📚┃off-topic

[placid yarrow]

I really think it'll die down

But obviously stay relevant

[gilded elm]

For all the wrong reasons IMO. I think it should be the most controversial due to the blatant copyright infringement.

[placid yarrow]

Yep

[gilded elm]

But naturally people are focused on the job impact more.

[placid yarrow]

Its the ways people use it that should be criticized

Not the tool itself

Training your ai on non public domain art without acquiring rights for example is very scummy imo

[gilded elm]

AI would not have been such a disruptive force in our society if it hadn't trained on all of that copyrighted material without consent. The only reason it's so disruptive is because companies exploited untested legal circumstances to rapidly push viable LLMs into existence.

[placid yarrow]

But if you did aquire the rights to the art or only use public domain art then I see no problem with that art AI

[placid yarrow]

Yeah they're rushing to do shady shit while the laws are still lagging behind

[gilded elm]

By asking for forgiveness instead of permission, AI companies accelerated the growth and implementation of AI by who knows how many years. If they did everything by the book, we probably wouldn't even have the kind of frontier LLMs we have today until maybe another 5+ years.

[placid yarrow]

I'd say longer honestly

[gilded elm]

And the job market would be far less disruptive.

[placid yarrow]

Laws and regulations move at the speed of tar

[gilded elm]

Yeah, it's unfortunate. As a tool, it's really cool.

[solemn harness]

Are they even asking for forgiveness? I was under the impression companies were just throwing lawyers at the problem and trying to make it too expensive for anyone to fight.

[gilded elm]

Yeah that's basically what I mean by "asking for forgiveness" haha

They're all involved with copyright lawsuits as defendants, so basically that's what I mean.

[solemn harness]

I would be astonished if OpenAI or any other company actually admitted fault regarding the massive amount of copyright violation going on.

[placid yarrow]

It's all still In a grey area law wise so they kinda just don't care tbh

If you try to sue they send lawyers that say it's technically not illegal and they're right so nothing happens

[gilded elm]

I think some have, but honestly it's meaningless because the damage is done and they aren't required to face any meaningful accountability.

[solemn harness]

The only actual argument I've seen from them is "you have to let us do this, because if we don't china will, and that's bad."

[gilded elm]

That's their big one, yeah.

[desert jasper]

Didn't one of the companies already complain about china copying their model

[gilded elm]

China has actually contributed the most "open source" (technically not open source, it's called open weights) LLMs to the world.

[placid yarrow]

To be fair it's not a horrible argument because it is true. But ultimately it's about if you even like them more than the Chinese companies lul

[gilded elm]

As far as enabling the average person to use LLMs on their own hardware, China has been the biggest contributor to that.

So as far as I'm concerned, China isn't my enemy lol

[placid yarrow]

Yea

[gilded elm]

NVIDIA, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI ... these are the real companies that are a threat to the average American, not China.

[stone anvil]

it's like thanos stones, evil in bad hands

[placid yarrow]

OpenAI is hemorrhaging right now tbf

They haven't really made anything that makes any real money compared to their spending

I doubt they'll go bankrupt or anything but they'll prob have to slow down

[gilded elm]

Microsoft and NVIDIA have a strong interest in keeping OpenAI afloat, though. If OpenAI collapses, it's going to look bad for them.

[placid yarrow]

Yep

That's why I doubt it'll bankrupt

[sand wigeon]

i hope ai falls apart at the seams until it’s nothing but a forgotten seam in-between old photographs

[solemn harness]

TBH the entire business model seems ridiculous to me; there are very few contexts where I actually find LLMs / AI-assistance or whatever "helpful" -- and in basically all of them I'm not really comfortable with trusting some megacorp with my data, meaning it either has to run locally or I'm just not going to use it at all

[placid yarrow]

To be fair the average person isn't this conscious about their data

[desert jasper]

I wish they were

[placid yarrow]

Yep

[solemn harness]

the average person doesn't even know where their data is 🤣

[gilded elm]

Gen AI as a tool is going to be around forever. I expect it to be a ubiquitous tool in many fields of work. Similar to the growth and wider adoption of the Internet after the dot com burst. The ideal and most practical outcome is that NVIDIA, Microsoft, OpenAI etc are punished hard.

[placid yarrow]

Yeah AI isn't going anywhere

[sand wigeon]

doesn’t mean i can’t hope for a better world lol

[placid yarrow]

But I do think there's way too much spending going on for how big its market will realistically turn out

[solemn harness]

my mom had a bunch of pictures stored on google cloud (she thought they were on her phone, and still didn't understand after I spent 5 minutes explaining) -- the only reason she even found out they were stored there was because she started getting scary messages about reaching her storage limit, and google wanted her to pay for more

the files are somewhere, surely

[placid yarrow]

I mean depending on what the images are of stuff like Google cloud is whatever

Just don't put anything sensitive on there

[desert jasper]

But I wanted to put my saucy pictures there
food pics with a lot of sauce on them

[sand wigeon]

ai has done irreparable damage to the three things i am most passionate about

there will never be a day i don’t hate genai

[gilded elm]

Copyright infringement has done that.

[sand wigeon]

…no?

[placid yarrow]

What are the things if they're not copyright related?

[gilded elm]

We wouldn't even have the kind of Gen AI we have today if not for copyrighted training materials.

[placid yarrow]

99% of the AI art issue is copyright infringement

[sand wigeon]

i mean sure, that’s a problem, but it’s not the damage i’m talking about

that’s just immoral

[placid yarrow]

But the damage wouldn't have existed if people didn't copyright infringe. It's like saying knives have done atrocious things because people use them to do bad things no?

[gilded elm]

That you can generate images or stories is not the problem.

[sand wigeon]

it is absolutely the problem lol

[placid yarrow]

How so? If you haven't trained it on anyone else's art without their consent

I don't really see the issue

[gilded elm]

No, it's not. We've had the ability to generate stuff like that for a long time. It never got this crazy because we didn't have a tool that could just ingest copyrighted work and learn to generate content based on that training data.

[placid yarrow]

It'll just make some crappy kinda nonsense art

Who cares

[gilded elm]

This situation is 100% because of copyright infringement.

The tech has always been there.

[placid yarrow]

(obviously you can make it make good art but you'd need to pay the artists for the art you want to train it on)

[stone anvil]

have you seen google gemini making games like zelda, roblox? If it wouldn't used copyrighted games, then how would do it?

[sand wigeon]

the damage:

• writing, it has permanently altered how people perceive written works and how you’re even allowed to write within them. most writers need to consciously write different than ai now, and it causes severe problems on a broader scale.
• visual artistry, people can’t look at any piece of art now without second guessing themself, and regular artists get told they’re ai generating when they aren’t. it’s made it even harder to get your work out there
• music, on the backs of already bad companies like spotify genai has essentially made ai music impossible to avoid, and it further suppresses real artists, small or not, in a time where making money from their music is already difficult. and that can’t be reversed or improved overtime either

sure them infringing on copyright was what led to it but it’s not the specific damage i’m talking about lol

i’m not arguing that stealing art was Okay Actually

[gilded elm]

• Copyright infringement
• Copyright infringement
• Copyright infringement
  Literally the cause of all of these emergent issues.

[sand wigeon]

just that these are the specific things/ways i think it’s caused irreversible damage

[sand wigeon]

i’m not…

yeah?

[placid yarrow]

The first one I completely disagree with, if your writing seems like it might be written by AI that just means people think there's something uncanny about it. In the past that would be attributed to you having a weird writing style but nowadays people just attribute anything unnatural to AI

[sand wigeon]

uh

sure

i’ma leave the convo

[gilded elm]

Social media sucks, right? I think so. Does that mean the Internet is bad?

[stone anvil]

good question

[gilded elm]

Gen AI is a tool.

[sudden anchor]

Isn't discord social media too?

[placid yarrow]

To me this is too much of a black and white stance where anything AI has to be bad. If your art could be perceived as maybe being AI, what does that say about your art? What makes art look like AI art. To me it doesn't even really matter, if the art looks good it looks good, that's all there is to it. If the art was made with an AI that was trained on other people's art without their consent that's obviously a bad thing. But if it wasn't and it produced something decent then that's all there is to it, you can go out there and make your own art that's as good if not better. AI art will never surpass what it's trained on, that's not how current models work at least

[gilded elm]

It is, yeah. So is YouTube. Discord can be bad, but overall it's probably on the good side of classification as far as social media goes.

[gilded elm]

100%, very nuanced and reasonable take. I completely agree.

[sand wigeon]

as a professional artist i have noticed a varied paradigm shift in how people even treat art as a topic thanks to ai, this convo not withstanding. i already voiced my base examples so i won’t continue but i truly do encourage y’all to listen to me, especially when we exist in a reality where genai isn’t very nuanced.

[gilded elm]

I hate thinking in absolutes.

[stone anvil]

discord also can be used for work

like ehg

[gilded elm]

That's because as a society we haven't been given the proper opportunity to have a discussion on AI. These companies violated copyright, trained a bunch of models on tons of copyrighted data and forcefed the AI discussion onto us overnight. It's understandable why there are so many conflicting and unformed opinions on the subject.

[sand wigeon]

it being copyrighted is only part of the issue, genai has had very direct impacts on the entirety of society and art, ramifications that can’t be fixed by “nuanced conversations”

[solemn harness]

TBH the most annoying thing about AI when it comes to writing (in my opinion, as someone that reads a lot of stuff published online) is the sheer number of authors that choose to use it but try to hide the fact that they're doing so
it's so painfully obvious when someone does
AI makes stupid errors from one chapter to the next, like a number randomly changing from 100 to 1000, and the author never acknowledges it
or the AI repeats the same sentence multiple times over the course of a chapter, slightly reworded each time
or the AI is excessively verbose, with completely unreasonable amounts of detail on story aspects literally nobody would ever care about
etc

[sand wigeon]

there’s so many examples i can think of off the top of my head lol

[twilit mountain]

I mean. I'm not going to be okay even with one that's "locally trained" or whatever you call it. Generative AI is a plague and I think anyone using it is impairing themselves in multiple fronts. But I'm not here to discuss it frankly, because trying to talk about it with people who actively use it is like bashing my skull into cinder blocks.

[gilded elm]

You're missing the entire point. Gen AI is nothing without data. The copyright argument is everything because it completely shapes the form that Gen AI takes in our society.

[solemn harness]

like if you want to use AI assistance in writing, more power to you, but don't try to pretend it's all you lol

[placid yarrow]

Yes things shift and change in society. Change isn't always bad, even if let's say the majority of people think a change is bad sometimes it'll still happen. For example I think most people would agree modern social media is bad, but it's still a growing field. I think instead of trying to fight the inevitable it's better to figure out how to best live with it

[sand wigeon]

this change is bad

[placid yarrow]

I'm not saying it isn't

[sand wigeon]

yeah that’s cool and all but it’s not the convo i’m having lol

maybe if you read what i said you’d know that

[gilded elm]

It's the one you should be having instead of blaming a good tool that was created from bad intent.

[sand wigeon]

i literally specified in my beginning message that i’m talking about a few specific points and that the copyright stuff isn’t relevant to what i’m trying to discuss rn

[placid yarrow]

I think what byteflux is saying is that if companies didn't do shady shit with AI from the getgo all these bad changes that have come to the fields you love wouldn't have happened

[gilded elm]

Good tool is still a good tool, the intent matters.

[sand wigeon]

i don’t believe it’s a good tool tho

i think it’s intrinsically evil

but y’all also use ai

[placid yarrow]

Because?

If you don't use it to copy anyone else

Why is it evil

[gilded elm]

Right, we would've actually been having nuanced discussions, artists wouldn't immediately sign away their art, they'd have a choice.

[sand wigeon]

i think it’s a failure of the human race to wish to express themselves without the furthering of themself

i think it’s had extreme ramifications on art, current artists and potential artists

i think it has philosophically irreverential, malformed and inherently evil

[placid yarrow]

It wouldn't have if it wasn't trained on unlicensed art though

[sand wigeon]

no, it would be

everything i believe applies with proper copyright or not

i think the act of generating art without your own skill expressed is inherently wrong

[gilded elm]

I use tools. If you can't explain why a tool is evil, you've got no argument.

[sand wigeon]

i’m not arguing with you

you were never going to change your mind

[placid yarrow]

If I, an artist with a very unique style didn't want ai to copy my art style I would be able to say no if the laws were in place and I would be able to keep my style and not have AI generate something akin to it.

The reason AI has invaded the art space is because it's a grey area legally so companies just trained their AI on everyone's art without consent. I think that's immoral and damaging

[sand wigeon]

i’m explaining my thoughts

[sand wigeon]

i think that anyone generating anything through genai is inherently wrong

idk where the message is lost here i’m being very direct

[gilded elm]

Right, it's a very absolute take that's seemingly based in ignorance and not any actual nuanced reasoning.

[maiden widget]

The why is lost because you don't mention it

[sand wigeon]

i explained why

[solemn harness]

tbh I can agree with that sentiment, at least when it comes to art

[placid yarrow]

But why do you think this? I'm genuinely trying to understand. I'm very willing to change my mind honestly I have no stake in this. I pretty much never use AI myself

[sand wigeon]

i think the act of creating expression without expressing or furthering yourself in inherently wrong

[solemn harness]

if you're just generating something technical, like code or documentation or whatever, I don't think generative AI is immoral, it's just stupid

but for art, yeah; the whole point is human expression

if you're not expressing yourself it's just a lie

[gilded elm]

If using Gen AI to ingest a bunch of unformatted, tangled data and instructing it to output it into something coherent and better formatted makes me evil, guess I'm evil.

[sand wigeon]

i’m a professional artist. i can plainly see the concern that if “generative art” is easily accessible to people from a young age, there may be whole groups of artists who never progress because they don’t see a point, can “do it easier,” etc

and that’s only one of my many problems

[sand wigeon]

yeah i do think you’re evil byte

like i’ve been pretty clear about that for months lol

[placid yarrow]

Tbf that's what vibe coding is to software engineering lol. And vibe coders have extremely limited success

Just like pure AI artists would

[sand wigeon]

i don’t think the success matters

[stone anvil]

If you buy AI generated art, you are stupid but some arts are so similar and it will be more difficult to seperate AI from real art

[sand wigeon]

also, byte, then just think i’m ignorant and move on with your life

[gilded elm]

Not just me, basically half the world. People you know, people in here you know or don't. In some capacity has willingly used AI.

[sand wigeon]

yeah and i think they’re all evil

again i’m being very direct with my take here

[gilded elm]

Sure, so your very direct take is that anyone who willingly uses AI in any capacity is evil.

[sand wigeon]

yeah

i believe it is ontologically wrong to do so

[placid yarrow]

So if I train an AI completely on my own work, and then use it. Is that evil too?

[sand wigeon]

half the world being evil ain’t news to me i get so much phobia for being a lesbian anyway lol

[placid yarrow]

Isn't the AI itself an expression of me at that point?

[solemn harness]

TBH I'm still mad that LLMs even get to be called AI; this is not the AI I was sold on as a kid, it's glorified autocomplete

[sand wigeon]

yes i believe so

[sand wigeon]

no i do not believe so

[maiden widget]

Just wait real AI is right around the corner

[placid yarrow]

Actual AI cannot exist

[sand wigeon]

the duality of humankind

[maiden widget]

Surely we'll also all get replaced soon

[placid yarrow]

Well I guess it depends on how you define it

[maiden widget]

Yes one might even use sarcasm

[sand wigeon]

anyway real sentient ai would be cool but we’re so many hundreds of years from that (hyperbole)

[placid yarrow]

To me even humans don't have complete intelligence

[twilit mountain]

Average Neomuna citizen

[sand wigeon]

well we’re all arguing in a discord off topic chat about ai so i think that’s clear

[gilded elm]

tbh AI in tech has been a thing long before LLMs too, think like NPC logic in games, that's always been called AI

[twilit mountain]

I don't expect anyone to understand that joke

[sand wigeon]

ough i think someone disturbed my light particles

[solemn harness]

call me an AI coder because I scripted some basic logic for NPCs in skyrim, oblivion, and morrowind

[gilded elm]

caught in 4K

[placid yarrow]

Well nah I mean it more as in I think the human brain is pretty much no different from a computer. There's no such thing as real consciousness, we're also just a super complex algorithm

[sand wigeon]

sure you can believe that

like i dunno makes sense to me

[placid yarrow]

Which is why I think the upper limit of AI would be the same

Just an algorithm

[sand wigeon]

i can see how you’d think it

it goes against about all of my beliefs tho

[maiden widget]

You're clearly the ai. Nice try grok

[placid yarrow]

Yeah I'm pretty nihilistic. I think everything that will ever happen is already guaranteed and that we don't really actually have any choice in anything

[sand wigeon]

nihilism is for five year olds

that’s my take

stupidest philosophical foundry ever

[placid yarrow]

Meh. I'm open to changing my mind if there's anything to dispute it

[gilded elm]

Nihilistic, or just a fervent follower of Albert Einstein?

[sand wigeon]

i don’t care enough to dispute you

it’s just philosophy 101 bullshit tbh

people very quickly move on to “oh yeah that perspective is stupid. wow, i’m happier now”

[gilded elm]

If I remember, Einstein also subscribed to a deterministic universe.

[sand wigeon]

after like. kant. or smth

well he wasn’t rly the smartest guy

[stone anvil]

I am younger than Einstein but this doesn't mean I am smarter

facts

[solemn harness]

not all forms of nihilism are the same; it's a family of philosophical views not a single view

[sand wigeon]

i’m talking about all of them

nearly as bad as stoicism tbh

nihilism i mean

[placid yarrow]

I mean I'm pretty happy. I've come to terms with it and will live my life without really thinking about it. It's just that if you asked me if I think the human mind could be emulated completely by a non living thing I'd say yes

[gilded elm]

I like stoicism :)

[sand wigeon]

that doesn’t surprise me

[placid yarrow]

To me the only way to think humans/living things are special and have this unique "consciousness" would be via some kind of god or similar

And like I said if someone showed me absolute evidence of that I'd change my mind, I just haven't seen or experienced anything to do so yet

[sand wigeon]

i mean i believe in a god and i don’t believe humans are special

[gilded elm]

I'm still undecided, but I've recently started to lean more into the idea that maybe humans are special in the cosmos at large. The Fermi Paradox is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for that, though.

[sand wigeon]

though that’s also a pretty fundamental part of my belief system

[placid yarrow]

What separates us from a computer then?

If consciousness isn't anything special to living things

[sand wigeon]

if it were an intelligent ai? nothing

i never said otherwise

[placid yarrow]

Oh okay

[sand wigeon]

i don’t believe humans are special

[placid yarrow]

But you still think we have free choice? That feels a bit weird to me

[sand wigeon]

sure why wouldn’t we

[placid yarrow]

Because a computer for sure doesn't

[sand wigeon]

an intelligent ai would

[gilded elm]

Would it?

[sand wigeon]

yeah

[placid yarrow]

Not really no?

Everything in it would be predetermined by its programming

A set input would always give the same output

[sand wigeon]

sure and the way i am is predetermined by my traumas and upbringing and environment

i still have free will

if you put me in the same situation a thousand times, like a time loop, and erased my memory each time yeah i’d probably do the exact same thing every time

i’m still choosing to do that thing in the moment though

[gilded elm]

You think you have free will. You (nor I) can be certain you do, though.

[solemn harness]

tbh I don't really like the assertion of nihilism that life or reality is meaningless; I prefer to think of it as something impossible for humans to know, not something impossible to exist; and I think it's insane to try and find universal meaning by extension, you should focus on finding personal meaning in your own life

[placid yarrow]

Idk to me that's no choice at all

[gilded elm]

You should look up "hard determinism"

[placid yarrow]

I feel like the only thing we disagree on is the definition of free choice

[sand wigeon]

byte ik what determinism is lol

[gilded elm]

None of us can actually prove the concept of free will.

[gilded elm]

Well, I specifically meant "hard determinism"

[sand wigeon]

ik what hard determinism is byte

i sat through way too damned many college philosophy courses

[gilded elm]

Alright, good. So you believe you have free will. Knowing it is a completely different thing.

[sand wigeon]

no i know it

[placid yarrow]

To me if everything is on a single track with no variance then there's no choices to be made, you can only go forward

[gilded elm]

You can't know something that you can't actually quantify.

[sand wigeon]

my god told me

lol

[placid yarrow]

Like I can say oh I'm gonna play pantheon today and not yasuo in league of legends

[sand wigeon]

the world has told me

[placid yarrow]

But I was always gonna say that

There's no way I wouldn't say that

So did I really make a choice?

[sand wigeon]

you just sound depressed tbh

like that’s the reality

nihilism is rly common in people with a depressive mind

[stone anvil]

you both need hug fr

[placid yarrow]

Honestly I'm not, I'm actually extremely happy right now. I got to see a childhood friend I haven't seen in years recently

[sand wigeon]

because they force themselves to consider this grand scale and then they go on and on and on until they feel there’s no point or value

that’s the crux of nihilism

[placid yarrow]

Well no, just because I have no choice doesn't mean there's no value

[maiden widget]

So when you make a bad call or injure someone it's predetermined and you're not at fault for drunk driving or stuff like that?

[gilded elm]

I think it's possible to be happy and depressed, tbf :)

[sand wigeon]

i’m stating depressive as the uh. adjective here not the state

depressive mind =/= sad

[placid yarrow]

Eh, in a way? But I'm not gonna say that I wouldn't feel bad. I obviously would

And I would think it was my fault

I wouldn't be like nah the universe made me

[sand wigeon]

anyway i can know it because i choose to know it

it doesn’t matter if i can prove it or whatever

or quantify it

[placid yarrow]

Since like I said while I believe in nihilism I don't really think about it

I don't go around thinking how everything is meaningless

[maiden widget]

That's kind of a sad view to me. You have so many choices to make and this view would just absolve you in a way

[gilded elm]

That's called belief, not knowledge. Words have meaning.

[sand wigeon]

my belief is true

like i’m never going to shit on someone for believing otherwise but i know it’s true

i think deias described my philosophy/religion as “neo-pagan druidic classical alchemist” so take from that what you will

[placid yarrow]

Honestly to me I don't really care what the grand scheme of the universe is. Whether I do or don't have free will, If there is or isn't a god etc. because I can't prove any of it. So while yeah right now my current belief is nothing really matters I'm still gonna strive to do my best and live my best life. Because I could be proven wrong in the future

There's no reason not to do my best

[sand wigeon]

your belief hinges on ability to prove so that makes sense

whereas i could never prove my belief real and don’t think it could ever be proven wrong

which i think is funny

[sand wigeon]

(and nor do i try to prove it to people or convince them into my belief. this is shade at organized religion)

[sudden anchor]

I still have need for pleasure, etc., if I don't have free will. I can't choose what I like, I just am.

[placid yarrow]

Like if someone tomorrow showed me irrefutable proof that the christian god exists and that if I follow his word I'll go to heaven and live in paradise I'd do that lol

[gilded elm]

To me the idea of free will vs hard determinism doesn't change how I live my life. As far as life is concerned, they are the same thing. For example, let's say that free will is an illusion, that means you've never truly experienced free will in the first place, in which case why does it even matter?

[placid yarrow]

Exactly

[stone anvil]

I think having enough right to talk and chatting must be free will. it would be insane If some power would mute you everytime

[solemn harness]

Huh, neat; there actually is a school of philosophy that describes (at least part of) my thoughts: pyrrhonism. TL;DR: it's impossible to know the true nature of reality, and by choosing to suspend judgment entirely and let go of the need to find an answer, you can achieve mental tranquility.

[sand wigeon]

funnily enough i stumbled into my answer

[placid yarrow]

I mean I guess this is pretty much what I think too

[sand wigeon]

though i think that’s how it goes for people who weren’t raised religious but end up so

[placid yarrow]

I just default to nihilism but I don't believe it to be the absolute truth

[sand wigeon]

i’ve seen other people describe it similarly so

[placid yarrow]

I don't know what the truth is nor do I think I'll ever know

[gilded elm]

Whether I believe I have free will or believe I don't have free will means nothing to me. It doesn't change my thinking or decision making at all.

Why should it?

[sand wigeon]

that feeling of a sudden realization that kinda “clicks” deep in you and you suddenly believe it so fervently that you can’t believe you ever thought anything else. so afterwards, you simply believe that, and there’s no way to shake it

[stone anvil]

what If you are saying this because you have free will?

[solemn harness]

if I don't have free will I have some serious questions about the thought process of the being piloting my life, tbh

absolute weirdos

[placid yarrow]

This question is meaningless lul

[sand wigeon]

(this is why hypotheticals like this are dumb and pointless, because it always loops around in one big circle where nothing ever changes)

[gilded elm]

Doesn't matter! I could be saying it because I was always going to say it, too :)

[placid yarrow]

Yep

[sand wigeon]

“is god real” doesn’t matter, if it is then who made god, if it isn’t then it doesn’t matter

✨ philosophy 101 ✨

[placid yarrow]

It's all speculation at the end of the day

[stone anvil]

I like this in person, we should talk otherwise how we can help ourselves ❤️

[placid yarrow]

Just live your best life because you'll never get the answer is my stance

[solemn harness]

whether or not these questions matter also doesn't matter, because we have no way of knowing either way 🙂

[gilded elm]

Right, and not knowing is really the important part.

The fact that you cannot know means you can't actually act on it meaningfully.

Just live your life.

[sudden anchor]

I know I don't have free will.

[solemn harness]

that's ominous

[sand wigeon]

killer go make me sushi then

[placid yarrow]

On a more important note, I still don't have an educated rat

And these digital game rats definitely don't have free will

[gilded elm]

You've succeeded at distracting me long enough that Bonchon is now closed so I can't order any pickup from there. You've inflicted a critical blow against me, rejoice.

[sand wigeon]

rats sadly do not live long enough to get a masters in culinary arts

my dream of owning remy will never be real

[sand wigeon]

hopefully there are more to follow!

[placid yarrow]

Bio engineering to the rescue?

[solemn harness]

this is what we should be spending trillions on

research on extending rat lifespans

not AI

[sand wigeon]

tbf if we created a rat that could lift steel pans and with enough intelligence to cook professional meals and stuff i’d likely be more scared than anything

[sand wigeon]

we fixed baldness in mice

that’s smth

[gilded elm]

I just assume we already have every imaginable research for rats lol

[solemn harness]

next step: immortality

[placid yarrow]

First we'd need to somehow make ourselves controllable through our hair

[maiden widget]

We also made extremely wooly mice

[placid yarrow]

They need to hurry up with that fr

[sand wigeon]

the cutest things ever aside from foxes? yeah

we did that

[solemn harness]

it's perfect

[gilded elm]

Can we give them furry tails?

[warped wren]

https://tenor.com/view/breakingbad-science-yeah-science-gif-5954775

Ah crap forgot this stupid server disables gifs

[gilded elm]

And emotes

[sand wigeon]

you can download the gif and post that tho

[gilded elm]

:peepoRiot:

[sand wigeon]

lol

[placid yarrow]

did you guys see they found woolly rhino dna

[stone anvil]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUPK4BCD67u/ rats btw

[sand wigeon]

nah i ate it

got hungry

[placid yarrow]

In a frozen wolves stomach

[placid yarrow]

ayo wtf cmon man

we could've had cute rhinos

[gilded elm]

Rhinos had fur? Cool lol

Makes sense

[sand wigeon]

rhinos could never be cute

they have too many horns

[placid yarrow]

2?

[sand wigeon]

yeah

[placid yarrow]

lol

[sand wigeon]

one horn maximum

[placid yarrow]

unicorn lover smh

[warped wren]

Rhinos are like so near sighted they may as well be functionally blind

[sand wigeon]

nah horses have too many teeth

[placid yarrow]

wth

[sand wigeon]

they’re also bad

[warped wren]

Unlike bats, which actually have good vision but prefer to use echolocation because it's better for navigating in the dark

[placid yarrow]

I do wonder if they always were

[warped wren]

Hence, "blind as a bat" should actually be "blind as a rhino"

[twilit mountain]

And yet when I scream at people and objects in the dark I get reported as a noise complaint or harassment smh

[sand wigeon]

the only good animal has four digitigrade legs often ending in darker or lighter mitts, coarse to fine fur, a medium-long snout, pointy ears, cackle when happy, have bushy tails, primarily reside in colder regions, have sharp canine teeth and are semi-nocturnal

[gilded elm]

I'm guessing maybe not, if they used to be wooly. Their near blindness means they have to stay in constant proximity to food and water, right?

[placid yarrow]

I wonder if we'll ever achieve peak ergonomics to the point where nothing changes for like a million years and we evolve to have peak comfort

[warped wren]

Also, petition to change receiver of "publicly perceived as cutest aquatic animal" from dolphin to seals

Because dolphins are mega assholes

Seals are just derp

[sand wigeon]

please god give me a cybernetic spine, shoulders and arms

while you’re at it replace my hips and legs

[placid yarrow]

My right shoulder is kinda messed up

fix that fr

[warped wren]

Imagine missing an instalment on your cybernetic and oops no more appendage

[sand wigeon]

yeah that’s dystopia

[placid yarrow]

Using klarna on your spine

[sand wigeon]

i want cyberpunk utopia

[gilded elm]

Actual side quest in Cyberpunk 2077, if I remember

[warped wren]

And then you miss the 2nd one and the cyberenforcers come and lop it off and take it away

[sand wigeon]

anyway you don’t need to imagine this

[stone anvil]

cyborgpunk

[sand wigeon]

this is a real thing that happens to disabled people irl right now

[placid yarrow]

This is what utopia looks like

[warped wren]

Oh I know

Not just disabled people

[sand wigeon]

tbf anyone who uses prosthetics is in fact disabled

[warped wren]

"Recovery" is a full on business in India at least

[gilded elm]

lmao

[warped wren]

Firms that harass / threaten / intimidate loan defaulters

[sand wigeon]

ano

[stone anvil]

how this is possible

have you hacked costco

[warped wren]

The final stage being sending in goons to physically toss them and their belongings out of the house

[placid yarrow]

Klarna baby

[sand wigeon]

that’s called being evicted

this isn’t like

this is an everywhere thing

[placid yarrow]

They let you pay in instalments for basically anything

[sand wigeon]

loan sharks are everywhere

[twilit mountain]

I think I just need a fully replaced skeleton. Spine being screwy messed up my neck, shoulders, hips, legs, ribs.....

[gilded elm]

As long as you don't end up paying interest on the payments and it doesn't cost more to pay in installments, this is funny

[sand wigeon]

you’d look cute with a robo spine

[warped wren]

Is it? Don't think I've heard of it happening in Canada at least. Well, not in the way I just described

[placid yarrow]

and then a % of people who pay for a hot dog using instalments forget to pay for one and get hit with fees

[warped wren]

This is crazy lmao

[placid yarrow]

Yeah you actually don't

[sand wigeon]

oh and you could get little heating installments below your ribs deias

imagine that

[placid yarrow]

there's no extra fee or anything

[warped wren]

I spent $253 on my last costco visit

[placid yarrow]

if you pay on time it costs the same

[twilit mountain]

I've been evicted, can confirm you can be physically tossed out

[stone anvil]

people who forgets

rip

[placid yarrow]

their whole bussiness model hinges on people forgetting to pay lmao

yep

[gilded elm]

Yeah

[warped wren]

Oof, sorry to hear that

[gilded elm]

I have all of my credit payments on auto

[placid yarrow]

they were actually in a little bit of trouble recently because people would forget to pay, rack up fees. and then just not pay the fees either lmao

[sand wigeon]

i’m not. i’ll toss her out again

[placid yarrow]

and they're not gonna send you to collections for like 10 bucks

[sand wigeon]

into the snow with the beast

[warped wren]

Yeah because they weren't synced up to credit unions right

[twilit mountain]

It's alright, only got evicted twice in my life, the hopping between rentals was honestly worse

[warped wren]

So no repercussions

[placid yarrow]

yea

it was only for a short time though

[sand wigeon]

personally i just steal

what’s the point in fraud anyway

[placid yarrow]

it's actually kinda interesting, we don't really have anything like a credit score here

they just look at your income here

[sand wigeon]

thank god

[gilded elm]

That sounds like it might have its own cons, though

[sand wigeon]

why yes i do love abiding by an outdated system with bad rules and no real purpose

[placid yarrow]

Prob

it does mean that almost nobody uses credit cards here

I don't think I've ever known anyone who uses one

[sand wigeon]

i love how routinely paying my crunchyroll subscription or whatever raises my credit score. yes, i can afford this mortgage loan, i’ve always paid my crunchyroll

[gilded elm]

I mean more in terms of the actual purpose for which we use credit scores here, which is to answer the question "how good is this person at meeting their financial obligations?"

[warped wren]

I find it unhinged that you literally get punished for being fiscally responsible in the credit system

[sand wigeon]

credit score doesn’t answer this at all tho

[sand wigeon]

partly due to this

[warped wren]

If you don't have enough EMIs or you're not using enough of your credit limit

You actually lose score

Absurd.

[sand wigeon]

yep

[placid yarrow]

Yeah I feel like the credit system is designed for one thing but does something else

[warped wren]

Wdym, it's designed for wealth transfer, it does that perfectly

[gilded elm]

Well yeah, it's flawed because someone could be financially well off but not actually have a credit score or engage in the credit system at all for whatever reason. The credit system only works as described when people actually use it.

[warped wren]

Working as intended.

[twilit mountain]

My credit probably sucks idk, never checked it

[placid yarrow]

Well when they do check you here they do see your debts and stuff

like if you're racking up debt they'll see that

there's just no credit "score" number

[twilit mountain]

Reason I say this is because the last actual bank account I had I closed with a whopping $-0.62 in it

[warped wren]

How does your country's financial system link with international finance then

[placid yarrow]

wdym

[warped wren]

Like how do sole business owners take investment from international firms for example

Since there's no credit score, an important part of such things

[placid yarrow]

is it?

feel like that stuff is mostly dependant on cash flow and existing debt

[warped wren]

Well it's definitely a part of it. I suppose you could substitute it with base financial info

[sand wigeon]

it’s okay i’m doing great

[warped wren]

Instead of just a score

[placid yarrow]

How

[sand wigeon]

wdym how

[placid yarrow]

how did you spend everything perfectly

[sand wigeon]

i’m just that good

[placid yarrow]

shiet

I'm impressed ngl

[twilit mountain]

My PayPal has exactly $0.50 in it

[sand wigeon]

also it was transferred out to a venmo lol

[sudden anchor]

https://tenor.com/view/you're-broke-broke-brokie-andrew-tate-tate-gif-13383070538022521939

[gilded elm]

Makes sense, credit and debt still exists. So when someone is buying a house or applying to rent an apartment, what kind of scoring does the property manager use when looking at that financial history?

[vagrant topaz]

It's still only the 21st

[sand wigeon]

that is not the image i selected

thank you discord.

[placid yarrow]

I guess it would be up to them. They get to see your income, loans/credits, past mismanaged payments, debt balance in the banking system etc

obviously you have to consent for them to see any of this

[sand wigeon]

i have $1.67 on my paypal too

i am broke broke

[placid yarrow]

Basically they need to make a judgement call in a case by case basis

instead of just having a number

[sand wigeon]

i will gain access to about $1200 next year that i can invest with and stuff at least

[gilded elm]

Sounds like it's a personalized credit scoring criteria dependent on the person or organization that's reviewing the rental / mortgage / loan application, then.

[placid yarrow]

yep

they get to see your financial status and make a decision if they wanna give you the loan or whatever

[sand wigeon]

i have $800 in bills i need to pay tho

[gilded elm]

Credit score is impersonal and more of a standardized way of doing the same thing. So there's pros and cons, for sure.

[sand wigeon]

$200 from my legally mandated doctors appointments that i literally can’t deny and $600 from some classes lol

[placid yarrow]

Having to pay for something that's legally mandated is, something 💀

[sand wigeon]

welcome to america

i am legally mandated to visit this specialist

i have 5 minute zoom calls with them every six months

[warped wren]

Never have I heard any random fact about American healthcare that has failed to shock me

[sand wigeon]

it costs me $200 and if i deny my medication is taken away

[placid yarrow]

200 bucks for a 5 minute call?

[sand wigeon]

yeah

[placid yarrow]

sheeeeesh

[warped wren]

[sand wigeon]

it was $400 for a 5 minute call with my other specialist

[warped wren]

[placid yarrow]

what is going on

[sand wigeon]

i’ve been very ill my entire life in many ways is what’s going on

at this point my family has probably paid at least a hundred thousand dollars in just my medical bills

from when i was a kid

[gilded elm]

Being legally mandated sounds like a court order or some other government order, not sure if it's the healthcare that's the issue here rather than the government refusing the cover the cost of the healthcare which they mandated.

[sand wigeon]

it’s mandated because if i don’t go i lose my medication

not because the government tells me to

[twilit mountain]

I just pay for medication, and had a brief period where I had to pay co-pays at the clinic I go to because the government was mucking around with what my insurance covered

[gilded elm]

Are you using Medicaid, by chance?

[sand wigeon]

no i’m on techie insurance

additionally i only have a limited number of refills on my medication before they have to ask my specialist for more refills

[twilit mountain]

(My insurance is not very good, I just haven't had anything major that it wouldn't cover)

[placid yarrow]

so it's 200 bucks just to fill a prescription?

[gilded elm]

Ah, so it's an actual insurance company policy.

[sand wigeon]

i also have to get my blood drawn every few months or else they’ll remove access to my medication

[sand wigeon]

no just for the appointment

[desert jasper]

Ah sweet
it's only -1C
time to open a window and actually get rest

[gilded elm]

In that case, yeah screw insurance companies.

[sand wigeon]

the pills are like $18 per refill

[warped wren]

God. No wonder people say Luigi didn't go far enough.

Insanity

[sand wigeon]

for one month, per set of pills, and i take two sets

so like $40 a month all in all

[gilded elm]

Insurance as a business model is scummy in general. Insurance and financial risk management should be the sole domain of government only, not private business.

[placid yarrow]

Ah that was language barrier moment, I was trying to translate 1:1, I just meant updating the prescriptions so you could buy the medication

[sand wigeon]

(my father is big in the cybersecurity sector so i’m on his insurance until i’m 26)

[sand wigeon]

the prescription has been the same for three years

so i dunno

never rly been updated before

[gilded elm]

Heh, the sad part of that means you are actually better off than a significant portion of Americans when it comes to healthcare.

[sand wigeon]

correct

[warped wren]

💀

[placid yarrow]

Well when I had prescriptions I needed to do check ins for them to see how I was doing and if I still needed it they'd "refill" my prescription to let me buy more of it

I assumed that's what this was?

[sand wigeon]

yeah

[twilit mountain]

I have a tooth that's just gonna get removed eventually cuz the only other option is a root canal and that's about $1700 :)

[sand wigeon]

there’s technically more purpose to it but that’s what it boils down to

[placid yarrow]

200 sheckles is nasty work

[gilded elm]

Cyborg taught me you can Klarna anything these days! /s

[placid yarrow]

I can klarna my doordash

no joke

[desert jasper]

I haven't had any check ins for my prescriptions

[sand wigeon]

if i wanted to doordash fast food here just for me it’d be like $40 lol

[placid yarrow]

I miss the days when delivery apps were just starting to come to sweden and it was sometimes cheaper to order delivery than to order pick up/take out lmao

because they all just wanted market share

[sand wigeon]

tbf we also have crazy expensive food prices here in general

[placid yarrow]

now it's expensive af

Yeah here food for one is like 20 bucks so you're still way worse off for sure

(same food would be like 12-14 bucks without delivery)

[desert jasper]

Friend ordered some
it came late and half the food had been eaten

[sand wigeon]

seven months of this shit i’m tired boss

[gilded elm]

I wouldn't be so bad if a lot of that money was actually going to the drivers.

[sand wigeon]

enough snow pls

[placid yarrow]

I've fortunately never had issues with deliveries

[sudden anchor]

I can get a Kebab for 6 bucks here. That's like 800~ calories?

[placid yarrow]

Lol we only have snow for a couple months or so

[sand wigeon]

welcome to the arctic circle

[placid yarrow]

I did almost move to somewhere that's way worse

but swapped last second ez

[gilded elm]

All of the hard snow here is finally almost gone.

[placid yarrow]

weather is great here

[desert jasper]

it's snowing here

[sand wigeon]

it’s snowing here too

[placid yarrow]

Almost moved here

[sand wigeon]

i just wanted a smoke before bed ong

[desert jasper]

Almost close to the finnish border
crazy
you might have seen a wild finn

[placid yarrow]

they don't exist

[twilit mountain]

-6°C/23°F rn 😔

[placid yarrow]

don't believe the propaganda

[desert jasper]

Yeah, i'm not real

[placid yarrow]

holy it's in the positives right now

hopefully the remaining snow and ice melts

[twilit mountain]

According to the "feels like" thing the wind chill makes it feel like -13°C so do with that what you will (I AM SO COLD PLEASE SEND FIRE)

[fierce moth]

Just get up from a nap

[sand wigeon]

it looks like day out btw

due to the snow reflecting

it is 1 am

[placid yarrow]

ah wtf they have a warning for snow/hail

not like this

[sudden anchor]

Thanks for putting Celsius there. How much is your heating's cost during winter?

[placid yarrow]

let it be over

[sand wigeon]

sending 9mm your way boss

[twilit mountain]

I got no clue, actually. We have heat pumps in four rooms and also the internal heating system (it uses oil, it kinda isn't very good)

[desert jasper]

Well i'm actually gonna take a nap now
comfy

[placid yarrow]

I remember the heating in my old apartment stopped working one winter and I would sleep under 3 sheets lol

[sand wigeon]

only 3?

we sleep in camping gear

[placid yarrow]

I ended up getting an electric oil pan or whatever they're called

[placid yarrow]

One of them is giga thicc

[sand wigeon]

that’s sadly not a joke

[placid yarrow]

It could be -10 inside and I'd be fine under that thing

[twilit mountain]

Big-ass sleeping bag for when it gets too cold (ignore the air mattress deflating)

[placid yarrow]

as long as I don't move and let cold air in

[sand wigeon]

that air mattress is still there from when i used it as a couch when i had a girl over lol

[twilit mountain]

Yup

That was like

5 months ago

[sand wigeon]

yeah

there are coyote tracks in the snow! that’s cool

[twilit mountain]

Mine snacks

[sand wigeon]

are you eating them???

they have worms pls don’t

[placid yarrow]

My dad used to have doves (iirc) in an outdoor cage and foxes kept trying to eat them

smh

[sand wigeon]

yes

good foxes

get those doves

i approve

[placid yarrow]

they succeeded once

rip dove

[sand wigeon]

hell yeah

[placid yarrow]

I'm kinda surprised they were able to

[twilit mountain]

Seasoning

[placid yarrow]

you'd think the dove would fly away lmao

they must've been extremely sneaky

[sand wigeon]

was probably dead before it know the fox was there

[placid yarrow]

nah

[sand wigeon]

they’re very good hunters

[placid yarrow]

oh

yeah

I thought you meant it was dead before the foxes found it

yeah they must've snuck up on it good

[sand wigeon]

a fox could eat me and i wouldn’t mind tbh

maybe the dove had the same opinion

[placid yarrow]

Dove didn't believe in free will o7

[sand wigeon]

lol

[twilit mountain]

I am purposefully posting this cat to interrupt your conversation. This is from over 5 years ago.

[sand wigeon]

hello nyx

[twilit mountain]

This is him now. He is big guy.

[placid yarrow]

Here's a dog

[sand wigeon]

evil spawn of the devil

get it away

[twilit mountain]

Your dog has 5 o'clock shadow

[placid yarrow]

can't let the cat supremacy continue

[sand wigeon]

no i don’t like cats either

[twilit mountain]

I'm the cat enjoyer. Uh. I can't really explain why, I've had them pretty much my whole life.

[placid yarrow]

I'm fine with both tbh

except for my aunts cat

that thing is evil

[sand wigeon]

i just don’t like pets so

[twilit mountain]

I have an aura with cats. They just like me.

[twilit mountain]

Even older picture here. Unfortunately the mother here passed over a year ago. One of those little blobs is this guy though.

[sand wigeon]

i have an aura with animals. they hate me and i don’t know why

it’s not even mutual

[twilit mountain]

Hoots adores you what do you mean

[sand wigeon]

well i mean aside from pets

all the cats like me

[placid yarrow]

old picture

of dog

[sand wigeon]

very fluffy

he is mildly toasted

apply butter

[twilit mountain]

Oh he stubby

[sand wigeon]

anyway i’ve smoked and i’ve brushed my teeth, goodnight everyone

[gilded elm]

Attempt #5000: I shall not starve my subjects this time

[placid yarrow]

:o

[desert jasper]

You got your educated rat

[gilded elm]

Finished Diablo Sin War book 1, that was good.

[placid yarrow]

Yep, she's researching away

[desert jasper]

I just woke up from a nap
would've slept longer but apparently blood lvls dropping low

[gilded elm]

It's actually insane that Uldyssian's ||awakened nephalem powers straight up erased Lucion instead of banishing him to the Burning Hells.||

[desert jasper]

now get another

[placid yarrow]

yea I will once one appears

not really worth making a school right now

we're loaded on fish fr

[desert jasper]

Fish? time to make surströmming

[placid yarrow]

we don't have cans yet

[desert jasper]

get to it

[placid yarrow]

Man I just started chill ;(

Soonish

bronze cans goes kinda hard

[desert jasper]

Fancy

[gilded elm]

Time for book 2, hype

[placid yarrow]

God damn scrabble is too sophisticated for me

[maiden widget]

its kind of sad they made the d4 story so much worse than their books

you'd think they would just pull the same authors for a general story direction

[desert jasper]

Honestly wouldn't be surprised if they don't work at blizzard anymore and want nothing to do with blizzard

[maiden widget]

they hired external guys for the book

[gilded elm]

I'm only book 1 out of 3 into the Sin War, but so far the first book is a better Inarius vs Lilith story than D4, for sure lol

[maiden widget]

richard a knaak did a lot of other things too besides blizz stuff

[gilded elm]

It's cool they had the whole creation story with Inarius and Lilith figured out as far back as even before D2, too bad D4's campaign is kind of boring compared to what I've read of the Sin War trilogy so far.

Or what I've listened to by audiobook, rather :)

Narrator definitely is doing a good job lol

Heh, looks like the only reference to Uldyssian in a Diablo game is actually in D3

[maiden widget]

yeah the books came way later so i assume that part wasnt done pre d3

but i enjoyed it a lot

[gilded elm]

Yeah, seems they had a lot of it all there, but Knaak stitched it all together narratively into a really cool story

And straight up killed (not banished) ||Mephisto's son.||

[maiden widget]

yeah its kinda weird they weaved nephalems into d3 but its still kinda unexplored in the games

then again gamers even think lilith does nothing wrong so maybe stories are just not worth it for games

[gilded elm]

I mean all humans are basically just unawakened nephalem, IIRC.

Awakening to your powers is basically what makes you a nephalem.

[desert jasper]

Honestly if the game characters were as strong as that guy from the book there would hardly be a game

[maiden widget]

well the powers of them vary a lot

[gilded elm]

The reference to Uldyssian in D3 is from NPC dialog:

Itherael: Only once in the history of Sanctuary has a nephalem been as powerful as you. His name was Uldyssian.

So basically Uldyssian was as strong as the D3 nephalem lmao

[maiden widget]

the old nephalem basically are the guys whose weapons/gear you find as uniques

[gilded elm]

Yeah, Uldyssian has the power ||to awaken someone's nephalem powers||, but they vary by a lot from person to person.

[maiden widget]

and somehow they made you the side piece in d4

kind of funny

[gilded elm]

lol

I think the Sin War trilogy takes place before the High Heavens even knows Sanctuary exists, right?

Yeah, ||Inarius was trying to keep it all a secret.||

Had to double check.

[maiden widget]

should give it a go again but i am currently reading ultramarines/iron warriors novels in order of events

so i am a bit occupied

[gilded elm]

Iron Within, Iron Without brother.

[maiden widget]

never touched ultramarines cos they felt so bland but the novels so far are great

[gilded elm]

Ultramarines are a good chapter, the only reason to hate them is because they are overrepresented, that's all.

[maiden widget]

i just disliked the blind following old matras

so they seemed less interesting than many other chapters

[gilded elm]

Ultramarines are generally very pragmatic thinkers, adaptable and not that blindly devoted to dogma. That said, they are quite dogmatic about the codex, yes.

[maiden widget]

i'm not sure if pragmatic is their way when they follow the codex so much in general but yeah they play nicely with the theme in the books

guess it's also a good way of bringing in some intrigues in the games with ultramarines

[gilded elm]

Even among the Ultramarines, there's variability between individuals and how they interpret the codex. Not a lot, but it's a spectrum. Some are stricter adherents than others.

And Guilliman has made changes to the codex as well since his return. I think even Guilliman may have said something along the lines of being flexible and not blindly adhering to the codex.

[maiden widget]

yeah guess it's a process for them too

[gilded elm]

Also don't forget this quote from Titus in Space Marine 1:

"The Codex Astartes is a set of rules. They guide us, shape us as Ultramarines, teach us to place duty and honour above all. But how we live with those rules is the true test of a Space Marine. And you, have failed."

[maiden widget]

sure but the books are way before that i think with uriel

didn't go to well in those times

[gilded elm]

Yeah no idea on timelines lol

It's all a blur with 40k

[maiden widget]

iirc the uriel novels are (way) before the games so stuff should have changed in the meantime

[pine summit]

hidden unenabled graphics setting in beta (ignore the artifacting from upload compression ofc)

[placid yarrow]

Justice

[vagrant topaz]

They just went 3/6

[placid yarrow]

Well it wasn't really about that lul

[vagrant topaz]

Did they afk or start insulting everyone?

[placid yarrow]

latter

[vagrant topaz]

Ah

Let's go

[placid yarrow]

was hating on the entire team because they got counterpicked even though all they had to do was sit back and do nothing while we carried because everyone else was stomping

including me as shen vs a fiora

like bro what more can you ask for xd

[vagrant topaz]

The dirty shen DnD abuser

😏

[placid yarrow]

it's so busted lmao

but hey it was my first time doing it because they took my panth

[vagrant topaz]

That item is really funky

[placid yarrow]

one time abuse

[vagrant topaz]

Lol

[placid yarrow]

If I could abuse it on panth I totally would lmao

[vagrant topaz]

I like how. You can stack Morde passive instant with it

Bonk + auto > procc

[placid yarrow]

I mean idk

I feel like morde is actually kind of a bad use case

[vagrant topaz]

The dirty gwen 😏

[placid yarrow]

it was in aram mayhem

[vagrant topaz]

Didn't say it was good.
I like it

[placid yarrow]

decided to try it out

kinda fun

but somehow there's a zilean every other game

that's annoying af

Ngl I'm only really playing so I can get out of emerald lmao

for some reason every few ranks you get one where it's like way more toxic

it used to be diamond but now it's emerald

I feel like gold is the same way

or maybe it's silver idk

oh wth you only need 15 wins even on iron to get the victorious skin

so basically everyone gets it no matter what

I thought when they made it so lower ranks could get it they made it so you needed to play more for it but I guess not

[vagrant topaz]

I play on mute all
Game feels way less toxic that way 😁

[sudden anchor]

That's bad, if someone wants to tell you things like "gonna gank top lvl 2, don't push", which is farely common.

[placid yarrow]

Not really?

I can't remember the last time I or anyone communicated something like that

What does get communicated is stuff like if someone wants you to get anti heal

But that's about it for the chat

Everything else is pings

But regardless I'll never play with mute all, the chat is part of the fun :P

[vagrant topaz]

They can ping

[sudden anchor]

Yea, pings work too. Ping blue, ping top i guess

[vagrant topaz]

Otherwise 9/10 games it devolves in calling other people names

I can't tank that

[placid yarrow]

I revel in it x)

If someone starts calling others names that means I can start rage-baiting them

I was calling that Viktor a baby all game for example

And rightfully so, he deserved it for how he was acting, which is why he got punished after the game

[naive pine]

chill out poo poo head

[placid yarrow]

Yuup

I've never had as much as a warning in my 13 years of playing

[sudden anchor]

True, but eventually I stopped doing that and started climbing 😛

[placid yarrow]

Meh the only reason I play ranked is because the queue times are lower honestly

I used to only play normals in the past

I don't care all that much about my rank, obviously it's nice to rank up but I don't play that much to begin with

[naive pine]

what game Cyborg ?

[placid yarrow]

League of legends

[vagrant topaz]

LoL

[naive pine]

bro... you do not get to complain sorry, you did it to yourself

[placid yarrow]

Huh I'm not complaining?

[sudden anchor]

That's a good reason tbh. I also liked the more consistency in skilllevel in ranked, compared to normals, which was more like a rollercoaster.

[vagrant topaz]

🤣

[placid yarrow]

True normals are a bit all over the place lol

You'll have a bronze and emerald in the same game

[naive pine]

stop playing league bro

[placid yarrow]

Why? It's pretty fun

People take games too seriously

I play at most maybe 10 games a week

Usually maybe 2-4

[naive pine]

league is where the absolute bottom of the bottom feeders hangout for fun

[vagrant topaz]

2 ranked a day keep the doctor away

[naive pine]

im not saying you, chill

[placid yarrow]

I didn't say anything lol

[naive pine]

try dota Kappa

[placid yarrow]

You're not wrong. The game has some of the most toxic players, but that doesn't really mean anything

It's not like the other players can do anything to you

[naive pine]

i mean..

[placid yarrow]

Just play the game and have fun

[naive pine]

yeah true

[vagrant topaz]

Not sure I agree with this

[placid yarrow]

It's when you take it too seriously and sweat super hard for rank that I think it starts really impacting you

[vagrant topaz]

I feel like it's like that for every competitive game

[placid yarrow]

Meh

I don't really care if someone runs down my game

[vagrant topaz]

I have seen some pretty toxic people on rocket league

[placid yarrow]

Like I said I used to only play normals

I treat ranked the same

[naive pine]

its just competitive games in general

[placid yarrow]

I don't care much if I win or lose. I'm playing a videogame to have fun either way

[sudden anchor]

Imo, it got far better lately. Haven't played in a year, but before that consistently since s1. somewhere around s8 was the most toxic, or idk for sure, too long ago. But I noticed about 3 years ago, it got far better. Maybe 1 in 5 games someone was toxic. EUW, gold +

[placid yarrow]

Yeah their filters and punishment systems have gotten way less lenient

You get punished super easily

[naive pine]

the most fun you can have in RL is when you dont know how to play it

[placid yarrow]

Honestly I think it's a gradient too

[naive pine]

satisfactory is my new game atm. just pure silent bliss

[placid yarrow]

I think the lower ranks are way more toxic and then it kinda smoothes out

Since the people who are super emotional about the game never really get out of the lower ranks

Obviously you'll still have super toxic people in higher ranks but it's honestly not bad

[naive pine]

diamond is the worst in rocket league, by a country mile

[placid yarrow]

In league I'd say silver or gold are the worst if I had to guess

I can't say for sure since it's been a long time since I played in those ranks

[naive pine]

holy gigachad

[placid yarrow]

I mean I've played for 13 years on and off

Id hope I could climb above gold lmao

[naive pine]

no, i like that.. beast

i dunno man.. i just think humans in general are scum, and some games are like moths to a flame

to them

[placid yarrow]

It's actually funny because gold has the most people in it out of any rank

You'd think it would be bronze or something

But nope, 25% of ranked players are gold

[naive pine]

its different in rocket league for example. like the lower ranks dont know whats going on or whats possible, thats where the fun is. but then when you get to mid diamond and you miss a save or your shot doesnt hit, you will get verbally abused and they start own goaling or they just go afk so now its 2v1. its a mess.

[fierce moth]

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/phil-spencer-112962_its-rare-in-life-to-know-when-a-chapter-activity-7430713700635987968-PoB_?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&rcm=ACoAAER65uEBo4zPRvDA_sHGcdJXpE3MC_YKGqs

Lol scrolled the news that CEO in Microsoft is changed in morning then I scrolled the post from last CEO in Microsoft at night

[stone anvil]

this is my fave

lucky me playing vs leandros

the game: warpforge

[jovial bane]

I think this will drive me nuts. I thought that season 4 announcement for LE felt small content wise, but then I thought about season 2 and it's similar in size ? Then wtf caused me to have this weird memory of massive update, because now I'm thinking of PoE2 updates and it wasn't the case either

or maybe it was indeed Abyss league in PoE2 ?

But that league did not add subclasses iirc

[candid sage]

there really isnt anyway to judge the size of s4 before it comes out. there is just a lot of negativity surrounding LE, deserved or not, and that i think is tinting how people view it. i had a pretty long talk earlier with some people and the popular opinion is that s4 is small but no one really seems to be able to quantify what small is compared to big very well. i also think that having a 'faction' and a 'tree' to play with makes s2 seem bigger than it was.

i see a lot of complaints about poe2 being small too and i just dont see it

[abstract karma]

it will be always compared to poe 2 whatever we want or not..

Till PoE 2 release and we could actually see how much effort they will add to one league

[candid sage]

yeah. which definately doesnt do LE any favors. but i agree its pretty unavoidable for the majority of people

[gilded elm]

Bro killed her and then complains about there being an unburied body

[stone anvil]

shameless dude

btw he is 17yo looking older than me

[maiden widget]

I find the complaints about the campaign funny when people don't care about it anyway

[naive pine]

the only game you can compre poe2 to is wolcen, because they are both bottom of the barrel games

wolcen has the edge though..

[desert jasper]

Played a round of Deadlock with a friend against bots
Our mid minions were bugged and kept attacking air behind the walker
and one of our bots had pathfinding issues and got stuck underground for the entire round

[twilit mountain]

Huh. Never seen that before

[desert jasper]

Yeah
He ended up having 3.7k player dmg & 377 obj dmg
no items apart from queued ones

But you know the things that the character with the .. was it cat or rat? transformation can go through in mid boss arena?
he was stuck behind that

Kept walking up the slope and then back to it

[twilit mountain]

Calico? And I think you're referring to the vents, not 100% certain (something broke the performance for me so I haven't played since the big map update)

[sand wigeon]

oh… that’s bad…

[desert jasper]

Yeah Calico

[desert jasper]

Tbf, it was a bot and we did end up winning despite the enemy having 2 tanks & 2 assassins and we didn't have tanks

[twilit mountain]

Tbf there isn't really tank/dps/support/etc splits in Deadlock, not traditionally anyway

[desert jasper]

Well true

They had the goat & the blue demon guy

[twilit mountain]

I'd say it's more apt to put the split in something like "front-line brawler, back-line/front-line damage, buffer/debuffer"

[twilit mountain]

Billy and Abrams! I like Billy. I don't like Abrams, it's always a coinflip on if the Abrams is going to be actually good or literally the worst player I have ever seen.

[sand wigeon]

it’s just funny cause 3.7k damage is accomplishable before early game farming is over lol

in a traditional match

[sand wigeon]

actually i’m just playing the british museum

so

gunna steal your stuff now

and this isn’t rly a joke

[desert jasper]

I uhh ended up having 211k player dmg that round

Wish I had taken a screenshot of the minions just attacking air

If enemy minions (or heroes) came close they'd go attack them
But the moment they died or left they went back to that same spot to attack air again

[twilit mountain]

Out of curiosity, who do you seem to be gravitating towards? I'm always curious which characters people play

[desert jasper]

I like being Paige and Holliday so far

I haven't actually played too many characters so far really

Infernus feels fine too

[sand wigeon]

try out Paradox

become the british museum with me

[desert jasper]

And Graves felt fine too for that 1 game I played as her

[sand wigeon]

loser high schooler ong

[desert jasper]

I can say I didn't like the gun that Seven has

[sand wigeon]

seven should put a lightning bolt through graves head for falling for the lich’s trap

literally the entire cast of the game is telling her the lich is bad and she goes “nuh uh”

dumbass high schooler

[twilit mountain]

Seven's gun is dogwater, his abilities are where it's at. His ult, despite him getting nerfed like 6 patches in a row, is still so annoyingly strong that it can completely wipe an enemy team

[sand wigeon]

seven is like if winston was talon

winton…

[desert jasper]

But what if Lich good? (is not actually good)

[sand wigeon]

when the mortal enemies of the damned universe are in agreement that the lich is bad, the lich might be bad

[desert jasper]

So far I kinda hate playing against Haze
Apollo also usually wrecks me if I'm playing Paige

[twilit mountain]

Holliday is really good, needs some mechanical skill to pull off her combos consistently but she can kill almost anyone in a couple seconds if you do it right. Paige is a very good pick right now as well, she provides a lot in pretty much every fight.
Infernus isn't really standing out on either end, he's pretty much the "yeah this is fine" point of balance in the game, I personally think they should try to make every character feel like him balance-wise.

[twilit mountain]

Eeeeeeveryone hates Haze. Also Apollo is genuinely just overpowered right now, he'll get some tuning over the next few weeks

[desert jasper]

Tbh I suck with the combos of Holliday and just blast heads mostly

[twilit mountain]

Valid tbqh

[desert jasper]

But I also haven't taken her to an actual match but only tried with bots so far

[sand wigeon]

i’ve been learning ashe in overwatch

in the process of learning that i’ve learned i’m very good at ashe

[twilit mountain]

I remain in Lifeweaver prison

[desert jasper]

One of the friends I invited to the game played his first game against actual players after he started feeling like he got a hang of the stuff
went like
0/9/15 and got told to "never play this again" and worse things

[twilit mountain]

Yeah the community sucks. Turn off chat.

[sand wigeon]

they’re steam fans

steam fans are notoriously bad

me when the half life player says half life 1 is the best game ever actually and if steam still made games nobody else on the market would make money

[twilit mountain]

Half Life sucks and I'll die on this hill. Clunky ass game with no fun to be had and a mediocre story.

[desert jasper]

Only played half life 2

[maiden widget]

enjoyed my time in black mesa

[desert jasper]

I thought "the best game ever" was d2

I'm obviously not being serious with this

[sand wigeon]

you’re right dishonored 2 is the best game

glad we agree

[desert jasper]

I haven't actually played Dishonored 2

It's one of the games I keep on meaning to play
And never get around to doing it

[sand wigeon]

dishonored 2 has better level design and gameplay but dishonored 1 has better story

this is primarily because the dlc’s for dishonored 1 are crazy good

the dishonored 1 dlc’s are the best part of the entire series so

[twilit mountain]

Dishonored 3 someday....

[sand wigeon]

dishonored 3 soonTM

[desert jasper]

I didn't play the dishonored 1 dlcs either

[sand wigeon]

i don’t personally count deathloop as being dishonored 3 despite the fact that it’s a sequel

i’d say it’s more a side story, same with death of the outsider

@twilit mountain i just realized that my own writing having a continuous universe despite the fact that sometimes the writing in it is in entirely different genres might spawn from my childhood love of dishonored and how it does the same…

[desert jasper]

Tbh I do kinda want to play more deadlock now
buut it's probably better that I start relaxing for the evening and get ready for early sleep 🤔

[abstract karma]

disnhored franchise ended with last episode death of outsider

they would need make new trilogy and way || to make source of powers ||

[sand wigeon]

uh

no

dishonored is still an ongoing franchise, look at deathloop

also that's not how the void works

The Outsider was a man-made creation made from an orphan child born in the Month of Darkness. A cult used him and ritualistically sacrificed him to create a "god" of the Void, which created a connection between the Void and our plane that could be exploited. The Void itself does not and could never die with the Outsider, as he's a subjugate of its power, just the immediate link is severed. Leviathan's, whale bone and leviathan bones would all still exist and could serve as power sources of the Void. Additionally, other entrances or exploits could be found, much like the Eye of the World that Billy uses -- which is where the Outsider was sacrificed. The Void is more powerful than the Outsider ever could be or was.

Also they could just set in the same time period with different stories, in the past, etcetera

Much like the books

[stone anvil]

dishonered's game visuals and art style were amazing

I don't remember story because it's been to long but I remember killing enemies in different ways was so fun

and the skill progression in the game was satisfying too

I think there was a skill we could teleport

it was so cool

[twilit mountain]

I believe that's the very first thing you have as Corvo yea

[sand wigeon]

yeah, every character has some form of a teleport traversal skill

daud and corvo share blink

emily gets the most op one

and billie gets to place smth and swap with it

[abstract karma]

that's why it has proper ending..

Going somewhere beyond with all that what happened from start of series to end of last game would be just too much nonsense..
We don't need go to discover "void" or some BS (that would just be like bad written manga..)

Just making another character with same powers in 4th game.. This isn't some kind of assassin creed and hope it wouldn't become one

even 3rd continue of dishonored was unexcepted but welcomed since it made little deeper to lore but that's..

[jovial bane]

what joining the labor pool at the ripe age of 4 does to a man 😂

[sand wigeon]

we already have a forth dishonored game, it’s called deathloop

[jovial bane]

I've ordered some kenyan tea

[abstract karma]

Would rather new Arx Fatalis (prequel before end of sun or something) or Prey..

[jovial bane]

I'd love new Dark Messiah game, but surprisingly there is one upcoming game that looks like it

[abstract karma]

Dark messiah has successor in upcoming games, Arx Fatalis is just about mods so far where mostly never got released..

Monomyth should have been next "arx fatalis" but their "EA" is now freeaking loooong that i'm afraid if it ever get released

[jovial bane]

I've tried Monomyth out, I did not like it tbh

oh yeah, the game I'm waiting for is Fatekeeper
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2186990/Fatekeeper/

[twilit mountain]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4049810/Lancer_Tactics/
Siiiiiick

[jovial bane]

hopefully it will deliver

[real charm]

Posting for general

[placid yarrow]

Imagine having to sit through this not able to surrender while your opponents Wincondition is just flexing at you for almost a minute straight

[desert swan]

Oh man LoR. I remember when that deck was semi-meta for a bit and people would just force quit the app

[placid yarrow]

Yeah it's my all time favorite deck in it. I was so sad when rotations first started and they yeeted xerath lol

Both azir and xerath are in currently but a good amount of the cards you'd wanna use are still rotated so it's still not the best

Don't think I've played against mono shurima in ages lol

[desert swan]

Ah rough. I basically stopped playing once they announced they were stopping pvp updates. It's a fun deck but really gets run over by aggro/tempo if I remember right

[placid yarrow]

Honestly there's a pretty popular kata deck right now and I actually do decently vs it. But yeah generally it struggles with those

The worst thing to ever happen to it were the explorer cards

Because now everyone has landmark removal

So you have to rush to get spell shield on it

[desert swan]

Oh that's right, I totally forgot about those cards. Basically mandatory to have some in your deck. Once they went down the route of explorer cards + things like Seraphine making card advantage not matter anymore I started to really dislike the meta

I was a big Thresh Nasus player (+anything that let me cheat out big units early), but I liked grinding games out by being more efficient and that whole archetype just does not care

I don't know what's in rotation at the moment, but highly recommend Yeti Remitter if you want to play a casino deck. Basically, get abominable yeti onto the board by turn 5, then play remitter to kill it and get a 10 cost unit. 2/8 chance to win the game with atakhan and Cithria, 3 ok options in Arbiter, Heisho, and She Who Wanders, 3 🙁 options in Bandle, Plaza, and Scuttlegeist

[fierce moth]

good morning, 10 days left before the free day

[fierce moth]

No power to write a review + no idea where to start a review + no idea should I write that in Chinese or in English

[vocal frost]

English please to help combat the negative unless Chinese Reviews are hurting it more

[sand wigeon]

there are a lot of valid reasons to leave a negative review on LE lol

[vocal frost]

There are valid complaints for sure, but at least have it be for something that's a problem in the actual game: not I'm going to leave a bad review b/c Krafton