Louis Ingenthron @LouisIngenthron@qoto.org

@ZachWeinersmith As a game developer who is intimately familiar with the concept of "emergent gameplay", hell yes. Everything about intelligence just seems to be made up of many simple rules interacting in complex ways.

@DemocracySpot@mstdn.social @halfwitamerican @kimlockhartga Yup, they used to make those at a local massive flea market every weekend near where I live... at least until the flea market closed down. Solidly a foot long, on a stick big enough to kill a man with, deep-fried to a crispy brown on the outside... mmmm, I miss those...

@DemocracySpot@mstdn.social @kimlockhartga I'll take one of each, with ketchup, please. 😁

Okay, so I just started watching #Foundation, and I have some questions...

1) How the hell did the empire not detect the explosives used to destroy the star bridge? More importantly, if they were unable to detect these explosives, how has this not happened sooner?

2) When the star bridge collapsed, they said it "wrapped around the planet like a garrote cutting through 50 levels", killing 100 million. Earth has one level, and a structure like that collapsing and wrapping around our planet like a garrote would easily kill more than 100 million. How was the casualty count that low for a planet so densely-populated that it needs 50+ surface levels?

@AmericanScream Also, they've got great stories.

Endless waterfalls at the edge of the world? Giant turtles and elephants holding us all up? Count me in.

@b_cavello Or ignore it.

Basically anything is better than "nah, he doesn't need to be tested."

@polotek Yes, agreed. And this applies equally to matters of global importance as it does to trivial matters. Some people, knowing that some reality TV is fake, will claim that everything on reality TV is fake.

But the only absolute in this world is that there are no absolutes, and those who cannot see that tend to have trouble understanding the complexities of reality.

@GreenFire @randy Sure, but that's not the only action on the table.

I thought the same thing... until this statement was issued. Now I have to wonder.

@GreenFire @randy Well, I hope you enjoyed four years of it.

Because if he doesn't take real action soon, then all of that will be undone.

@gamingonlinux @Mastodon Mastodon is getting the crap beaten out of it by Threads and BluSky because they have basic features that we're missing, like onboarding and quote posts.

Helping journalists (most of whom aren't even on this platform) get credit for articles where they can already put their mastodon handle at the bottom seems to me to be a strange allocation of resources.

@GreenFire @randy Then why elect anyone at all? Why not leave everything up to a general vote?

We elect these people so they can take action.

@Mastodon That... seems like a weird priority.

@GreenFire @randy In some places, yes. In others, though...

In red states, the disinformation is so pervasive that even those who don't watch the news end up repeating false talking points. I know this because I hear them from my own family members, who are not hateful people.

When you go into every local restaurant and they have Fox News playing talking about how immigrants are taking people's jobs and property, and you don't have any context to refute that, and they tell you that Democrats are trying to make it happen more... well, I get why people vote out of fear in those situations.

And then you have confirmation bias. Reasonable people, in a vacuum, may now see how bad Trump is, but if they voted for him twice before, then they may need to select which information they partake in to justify their past actions, reinforcing their commitment to a man who they would otherwise hate.

Yes, Trump is objectively bad and should be hated. But human beings are too complex to always act on logic.

We need someone who can help break that cycle with action, not somebody who just ineffectually punts back to the voters.

That's the *last fucking thing* we need right now.

@GreenFire @randy Don't get me wrong. I'm voting for whoever the Dem ticket is.

I just don't think Biden has what it takes to win anymore.

@GreenFire @randy I watched that live, and unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. Now is a time for action, not for passively leaving it to the voters.

If he can't clearly articulate his vision for America and what actions he will take to get us there, then he's unable to GOTV from the middle and Trump will win on that alone.

@andrew Wait, has that money not kicked in yet? I thought they got it a year or two ago?