wslafleur

I'm glad to see that somebody beat me to it.

Christopher Hitchens used to call this The Argument From Personal Incredulity—i.e. "I can't imagine an alternative, therefore there mustn't be an alternative!", which I always thought had a certain ring to it. But this 'counterargument' sort of hinges on the degree to which your interlocutor was actually suffering from a lack of imagination.

At some point, when you are surrounded by people feeding you information adversarially and sabotaging your plans, you just start purging people until you feel like you know what is going on again. 

One of my friends—who was the target of a vicious online witch hunt over their political beliefs—eventually adopted this strategy while vetting new members for their Discord server. Entryism (real or imagined) creates a multipolar trap where both sides are maximally insulated against outside beliefs.

There's a good example of this in the Andrew Wilson VS Destiny Jan 6th debate. Andrew posits a (noncentral) hypothetical marijuana insurrection to undercut Destiny's proposed definition.

Bang he said they wouldn't fire she replied it happened anyway they concurred.

If the author wants this sentence to be interpreted one way or the other, they should utilize standard punctuation. Your avant garde approach to literature notwithstanding.

Our common agreement is that it's imperative for anyone with the wherewithal to show up and pay attention when dealing with others. The rest is surely context dependent, but I felt the need to push back a bit against what I see as a pernicious framing where both the empowered and disempowered parties are encouraged to view certain vices as essential.

This worries me because I'm not sure how to escape what I see as a sort of semantic trap. The discussion tends to settle itself around the topic of responsibility for hurt feelings when there are clearly deeper... (read more)

While I appreciate that you took the time to pay some lip service to ask/tell culture perspectives, the article feels pretty unsympathetic to anyone that wants to draw a distinction between shallow kindness and deep goodness in how you treat others. The unspoken assumption here is that any well-calibrated application of consideration should inevitably lead you to accommodate any potential insecurities, fears and shyness. It places the locus of moral goodness squarely on avoiding hurt feelings. This is just not how I think of the world, and to me it looks a... (read more)

Might be an uncharitable read of what's being recommended here. In particular, it might be worth revisiting the section that details what Deep Honesty is not. There's a large contingent of folks online who self-describe as 'borderline autistic', and one of their hallmark characteristics is blunt honesty, specifically the sort that's associated with an inability to pick up on ordinary social cues. My friend group is disproportionately comprised of this sort of person. So I've had a lot of opportunity to observe a few things about how honesty works.

Speaking ... (read more)

Look, all you need to do is have a discussion that is about the most efficient means of transporting dinosaurs by train. Then you're talking about both trains and dinosaurs.

On the one hand, I appreciate you articulating these models. On the other, I'm annoyed by the presupposition of conflict over consilience. I don't know that it would be helpful to whatever point you're trying to make, but the lack of any mention of synthesis-oriented behavioral models/approaches is easy to misconstrue as a failure of imagination. The zero-sum fallacy gives me a headache.

This seems like a bunch of noise to me. It's not that difficult to distinguish between truth claims and a figure of speech expressing confidence in a subject. Doing so 'deceptively', consciously or otherwise, is just an example of virtue-signaling.

Surely it's obvious that these are all examples of what we in the business call a figure of speech. When somebody says "I believe in you!" they're offering reassurance by expressing confidence in you, as a person, or your abilities.

This is covered under most definitions of belief as:
2. Trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something. (a la Oxford Languages)

I'm not a board game buff, but I think their critique applies to video-games as well, where I feel much more confident asserting that there is a dearth of such games as do not fall into some sort of zero-sum or adversarial paradigm. Where they do not, they are increasingly strapping on extrinsic reward frameworks that are almost equally harmful to effectance motivation in the sense of being diametrically opposed.

I too would be interested in any examples you have to the contrary, mostly to see what you think constitutes a contradiction here. This is a prett... (read more)

"I think I have some high level critiques of the way Mako is pursuing this – there's a stereotype of a game designer pitfall where a designer's got a vision they're attached to that resonates with them, but which doesn't quite resonate with players."

I find it amusing that, in response to a post dedicated to fundamentally challenging prevailing paradigms of modern games (y'know, the ones predicated on metrics that invariably narrow into adversarial dynamics), you've, perhaps inadvertently, suggested that OP might be failing by a narrow extrinsic measure of success. Time to abandon the vision and pursue mass-market appeal!

Though I suspect there are mortality risks in being that isolated that are on the order of 1/30,000 a year too.

For some reason, I find this implication particularly irksome. First of all, it's borderline non sequitur speculative analysis. Second, it's broadcasting contempt for an elective lifestyle, which seems to be the whole motivation for including it. Unless you really think this sort of statistical prestidigitation supports the point you're trying to make(?)

Would you accept a similar argument based on how fucking dangerous people are to each oth... (read more)

Your comment seems like a related aside, which I guess you admitted in a follow-up comment? But anyway, it makes me curious what the axiomatic precepts are for trade. The perception of mutual benefit and a shared ability to communicate this fact?

Also OP doesn't clearly distinguish between broader forms of quid pro quo and trade, so I'm just sort of adopting the broadest possible definition I can imagine.

I'm trying to decide to what extent this applies to my lived experience, but finding it difficult to distinguish between maintaining a healthy tranquility and cultivating habitual impassivity. My intuition is that I've had both experiences, but the internal feedback for either is very similar. Both seem to involve putting a functional amount of distance between yourself and your emotional response, and - in my experience - the healthy habit does reinforce itself, just like the negative version. But then, sometimes, I find myself noticing the lack of an emo... (read more)

The latter, although I don't think the gruesome details (beyond that) are really topical. I suspect that oral supplementation of this nature is significantly less effective and, other than a little mechanical discomfort, I don't know why anyone would opt for an oblique approach. The desired bacterial translocation is pretty straight-forward and you can achieve it in a similarly direct manner.

If your desire for details extends beyond mere curiosity, I'll respond to a DM. Just trying to be courteous to other uses.

This is relatable. I'm was diagnosed ASPD as a child, but never had any follow-up treatment or therapy. One noteworthy aspect of my transition into adulthood is the sheer amount of deliberate practice that went into learning how to properly socialize. Standing on the other side of all that effort, I feel that I've become more empathic than half my neurotypical friends and family members, quicker to accurately and elaborately imagine (in a humanizing fashion) another person's perspective. People regard me as eloquent and charming to be around, confident and... (read more)

That's super useful. Thank-you, I'll definitely follow-up on this. I imagine it would be.

Facile to the extent that it doesn't acknowledge the nuance of withholding judgement. One does not have to pretend at virtue for demanding a higher standard of rigor before committing to one position or another. This is especially true nowadays, when it is quick and cheap to track down the strongest arguments for, or against, any position and exceedingly difficult to thoroughly debunk them; when misinformation is everywhere and having domain specific expertise doesn't protect a source from bias.

The sort of pretention you're describing is contemptible, but ... (read more)