Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Valikdu]

Ah yes, the good old "compare the other side to Hitler/Bin Laden/whoever" fallback. I take it that making those is what the anti-Gamergate crowd resorts to now?
Although I've already heard some before, I think.

[Guest]

I think you could make an album called "Middle Eastern Proxy Wars." Probably would be prog or alt. rock or something.

Talking of albums (gosh, what a segue!), the new Ziltoid/Devin Townsend Project double-feature album's out! I'm mostly done with it, and am favorably impressed. Obviously it's less heavy than previous outings, what with Devin's current leanings, but it's still a glorious piece of bombast, and the Ziltoid album's friggin' hilarious - the second half of "Through the Wormhole" was especially perfect. The DTP one has a sort of synth pop vibe to some of it, while still definitely being the upbeat kind of metal Devin's been doing of late, and it was pretty enjoyable. Ziltoid's definitely gonna be my favorite of the pack, though. It's got the ultimate coffee bean in it.

[Scienza]

I'll let you piece out the context:

If they're Al Qaeda, I guess the other side's ISIS. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get those two to fight each other? Though, on reflection, proxy wars in the Middle East have not exactly resulted in positive outcomes, historically speaking.

Fuck, accidental downvote. Goddamn mobile and scrolling.

[Katarn]

I've balanced it out for you.

[Guest]

I'll let you piece out the context:

If they're Al Qaeda, I guess the other side's ISIS. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get those two to fight each other? Though, on reflection, proxy wars in the Middle East have not exactly resulted in positive outcomes, historically speaking.

Fuck, accidental downvote. Goddamn mobile and scrolling.

No worries, thanks for explainin' it!

Cheers, Katarn!

[Katarn]

So. Yesterday I had classes on Unix/Linux. After some lecture we proceeded to install system. None was managed to do so. I guess it's a sign of how it will go from here.
Even if it didn't installed due to corrupted CD's, it still was hilarious.

[Frost]

Well, I can relate..sorta. When I was attending to firing range I had to load ~20 magazines every time for ~4 month, since i was youngest. What i mean - I was attending sport carbine shooting range as part of my after classes activity.

You guys are lucky, then. You won't see any educational program include any sort of shooting, extracurricular or no, around here. Bitches thing if a kid sees a firearm he's gonna turn into some sort of rabid wildebeest. With a firearm.

[Katarn]

Well, tbh, we don't have firearms in free sell here (though it might've lowered crime rating a bit..but people might not be ready for that yet), so only kind of firearms we can have home - hunting shotguns, hunting carbines and air guns.
Though you can carry air gun in your bag, pocket, etc w/o any permit or license.

[Frost]

Well, yeah, air guns are considered more-or-less toys around here.

[Katarn]

With this 'toy' my friend scarred away street thug, in darkness of the night it looked like a real gun.

[Guest]

Well, yeah, air guns are considered more-or-less toys around here.

Airsoft or Pellet rifles? Cause those pellet rifles can kill. My dad got shot with one and the pellet penetrated between his ribs and bounced around his chest, had to be sent by ambulance to one hospital and then by helicopter to another.

[Frost]

Around here (meaning both Texas and Ohio) you can pretty much walk into Walmart and buy a pellet gun. I'm aware that they're by no means harmless, but compared to the fact that anyone one might threaten or attack with a pellet gun has a statistically pretty strong chance of being armed with an actual gun....kinda takes the fear out of it, a bit.

[Vinylshadow]

My uncle shoots squirrels off the bird feeder with a pellet gun

Stupid things keep coming back though

[Scienza]

TIL the official Denny's Tumblr is the best thing ever.

[Vinylshadow]

Still don't get why people are so hyped over bacon

Sausage, on the other hand...

[Ironmonger]

I found out recently that, for Halloween, one of my brothers is going to buy an ugly pumpkin, and then he's going to carve "Ebola" into it. I have no idea what the hell he plans to do with it beyond that.

[Vinylshadow]

Scream Fortress 2014

With Bumper Cars!

This should be nothing short of terrifying

[Guest]

I found out recently that, for Halloween, one of my brothers is going to buy an ugly pumpkin, and then he's going to carve "Ebola" into it. I have no idea what the hell he plans to do with it beyond that.

Well if it was a little pumpkin your brother could have bought a magnifying glass and called it media. Then he could have gone as a hipster for halloween.

[Ironmonger]

Well if it was a little pumpkin your brother could have bought a magnifying glass and called it media. Then he could have gone as a hipster for halloween.

I have two guesses as to what he'll be, if anything. Knowing him, he'll dress up as Frankenstein's Monster, or he'll be a vampire and call himself "Count Chunkula".

Most of my basis for these conclusions are the fact that my entire family is nuttier than a Payday bar.

[Harmony Ltd.]

So, after accruing over 12 hours of gameplay in less than two days, I can attest that Civilization Beyond Earth is at least as addicitive as any other titles in the series.

First game launched completely randomly. Got the Slavic Federation, and without too much thinking about it, I ended up going really hardcore Supremacy through quests and technological developments.

Haven't really tested combat much thus far (haven't started the Purge yet, concentrating on weeding the weakest elements for now), but so far I like the feel of the supremacy faction. They don't have the biggest guns (apparently this is Purity's thing), but they stack so many bonuses that I don't feel like I lack any of it.

Though it helps that I also minored in Harmony, and turned the planet's ecosystem to my advantage (regen bonuses fuck yeah). I can take a hell of a beating without flinching with that.

[Harmony Ltd.]

And I just lost to the Franco-Iberians, these fucking harmony tree-huggers having achieved a transcendence victory.

[Frost]

wut:

Huh. Normally it's the anti-gun lobby that jumps on mass shootings to push their agenda.

[Scienza]

wut:

Huh. Normally it's the anti-gun lobby that jumps on mass shootings to push their agenda.

Is it even gender-related in any way whatsoever? Like if the guy specifically targeted women, I could kind of understand the angle, but still, fuck people who jump on tragedy to advance goals.

[Frost]

Not so far as I can tell--most every mass shooting I've heard of is just random. It's just a chance to be a dickwaffle and use death and misery as a chance to advance one's position.

On an unrelated note, I don't think Ebola would be ravaging Africa right now if more people would just vote Republican.

[Frost]

I've not heard of these notes that have been found. I might have to look into that.

I suspect, in lots of cases, 'Contagious shooting' isn't about something so understandable or human as fear--it happens in soldiers, too. Fear may play a part of it, but a bigger part is that the part of the brain that handles conflict just goes into overdrive and "I'll kill if I have to/because my buddies are in danger" becomes "I'll kill if I get to/because that guy's moving" Kind of a cold-blooded berserk state, known in some circles as a "battle trance". Sounds horrible, but it's also the same mechanism that lets a guy unflinchingly jump on a grenade rather than let it go off in his squad's faces. It's less a state driven by fear and more a state defined by the lack of it. No fear, little pain. Little identity, even. One assumes, in the case of soldiers, either a collective identity, or, in the case of an active shooter, no identity whatsoever--all he is is his actions, and his only action is "Kill".

Scary, perhaps, that the mind is capable of such things, but most people would rather forget that we, a weak, slow, fragile species, didn't claw our way to the top of the food chain because of our capacity to build bridges and compose symphonies.

EDIT: Not to compare soldiers to random mass shooters (I don't think I'm inclined to insult soldiers, for whatever reason) but it's been theorized that that's what mass shooters are-- the Audie Murphys, Joe Hoopers, and Carlos Hathcocks of the modern day, just wired for that sort of all-out conflict (even if they're not immune to the psychological damage, like Murphy) in an era where not even the heaviest warzones allow for an outlet, because of ROEs and civilian considerations and a million other things we could bitch about. Warriors without a war, essentially. It's a similar vein to the thought that a good number of snipers, were they not in their chosen profession, would be serial killers. Again, a scary thought, but it's a similar line of thought to the idea that those with what we call ADHD are just wired to be hunter/gatherers in an age where that's not really possible--some people are wired to be the killers that we needed to survive in our early days, and this age doesn't have a place for them.

[Stringtheory]

*snip*

Yikes, I was beginning to forget just how scary humans can be...

EDIT: Care to recommend some reading? I want to go into more depth on this.

[Tytan]

Scary, perhaps, that the mind is capable of such things, but most people would rather forget that we, a weak, slow, fragile species, didn't claw our way to the top of the food chain because of our capacity to build bridges and compose symphonies.

We got on top because we could cooperate on a level other species can barely touch.

We created language that can relay more complicated concepts than 'here I am' and 'food'.

We stayed on top because we can do one thing better than any other species on the planet.

We can anticipate and plan for the future.

It started with hunting animals for their furs so we wouldn't freeze during the winter. Then we invented villages. Then we planted our own crops so we wouldn't have to forage for our food. Then we domesticated animals for various purposes.

So on and so forth for millennium so we could keep what we had from those that wanted it, and so we could take what we wanted from those that had it.

[Frost]

*snip*

Yikes, I was beginning to forget just how scary humans can be...

Yeah, that collective/ loss of identity is probably the scariest part of it. While, again, it's the mechanism that lets one jump in front of a bullet that was about to hit your friend, it's also the part that lets a guy stand in front of a judge and say that he was just following orders--in that mental state (encouraged by the dehumanizing, de-individualizing nature of being part of a faceless mass of uniforms) it can get so intense that one stops judging their actions based on what they've come to consider 'right' and 'wrong', they judge them based on 'what I was told to do/what everyone else is doing' versus 'out of line'. Sort of a very disciplined mob-mentality, in the same way it's a more cold and calculating berserker state.

As much as modern people like to express their individuality, uniqueness, and separation from the crowd; it wasn't, in terms of evolution/adaption, the ones that went off on their own and separated from the pack/tribe that passed on their genes, and for very good reason.

Disturbing as it may be, there's as much evidence for "Nature" as there is "Nurture". People who are raised the same way can find themselves being immensely different, and people who come from wildly differing backgrounds can find a lot of common ground in their views and thoughts, because, while how one's raised can have a lot of effect, there's some shit that groups of the population are just hard-wired for.

@Swick: Well, I'd chalk that up more to them being nutters than any, as the video said, actual culturally-encouraged behavior. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think we can really judge a sane person's views by the actions of a disturbed psychopath that professes the same views.

[Frost]

Scary, perhaps, that the mind is capable of such things, but most people would rather forget that we, a weak, slow, fragile species, didn't claw our way to the top of the food chain because of our capacity to build bridges and compose symphonies.

We got on top because we could cooperate on a level other species can barely touch.

Thus, temporary states of collective identity during which the group is capable of acts that the individual would never contemplate, like slaughtering a whole tribe for their much-needed supplies, or--fast-forward ten thousand years--shooting up an entire village because there might be enemies hiding out there, or just because your commander said so.

[iLateralGX]

Scary, perhaps, that the mind is capable of such things, but most people would rather forget that we, a weak, slow, fragile species, didn't claw our way to the top of the food chain because of our capacity to build bridges and compose symphonies.

We got on top because we could cooperate on a level other species can barely touch.

We created language that can relay more complicated concepts than 'here I am' and 'food'.

We stayed on top because we can do one thing better than any other species on the planet.

We can anticipate and plan for the future.

It started with hunting animals for their furs so we wouldn't freeze during the winter. Then we invented villages. Then we planted our own crops so we wouldn't have to forage for our food. Then we domesticated animals for various purposes.

So on and so forth for millennium so we could keep what we had from those that wanted it, and so we could take what we wanted from those that had it.

Also language and writing. Those are kind of super important.

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