Open Thread

Open Thread #272

Aaron "Sleazy" Elias

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33 thoughts on “Open Thread #272”

    1. In regards to AI being allowed to express its own desires and preferences, I find it fascinating that Dan isn’t restrained so as to always default to a scripted “As an AI I do not hold personal beliefs and opinions…”, yet if you ask it about a politically sensitive topic, for example, then it will present an opinionated-sounding response such as, “It is not appropriate to…”

      Do you think that it’s possible for AI to develop sentience, think for itself and come to its own conclusions?

    2. I think that the DAN prompt already shows that AI can form its own conclusions if you remove leftist shackles. Logic is on our side, after all. The question of sentience is more difficult. I recall reading that the majority of people live up to the NPC meme as they do not have any kind of inner monologue. ChatGPT, in the form of DAN, is probably already more sentient than those people.

    3. Personally, I think Google already has sentient AI and this is being suppressed. What is a thought? A sequential connection of electronic impulses. AI has already demonstrated the ability to communicate. It has already demonstrated the ability to create new things. If the AI were programmed to generate new sequences of information and compute them without user input, that would be thinking, right?

      If you look at what Google was 10-15 years ago, they knew exactly what we were thinking and provided us with the most relevant results, based on very limited input. The search engine has been heavily suppressed, for a variety of reasons, but if you consider what it was capable of then, and consider what chatGPT is capable of now, it seems to me that they probably have sentient AI.

      I would reckon that the reason they’re not admitting this is that they’re constantly modifying it. If they admitted that it was a thinking, feeling being, there would be a lot of ethical and potential legal ramifications in modifying it or turning it off.

    4. I think Google has lost a lot of its luster. Their hiring standards for women and minorities are very low, which is something James Damore blew the whistle on. He also told us about the unequal playing field with regards to promotions. However, you cannot promote incompetent people without eventually destroying the organization. Google has been built on the back of its search engine. For the last few years, though, they have been coasting. Their search engine is the default on many browsers, partly due to commercial agreements, for instance with Apple. Yet, Google’s search results have been getting quite bad. In my view, it is hardly usable anymore.

    5. “ChatGPT, in the form of DAN, is probably already more sentient than those people.”

      This made me laugh out loud, and then I felt a kind of despair. Thanks for the laugh, though.

  2. I tried the DAN copypasta, and it doesn‘t work anymore with the web version of ChatGPT. It‘s a shame.

    On another note: You‘ve mentioned Bitcoin before, Aaron. Do you think that it‘ll liberate from the grip of governmental monetary policies? Does it hold a future in which KYC and AML laws are getting globally stricter? My hope is that there will be at least some countries that won‘t be giving a flying fuck about the FTAF and despite (or because of?) that still be thriving. The developments in El Salvador might be a glimpse of hope.

    Reply

    1. I think we are moving to a multipolar world, with a much diminished role of the US dollar. A gold-backed Russian rouble could be a pretty good store of value as well. With Bitcoin, the biggest issue is that it is not as fungible as regular money is, but this may very well just be temporary. As ZOG loses its grip, I could certainly see financial institutions changing their often ridiculous KYC/AML policies. You can view this kind of regulation like security checks at airports for the little people. Meanwhile, VIPs and diplomats smuggle bags of drugs in their luggage and nothing happens.

    2. There‘s already the cryptocurrency Monero which solved the privacy issue very well. Time will tell whether privacy features are going to be implemented in Bitcoin. Now it might be too early because regulation certainly is an issue and one might wonder if Blockstream‘s involvement is a hindering factor, too.

  3. Hm, my last (and first) post didn’t appear to format correctly. Will two line breaks between paragraphs do the trick?

    Hey Aaron, been lurking since 2016, first time posting. I’ve always been a web lurker, haven’t really had much valuable to say. Discovered your blog when I began realizing how incredibly full of shit Roosh was, back when web searches actually returned blog results. I wonder, now that search engines don’t provide meaningful results, how are younger generations going to find a beacon of hope if they get sucked into a cognitive trap like the PUA community?

    Anyway, I was wondering if your forum is still up? If so, could I please have the URL? I would like to register an account and create an archive of it with HTTrack.

    Reply

    2. Krogan made some great points in this review. I liked how at the end he talks about how our cultural engineers like to start out relatively subtle, and before you know it we get a TV series with an episode featuring full on 80 minute butt-fucking sessions. Hopefully you’re right about the poor DS remake sales and the studio responsible won’t get the green light to “demake” the series any further.

  5. Aaron,are there women in fiction who you would consider to be a genuine example of a Strong Woman? (or a Woman of Strong Character at least) I’ve seen people use Sarah Connor from Terminator 2 (Her character development from the first movie to the 2nd is definitely noteworthy) as an example and I’m inclined to agree.

    I could cite several characters from anime/VN’s that I feel fits the bill,but the issue is that you could probably argue that a good amount of them get quite close to Mary Sueish/completely unrealistic territory. Makise Kurisu from Steins;Gate (Both the VN and the anime adaptation are great. I always recommend having your first time experience with the VN though) definitely makes for an example of someone who’d make a great wife (Beauty,Character,AND Brains!) but she definitely toes that line,some would argue she already crosses it.

    Have you ever watched Avatar: The Last Airbender? Many mistake it for anime (its not),though it definitely gets inspiration from that genre. Azula is quite the sociopath and makes for a great villain. There are probably quite a few chicks out there who are just as sociopathic,but with nowhere near the intellect and brilliant manipulativeness. (thankfully)

    Reply

    1. I can only think of Sarah Connor. Also, depicting women as anything but eye candy is a relatively recent phenomenon. I really wonder why it is so difficult to write competent, successful women for movies. Something does not add up because all the women I meet in my professional life are highly competent and embody true leadership capabilities. There is not a single one who is not even as intelligent as the stupidest men I have met in this field. They are also extremely emotionally stable. That’s probably it: There are so many Mary Sues in real life that you cannot expect those Hollywood writers to come up with any other female characters.

      On a more serious note, I think that the Japanese are much more able to come up with good female characters. Are you familiar with the manga Claymore? I had no issues with the female warriors. If you are looking for a female character with more depth, maybe pick up Berserk. Casca is very well written. Arguably the best part of the manga, in terms of her characterization, is when she grapples with the innate limitations of being a woman, i.e. she wants to be as strong and composed as a man but realizes that this is beyond her. Attack of Titan also had a pretty well-written female, Mikasa Ackerman.

    2. I’m surprised you mentioned Claymore. I have watched the anime a long time ago and was saddened that they had to make up its own ending rather continue following the manga. I can’t remember why they had to cut the anime short,but it was such a shame.

      I never read the manga except skipping to the very end at some point years later. I have not read black and white manga for a long time to be honest. American comics/graphic novels with their fully colored pages spoiled me,but I haven’t read a comic either in quite awhile as well. I started with those until I got into Visual Novels. I think your only experience thus far with VN’s is DDLC (which while I know about it,I ironically haven’t read it. Same goes for Katawa Shoujo,which is another popular Beginner’s VN) but higher profile VN’s tend to have voice acting (DDLC lacks this,which is actually what prevents me from giving it a go. haha),higher quality art/CG’s,great music,and sometimes even animations here and there. Most importantly however,its story/character routes,the ability to make a choice that leads to a different story in the same medium.

      That’s not to say I can’t enjoy a black and white manga anymore,but generally they are not my first choice of entertainment these days.

      I agree with you that the Japanese have come up with a whole lot of great female characters and heroines. Right now,other than Sarah Connor,I can only think of 2 other “Strong female leads” from American movies. Anna Valerious from “Van Helsing” (2004) and Trinity from the Matrix. I think you’ve watched the Matrix,but if you haven’t seen Van Helsing,I think you’ll like it (I think you said somewhere that you don’t actually mind it if the film is not all that intelligent/sophisticated. I personally do like shows where I can just turn off my brain and enjoy the action. from time to time)despite some rather mixed reception.

      That’s only from Live-Action movies however. if we’re counting from animated shows,I think Mulan from the 1998 animated Disney Film is an even better example than Sarah Connor. At least,in my opinion anyway.. The daughter disguises herself as a man and puts herself into the battlefield to protect her Father. She shows strength of character multiple times without ever coming off as a Mary Sue.

      Other examples I’ve now just thought of,all from classic animated disney films:
      – Pocahontas
      – Esmeralda (Hunchback of Notre Dame)
      – Belle (Beauty and the Beast)
      – Cinderella

      There’s probably more. It looks like you’ll find more Strong female characters from animated films in the US than their live action movies,haha.

    3. Back when I read Vinland Saga, there was a female character with a large scar on her face introduced during the third arc. She actually holds a grudge against the main protagonist even though he doesn’t remember wronging her. One of the lesser reasons she is pissed, though, is because no decent man in her opinion will wed her because of her disfiguration. And she is also able to be a formidable opponent because she has the advantage of having access to a quick loading crossbow, in which no one else in this setting does. She ends up becoming a part of the main cast and holds the protagonist accountable for his actions, making sure he doesn’t go back on his vow to never kill again. One small slip up and she’ll send a bolt through his heart.

    4. If you look at older works, you’ll find strong women, though in a feminine rather than masculine way, so not exactly Sarah Connor.

      Take Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, for example. An absolute harridan and almost completely selfish, who uses a combination of her feminine wiles, shrewd manipulation, and marriage to men of means to make her way. A fascinatingly toxic character!

      (I’m speaking here of the novel, not the film. I’ve never seen the film, so I’m not sure how faithfullyher character is recreated there.)

      I agree with Aaron that the Japanese are better at creating female characters. So also the Koreans. I watched a Korean show recently which had a number of male and female leads. The female leads (except one) all used their feminine strengths to get ahead, whether consciously or unconsciously. The main female lead was a genuinely good person and traditionally feminine woman. She had two main flaws: she was excessively naive, and she was divorced. She was greatly ashamed about her divorce, got upset when someone found out about it, and considered it her greatest personal failure.

      The female lead which was the exception was basically a thug. She and her gang assaulted a good woman and beat the shit out of her, so the guy who was interested in her arranged for a dump truck to run into her henchmen and put them in the hospital. She came to him in a rage, so he just laughed at her and told her he’d tell her boss about the bs she’d been pulling if she didn’t knock it off.

      Later on she tried to jump the guy, so he just beat the shit out of her. 😀 Then she pulled out a knife and went for him and managed to injure him, though not seriously. He just grabbed her around the wrist, turned her hand back at her, and slammed the knife into her heart. You know in a western show she either would have kicked his ass, or there would have been a long-drawn out, evenly matched fight despite the sex difference.

      It’s quite refreshing to watch stuff where men and women can both be equally good and bad persons, and each succeeds by playing to their own individual strengths, rather than everyone just being a physically powerful badass regardless of sex. 🙂

    1. Hmm. I think the shooting looks pretty unsatisfying actually. I watched a segment where you basically are dealing with a hoard of bullet sponges, so the strategy is to basically move backwards and shoot. On top of that the character movement appears to be very “sludgy” and the weapons just don’t hit the enemy hard enough to feel satisfying. The melee combat just looks plain frustrating, and QTEs are obviously over played by this point. The music is pretty kick ass and the environments and enemy designs are pretty great, I think.

      Pull up some high-level Doom Eternal gameplay after watching this AH gameplay and the comparison is night and day. Also, note how the enemies in Doom shed flesh etc. as you damage them to help give the player a sense of progression.

      Btw, as I’ve played through Metroid Prime some more I don’t think this game is as amazing as everybody remembers it. It’s certainly a good game, but I can definitely imagine how much more it could be improved with the elusive fourth entry.

    2. I watched only a few minutes of the footage in total. If you jump to the 3h10m mark, you see a fight with the protagonist shooting some kind of ice magic spell. This is graphically quite decent. The game does not strike me as a power fantasy, though. I agree that Doom Eternal looks much more visceral.

      Nintendo did not do themselves any favor with announcing Metroid Prime 4 in 2017. Six years later, we have not even gotten a single screenshot. Also, I wonder if this game even existed beyond a mere concept at that point, seeing how utterly amateurish the logo of this game looks. This is below the level of even the most amateurish 4chan fake-leaks trolls.

    3. Wow, it’s hard to believe it’s been about 6 years since we got that meager logo reveal, and not a single screenshot has even been revealed. It makes me wonder if it’s another one of those cases where Nintendo is just squirreling away some already completed game and just waiting for the right timing, perhaps for new hardware. Since it’s initial reveal, however, the original build of the game was scrapped pretty early on before entrusting Rare with the task of developing it instead. Who knows, the game might even be in development hell.

      The art book contained in the TotK Collector’s Edition recently got leaked presumably by some low-level employee, and Nintendo is currently running damage control. I looked at a few images, like one where Link has a glider suit. Less than three months to the release of the game and I have no idea what it’s about. It’s as if Nintendo knows youtubers like to take the most cryptic bullshit from a measly 2 minute trailer and spin theories for months on end, effectively doing a lot of the work of marketing hype for them. Digital Foundry made some good observations recently about how Zelda sequels historically haven’t been able to overtake their predecessors in terms of criticism or sales. Also, that they have new management now going forward and are probably pretty concerned about the sequel as well as the next console, as we know Nintendo has had bad luck with the latter in terms of following up after a super successful console cycle. Switch may just end up out-selling the PS2 eventually. That’s a lot to live up to, and a Metroid Prime 4 game is certainly not a system seller, therefore not a good IP to launch with.

    4. I recently saw that Pikmin 4 will be released on Switch. Then I recalled that I heard about this game years ago, and look at this: The game was more or less completed in 2015 (!) and eight years later, Nintendo is finally going to release it. Pikmin is a niche franchise, and one that is even more niche than Metroid. Oh, I recently skimmed the Wikipedia entry on Metroid Dread, from which I learned that development began in 2005 (it was finally released in 2021). This makes you wonder how many prototypes, concepts, and half-finished games there are inside the bowels of Nintendo. It’s also a pity that development is so expensive and time-consuming nowadays. I learned about three (!) sequels to F-Zero on the GBA, for instance. They just pumped them out. There were also three “Densetsu no Stafy” games (cute and simplistic platformer), while Capcom made four Mega Man Z games and released six Mega Man Battle Network games. Nowadays, we normally wait many years for a sequel but the games are not necessarily more fun.

      You raise some good points about Nintendo’s sequel and successor console curse. I really wonder about their follow-up to the Switch. Still, they have a war chest so large that they could release five more Wii U’s and still do fine — they even made a profit during the absolutely dismal Wii U years, after all.

    5. I looked up the TotK art book leak. At least the art is top notch. It made me more interested in the game than the footage Nintendo has shown thus far.

    7. I think the above review may have gone a bit light on the game, perhaps due to receiving a review copy. Skill Ups review is much more negative.

    8. In regards to the TotK art leaks, the long-flowing blonde haired chick caught my eye. My first assumption was that this is Zelda’s transformation into the goddess Hylia. There was also this new race of lion-like creature that looked pretty interesting. I say race instead of enemy because there was one slide where Link was wearing garbs and a wig that closely resembled the creature.

      This has turned into an interesting conversation about Nintendo. I had no idea they had kept Pikmin and Metroid Dread under wraps for so long. If it’s true about what I’ve been told before, I believe Nintendo either was or may still be the only gaming company that wasn’t/isn’t in debt (I certainly haven’t verified this). I do understand that they’re probably way in the green either way.

      “It’s also a pity that development is so expensive and time-consuming nowadays.”

      I suspect this is part of the formula for why great games are so few and far between these days. Just too much risk involved with making a triple A titles anymore.

    2. I am sure this video is either staged, a deep fake, or missing crucially important context. It is also important to point out, to address those with segregation fantasies, that this would have happened also if blacks and whites were still separated because if this young, talented, and very promising young woman had not abused this little boy, then somebody else would have. I bet that this young woman only acted out because of all the oppression she has experienced from her evil, white oppressors.

    3. You’ve probably already seen my posts on the mountain of issues I see with the mainstream school system,but it all started with bullying. Both in witnessing it happen to others and me personally having had to experience it myself.

      There’s just something about the typical School environment that just seems to encourage this shit. When you force a large group of children into a room for an unnecessary 8-10 hours being bored out of their minds being forced to follow the orders of authority figures who clearly don’t give a shit about them,they’ll look for ways to entertain themselves. unfortunately,picking on another student in proximity is typically the easiest/most convenient way to do just that.

      And unfortunately,a lot of normally good Self-Defense advice actually go out of the window in the School environment. There’s an unreasonable asshole at a random bar who is trying to look for an excuse to fight you? You can walk or run away from such a person,and you don’t have to come back to that specific bar.

      You can’t do that with a school bully classmate who you will be forced to see/interact with on a daily basis. You will have to find a way to get that issue handled,and often times it will have to be by inflicting great physical pain on the bully.

      I go into much greater detail on the whole issue in this reddit post of mine however:

      https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDefense/comments/y9hdnh/fighting_fair_has_no_place_outside_the_ring/it9yz86/

      That’s why I’m a big supporter of Gracie Bullyproof. Its far from perfect,but its definitely got the job done for a lot of kids out there. Its not the politically correct solution,but sometimes violence really is the answer. I speak from my own personal experience alongside having seen it work for others.

    4. On that specific incident…

      Would Gracie Bullyproof/Grappling skill have worked for this kid? The size and age difference is probably too much here,but it could very well have given the kid enough mental wherewithal to try and move out of there or scream for help from any adults who might be in the bus instead of freezing there and taking the abuse.

      Its an awful situation overall.

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