Suchian Musings And Ramblings About General Designs Involving Notable Estuaries

Ali_Roz · 2024-03-27 00:30:45

Tee hee, now it looks like the previous posts are jumping on a trampoline!

Ali_Roz · 2024-03-28 00:11:02

"Scientists are, in general, a dismal bunch. Unloved, unloving, and unlovable. Certainly Sir Isaac Newton and Galileo made few, if any, friends in their adult lives.

There are, of course, exceptions, ones who were good parents. There are also some with superficial charm, or acting ability. But when one praises a scientist, it is almost always for that scientist's work. The archetype here is Shockley, who invented the transistor and preached eugenics.

Thus, it is no wonder that they had to invent the Nobel Prize as an award to give themselves. It is no wonder that they felt the need to name the stars and the craters of the moon after themselves.

Even fiction doesn't love the scientist, featuring him or her either as a modern wizard speaking techno-babble instead of incantations, as a haruspice speaking truths beyond the understanding of mere mortals but which the wise would heed, a clever-but-shortsighted creator incapable of appraising the fruits of his or her doings (more a compulsive artist than a disciplined analyst), or as a villain seeking to inflict further modernity upon the world.

Of these, only the last is a new character, and it is best understood as a reaction to the so-called 'enlightenment'."

~Jerkliroz the confused-about-how-it-took-me-this-long-to-realize-I-could-say-jerk-things-and-then-pretend-it-was-insincere-by-trying-to-play-it-off-as-a-bizarrely-meta-wonderpost

Aliroz · 2024-03-28 00:25:42

@Ali_Roz: "If you know something is a scumbag move, the best thing to do is to NOT DO THAT THING, rather than to do it so obnoxiously that everybody has to concede that the thing is bad (or at least pretend to do so while you're around). Nothing's more tedious than smug condescension mixed with bad humor. You walk perilously close to satire."

~Recursionliroz the confused-about-how-anybody-could-possibly-be-so-lacking-in-self-awareness

AlirozTheConfused · 2024-03-28 00:30:22

"No. I'm not doing this bit. You can't make me continue the sequence by adding another-OH COME ON!"

~Runninggagliroz the confused-about-why-I-keep-falling-for-this

Ali_Roz · 2024-03-29 21:55:49

Not going to lie, today's low-key a banger. Temperature just right, some choice clouds just vibing in the sky, and I picked up a stick because I liked it.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-02 00:17:55

YFW you veto what would have been the nation's first law enacting compulsory sterilization, sign the first minimum wage into law in your state, sign laws banning child labor, donate your childhood home that eight generations of your family name lived in so it can become a public park, found a museum, and all anyone remembers you for is your beef with political cartoonists:

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-02 20:37:38

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-03 23:27:08

Political essentialism is the only bigotry that is fashionable among my generation. Or, at least, one of the only, and fashionable among the portion of my generation with which I come into contact.

People who would never see racial, national, or religious differences as grounds for ending a friendship or a romantic relationship speak of political differences as an entirely valid reason for such. People, the same people who would never be found spreading humor against a foreign nation or even speaking of its populace as a coherent entity which can be described by adjectives, reduce massive regions with populations of millions to categories and judge accordingly.

(This is mostly a complaint about my coworkers and the people I went to school with).

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-05 22:02:16

I like this little sci-fi concept I have in my head that Earth is the only planet to be inhabited by one and only one species of sophont, and humanity thus the only sophont to spent its metaphorical "formative years" in complete isolation.

So, humanity's "hat" is being essentially an unsocialized feral child, simultaneously fearing and craving the possibility of other intelligences, distressingly paranoid while deeply naïve.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-05 22:23:07

First Contact is, of course, always traumatic to any sophont, but it is less so to those who always had to share their world, or who previously did. It's easiest on those whose solar systems have other inhabited planets (in this setting, most inhabited planets have venus-thick clouds and strange handwavey electromagnetic fields preventing meaningful surface observation from any distance greater than naked-eye planet-viewing, so discovery in this situation is usually the inhabitants of two planets noticing one another's weak, scattered, indecipherable radio patterns and slowly becoming acclimated to their counterparts's existence as their radio tech improves).

Most of the "first contact" stories I come up with hinge on the spacefarers trying to prevent it from happening so as to spare the planet-children the trauma, or the planet-children trying to prevent it from happening for similar reasons.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-05 22:48:00

Planetary radio technician: ?!

Spaceship radio technician: !?

Both (thinking, translated): I didn't see you, you didn't see me, nobody needs to know.

Both: ...

Both (internally): *sigh of relief*

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-08 03:23:35

135246798 is a nice sequence of numbers.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-08 03:28:39

Warlords Battlecry is such a good series.

It tries all sorts of things Starcraft would never dare.

This review basically says a lot of what's been in my head for years.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-12 23:21:31

I like how wire-having over-the-ears headphones give a visual indication that you are using headphones and might be listening to something. I like how wire-having in-the-ears headphones do the same, if more subtly. Wireless in-the-ears headphones are too close to being invisible, especially from any distance.

Furthermore, wireless in-the-ears headphones are so small, expensive, and easy to lose that people don't casually remove them. They also seem much less likely to be used by anybody but the first user, with any device other than the first device with which they are used, or with any kind of splitter.

The wires could be awkward strings getting in the way, but they were also something you could use to hold the headphones without touching the sound-part.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-14 00:34:02

This think-piece from before I was even using the internet is interesting for me in that it has many of the same notions I have, but in opposite directions.

M. John Harrison and I both think that worldbuilding is an effort to excuse or justify the act of sub-creation, but Harrison thinks there is no need for permission to use the imagination, no need to validate it. To me, that need is obvious.

We both think that writing might be compared to conversation, and worldbuilding to a phone book, but he fails to understand the intrinsic value of the phone book, and he doesn't understand how the phone book or census-archive is fundamentally innocent in a way that entertainment cannot be (he sees this innocence as amorality, or even immorality).

We both acknowledge that one of the purposes of worldbuilding is to overload the reader with information until the act of reading becomes a one-way street, but I feel that this doesn't come from a desire to exploit a beaten-into-compliance reader but a desire to not be misinterpreted. I think that what he calls "writing" is significantly more exploitative, sinister, and manipulative than he realizes.

(Of course, I disagree with him about the Catholic Church. I think he's engaging in a long American tradition of casual anti-Catholicism. We both agree that worldbuilding comes (or can come) from the control instincts, and that the worldbuilder's tendencies are (or can be) tyrannical tendencies, but my religious beliefs include both the possibility of deification and a creator who made worlds without number for His own purposes, so I disagree with him that to think/speak/write of other worlds outside of imagination or metaphor is a heinous crime against reality, morality, and existence).

Tolkein obviously felt a lot of what I feel about worldbuilding and sub-creation (possibly because his works were a massive influence on me growing up), but without the bitterness and distrust-of-human-communication I've developed.

TitleName · 2024-04-17 21:16:49

Honestly, I think worldbuilding is pretty cool all things considered. I admit I'm not a very religious person in general so I don't see anything wrong with it.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-18 00:49:24

The theological implications of making your own world while still being a flawed mortal are concerning to many, especially those who don't believe in deification.

TitleName · 2024-04-18 03:02:03

I suppose I don't quite get it myself.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-18 03:32:47

Having the infinite power of God, without His infinite love, wisdom, and understanding, is a scary thought, especially for the denizens of the world you make.

As for me, I'm more concerned with the implications of creating characters than places, especially with regards to free will (most especially with regards to evil characters or villains). It seems wrong to create something and put it into a form of existence without its informed understanding and consent (which my religion holds we all gave long before being born, and part of the plan was forgetting between the previous life and this). It'd be kind of messed up to make a Pinocchio that had no chance of becoming a real boy, you know?

TitleName · 2024-04-18 03:36:34

Ah I see. I don't quite see it that way myself, I just see it as harmless fun myself, I just find it super interesting to do.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-18 03:51:12

I don't want my imagination-children to be unhappy, and, given the lack of some greater plan to justify it beyond "I enjoy it", I'd rather not put them through the kind of stuff that stories are made from.

Now, computer-game or video-game characters, on the other hand, are someone else's creation that I'm allowed to mess around with. I don't know why it works like that in my head, but it does.

TitleName · 2024-04-18 03:54:06

Ah, I guess that makes sense a bit.

I admit I go like whole hog on fan fic because that interests me more than making my own original stuff, so I don't mind putting those characters or the fan characters I made thru the wringer.

Princess Alice · 2024-04-22 13:51:39

Ali_Roz said:
I like how wire-having over-the-ears headphones give a visual indication that you are using headphones and might be listening to something. I like how wire-having in-the-ears headphones do the same, if more subtly. Wireless in-the-ears headphones are too close to being invisible, especially from any distance.

Furthermore, wireless in-the-ears headphones are so small, expensive, and easy to lose that people don't casually remove them. They also seem much less likely to be used by anybody but the first user, with any device other than the first device with which they are used, or with any kind of splitter.

The wires could be awkward strings getting in the way, but they were also something you could use to hold the headphones without touching the sound-part.

I prefer wired headphones for a couple reasons, but I do have a pair of in-ear monitors that I attached to a special Bluetooth cable. Mostly just because I wanted to try it out, but it can come in handy in certain situations, like when I want to wear earbuds at the store but still have to pass my phone around because it has the shopping list on it. But there's still a visible cable, just one that runs between the two earbuds instead of directly to the phone.

Also I have developed a habit of basically wearing headphones any time I am at home, even if I'm not actively listening to anything. I don't know why; something about having the harshness of the world, even in my own apartment, muffled a little bit helps me feel more comfortable. (I suspect having exceptionally sensitive hearing for an adult my age is a contributing factor.)

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-22 22:46:21

I live in a quiet place, thankfully. I don't know how people can live in apartments.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-22 23:08:07

"a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" is a lot longer and more difficult for search engines than "a Mormon", but God is not primarily concerned with Search Engine Optimization.

It would be unreasonable to expect everyone in the world to know and read the style guide, and considering that the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square was until recently called the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and that a lot of us (including me) casually used the exonym as shorthand until recently, it doesn't bother me when people use it while intending no offense. It just bothers me when publications (like CNN) use it, because the standards are higher for such. It also bothers me when people talk as though it's "rebranding" when that was always the name of the Church (with that exact capitalization and hyphenation).

I feel like if everybody could just use the right names for each other, it'd go a long way towards peace.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-22 23:41:35

I honestly think the so-called "conservative nutcases" and the so-called "woke mob" could be best friends if they could just figure out that they're being played off of each other by those wishing to profiteer off of a culture war.

Or, at least, something kind of like that weird "I leave you alone, you leave me alone, we both team up to stop bigger threats" relationships that anime heroes have with the villains from their first season when the second season villains come up, and then maybe later something like that weird "you threw a cement truck at my head but sure, I guess you're just the weird uncle of the group now" relationship that anime heroes and first-season anime villains have when the fifth season baddies show up.

Not that I want even worse problems to show up, but it'd be kind of neat if these long-standing conflicts could have some sort of resolution, or de-escalation.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-23 00:14:29

[Note: this is less Vegeta and more Piccolo, or heck, Yamcha].

EDIT: [Nah, this is, like, Speedwagon or Polnareff].

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-24 18:38:26

Inexplicable entities be like “felt unknowable, might curl into a perfect sphere and extrude myself into the awareness of a walrus”.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-25 21:24:37

Hidden Elf Village is one of my favorite tropes.

It can be a safe place in a dangerous world (and that safety can even extend to being safe from our protagonists and their influence--a good bone to throw to those affected by the story's main conflict without being part of it).

It (or knowledge of its location) can be a precious thing that our goodies are trying to preserve from the baddies (stakes high enough to get an audience invested but not so high that the reader knows you're not going to do it, and also a goal the villains can have desired for a long time and not attained without losing their cred).

It can be our protagonists' home base, their intended destination at their quest's end, their old home which banished them for wanting to get involved in the main conflict, or a dearly-appreciated place-to-stop-and-rest.

Ali_Roz · 2024-04-25 21:31:50

This may or may not have something to do with growing up in a valley. Or with reading The Hobbit and LOTR a bunch as a kid. Or the spiritual appeal of a place or a people being in the world but not of the world.

Suchian Musings And Ramblings About General Designs Involving Notable Estuaries

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