Glide

It's surprisingly hard to moderate a conversation between not being particularly happy with Trudeau's decisions, and not believing he's a Communist Chinese plant out to destroy democracy, Canadian values and freedom of speech. The levels with which people treat politics like a sports team is almost as fucking insane as the shit people happily consume and regurgitate solely to justify their fear and hatred.

I'd like to believe that we can do better than Trudeau. But we can sure do a fuck load worse.

There's one massive quality that makes positive Nihilism different from Absurdism. Absurdism states that trying to create meaning in a chaotic universe puts you at odds with it. Therefore, doing so creates unhappiness. Optimistic Nihilism, as the common thought I was trying to convey but incorrectly labelled is called, believes that without inherent meaning in our chaotic universe, we are free to create whatever meaning we desire.

Both believe the universe is inherently chaotic and meaingless. Only one believes that you can successfully create meaning.

I don't expect others to feel the same. I have chosen to give value to one over the other simply because I would prefer a world where we collaborate towards collective happiness, joy, and pleasure. I suspect many others believe that working towards the prosperity of the collective will hamper their ability to find personal prosperity, and I simply think they are wrong. I think such a case boils down to chasing momentary pleasure over long-lasting pleasure, because that is my experience with such people.

In a way I believe in tangible karma; those who work to bring pleasure to those around them are occasionally taken advantage of, but more often are given pleasure in turn. Likewise, I've never met a self-centered asshole who isn't consistantly overcome with unhappiness, while almost universally blaming that unhappiness on external factors.

I plant trees I will never get to sit under because I appreciate those before me who did the same. Again, that is no more than what I have chosen to give value to.

But this is a bit of a digression. The reality is these are the wisdoms of my experiences, and I wager there's no universal truths in them. Nothing matters, so I look to these experiences and see that a co-operative, collaborative life looks more pleasurable. So I strive towards one, encourage others to do the same, and refuse to tolerate those that would actively work to steal happiness from others. Yes, I am aware that the inverse is equally true - why is it wrong to steal happiness from others if nothing matters - but this perspective is simply not the one I have chosen to place value on. Arbitrary? Sure. It still represents the best way I've found to enjoy life.

I'm a big fan of positive nihilism. Everything has occurred by random chance and there are no inherent truths or any purpose to anything. Nothing we do actually matters in the grand scheme of the universe. So, since nothing matters, I am free to exhert my free will and give value to what I choose.

I want to live a life where my perspective is, on the whole, a positive, happy one, and I want to create as many opportunities for others to do the same as possible. I do not want to tolerate those that use their freedom to steal the freedom of others or who seek pleasure at the pain and cost of others. I want to utilize my freedom to seek pleasure and joy and bring pleasure and joy to others without causing pain and suffer.

Nothing matters, so choose the life you want. There is no right or wrong way to live.

I think there's a big difference between knowing that answers exist and with time, energy and resources you could learn them, but it's just too impractical to do it all, and blindly accepting that no one has the capacity to know something.

Plus, science backs up claims with evidence, experiments and data, and, at least to some capacity, a layman can parse that information. Fundamentally, science is provable, even if you won't get 100% of it. Religion is strictly founded in the fact that no one is capable of parsing anything it teaches.

I had actually heard that giving her her contract causes her to just get pissed at you and do nothing. I'm not clear on what the strange conditionals there are, as I simply didn't find the contract (even though I swear I found everything and then some in the House of Hope) and am working entirely on second-hand experiences.

Still feels incredibly lackluster, tbh. Tying it to a companion (side?)quest via Karlach, or at least letting Mol half admit to you what happened and prompting a quest log entry or... something, could have made it feel far more significant and meaningful.

Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of his own actions.

White space.

So many UIs in my education programs and my work as a teacher just fucking love to leave huge piles of unused space and hide the options I am looking for in a drop down menu off a drop down menu.

Use the space. Give me buttons. Take options out of menus in menus in some absurd, backwards attempt at achieving "minimalism", because you don't understand what the word means, and make a UI that minimizes the time between when I load the thing, and when I get to what I am here for.

"If we say we want to taze the gays, we'll lose the support of the moderates! Oh, what a conundrum we're in, having to choose between dehumanizing and abusing the non-heteronormative's or potentially losing the vote of moderate voters! This is such a difficult, challenging moral and ethical problem!"

Fuck the CPC.

I kind of liked Ultra-Instinct at the end of Super for this reason. It's not some transformation or unlocked racial boon. It's positioned as a genuine technique achieved by removing conscious thought from the equation and allowing each part of the trained body to react on its own. Yes, we're in the divine arc, and the gods try to position the technique as divine power, but the unique simplicity of how it functions brings us back to ground from the world of legendary transformations and cyber-biological enhancements. It fits in a martial arts anime, even if the series isn't quite that anymore.

I know it's late enough in the game that it's a big whatever, but I really wanted to keep Hope. She was just exactly the kind of chaotic positive-but-insane energy I needed in that chapter of the game, and while I buy her personal conlusion, choosing to join you would make a lot of sense too.

On that topic, I was really disappointed with the way her story just kind of... Went away? After the attack in act 2 and the subsequent conversation with Karlach, I was incredibly invested in Mol's story, helping her, and helping Karlach save what she sees as a small her from some of the pain she suffered.

But then we got to act 3 and I literally didn't find any story threads to continue with. The previous problem presented solved itself off-screen, Mol flipped from "I will kill for these kids" to "who?", Karlach never brought it up again, and there was no noteworthy dialogue with Mol other than "buy some stuff or fuck off".

Act 3 felt like it had a lot of unresolved story threads, early ends, and bugs resulting in the aforementioned problems, but this one really stands out to me. It's like I watched someone set up a whole domino sequence, flick the first one, and 70% of the way through a domino missed and the builder just told me that was supposed to happen and left.