Dae

The secret is to be incredibly neurodivergent and unlock the secrets to extreme hyperfixation. The more you lose track of time, the better, as this is also the threshold where hunger ceases to exist.

-source, one incredibly autistic fuck (me)

I’m stealing this concept for my TTRPG usage!

In my honest opinion, I could hype it up even more. But to give you an incredibly grounded opinion, it is a lot of fun, especially if you enjoy JRPGs. I find it to be a very well made game, and even a friend of mine who normally is a big FPS nut is absolutely addicted to it, even playing it over the new DOOM title. I would say you’re, in the worst-case scenario, incredibly unlikely to regret trying it at least. The only very clear problem I have with it is that it can be incredibly easy to over-level yourself in it.

Tl;Dr, yes*

I find this discussion to be an exercise in frustration. There’s a lot of philosophical jargon that gets glazed over and nuances that often get ignored. I also think it’s an incredibly complex and complicated topic that we simply do not have enough information available to us to determine in a scientific manner.

For instance: what kind of “free will” are we talking about? Often it’s “Libertarian Free Will,” that is, absolute agency uninfluenced by any external factors. This much is disproven scientifically, as our brains run countless “subconscious” calculations in response to our environment to hasten decision making and is absolutely influenced by a myriad of factors, regardless of if you’re conciously aware of it or not.

However, I think that the above only “disproves” all notions of free will if you divorce your “subconscious” from the rest of your being. Which is where the complication and nuance comes in. What is the “self?” What part of you can you point to as being the “real you?”

From a Christian perspective, you might say the “self” is your soul, which is not yet proven by science, and thus the above has no bearing on, as it cannot take the soul into account. But from the opposite side of the spectrum, from a Buddhist perspective, there is no eternal, unchanging, independently existing “self.” And as such, the mind in its entirety, concious awarness or not, is just another part of your aggregates, and from that perspective it can be argued that a decision is no less your own just because it was not made in your conscious awareness.

With my ramblings aside, I am a Buddhist and so my opinion is that we do have free will, we’re just not always consciously aware of every decision we make. And while we cannot always directly control every decision we make, we can influence and “train” our autopilot reactions to make better decisions.

Relatable tbh. I think a good part of it was depression in my younger years, but, I used to be an incredibly angry person.

It took a long time for me to accept that the truth is, you don’t get angry about shit you don’t care about. Hard to accept that half the things I’d get angry at weren’t worth it. The other half anger just wasn’t a helpful response. Been a long process of learning to have a better reaction for me.

I don’t think that matters. This is likely a decision handed down by upper management. And that’s what makes it depressing; what could’ve continued to be some of the greatest creators of Sci-Fi video games instead have mismanaged their talent and shot both their feet off.

Man, as somebody who grew up with Halo, it’s really depressing to see how they seem to just be utterly incapable of an original thought anymore.

Congrats to Canada, but with how the current administration is going, don’t get too excited; he might be coming back.

Cults follow a life-cycle of explosive growth. Then once they reach a certain threshold, they slow. And either they become something like Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses, where they face slow growth/decline, close to equalibrium, or they begin collapsing in grotesquely spectacular fashion like Heaven’s Gate and Jone’s Town.

MAGA is falling into this latter category, in which the cult grows desperate as it loses members and clamps down harder, making ever-higher demands, making more members nope out, locking the cult into a vicious cycle of free-falling desperation. This is good.

What is not good is that the precedent set is Heaven’s Gate and Jone’s Town, both of which did something absolutely tragic and evil, and MAGA has great political power right now. They will absolutely be doing something truly and historically evil on the way out, and we need to be prepared.

Zen Buddhist. I grew up Christian, realized I was believing out of obligation rather than genuine conviction, but also I’m pan and Christians have made it very clear that’s not okay with them.

I was areligious for awhile. Which I use because I am still an atheist; I don’t see much evidence for gods, but that isn’t important to Buddhism.

I appreciate the Buddha’s teachings and find them incredibly helpful. I’m calmer, more focused, and over all, happier for my practice. It gives me a spiritual outlet that doesn’t make me feel “dirty” the way Christianity did.

There are aspects to Buddhism that I have to take on faith even though I am otherwise a skeptical individual. But ultimately, those things don’t change how I would have had to live my life. And I believe that a true practitioner needs a balance of logic anf faith: too much logic, and you kill your faith. Too much faith and you wind up in a cult. You need enough logic to stay grounded, and enough faith to believe. But you have to acknowledge that you can rarely prove the things you take on faith and because of that, there will always be non-belivers, and that has to be okay.

By default, both Plasma and Cinnamon have a very similar set up to Windows.

However, Plasma is insanely modular and customizable, so if you’re willing to take the time to, you can make it look as much like Cinnamon as you please. Given how simple Cinnamon’s design is, I don’t think it would be hard at all.