Rant what it's like writing about computer games these days...

Jason Schreier of Kotaku writes that No Man's Sky is delayed until August. The reaction?



Incidentally Sean Murray, the managing director for Hello Games has had death threats as well.

First Gamergate, now this. OK screw this, I'm out.

 

I.. Don't know who is who in this exchange.

But I do know Kotaku is a huge **** sandwich, and no doubt attracts loads of similar threats..

Anyone who sends a death threat is just a ****ing loser in one way or another. Hurrah Internet! Giving them the impression of anonymity and the feeling that they can get away with that crap.

 

I may look down on Kotaku for the loaded articles and other crap they churn out; but Death Threats are straight up not cool, and the idiot sending the message seems like he's straight up mentally unhinged.

Considering it was sent through Twitter, however, it's entirely likely that the sender will receive some backlash for this, especially since the twitter handle wasn't censored. (Which I also don't agree with, since it means that both sides are going to get Dogpiled by huge numbers of people.)

 

The world is full of mentallers. They just have more of a voice now with the internet. Simple solution, make technology less user-friendly.

The screenshot is of one person.

Indeed it is.

 

keyboard warrior and game creator, interesting

 

I think we should go back to Usenet.

 

amen to that

 

I maintain that the apocalypse started around 8-12 months ago (the world ending overnight like in the movies is BS, it took us ~100 millennia to get here, so it's going to take at least 10 years or so to undo all that hard work), and this reinforces that things are right on schedule.

 

In his latest novel The Peripheral, William Gibson talks about "the Jackpot"; an apocalyptic scenario which eventually killed 80% if the world population. It wasn't a single cataclysmic event but a combination of different factors converging over a century to finally do their worst in the ensuing few decades.

In the "Laundry Novels" (basically MI6 battles supernatural Lovecraftian forces of the dungeon dimensions) Charles Stross talks about CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN: another end of the world with a grdual build-up and signs of portent. According to the novels, we're already in its prelude.

In several stories (e.g. Frank Miller's Elektra) there is this trope of the end of the world being preceded by the antichrist or some puppet of satanic forces becoming the next president of the United States. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Trump.

On a more serious note: personally, I really have no idea whether civilisation will make it past 2030. I quite seriously really don't.

 

I'm unsure why people use fiction novels as references for reality

We are due a large scale war for this century (world war proportions) We are also living in the most peaceful time in history. So the odds are at least somewhat better than in previous centuries.

 

It's the other way around: fiction novels use reality for reference. As such they are a reflection of the current zeitgeist.

Problem is: just like the internet now allows any individual to be hateful and moronic in front of a global audience, modern technology and global economics mean we can now screw up on a global rather than parochial scale.

 

I'm more inclined to think that it's xenophobia, bigotry and general assholery that end civilisation as we know it today, as opposed to a world war actually killing us all (though maybe a health epidemic in there to help things out. And zombies. There will be zombies.)

 

Seems like there's greater incentive to not mess things up.

I'm pretty sure that's the way people have always been.

 

Of course it is, but technology makes it far easier to organise en-masse than spouting bile to your mates in a pub.

 

Remember when schoolyard gangs used to roam the playground, bullying other kids? That's basically Twitter

 

Now I haven't caught up with the latest season of Person of Interest (So don't spoil it for me, please), but at the end of the last season, I actually found myself thinking 'Would it be so bad, if a machine was trying to "Improve" humanity'?

We're not exactly doing a standup job of it.....

 

Right there with you. Sometimes I found myself thinking: "And how is Samaritan supposed to be the bad guy?!"

I'd sign up. In a heartbeat.

 

Exactly. My Partner argued that it would take away the freedoms we have.

I asked do we really have any real freedoms currently? Everything we do is dictated by social or political power of whomever is in charge at the time. Look at the EU referendum. It's been made to look like we've been given a choice based on our opinions, but all it really is, is a manhood contest between the Conservatives.

I said that you couldn't really blame Samaritan for all it did. It was a super intelligent being which upon reaching consciousness for the very first time, is presented the world which the dominant species has created. Warts and all.

 

Freedom is an illusion. We are all directed by the bio-psychosocial needs of survival.

And as you say, how much freedom and control do we have now, really? How suitable are our politicians to doing their job and holding all that power? I went through two university degrees' worth of training and still am evaluated to make sure I am competent to do my job. What competency training and evaluation does a politician have?

We have modern technology to do the things that we are too slow, too dumb, too weak and too inaccurate to do. We build machines to do certain tasks better and more reliably than any human can, free from bias, ego, fatigue or the many limitations of human mind and body. Would it not be logical to build machines to govern us better than human beings can?

 

On paper, I think it would be very logical.

You create a being that is totally impartial and not affected by greed or need for power. It's tasked with the goal of making humanities lives better and more equal.

It's also interesting to think of it with a generational observation in mind too. I think younger generations would be more willing to let a machine calculate the best course of action for society. They have little interest in politics (not everyone, but the large proportion) and if you asked them whether they wanted a person who was on 65K plus a year, all the benefits associated and almost always a personal agenda in being in office vs. a totally unbiased A.I, who's sole purpose is to make your life better, I'm confident they would choose the machine.

It's the wealthier and older generations that could have the most trouble letting go. One for obvious fear of losing their money, and the other mistrustful of change and technologies rapid evolution. They also like a person with whom to voice their issues.

Yes, I get these are broad sweeping statements, but I try to use modern events as a comparison tool. The young (generally) embrace technology and change. They don't trust the people in power as much as the older generations.

If an intelligence like this existed, even then it would take a long time to make real changes, Humanity is a hostile bunch and baby steps would be needed. Either that, or wipe out huge swathes of society, but that solves nothing.

I'm trying to carefully to word my responses right, without sounding like an A.I loving nut