Gormongous

I agree. I'd rather just let it drop. I came here to express frustrations with the current presentation of Cosmos, not to debate the existence and validity of postpositivism.

I'm glad we had this talk. Nothing is more pleasant than talking to someone with interesting ideas and an openness towards those of others. In all seriousness, you're saying that some of the greatest minds of the past century don't know what science is, but you do, because it's so simple and straightforward. Did you even look up Karl Popper or his writings before dismissing him? This is why I don't usually like engaging with you, Pony. You make authoritative claims about stuff you don't really know, then employ reductive tactics to make people who disagree with you, often through greater knowledge or experience, look like idiots and sophists. A dictionary definition? I give my students Cs and Ds for basing their arguments on what's in Websters. No field of study, no part of human experience, functions as simply or straightforwardly as the dictionary says. You might as well quote back to me the definition of "history" when I ask why a given book on world history is so Eurocentric.

I don't mean to insult you either, Pony, but you don't seem to have read much on the history or philosophy of science. Science is not the impartial observation of nature. Even before quantum mechanics compromised it technically, it was known to be suspect epistemologically. Science, whether medicine or physics or whatever, is as conjectural and interpretive as any other area of human knowledge, hence inextricable from the humans doing it. It is a belief system as much as any religion is a belief system, being "the act of attempting to determine what happens when," albeit one that is more right if your definition of "right" involves predictability and falsifiability and other concepts science has developed to distinguish itself from other belief systems. The fact that many scientists (and laymen like you, too) still present science as a gradual and orderly accumulation of objective information about reality over the centuries is a frequently discussed and critiqued failing of the STEM disciplines that goes back to historical roots in the Enlightenment and otherwise outmoded methods of positivist cultural thought. Sorry, I'm just a little disappointed that you read what I posted about Cosmos and concluded that I just hadn't applied Occam's Razor. If you are interested in where I'm coming from, you should read Thomas Kuhn or Karl Popper, both of whom have written enormously influential works on the philosophy of science in the twentieth century and, if either were still alive, would probably have some problems with the show, too.

Yeah, I know. It's just a jag I've been on lately, having recently reread Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and spoken with several scientists who seem to feel that their discipline somehow is uniquely connected to the true nature of existence and reality in a way no other human endeavor is able to be. I don't know if I'm willing to call him an idiot myself, but it is really creepy for a public intellectual to bag on philosophy at length because it doesn't use the methods or produce the results with which he is personally comfortable.

On another kind of note, I'm enjoying the new Cosmos as we enter the final third of its run, but I still have huge problems with how it handles the history of science (when it actually does handle the history of science). Neil deGrasse Tyson (and more probably Ann Druyan) hammers every episode that science is the only belief system with a framework that's self-critical and self-improving. In addition to or maybe even because of this opinion, they argue that science is the only belief system that's really interested in the truth. The problem is that the show only depicts two sets of circumstances in the history of science: someone making a new discovery using science as a belief system, or someone being proven wrong (and hence, in the show's often unfortunate choice of words, "afraid" or "ignorant") by science. Never are people who proved something "right" with science that later turned out to be wrong included under the aegis of science; in fact, when the person being proven wrong by science is also a scientist, the show usually takes more than a few sentences to explain how they weren't "faithful" to science for a variety of reasons. It must be nice to have a belief system that exists independently from all its constituents and that is always able to tell only the truth because anyone who uses it to prove something untrue is just doing it wrong and therefore doesn't count as using it. But the bigger problem I have with Cosmos relates more to one important front of the culture war waged for the past few decades in the United States. The show spends an inordinate amount of time working to discredit other belief systems. DeGrasse Tyson (and again, probably Ann Druyan) says over and over that religion is superstition ruled by fear and ignorance. Because religion is just uncritical irrationality, progress is not possible through it, only through science, which is the only belief system interested in the truth. Unfortunately, to drive home this point, the show has to whitewash the religious beliefs and motivations held by the vast majority of its human subjects. I've noticed that medieval contributions to science go scrupulously unmentioned, because it's impossible to ignore that they were all made by monks and friars, but in its very first episode the show tries to use the trial and execution of Giordano Bruno to illustrate how revolutionary the birth of modern science was and how threatening it became to other belief systems. According to Cosmos, Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 for claiming that the stars in the sky were suns with planets that had other people living on them, which he did, and not for claiming that Christ was a charlatan and even Satan would go to heaven on Judgment Day, which he also did and about which the Church actually cared. The attempts to stack the deck become the worst in the third episode, which is all about how the medieval mindset, being religious in nature, was incurious and static, while the modern mindset, being rational in nature, is the exact opposite. As an example of the modern, we are given Isaac Newton, who created the science of physics and singlehandedly sparked the Scientific Revolution, except that Newton was deeply religious, to the point of fanaticism, and firmly believed he was expanding, not overturning, the human understanding of God's creation. Oh, we hear a little bit about his obsession with alchemy and numerology, as anecdotes that prove Newton's substantial curiosity yet somehow not his "medieval" mindset, but otherwise Newton is reinvented as the consummate rational scientist who'd be right at home working on the Manhattan Project. There hasn't been anything as bad since, but the show still keeps doing stuff like it in little ways and it's really the worst. I know that science education is being threatened all across America and that Cosmos has to be about convincing people of its desirability and utility, but I'm really bothered by how dishonest it feels it has to be in order to do so. In its effort to score points with young people and tar Young Earth creationists, it's become more of a show about how we're all such smart little monkeys, rather than how vast and wondrous a place the universe is. I find it really off-putting, to be honest, and that's speaking as a staunchly rationalist agnostic.

"Tremendous" "Feels really crisp" "Super good"

Just to make sure, I'm not saying Fargo isn't dark. In many ways, it's darker than Game of Thrones, because both have about equivalent moments of evil and brutality, but in Game of Thrones they're part of the world and in Fargo they're disruptive acts that come out of nowhere. If we're considering all the items from Ben's list of "ensemble socio-political dramas with no dragons", then I can't recommend Deadwood enough. It's about the micro-politics of a frontier community and almost every bit of drama in the show comes from the intersection between two different characters, if that makes any sense.

No, there's that, too. I was also disappointed that Chris' "announcement" was that he's missing a daily challenge, but Sean's show of disdain rubbed me the wrong way. The whole situation's uncomfortable, like I'm sure the many dozen hours I've been dumping into Dark Souls the past week has been for my own friends.

Nah, you can switch gear during the spawning animation and once it finishes. I often do it to switch out the Cat Covenant ring for the Cloranthy. I think all the time now about the total souls I've lost while playing, which is probably well over two hundred thousand, and how most of those were lost in the midsection of the game, when I was trying to get my feet under my build and when it would have sucked the most to be overestimated by the game. EDIT: I beat Manus! You were right, Griddle, that he has really obvious tells, even though I wasn't very good at dodging them. I didn't up until this point in the game, but I think I'm beginning to understand why anyone would do an SL1 run, because I definitely shouldn't have beaten Manus with my level of understanding, stats, and gear, but Lightning Zweihander and Greatshield of Artorias save all faults. According to the internet, I have nothing left undone except to kill Gwyn. Is there any reason I should be holding off? I tried farming for one last titanite slab to get my Elite Knight set up to +10, but got bored after maybe an hour of it.

It makes me feel funny (which is not an absolute judgment of anything) for three reasons. First, Chris has put at least a hundred hours in Spelunky, so having him balk at the time investment for any other game seems silly if perfectly human. Second, Spelunky is only rewarding if you've invested a huge amount of time in it already. I guarantee you that the first twenty hours of "eating shit in the mines" is not particularly rewarding and that a sudden death ten minutes in clipping a mantrap isn't rewarding at all, even at Chris' level of literacy in the game. Third, Spelunky is not really much more suited to bite-sized play than other games. I tended to play Spelunky until I had a run I could be proud of, but like Osmosisch recommends, I tend to play Dark Souls until I find a bonfire or die, whichever happens first. I totally get getting into a groove with a certain game and nothing else appealing to you the same way. I just don't think it's the unique merits of a certain game that does that, more than a set of habits that develop when you train yourself to play a single game intensively.

It's like I tell my friends. Your mission's to stop the Rebel Flagship, not to survive unharmed.

Talking too much about something and talking about not talking too much about something are both not great, in my opinion. I have to admit though, hearing Chris say that he doesn't want to invest in something like Dark Souls 2 because it can't guarantee him immediate bite-sized pleasure like Spelunky (before you interject, Chris, I know that's the least charitable interpretation of what you said, I'm just being playful) had me feeling a little funny, too.

I'm kinda glad you took the break, I'm almost caught up with you now. I just beat Kalameet (online consensus is to circle and roll, but I was able to tank him with the Greatshield of Artorias after cutting off his tail) and am now standing outside of Manus' room. Good to know his is not a tricky boss fight. I got really angry again, like I haven't since the Catacombs or Blighttown, fighting the Bed of Chaos. Puzzle bosses are never fun, but puzzle bosses fought while parts of the environment are falling away are the least fun. It was such a huge contrast to the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith, which felt like a resounding confirmation and celebration of my build and skills and knowledge. I also got invaded twice in the Oolacile Township, making it six times total I've been invaded. I know there's been a lot of talk in the Dark Souls 2 thread about how much random invasions are missed there, but I think I've come to the conclusion that they just don't work for me, not how they're implemented in the first Dark Souls. Here's the pattern for every single time I've been invaded: I find a new bonfire at the start of a new area. I go human to kindle it, but get kicked out of the bonfire menu instead. I walk to and from the bonfire a couple times, looking for enemies that might have interrupted the prompt and trying to get it back. I realize I'm being invaded and pull out my smartphone, because invaders take at least five minutes to connect and spawn. I fight them for a bit. I get killed, because I don't have much PvP experience and don't want to just go for backstabs. I respawn next to the bonfire, go human, kindle it, and retrieve my souls. I understand the idea behind invasions. They're supposed to add a chaotic element to spice up what can otherwise be the extremely methodical playstyle of an experienced Dark Souls player, while making there be a downside to being human for the summon ability and curse resistance. But even though I've spent multiple hours of the past few levels human, I've never been invaded like that. It's always some dude ambushing me while I'm doing basic character upkeep and hence making me wait for ten or fifteen minutes until I can get back to playing my game, minus the humanity I just spent. The last guy that invaded me bowed when he saw me and then shot me full of poison arrows while I returned the bow. Encouraging that kind of play to be restricted to certain areas with understood bounds sounds like a positive design choice to me.

This is probably too late for most people to get interested in the game, but I think the 1.02 beta patch notes has an important ending to the saga of unstoppable city fires. So what these items tell me is that, when the game was released, only citizens with no current job would fight fires and only then if they were right next to the burning building and weren't hungry. No wonder the whole world didn't burn!

I think the proper term is "Breckonian". I was going to submit Renegade Commander Shepard from Mass Effect, who is a jerk but also a petulant child, but then I had one better. Remember Agent Mike Thorton from Alpha Protocol? With him, it isn't just one path on the dialogue tree that's jerky. Your best hope for being a good person is to stick with "professional" choices and vacillate between brusque and unpleasant. If you ever make the mistake of choosing "suave" (perverted) or "aggressive" (psychotic) then you deserve the outcome you get. I didn't have to look long on YouTube for a compilation video of Thorton being an abrasive asshole who's inexplicably charged with saving the world from another cold war: I've never felt worse about having a video game character as a representation of me than when Thorton was taunting the villain for having a bullet in his gut that I put there.

In complete seriousness, which I know doesn't really belong in this thread, I find Hawking's views to be a little disappointing. The rise of an artificial intelligence that exceeds that of human beings has two outcomes: either it is benign, in which case humanity will adapt to not being the smartest creatures on the planet like we adapted to not being the strongest or the fastest, or it is malignant, in which case it's a classic Outside Context Problem for which we'll be able to prepare about as well as the Aztecs and Inca could have prepared for the Spanish. Whichever way it goes, I don't think a vague word of caution from a noted scientist is going to stop it, if even it can be stopped.

I feel like he isn't interested in being a nerd celebrity. He seems to have pretty diverse interests and probably doesn't want to be pigeonholed, let alone spend the energy it takes to court and flatter a given fandom. A less conspicuous Nimoy, maybe. I can't say I blame either.

You're the second person this week to recommend this. I don't know what's wrong with me, I always resist picking up short-form comedy shows, even though I love every one I watch. Teekyuu is one of the best anime of the past few years and it's three minutes long including opening and ending credits.

It's when they're talking about the new and disgusting ways that the Star Wars movie will be marketed to you. Something like, "A Star Wars holo-violator will pop up when you're trying to read the Wall Street Journal."

Yeah, you get me just fine. I was thinking about it while running errands tonight and decided that it's most like the feeling of having DVD replace VHS. Because some company somewhere made an announcement, you own a lot of stuff that's obsolete all of a sudden and that'll slowly but surely fade from relevancy. You can still watch your VHS tapes all you want, but you aren't really participating in the culture the same way, which is a little sad, probably about as sad as someone who's clinging to VHS tapes when the rest of the world is watching DVDs. The matter of technological progress aside, does that make sense? I think we've all talked this particular subtopic into the ground, really. A lot of the good stuff in the Expanded Universe was subverting Luke and Han (Leia, not so much) as the instantly recognizable heroes they'd become to the fandom. I'd like to see it happen in the new movies too, especially with Hamil's obvious villain chops, but I wonder if it'll be less impactful now that the prequel movies have already done so much real-life work stripping away the myths and mystery of Star Wars.

You seriously don't have a single franchise or fictional universe that would let you down at all if the people in charge declared a large part of it to be deprecated and likely receive no further attention? I mean, my childhood isn't ruined, but I'm still a bit miffed.

Okay, so how important is upgrading armor? I'm fighting Nito right now (or rather I walked into the boss room and died immediately, then went to bed) but I have a relatively experienced friend back on Quelana and he already has chosen a set to upgrade to +5. I like the Elite Knight set a lot and the internet seems to think it's not a bad choice, but titanite's still pretty scarce for me and I certainly won't have the slabs to max it out. I guess my thought has always been that I should upgrade my weapon and shield first, so that I avoid taking damage entirely and kill its source quickly, but the late game is maybe proving that this is hubris.

It really feels like someone accidentally added an extra 0 to the requirements for the third tier of the covenant.

Oops, my bad! Poe's law and all that.

Man, read JonCole's post like five above yours. No one's saying it's a big deal, some people are just defending their right to feel a little let down by the announcement. There's no reason at all to suppress those feelings with Socratic skepticism.