Posts by lonegardener

Amanda Jackson5 said:Just give us a top 10 or 20.

I honestly can't pull that off. 🤣

My tastes have shifted so much over the years that the only thing I CAN really recall is the general "vibe" I got from a game when I first stumbled upon it. But even that isn't totally reliable. If my preferences have changed this drastically, my memories might be a bit distorted too. Plus, those impressions depend on two things: my old self, and the state of gaming at the time. A game that blew my mind back then might look pretty ridiculous today, given how far we've come with processing power and modern graphics cards.

That said, I can think of one game from when I was just a kid—a broke kid who couldn't afford to drop quarters into all those flashy arcade machines at the local pier. 🤣

Scramble

Ahh, total Proustian moments right there...

Would anyone even know what to say if I actually sat down and typed out a three-page manifesto of all my favorite things? 😢

🤣

jadeheron5 said:I mean, what do you even mean by "games"? It’s not all one thing. For instance, I personally can't stand most mainstream titles—either they're way too easy and I lose interest immediately, or they're so heavily driven by narrative that it feels less like playing and more like sitting through a movie. But then, I have a real soft spot for roguelikes. You know, those games where you only get one shot at it? If you screw up, you're back at square one, even if you've already sunk three full days into a single run.
I look at them as a sort of mental workout. The whole core loop is built around avoiding stupid mistakes, and since no plan ever survives contact with reality, you're forced to learn how to actually adapt using whatever scraps or tools you happen to pick up along the way.

Beyond roguelikes, I also find myself gravitating toward card games and chess.

So, really, you can't just lump all video games into one big bucket. The genres can be worlds apart from each other.

Anyone else feel this way? 😁

hiddeneagle98 said:Do you think you actually read about it, or was it just some other variation?

The Windows version I'm talking about looks like it's from '93 to me.

Computers have been used to track Game of Life configurations since they were first made public. When John Conway was first investigating how various starting configurations developed, he used a Go board with black and white stones to track them manually. It was a grueling process and incredibly easy to mess up. While Conway was investigating the R-pentomino, John Francis, an undergraduate student at Harvard University, wrote a program (for an IBM System/360 mainframe at a nearby research institute) to verify Conway's results. This software demonstrated that the configuration hadn't hit a stable state even after 1,000 generations.

The first interactive Game of Life program was written in an early version of ALGOL 68 C for the PDP-7 by M. J. T. Guy and S. R. Bourne. The results were published in the October 1970 issue of Scientific American, accompanied by the remark: "Without its help, some discoveries about the game would have been difficult to make."[62]

Two early implementations of the Game of Life on home computers were by Malcolm Banthorpe written in BBC Basic. The first was in the January 1984 issue of Acorn User magazine, and Banthorpe followed this with a three-dimensional version in the May 1984 issue.[63] Susan Stepney, Professor of Computer Science at a US university, followed this up in 1988 with Life on the line, a program that generated one-dimensional cellular automata.[64]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life

Yeah, I read about it in a magazine called 'Computers' back when I lived in the South. 😬

Though that guy (the author of the article on Conway's Game of Life) clearly had a hard time finding coherent material. (Honestly, I don't know how anyone found anything without the Internet lol).

Basically, the guy wrote this whole piece on CGoL, describing 'static' and 'dynamic' lifeforms—but he didn't even know about the simplest glider. 😬 (And keep in mind, Conway and his crew actually 'discovered' the glider by hand, just doing the math on paper).

So, I ended up 'discovering' that glider myself while messing around with an assembly program I wrote... well, I first wrote it in BASIC, but that was impossibly slow; it took 5 or 6 minutes just to process one generation on a 40x24 text screen. So, I rewrote the critical logic directly in assembly, and suddenly it was running at an 'incredible' speed of 3 or 4 generations per second. 🤦 Then, I just happened to stumble upon that glider. It wasn't until 20 years later that I learned via the Internet not only that the glider was discovered back in 1970, but also things like the glider gun (which existed long before that article in Computers too, but the author had no clue lol), and so on. I don't know how much you've studied this, but it really is a fascinating little thing. 😬 I'm especially blown away by the people who build those complex structures, like that 'meta-cell' from the video above. 😵

hiddeneagle98 said:First off, let's talk about this whole "reactionary" label you're throwing around—it honestly reminds me so much of my old man.

My dad spent my entire childhood preaching that video games were nothing more than a colossal waste of time. Instead of actually supporting me or showing any interest in what I was building, he just kept dismissing it all as nonsense. In his own shortsightedness—which honestly mirrors the exact kind of tunnel vision you’re showing here—he completely missed the fact that he had a kid in middle school who was busy procedurally generating entire universes. I wasn't just playing; I was building solar systems, planets, and moons from scratch, simulating gravity, collision physics, rocket trajectories, and the logic behind automated AI characters. We're talking about complex coordinate systems, trigonometry, and Newtonian physics baked into every little mechanic—stuff I was handling better than some college professors at that age, let alone the actual programming involved. And the kicker? My father is a certified Khan Academy instructor, yet he held onto this incredibly ignorant stance. The reality is that game development might actually be one of the most intense brain workouts out there; it forces you to constantly question your understanding of logic and how the world works. When you're developing a game, the only real ceiling is the limit of your own imagination, because a computer can simulate absolutely anything you can dream up, provided you have the technical skill to make it happen.

Based on everything I’ve seen, the entire education system needs a massive overhaul to be centered around game development. We should be structuring all STEM curricula so that every single concept is applied directly to building video games or, at the very least, complex simulations. That is how you actually learn things—by seeing them function in a real-world application—instead of this endless, soul-crushing grind through abstract theories that feel like they have absolutely no purpose in the real world.
Look, my grasp of trigonometry and Newtonian physics was honestly incomprehensible to the professors over at that elite prep school I attended, yet I mastered it all through something I actually found fun—developing video games. It didn't feel like work; it was just play. So how on earth can anyone claim that kind of mastery has zero value? If we keep looking at it that way, the entire STEM education system becomes even more questionable, because its actual end results—in terms of practical, real-world application—are significantly weaker than what you get from hands-on creation.

Look, I wasn't some shut-in who lacked any sense of athleticism or social life. I was out there playing basketball with my crew, running around playing war, and riding my bike just like every other kid growing up here. If we’re going to get pedantic about this, let’s be real: the kids who spent their entire lives buried in books were usually the ones who ended up socially stunted and physically unfit. My life was a balance; I had these massive bursts of creative energy where I wouldn't leave my computer for days or nights on end—aside from the time I spent being active with my friends—but I also had those heavy, depressive stretches where I’d just stare blankly at MTV for hours. Even with all that screen time, I think I utilized my childhood way more effectively than most people do today. Just because you see these cases of neglected, overweight kids who spend twenty-four hours a day shoveling junk food into their faces while staring at a console doesn't invalidate the medium itself. Video games aren't just a factory for producing obese, mindless zombies—because if that were the case, I would have turned out exactly like that. This whole outcry is really just hype fueled by old-fashioned busybodies and people who haven't accomplished a single thing in their lives. They love to moan about "fat kids playing video games" because it makes them feel superior; it gives those older generations a sense of validation to look down their noses at us, acting like they were somehow better just because they spent their youth running through fields instead of having computers.

Look, let’s be real for a second: video games are officially the king of global entertainment. They pulled ahead of the entire Hollywood movie industry a long time ago, and honestly, it makes perfect sense. When you're playing a game, you aren't just sitting there watching some actor run around on a screen; you *are* the protagonist. You’re the one making the calls, driving the action, and feeling the stakes. It’s interactive, it’s immersive, and frankly, it’s way more engaging than staring at a cinema screen for two hours. So, I find it incredibly hypocritical when I hear someone advocating for things like a shorter work week—which, fine, who doesn't want more free time?—only to turn around and claim that the world's biggest form of entertainment is somehow worthless. It’s a massive contradiction. If you're fighting for more leisure time, you're essentially fighting for more time to engage with these very activities. It really forces you to ask a deeper question: does "entertainment" even need to have some sort of inherent, measurable value? Does a game, as an art form or a medium, actually need to serve a higher purpose to justify its existence? It seems to me that if people are hungry for more downtime, they should probably stop acting like the things they do with that time don't matter.

I think we need to start by actually defining what a game even is. You call it a computer game because it’s played on a machine, sure, but I’m not interested in getting bogged down in semantics. I’ll leave the heavy lifting to the philosophy buffs who love to drop academic quotes in every thread—you guys go ahead and lecture us on the "essence of play" if that’s what you want. As for me, here is how I see it: a game is essentially an act of transformation, a sort of "constructed reality." It’s a space where people cooperate or compete under conditions that lack immediate, life-altering consequences—though, of course, there are hidden ones, like sharpening your reflexes or developing mental acuity. Even in the wild, animals engage in this kind of behavior to hone their instincts, build muscle memory, and test their limits. They aren't just messing around; they are exploring their own capabilities and learning how to interact with one another through these simulated scenarios. At its core, play is a rehearsal for reality disguised as entertainment. If it didn't serve a purpose, nature wouldn't have bothered evolving such complex behaviors, and they wouldn't persist. Play prepares us for the real world while keeping us engaged; otherwise, why would it exist?

Whether a game is digital or not really shouldn't matter when we're talking about actual value; if the core experience holds weight, then obviously a computer game can be just as meaningful. Take chess, for instance—one of those ancient staples that’s still going strong today. Nowadays, you’re far more likely to see someone playing it on a laptop than hunched over a physical wooden board. In neither scenario are you getting any kind of physical workout, but with a computer, you can hop online and play against someone halfway across the world in Brazil, or let an algorithm match you with opponents based on your specific ranking. So, the real question is: does chess lose its essence just because it's played on a screen? If the game itself has value, how does moving it to a digital medium strip that away? And while we're on the subject, people used to think computers would never be able to touch a human at the board, yet now they're absolutely crushing people in games like Go. These kinds of shifts actually force us to rethink some pretty heavy philosophical ground.

There’s one particular thing that left a massive impression on me, though it’s really a borderline case since it’s technically called a "game," but let's call it what it is: "Conway's Game of Life." I remember seeing it back in the Windows 3.11 days, tucked away alongside Minesweeper and Solitaire. It was dreamed up by a mathematician in the 70s. It blew my mind to see how a simple little universe governed by just four basic rules could spring to life in such miraculous ways. Honestly, given how much it resonated with me, I’d argue this thing should be mandatory reading in elementary school; that's how much intrinsic value I think it carries. Generally speaking, if we want learning to be more effective and engaging, we ought to "gamify" everything—that is the true inherent value of digital gaming.

Then you have all these educational games that drop you into historical contexts, letting you soak up history through gameplay or even letting you tweak the course of events. You’ve got management sims where you run entire empires—take Civilization, where you build a society from the ground up, or Panzer General, where you command troops during World War II. All these titles expand and sharpen the player's intellect while casually feeding them historical facts and narratives. For example, one of the "advancements" in Civilization—if I recall correctly—is "women's suffrage". By playing Civilization, you gain a practical understanding of the timeline and importance of various breakthroughs, from the wheel to the modern era; it's almost hands-on knowledge because if you fail to innovate at the right time, your civilization falls behind everyone else. It reminds me of those classic American game shows, like Jeopardy!, where it's basically just high-stakes trivia categorized by topic.

My kid plays educational games on his phone. Look, if you’re constantly parenting young children, it’s nearly impossible to keep a smartphone out of their hands, but it is entirely doable to load it with apps that teach shapes, letters, numbers, logic, and deduction. My little guy mastered the entire alphabet when he was around 20 months old, maybe even earlier. He’ll play a game diligently for half an hour, get bored, and then go back to playing "in real life." I don't see any issue with that. I sit with him, watch how he plays, and help him out when he struggles or gets clumsy with his fingers.

When we start dissecting these different types of games, we really need to draw a line between virtual worlds—where you have persistent avatars—and the kind of games you just play once and walk away from. Virtual worlds where you can lead a sort of "second life" (which can easily become your primary one) are in a completely different league than something like Sokoban or Super Mario. In those worlds, you're dealing with other people who make that environment feel real; because of them, you can't just hit a reset button. You can reset your character, sure, but you can't undo the social connections. There's a parallel here to what happens on forums like this. Those of us who are regulars here aren't just hanging out for the philosophy; we're here for the other users. Even if we're just anonymous avatars, we are real people. This is a massive topic that probably deserves its own dedicated thread, but it touches on the future where everyone might be plugged into some virtual reality most of the time. I don't have the time to dive into that whole rabbit hole right now, so I'll leave it there, but I'll just say that even that hyper-connected future doesn't negate the points I made above.

I actually first stumbled upon Conway back in the late '80s, long before the era of Windows 3.11😁. Since there was no Internet back then, I didn't dive too deep into it; there just wasn't any information available nearby (plus, computers were so incredibly slow that you couldn't even dream of performing the kind of miracles possible with today's hardware).

Harold Doyle3 said:As long as my keyboard is buried under a mountain of chip crumbs and sticky residue from lukewarm sodas, I don't have to worry about any kind of self-neglect.😉

How Path of Exile players gear up for a new season:



🤣 🤣

Harold Doyle3 said:Look, it's better to play a war game in a digital world than to see actual combat in the real one. It's just how we satisfy that primal, almost childish urge inside us.
People end up happier because they can vent their frustrations through
video games, which honestly just cuts down on the collateral damage to society at large.
At its core, playing is just one more way for a person to figure out who they actually are.

That’s certainly an 'optimistic' take on the phenomenon, and I suspect many people see it that way.

However, for others, 'satisfying' those impulses might actually lead to desensitization. It creates a habit of acting on every impulse, which could increase the likelihood of someone trying to fulfill those same urges in the real world. 😬

I wouldn't say this effect hits everyone the same way, though.

Sandra Murphy33 said:... vanish quietly from the physical world? 🙂

Isn't every single experience, every moment of being, fundamentally an internal matter?

Life appears to be split between the external and the internal, but isn't this "external" realm—this thing we call Nature, the material world—mostly just... well, endurance?

And it becomes all the more much of an endurance test when it can't be easily translated into some kind of internal harmony.

That’s not even the main issue. The point is, no matter how tightly you grip onto this "real" world... one day (and it’ll happen much faster than you think), you’re going to leave it behind anyway.

Nicholas Gonzalez87 said:I've heard of Master of Orion, but Master of Magic is news to me. I'll check it out. I did see the latest Civilization in the Xbox store earlier—might just grab it. 🍿

Well, MoM is a lot like Civilization I; we're talking old-school "VGA graphics" here—320x200 at 256 colors. It looks VERY dated by today's standards. Still, it’s incredible how those devs managed to cram such a solid user interface into such tiny pixel counts. That said, if you enjoyed those older titles, you should definitely give Age of Wonders 2 and 3 a look. 😁

Nicholas Gonzalez87 said:Tried the Detroit: Become Human demo—pretty interesting stuff. If you're looking for an alternative to Cyberpunk, Deus Ex is actually a solid choice. 🙂

Yeah, that was one of my absolute favorites growing up, along with Heroes of Might and Magic. 😁

Are you thinking... Heroes of Might and Magic *2*—and especially *3*? 🤣

Man, if I actually tallied up all the hours I poured into titles like Civilization, Master of Orion, Master of Magic (you know the one? A total Civ clone, but honestly the best in its class), and the Heroes of Might and Magic series... I could have finished a Master's degree in Hegel by now. 🤣

ruggedraven36 said:It’s just a game run through software built into a computer.

What are we actually doing while playing?

We feed input data to the program via physical movement—think controller buttons or mouse clicks—and our senses pick up the output, which lets us manage all those interactive elements that depend on us.

Is there any actual value in playing games?

Video games are worthless. Honestly, they’re pretty bad for kids—they pull them away from real-world play and everything else matters too.

Where does philosophy fit into video games?

Nowhere.

🤣 Honestly, you sound just like my dad, lol.

Look, there are all kinds of games out there. Aside from the mindless ones (though, let's face it, many aren't much different from an old-school arcade cabinet—does anyone else remember those?)—there are games that function literally like interactive novels. Just as books can explore complex ethical dilemmas, games take it a step further because you actually have to "make a choice" and then live with the consequences.

Plus, you have online games that rely heavily on player interaction, making them comparable to Twitter or even a discussion forum. You only need to check out a site like Twitch to see just how vibrant these communities can be.

Sam Martinez9 said:Personally, I find myself wondering why I would ever need virtual reality when I already have actual reality. VR could perhaps serve as a small subset of experience, but nothing more. The world surrounding us is beautiful, complex, and endlessly diverse; one can spend a lifetime exploring and absorbing it. To reduce existence down to a virtual simulation feels like a fundamental impoverishment of life itself.

If we want to stay on the topic of philosophy, let's look at it through that lens.

Philosophy requires deep thought—the process of encountering foreign ideas through reading, reconciling them with one's own beliefs, refining those thoughts, and eventually arriving at new conclusions or stances. All of this demands contemplation. It requires peace and a lack of external distraction.

Virtual reality tends to divert the mind toward other stimuli. Much like film or music, it isn't really a medium designed for deep philosophical inquiry, even if there might be philosophical elements tucked away within it.

In that case, this forum is basically a virtual reality, and from what I can tell, you spend quite a few hours in it every single day... 😬

I suppose the "real world" isn't quite as perfect as you make it out to be, huh?

Besides, this meme seems pretty relevant:



🤣

Joshua Jones35 said:People commit evil both intentionally and unintentionally. There’s a specific breed of person who does wrong quite consciously, yet they don't view it as "evil" at all—they see it as "good." In their warped logic, if an action serves their own interests, then it’s inherently right; what happens to anyone else is just irrelevant noise.
Technically, anyone can choose to be a villain to turn a quick profit. If you decide to stay on the straight and narrow, that’s your own burden to carry, I suppose.
Then again, there are plenty who feel backed into a corner. They aren't out to cause harm because they have some deep-seated desire for chaos; it's usually a matter of lacking resources. They end up screwing over individuals or, say, every single employee at a major corporation like Amazon just to keep their heads above water.
Personally, I suspect most people don't actually experience malice as a path to happiness. Most seem to only find true satisfaction when they're doing something decent. It’s possible—though perhaps a bit cynical of me to say—that people only cling to being "good" because they’re too weak to handle the alternative. If we all had the stomach for it, maybe everyone would choose evil just because it makes life easier.
But as for those who lean into malice with full awareness... does the darkness really satisfy them enough to replace everything else? Is it truly possible that being bad is the only thing that actually makes them happy?

Reading through this, I have to wonder: what does your definition of "evil" even look like?

If someone truly believes they aren't doing something wrong, but rather something good, how can YOU possibly be certain that it’s actually "evil"? For all we know, maybe they're right and you're the one who's mistaken. 🤷

Michael Castillo said:Presumably humanity—not life as a whole.

Look, no matter how terrible people act, I don't see the logic in suggesting that life itself is somehow "bad."

Lions would still be tearing into bison while they're still breathing even if we weren't here. 🤷

So, if I were actually leaning into those anti-humanist sentiments, I’d rather look at achieving the total annihilation of all life (on Earth... or even in space, though that's probably too big for even my wildest imagination LOL) as something "negative"—rather than just ending the human race. That second option is honestly nonsensical. That VHEMT chart is an interesting bit of work, but that doesn't mean VHEMT members aren't a bunch of crackpots. Because they are. 😬 Or, at the very least, they know exactly how to troll. 🤣

feralranger said:At the end of the day, a fellow member is just a human being, so I fail to see why we should bother with such tedious double standards—as if there were some distinct moral code applied to "members" versus everyone else.🤷>

I have to admit, I’m pretty confused by this too.

It sounds like a purely pragmatic move; for instance, the idea that the site "protects its regulars" because it wants them to keep coming back. There’s a logical assumption that people won't return to a community where they feel openly insulted.

But still, it feels bizarre to say you can make offensive generalizations or insult a third party, yet you aren't allowed to "insult" an individual regular. 🤷

To be honest, I haven't a clue how you even solve a dilemma like this. It probably can't be solved.

feralranger said:...and honestly, using an ad hominem attack in court can actually be a valid legal strategy. It’s a simple fact that someone with a prior criminal record isn't going to receive the same level of benefit from the doubt as someone with a clean slate when they're facing the exact same charges.

For instance, if a witness has been proven to be a perjurer in a previous trial... it's standard procedure to move for impeachment by using an ad hominem approach to establish that they are, quite simply, a liar.

The thing is, that isn't even technically an "ad hominem" logical fallacy. For something to be a true "ad hominem" fallacy, it has to be irrelevant. If a witness makes a claim and you prove they are generally a liar, that's not a fallacy. It would only be an ad hominem if you tried to argue their point was wrong just because their socks smell. 🤣 The whole point hinges on irrelevance, not just because the argument is directed "against the person." It is perfectly fine to use arguments "against the person" if those points are logically tied to the matter at hand.

rapidmaker77 said:I have concluded that I am certain, absolutely, undeniably, of exactly one and a half facts.

1. I am conscious
(and there is no room for doubt, because doubt itself is impossible here😲
Specifically, if I were to doubt my own consciousness, that very act of doubting serves as confirmation
of my awareness. Ergo, I am conscious, and I cannot deny this fact or opt out of being aware. 😲

1b
Beyond the fact of my own consciousness, I know nothing else for certain.

Now, I hear you asking me—why bother even looking into what discrimination is if you aren't going to be certain about it either?

My response is this:
-it's so that within this vast ocean of ignorance in which I exist, I might establish some boundaries. It allows me to move more "securely" and feel out what the other characters (the contents of my consciousness) have to say about the matter.

Besides, perhaps there are actual characters in this endless drama of a forum who TRULY understand what discrimination is. People who actually know who they are, who you are, who we all are, why anything exists at all instead of nothing, what our purpose is, and where that cosmic diner at the edge of the universe is located.🙂

Quincey:

By the way, 95% of people tossing around the term 'discrimination' can't even define it. They just use it as a buzzword. A way to sound urban, modern, and intelligent... an ego trip, essentially.😬

But if I judge by myself and the world around me, it isn't 95%; it's everyone. All 100% of us actually know absolutely nothing.

I suspect the other characters (my internal mental contents), much like myself, only know that they are conscious. Everything else is just a blind leading the blind, searching for Schrödinger's black cat in a pitch-black room—or rather, a pitch-black universe.

(In this thread, that cat is discrimination; it might be in the room called the universe, or it might not; it might be alive, or it might not😍 ).

It is all quite dark, and on the horizon of this room-universe, there are neither doors nor windows.
Given all this, the experts🙄 claim everything is spinning incredibly fast, and nobody knows which direction we are heading.

Help!!

I want to get off, but I don't even know where I am or who I am.🤷

I think there’s plenty of room for doubt there. When you say, "I am conscious," you’re already operating under the assumption that there’s a fixed "identity" to be aware of. But what if that identity isn't actually what we think it is? It might be something else entirely. If that's the case, we have to ask ourselves: what does it truly mean to say, "I am conscious"? 😬

And another thing—just so we're on the same page—you actually have to exist first. I mean, how could you possibly be self-aware if you don't even exist? 😬

Enivej, we’re talking about discrimination here, not metaphysics. 😬

rapidmaker77 said:I have concluded that I am certain, absolutely, undeniably, of exactly one and a half facts.

1. I am conscious
(and there is no room for doubt, because doubt itself is impossible here😲
Specifically, if I were to doubt my own consciousness, that very act of doubting serves as confirmation
of my awareness. Ergo, I am conscious, and I cannot deny this fact or opt out of being aware. 😲

1b
Beyond the fact of my own consciousness, I know nothing else for certain.

Now, I hear you asking me—why bother even looking into what discrimination is if you aren't going to be certain about it either?

My response is this:
-it's so that within this vast ocean of ignorance in which I exist, I might establish some boundaries. It allows me to move more "securely" and feel out what the other characters (the contents of my consciousness) have to say about the matter.

Besides, perhaps there are actual characters in this endless drama of a forum who TRULY understand what discrimination is. People who actually know who they are, who you are, who we all are, why anything exists at all instead of nothing, what our purpose is, and where that cosmic diner at the edge of the universe is located.🙂

Quincey:

By the way, 95% of people tossing around the term 'discrimination' can't even define it. They just use it as a buzzword. A way to sound urban, modern, and intelligent... an ego trip, essentially.😬

But if I judge by myself and the world around me, it isn't 95%; it's everyone. All 100% of us actually know absolutely nothing.

I suspect the other characters (my internal mental contents), much like myself, only know that they are conscious. Everything else is just a blind leading the blind, searching for Schrödinger's black cat in a pitch-black room—or rather, a pitch-black universe.

(In this thread, that cat is discrimination; it might be in the room called the universe, or it might not; it might be alive, or it might not😍 ).

It is all quite dark, and on the horizon of this room-universe, there are neither doors nor windows.
Given all this, the experts🙄 claim everything is spinning incredibly fast, and nobody knows which direction we are heading.

Help!!

I want to get off, but I don't even know where I am or who I am.🤷

Most people don't have a clue what discrimination actually means. Just look at that thread about same-sex marriage—the crowd of self-proclaimed experts there is absolutely convinced they’re being "discriminated against," yet none of them can even begin to explain why.

I once got into a heated debate with someone who actually argued that it’s "discrimination" to deny chickens the right to life. He even went so far as to compare the treatment of poultry to the historical struggles of women and Black Americans—and apparently, he thinks the same applies to the LGBTQ+ community today. His logic? If we stop "discriminating" against gay people, one day we'll eventually end up doing the same to chickens. ☕

rapidmaker77 said:I have concluded that I am certain, absolutely, undeniably, of exactly one and a half facts.

1. I am conscious
(and there is no room for doubt, because doubt itself is impossible here😲
Specifically, if I were to doubt my own consciousness, that very act of doubting serves as confirmation
of my awareness. Ergo, I am conscious, and I cannot deny this fact or opt out of being aware. 😲

1b
Beyond the fact of my own consciousness, I know nothing else for certain.

Now, I hear you asking me—why bother even looking into what discrimination is if you aren't going to be certain about it either?

My response is this:
-it's so that within this vast ocean of ignorance in which I exist, I might establish some boundaries. It allows me to move more "securely" and feel out what the other characters (the contents of my consciousness) have to say about the matter.

Besides, perhaps there are actual characters in this endless drama of a forum who TRULY understand what discrimination is. People who actually know who they are, who you are, who we all are, why anything exists at all instead of nothing, what our purpose is, and where that cosmic diner at the edge of the universe is located.🙂

Quincey:

By the way, 95% of people tossing around the term 'discrimination' can't even define it. They just use it as a buzzword. A way to sound urban, modern, and intelligent... an ego trip, essentially.😬

But if I judge by myself and the world around me, it isn't 95%; it's everyone. All 100% of us actually know absolutely nothing.

I suspect the other characters (my internal mental contents), much like myself, only know that they are conscious. Everything else is just a blind leading the blind, searching for Schrödinger's black cat in a pitch-black room—or rather, a pitch-black universe.

(In this thread, that cat is discrimination; it might be in the room called the universe, or it might not; it might be alive, or it might not😍 ).

It is all quite dark, and on the horizon of this room-universe, there are neither doors nor windows.
Given all this, the experts🙄 claim everything is spinning incredibly fast, and nobody knows which direction we are heading.

Help!!

I want to get off, but I don't even know where I am or who I am.🤷

Welcome to the desert of uncertainty. Pragmatic folks don't usually struggle with this; they’re only interested in what "works." Of course, they can never actually define what "working" means, yet they find any debate about functionality to be tedious and dysfunctional. 😵 🤣

rapidmaker77 said:I have concluded that I am certain, absolutely, undeniably, of exactly one and a half facts.

1. I am conscious
(and there is no room for doubt, because doubt itself is impossible here😲
Specifically, if I were to doubt my own consciousness, that very act of doubting serves as confirmation
of my awareness. Ergo, I am conscious, and I cannot deny this fact or opt out of being aware. 😲

1b
Beyond the fact of my own consciousness, I know nothing else for certain.

Now, I hear you asking me—why bother even looking into what discrimination is if you aren't going to be certain about it either?

My response is this:
-it's so that within this vast ocean of ignorance in which I exist, I might establish some boundaries. It allows me to move more "securely" and feel out what the other characters (the contents of my consciousness) have to say about the matter.

Besides, perhaps there are actual characters in this endless drama of a forum who TRULY understand what discrimination is. People who actually know who they are, who you are, who we all are, why anything exists at all instead of nothing, what our purpose is, and where that cosmic diner at the edge of the universe is located.🙂

Quincey:

By the way, 95% of people tossing around the term 'discrimination' can't even define it. They just use it as a buzzword. A way to sound urban, modern, and intelligent... an ego trip, essentially.😬

But if I judge by myself and the world around me, it isn't 95%; it's everyone. All 100% of us actually know absolutely nothing.

I suspect the other characters (my internal mental contents), much like myself, only know that they are conscious. Everything else is just a blind leading the blind, searching for Schrödinger's black cat in a pitch-black room—or rather, a pitch-black universe.

(In this thread, that cat is discrimination; it might be in the room called the universe, or it might not; it might be alive, or it might not😍 ).

It is all quite dark, and on the horizon of this room-universe, there are neither doors nor windows.
Given all this, the experts🙄 claim everything is spinning incredibly fast, and nobody knows which direction we are heading.

Help!!

I want to get off, but I don't even know where I am or who I am.🤷

I can't help you there. Honestly, I just doubt anyone else can, either. 😬

rapidmaker77 said:It just hit me out of nowhere: I don't actually know what discrimination *is*.😲

I can recognize specific instances when they happen right in front of me, but I struggle to articulate a coherent, "general" definition
that functions as an elastic, adaptable concept
across various levels of society.

Is it possible to define the very essence of discrimination? Can we find an interpretation that remains timeless—something that would have held true two thousand years ago, holds true today, and will remain valid two thousand years from now?

There is also another layer to this:

Who possesses the ultimate authority to define what constitutes discrimination?
By what standard, or by whose judgment, do we distinguish between what is truly discriminatory and what is not?🤷

I am not particularly interested in the current legalistic frameworks or how the penal code handles these cases
given that our laws are constantly shifting.

What I am searching for is a "philosophical"🙄—and hopefully, an absolute—definition of discrimination.

Furthermore, I am curious about examples of false or perceived discrimination.
After all, it isn't always the case that simply not receiving something we want constitutes discrimination.

(Admittedly, this introduction isn't perfectly polished,😬 but please look past my phrasing and focus on the core intent of what I am trying to express.

Reflect on the underlying spirit of discrimination and tell me: what is it, really?

😍 Realizing you don't know something is the first step toward actually learning it. (Hopefully 😢)

Honestly, about 95% of people throwing the word "discrimination" around have no idea how to define it. To them, it’s just a buzzword. They use it because it makes them sound urban, modern, and smart... basically, it's just an ego trip. 😬

coastalwalker said:Give me a break.😍 I said you’re out here waving the World Program flag, and then you suddenly decide to play the nihilist political party card.

You mentioned some kind of "following," and surely the person flying the Bill Gates banner would be a key part of that group... actually, never mind. LOL.