, and that just felt cheap. This is especially unacceptable when it ruins the really well established scares.
(Eshi) There were things I really enjoyed about this movie. The environment was beautifully arranged, there were a few well developed scares, and Daniel Radcliffe is one of the rare male actors who can play tortured and empathetic without just being pathetic. Other than my appreciation of set direction and a growing respect for Danny Rads, however, this one was a bit bland, more than bordering on stereotypical. Would be a good third movie in a five movie horror marathon.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Unreasonably Hostel
As you may have gathered Brian and I watch a fair number of movies. During our cinematic escapades I've noticed something that grates on me in a weird way. I have yet to see a movie service, streaming or otherwise, that can figure out their genres.
Its not a huge deal, I'm not suppressing facial ticks or digging up the ol' Nailbat of Disapproval, but when I'm looking for a nice psychological thriller and Netflix offers Kiss the Girls and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in the same breath; it goes from funny to annoying pretty quick. That one isn't that bad, I can dig it, bugs happen in any automated system. The thing that bugs me the most is (as per usual) horror movies. It seems these days that anything that has a monster or any significant gore in it counts as horror. Black Death is not a fucking horror movie, an amazing, slow-burn, psychological thriller and one of Sean "Dying is my Job" Bean's best showings sure, but scary it ain't. Now, the organizational failings of a few internet services is disappointing but I can't entirely blame them when neither the people making the movies, nor the people watching them can get their shit together.
There has been a slow divergence in what kind of story is presented as audiences change, but this change hasn't really been observed in our categorizing genres. Thriller has slowly evolved out of the horror category but that's about it. Horror movies are still essentially any movie that makes you any kind of uncomfortable. Comedy is still just anything that can cram more than two one liners into a script. Sci-fi and fantasy still get crammed together (which I kind of understand, considering most people only really differentiate in that one is uses technology and one uses magic) and Action/adventure, well, I don't really have any issue with that one actually, both the movies in the genre and the genre itself are a little too straight forward to fuck up.
I admit that I talk a lot about needing better categorization of things but I feel it really is important. Specification is an absurdly important aspect of language, its how we know what the fuck people are talking about. Its how we know what we're looking at. This is especially apparent with movies. I like gore, the occasional torture-porn movie can be a delightful romp through the nastier bits of the psyche, but torture-porn isn't fucking scary. Unsettling, hopefully, but not scary; and the urges that lead to either watching horror or gore are very fucking different. Wanting to watch a bunch of shitty, pandering cunts get ironied to death makes someone getting skull-fucked by a power drill a disappointing sight.
Rom-coms are another pain point for me, but honestly less because I'm usually looking for something else when I stumble on a romantic comedy and more because they're just... just so bad. But that's another post entirely.
I know its nit-picky but I think we can do better than just shoehorning disparate themes together under whatever happens to be handy. We're in charge of this shit, we can make new categories as new subjects arise and, considering how much time us movie geeks spend on things like this, there isn't any reason not to make the fucking effort.
Its not a huge deal, I'm not suppressing facial ticks or digging up the ol' Nailbat of Disapproval, but when I'm looking for a nice psychological thriller and Netflix offers Kiss the Girls and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in the same breath; it goes from funny to annoying pretty quick. That one isn't that bad, I can dig it, bugs happen in any automated system. The thing that bugs me the most is (as per usual) horror movies. It seems these days that anything that has a monster or any significant gore in it counts as horror. Black Death is not a fucking horror movie, an amazing, slow-burn, psychological thriller and one of Sean "Dying is my Job" Bean's best showings sure, but scary it ain't. Now, the organizational failings of a few internet services is disappointing but I can't entirely blame them when neither the people making the movies, nor the people watching them can get their shit together.
There has been a slow divergence in what kind of story is presented as audiences change, but this change hasn't really been observed in our categorizing genres. Thriller has slowly evolved out of the horror category but that's about it. Horror movies are still essentially any movie that makes you any kind of uncomfortable. Comedy is still just anything that can cram more than two one liners into a script. Sci-fi and fantasy still get crammed together (which I kind of understand, considering most people only really differentiate in that one is uses technology and one uses magic) and Action/adventure, well, I don't really have any issue with that one actually, both the movies in the genre and the genre itself are a little too straight forward to fuck up.
I admit that I talk a lot about needing better categorization of things but I feel it really is important. Specification is an absurdly important aspect of language, its how we know what the fuck people are talking about. Its how we know what we're looking at. This is especially apparent with movies. I like gore, the occasional torture-porn movie can be a delightful romp through the nastier bits of the psyche, but torture-porn isn't fucking scary. Unsettling, hopefully, but not scary; and the urges that lead to either watching horror or gore are very fucking different. Wanting to watch a bunch of shitty, pandering cunts get ironied to death makes someone getting skull-fucked by a power drill a disappointing sight.
Rom-coms are another pain point for me, but honestly less because I'm usually looking for something else when I stumble on a romantic comedy and more because they're just... just so bad. But that's another post entirely.
I know its nit-picky but I think we can do better than just shoehorning disparate themes together under whatever happens to be handy. We're in charge of this shit, we can make new categories as new subjects arise and, considering how much time us movie geeks spend on things like this, there isn't any reason not to make the fucking effort.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
The Ship Of Theseus
I have brought up thought experiments before, and I would like to share another one with you, dear reader. The "Ship of Theseus" is a thought experiment that I love thinking about. As with most thought experiments it doesn't really have a final or absolute solution, but it is a great way of examining the concept of Identity, and how it ties in with the physical self.
I like using a more modern version of this experiment, but really anything made up of smaller parts works, but for now I will explain it in the way I learned it from the Philosophy and Sci-Fi class I took in school. The Millennium Falcon is a rather large spaceship. If you take away one part and replace it, is the ship still the Millennium Falcon? What about if you replace a second part? What about if you replace every part of the ship? Is it still the same ship? At what point would this ship cease to be the Millennium Falcon, if it ever would? Hell, you can get more fancy with it if you want. What if I slowly replace all the parts in the Millennium Falcon over time, but take the original parts and put them together in another location. Which one is the Millennium Falcon?
This forces the experimenter to examine where Identity lies. Does Identity lie in the parts themselves? After all that is what the Millennium Falcon is, a collection of parts. But replacing bits of it, surely, wouldn't make it a different entity, would it? Does the identity of the ship lie in one part? If I replace everything but, say, the ships computer, would it be the same ship? Is the "soul" or "spirit" of the thing where the identity lies?
Like I said a few before, there is no real way to answer this. There are responses on both sides (yea or nay), but both leave something to be desired. I have not explained most of the answers because I think It would be fun to see how people, just hearing the basic experiment, would respond. Please leave a comment on how you would answer the main problem of this experiment.
I like using a more modern version of this experiment, but really anything made up of smaller parts works, but for now I will explain it in the way I learned it from the Philosophy and Sci-Fi class I took in school. The Millennium Falcon is a rather large spaceship. If you take away one part and replace it, is the ship still the Millennium Falcon? What about if you replace a second part? What about if you replace every part of the ship? Is it still the same ship? At what point would this ship cease to be the Millennium Falcon, if it ever would? Hell, you can get more fancy with it if you want. What if I slowly replace all the parts in the Millennium Falcon over time, but take the original parts and put them together in another location. Which one is the Millennium Falcon?
This forces the experimenter to examine where Identity lies. Does Identity lie in the parts themselves? After all that is what the Millennium Falcon is, a collection of parts. But replacing bits of it, surely, wouldn't make it a different entity, would it? Does the identity of the ship lie in one part? If I replace everything but, say, the ships computer, would it be the same ship? Is the "soul" or "spirit" of the thing where the identity lies?
Like I said a few before, there is no real way to answer this. There are responses on both sides (yea or nay), but both leave something to be desired. I have not explained most of the answers because I think It would be fun to see how people, just hearing the basic experiment, would respond. Please leave a comment on how you would answer the main problem of this experiment.
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