I apologize if this sounds flippant, but it's FICTION.
Literally ANYTHING works if its written well enough...
Are you sure about that?
Because the thing that most people never consider with "post apocalypse" scenarios is "lubrication".
Everything needs it, and for the most part it's petroleum based lubricants. Chains, gears, wind turbines, cogs, wheels, doodads and whazzits....
The machines that create power require regular lubrication and maintenance to prevent them from breaking down. Power, is needed to mine, refine and ship the petroleum...
You see where I'm going with this...
For me it's the fur, especially in the dog's right side. It's too muddy and undefined.
Even the most single-toned animal will have more detail in it's fur regardless of lighting.
This is my dog waiting for me to get my ass out of bed to get her breakfast.
I don't need to zoom in to see individual hairs.
But I do experience my own existence and awareness.
Yes you do. we all do. But is your self-awareness of that fact merely a function of your synapses responding to stimuli in a predictable way?
In other words, is "I think therefore I am" just another biological response to stimuli rather than something philosophically greater than those "observable collection of behaviours" as you describe them.
I'd argue that no, it isn't.
We are "aware" for the same reason that we pull our hand away from a hot stove burner; neural response to external stimuli.
It's not that we are "programmed", as you describe. It's simply that (I believe) our self-awareness is a biological function, not an existential one.
the notion that who you voted for is a bit private
In the before times I'd agree with you. Back when politics was largely about whether or not you think trickle-down economics is the best path forward for a country or having a strong social safety net and strong limitations of corporate malfeasance is.
But that's not politics anymore. It's still a part of it, sure. But now politics is whether or not you think that people literally deserve to suffer for daring to be brown/trans/LGTBQ+/Poor, etc...
In this new world that the last few decades has been building, political privacy shouldn't be even a consideration. I want to know which of my neighbours are racist pieces of shit, and I want to reserve the right to hang them up in a town square by their ankles. No one should be allowed to hide their hate and venom and putrid cultural beliefs behind the notion of "political privacy".
Political privacy means you have the right to hide whether or agree with Reaganomics. Not the right to hide the fact that you think brown people and unwed mothers should all die.
it's not hard to tell that it's a painting after even a cursory glance.
But the question is, would it have been harder to spot as a painting if I hadn't been told it was a painting before clicking on it?
I dunno. But I still think it's very obviously a painting. A very good one, for sure. But not quite as photorealistic as this thread seems to want to ooh and aahhh about.
In order for that debate to even take place, it has to be proven that "consciousness" exists on some special level.
There's no proof that there is some special sauce that is "consciousness" beyond just synapses, hormones and chemicals.
In other words, It's very likely that consciousness falls under the category of "if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck..."
My answers aren't dictated by an awareness of self; they're dictated by a chemical hormonal soup that we pretend is some grand concept of self-awareness.
Is "Trump Supporting Danish Dad" a euphemism for "racist shit bag who assumed Trump only meant BROWN immigrants"?
Why are corporate IT policies the way they are?
I thought about this the other day when asking my IT department why they won't let me carry a USB stick between home and work to be able to work from home and instead lock down the USB access and instruct me to use Google Drive instead....
I decided that most corporations only cosplay their IT security inasmuch as it only matters up to and not beyond the point of economic convenience.
If any of these companies truly cared about security, they would at the very least be using a hardened fork of Chrome with Google Services stripped out. They'd be self-hosting their own servers connected only via a VPN or some sort, etc... etc...
But that shit takes money and staff to maintain it. So they'll give everything to third parties to manage instead and then send out pop-quiz emails about phishing every couple of weeks followed by sternly worded emails when a person fails it.
(Sorry...off my anti-depressants until pay day, so I have a lot of micro rants that have built up...haha)
I feel like this was the ultimate sin of Andromeda (a game that sadly had far too many sins)
It had some great combat mechanics (that I hope get ported over to the new one). But the characters are just ultimately so damn forgettable. There's no reason or need to get to know them. And when you're main character is just a nepo-baby, that's a problem.
At the very least they could have made Cora Harper an interesting character as the person who has trained her entire life only to be superceded by said nepo-baby. But nope...she's just immediately cool with it and all you can do is find her a fucking rose garden.
What...a....waste....
The only somewhat interesting characters that should have been fleshed out more was Sloane Kelly, the security chief who led the rebellion and became the head of the exiles. SHE could have had an interesting storyline in an Aria T'loak type of way. But she's just relegated to killing her in order to advance another boring plot.
I've played the trilogy multiple times with multiple different agendas for the character (today I'll be a racist like Ashley. Today I'll be smart-ass, etc...)
And the only hard-and-fast rule is "always...kill...Alenko".
I've actually gotten all the way up to Virmire multiple times with the intention being "okay...not this time." only to have the thought strike me right at the moment of truth that i still have two more games to go with him hanging around and at least the space racist has boobs to distract me.
Poor poor Kaiden.
If anyone still thinks the path back to power doesnt include a rebel army and plenty of guns, they're naive as fuck.
The right has zero intention of giving up control ever again. And the sooner people realize it and start making IED drones, the better.