They know this, and that’s why they wait to do things like this until they know you have relatively little choice.

Not that you shouldn’t care, but it’s worth remembering the guiding hand of the market is not an all powerful weapon.

I’m at about a 6 on this scale. I have somewhat-happy wursts arriving tomorrow morning.

I like to measure a number of wursts by how excited I am to receive them, which can be challenging because this is not a linear function.

It’s an indicator of general laziness and of poor quality.

I would hope it hasn’t affected anything, but now I’m forced to wonder if this PT is really the same PT that I remember.

Also, commercial projects are not wholly separated from the culture of hobbyists. They inform each other and reflect each other. If hobbyists largely use AI, then yes, commercial projects will too.

Yeah, they’re both arbitrary. You agree with me.

The “things” being counted in either respect are abstract and are only “known” if they are familiar.

I’m not really following. What, are we counting feet, then? Mine?

Feet are just really entrenched in the way Americans think about lengths. It may not sound like it’s abstract, but it is. If I said “yeah, it’s about sixteen hands long”, people would have to parse wtf I’m talking about, but then have to grapple with how long a “hand” is exactly and what 16 of them means.

But you don’t measure the number of scooters by the gram either.

Ooooh…

Okay, listen, I have to finish 3 first at least. 7 was already waiting patiently for me to get around to it.

I had so much fun revisiting Dread after a year or two because that game lies to you about how linear it is—it’s crazy.

I swear to god, there’s a point somewhere in the first third to halfway through where it just becomes an open-world game.

I also love how the first area, Artaria or whatever, takes you through several loops of itself with such masturbatory level design—in some ways, it is my favorite Metroid sequence by far.

Gentlemen, I present: the world’s first transhuman!

Mobile phones, as well. Thing is, though, I wouldn’t describe a mobile phone as “the next step in evolution”—it would seem downright silly to, even.

*Glass shatters*
“Hand Grip™ is unavailable right now; system updating…”

Oh, I’m aware. It’s just, uh… that evolution statement taken as a given is something I would expect to hear from someone who’s maybe a bit too in love with the cyberpunk genre.

Transhumanism is the next step in evolution

Wat

You feel adding an optional extra mode

If it doesn’t have a separate progression system, it’s not really optional—not in the way that you imply. It changes the incentive structures of the game as a whole, which means the whole game must be played differently.

As a basic excercise, let’s think about a game with a dark hallway that has scary monsters. Most players don’t want to walk down a dark hallway with scary monsters, so how do you get them to?

Well, it does depend on which particular Batman comic run and author we’re talking about, but I have heard that this is sometimes the reason.

I probably consume even less Punisher, but my understanding is that he’s sort of like if Batman did kill people. They’re operating under the same moral framework. One that views The Law as civilizing and a world of Punishers as barbaric. Animalistic. A world of selfish kings fighting over the same throne.

This is different from what’s being expressed in the OP. The OP rejects the idea that this act is barbaric at all and instead focuses on the outcomes. They and the villain can’t be the same because they and the villain never do anything for the same reasons.

The villain in the OP has made billions suffer, and probably for money. But the hero is stopping the suffering, and because they like joy. The fact that they both kill, maybe, is immaterial. It doesn’t actually matter.

If I understand correctly, yes. The idea is that the “just hand of the law” is a better executor of justice, even if it’s the same justice, than “some guy” with “some guy’s opinions” on things.

And to be clear, I don’t think that view is without it’s merrits, of course, I just think a lot of goodguy / badguy media really under explores it. Certainly they often ignore the view that good outcomes may sometimes be worth more than the process.

Also, I don’t actually watch / read much Batman. I think there are times when his refusal to use guns is more about his personal adjacency to the crime of his city, and how he feels that if he indulges too much in the call to violence, that he would just become another mafia kingpin. In a literal sense, like as if he were an addict refusing a drug.

The logic is about a battle of ideologies. When the villain, or the hero sometimes, says they’d be just as bad as what they’re fighting, what they mean is that they’re succumbing to their baser instincts, allowing “might makes right” to win out against the spirit of democracy. “Democracy” in their view, the author’s I mean, is mostly about letting people coexist, and using only official channels to punish the most obscene offenders. The hero is rejecting “an eye for an eye,” essentially, in favor of the perceived fairness of The Law.

This framing kind of doesn’t work because we all know who the villains are. We all know the world would be better off without The Joker in it. And worse, letting him go through the prison system to get the outcome we all want for him anyway isn’t really different from just shooting him yourself. It’s marginally different, maybe; probably better than enabling a bunch of vigilantes. But even so, it is an action that merely defers the pulling of the trigger to the state. Someone will be pulling it regardless, because as we all know, the world would be better off without The Joker.

That’s why I ask for one I can’t for nearly into that category of “brain does this to ease itself of discomfort”

Right, but what I’m trying to say is that it’s not possible to give you one. You have built for yourself a theory that is not falsifiable; every example you might be given will be reinterpreted through the lens of pain, and so it will reaffirm your ideas—because you have designed it to.

Imagine someone wearing purple-tinted glasses while asking people to show them something that wasn’t purple-colored. It can’t be done.

This is more or less why I was asking about what value this idea has for you, what it teaches you about the world. If this idea, that literally all comedy is about processing pain, means something, it leads to some conclusion, then it becomes falsifiable. Right now you’re just offering it as a kind of truism.

Yeah, but… I wouldn’t describe a roller coaster as “painful.”

Like, I understand the connection you’re making, but I really have to stretch my words to get there.

I just, I think you’ve found a frame to better understand the world through, and you’re applying it to everything, even when it might not really make sense to. You’re using the concept of “pain” as if it were a fundamental atom of the universe.

It would sort of be like describing an orange as “painful” because the flavor of an orange includes acids.

To be clear im not saying “all jokes therefore are fine […]

I’m not accusing you of anything, don’t worry.