Recent searches
Search options
#civilization
The biggest problem of our #civilization is that we are doing the wrong thing more and more perfectly. All our difficulties are a consequence of this one problem: the destruction of #nature, the declining quality of #life, the feeling that we as #societies are at a loss, that we as individuals do not really feel #happy, the growing gap between #rich and #poor...
All these developments are the result of our ongoing efforts to do the wrong thing better and better.
There's been a pattern of me posting something critical of civilization and someone getting *really* mad and coming for me in replies. I was pondering this the past couple of days after the latest iteration of this phenomenon.
I came to the conclusion that the folks doing this are *terrified* and reacting like a wild creature that's backed into a corner. Lashing out in anger as a form of defense against the possibility that the Leviathan they've been embedded in since birth is actually a force for their destruction wrapped in a shiny package.
I was discussing this with my eldest, a very perceptive spawn of mine and he said it's existential dread on the level of eldritch horror. I can't say he's wrong.
The problem is, how can we have a discussion about this with people in feral wounded animal mode? It's one of the reasons I've come to the conclusion that we're not going to be able to walk away like the inmates of prior civilizations were able to do. We're going to have to ride the falling giant to its inevitable end and forage off its rotting corpse in the aftermath.
This makes me really melancholy. But then I remember back to when I was assimilating all the anti-civ stuff I was reading about a decade and a half ago, and how it made me feel like I was losing it for a while until I found a balance in my head, and I guess I can't fault folks for reacting like this. I've long lived on the knife edge of paradox of various kinds and am no stranger to navigating the cognitive dissonance that occurs while figuring out how to fit it into my worldview. Most folks just aren't, and can't, and we'll just have to sink or swim when the time comes.
Reading the essays published in Resistance, Rebellion, and Death by Albert Camus reminded me how much ground U.S. society has ceded in my lifetime to antisocial beliefs and normalized insults to human dignity. The book challenged and refreshed my thinking and sleeping values, inspiring me to try harder to advance civilization within myself and in my community, even if only in small ways. In these difficult times, I found it a helpful read.
#Camus #Books #Philosophy #Civilization
Civilization VII update 1.1.1 adds quick move, lots of UI improvements, a new start position and lots of fixes https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/03/civilization-vii-update-1-1-1-adds-quick-move-lots-of-ui-improvements-a-new-start-position-and-lots-of-fixes/
Civilization VII update 1.1.1 adds quick move, lots of UI improvements, a new start position and lots of fixes
#CivilizationVII #Civilization #Gaming #PCGaming #Linux #SteamDeck
Civilization VII update 1.1.1 ...
Whoever controls #production, & the #surplus we produce, determines the shape & direction of our #civilization. If we do not have #democratic control over our production & surplus then we can hardly say we live in a #democracy.
It's not #nature that threatens us, the real danger is #civilization.
Of course, those who are addicted to gluttony don't understand this.
It would make this a marginally less stupid timeline if current events would be so kind as to teach Americans - and indeed the world - the importance of actual, functioning rule of #law & #justice.
Laws are meant to be guardrails of #civilization, not a grab bag of stale, arcane nonsense & special interests for people with lawyer money to play with like the world's worst LEGO set.
I was experimenting with this glitch tonight. And then old Ben Franklin had to get all uppity and pusillanimous. So instead of making fun scouts and discovering the world from the comfort of my home, I had to go kick his ass.
There’s something I don’t understand about the war mechanic. After some number of turns the war just ended. Like any diplomatic action, it just kinda expired. I was on his doorstep. I was literally about to take his capital and suddenly all my dudes are bounced outside his perimeter and the war is over.
I had to wait some number of turns before I could declare war again and go finish the job.
I might just start another game. I want to play with the broken scouts and not get pulled into a war in like turn 20.
2/2
So there is a game-breaking glitch in #civ7 that my son saw on some YouTube channel. It’s fun.
Scouts have this mechanic where if they go into lookout mode, they get +1 extra hex of visibility. When they walk around, it goes away. If the Scout is in lookout mode and you suck them up into a Commander’s army, they keep the +1 when they’re walking around.
You can REPEAT it! If you go into lookout mode, it gets another +1. Pull them into an army and put them back down again. The +1s keep stacking. And on and on.
Do it enough times and you can have this Scout who can see half the world just walking around. Your sight range can cross oceans so you can discover wonders and city states on other land masses or out in the ocean. If you play the city state game you can befriend them and then even annex them. You could get settlements on another continent before you have learned how to sail to it.
1/2
@antifaintl Fantastic juxtaposition - powerful support for the case that capitalism is a Darwinian selection system for predators & sociopaths
![A screenshot of a social media post contains a quote attributed to Elon Musk and a quote from G.M. Gilbert.
The first part “Elon Musk to CNN: ‘The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,’ Musk said.
‘There it's they're exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.’
Empathy, he said, has been ‘weaponized.’
Now read the attached, below:”
[A black-and-white image of G.M. Gilbert, identified as the chief psychologist who interviewed Nazis during the Nuremberg Trials.]
“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.
- G. M. Gilbert
AZ QUOTES”](https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/114/129/631/947/666/059/original/e48af6fad00a7985.jpeg "A screenshot of a social media post contains a quote attributed to Elon Musk and a quote from G.M. Gilbert.
The first part “Elon Musk to CNN: ‘The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,’ Musk said.
‘There it's they're exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.’
Empathy, he said, has been ‘weaponized.’
Now read the attached, below:”
[A black-and-white image of G.M. Gilbert, identified as the chief psychologist who interviewed Nazis during the Nuremberg Trials.]
“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.
- G. M. Gilbert
AZ QUOTES”")
@EUCommission Instead of pumping billions only into weapons, why not take 25% of this money for universities to headhunt the thousands of top US researchers who are not allowed to continue their research in the US?
Ever played a game of #Civilization? I guess not, else you would know that science is the most important resource…
#US #fascism #eu #science #universities
This guy isn't wrong - but I want to stress that the current sitch DOES NOT need to escalate to #nuclear release to turn the world into an ashen post-apocalypse. Even without an open US assault on anyone, or a preemptive strike from someone else, this tack is still a beeline towards civil conflicts & devastating eco-disasters which, particularly together, can take down #civilization just as surely as a nuke to the face.
This is about people, not macro-scale realpolitik.
I think the attitude towards NPCs is really interesting from a #GameDesign perspective in "thinky", optimisable strategy games like #Civilization.
Like, some pro players will mathematically maximise every single tile adjacency bonuses and micromanage everything to a meticulous degree, but then also tippy-toe around an NPC empire because they don't want to make them mad. :)
It's such an interesting mix of hard science and superstition that's only possible because we humanise NPCs. #gamedev
Meine erste Zivilisation in "Civilization VII" habe ich nun endlich durchgespielt. Puh. Ein Anlass, auch bei WDR3 über die neueste Ausgabe dieses Klassikers zu sprechen:
https://soundcloud.com/kollege-gamer/civilization-vii
#videogames #computerspiele #gaming #CivilizationVII #civilization
