System Shock 2 Review by Gggmanlives

[6743953d3f32bBenNM]

 

[6743953d3f487BenNM]

       

      =)

Is this place cool or what. 

[6743953d3f65fvoodoo47]

it is, up to the moment you receive an ip ban for posting nonsense.

[6743953d3f7caKolya]

Hahaha
[gotcha.png expired]

[6743953d3f94bBenNM]

Good point, Voodoo (reminds me of my first real video card and a couple girlfriends)
I've never been banned for posting nonsense, wonder of wonders.
Though I have banned entire servers as admin elsewhere.  *s*
The North Koreans just change IP addresses and start over.

Kolya, I haven't seen Taz for ages.  Thanks.

[huddles in a dark corner, clutching a heavy wrench]

[6743953d3fa3evoodoo47]

well, there is first time for everything.

[6743953d3fb5bBenNM]

I don't stay where I'm not welcome.
If Kolya asks me to leave, I will.
(and not donate again)
...or were we just talking hypothetically

[6743953d3ff41RocketMan]

I think SCP has finally bored a hole into Voodoo's brain and you caught him in a moment of rage.  Don't worry about it

[6743953d40074Kolya]

Yah, he's just a little sleep deprived most likely.

* Kolya passes voo a pillow

In any case, no one gets banned her for posting some emoticons and saying they like this place. We're not that hardcore nihilistic. 

[6743953d401c7ZylonBane]

But if you act like an idiot, you'll get treated like one.

[6743953d403b7RocketMan]

I was watching a very interesting video on neuroscience recently that gave me a couple of very important take-aways.  First, it is scientifically inaccurate to think of your own consciousness as being centralized within the brain.  Rather there is no central consciousness but a constantly changing state which is the sum of different centers of the brain in flux with each other.  Second, in light of recent findings regarding "mirror neurons" (neurons which are responsible for empathy and perspective taking), our minds are not wholly our own and are actually part of a social network consisting of all the minds we have contact with.  Who we are, is a dynamic state that depends on our social network.  For all intents and purposes, Kolya, ZB and Voodoo are a part of who I am in an analogous way to how my cerebellum, frontal lobe and hippocampus are a part of who I am.  Just as my brain works to minimize noise (disagreement or dissidence) in order to function more efficiently, so too does a social network seek to minimize dissidence.  Sometimes the dissidence is too large and world-views are irreconcilable.  Other times, world-views are re-written in order to conform to new challenging information.   The repercussions of this are that we have more of a responsibility for each other than we realize.

[6743953d404a1voodoo47]

I wouldn't recommend that - my brain's not a nice place to be.

[6743953d4076cunn_atropos]

Great quote! Someone can use that in a FM
[vodoo_brain.jpg expired]

[6743953d40d51Kolya]

Who we are, is a dynamic state that depends on our social network.

A long time ago I posted on TTLG about a study that was made on people who get held up in a traffic jam because of a suicidal jumper.  The people tended to react in very inhumane ways, bitching about the hold-up and making cynical remarks about when the person would finally jump, etc. It's apparently a well known phenomenon among policemen, which is why one of the first things they do is to cordon up the area and isolate potential jumpers from the crowd below. Because they will actually yell up "Get it over with!" and things like that. When asked in individual interviews none of these people would admit to it and no one would show these socio-pathological traits. But in the crowd below they were ferocious, because of a traffic jam.

This suggests that our identity can indeed be taken over by a group and that group's interest can overrule in our minds the interests of any other individual outside the group, which we may empathise with in a one-on-one situation. Both are cases where an identity will adapt to it's social environment - in an ad-hoc way. So it doesn't have to be people you know for a long time. And secondly, a group has much stronger influence on our identity than a single person, unless we're alone too. Having been or felt alone a lot in your life can be helpful to ward off that group influence. Be proud of it.

But usually the ability to adapt is cool and fun and very informative. To actually be someone else for a while or even become that person if you like it. Take a trip to a foreign land, mix up with the local crowd and become a Spaniard for that night! Or ride on a train with football fans. Or go on a party alone and get to know different people.
We adapt so fast and easily that it must be hard-wired into us, a requirement that ensures our survival in quickly changing situations. And it's also one of the best traits we have, because it allows us to change who we are and become better people. Our identities are far from stable, even if it feels like: I am me and nothing's ever going to change that! That solid identity that we feel we have, is a retrospective story that our consciousness makes up, as it tries to sort the experiences and decisions we made. Thanks brain! Without that narrative we might go insane about the disparity of all that we call our selves.

Since we adapt so easily, changing completely who we are, there's a chance we may throw out some principles that should always be true, in our own interest. And no crowd should be able to overrule these. Like not telling a suicidal person to jump.
Whatever those principles are, everyone has to find out themselves. Put them in a box labelled "Me" at the core of your identity, not to be changed lightly and if necessary to be defended even at high cost, eg of becoming isolated from your friends. Because your friends may turn out to be idiots. And you may eventually ask yourself: Why did I do that? That's not me!
It better be something like having drunk too much vodka then. And not being responsible for the misery or death of another person.

[6743953d40e55voodoo47]

*reads all the stuff K posted* ok, I'm now officially a horrible person.

[6743953d40f63Kolya]

haha, I doubt it.

[6743953d41113voodoo47]

well then, lets play analysis for a bit.

so we have a person that wants to terminate its existence. anyone with half a functioning brain must be aware that there are many ways of accomplishing this, and quite a few of them are silent, clean, and don't involve crowds and any additional nonsense. if the person chooses a public place, then it's not just suicidal, it's also a drama queen. that by itself is still ok, it's not like a little drama has ever killed anybody - it's usually the fall. or the gun. or whatever. ok, I had my bad pun, moving on. so, there are still many perfectly fine ways for a suicidal drama queen to go and kill itself - town hall, local hypermarket, amusement park, parliament (if it's close), generally any place where dumb people waste their time. BUT! intentionally taking its business to the bridge and jamming the traffic (intentionally, because as we have just established, there are many other valid places where the deal can be taken care of without additional crap) just to f*ck up other people's day as a bonus makes the suicidal drama queen an asshole as well.

and ask me, any suicidal drama queen asshole is better off dead.


so, am I a horrible person?

[6743953d413e6Marvin]

With the last part, yes.

[6743953d41750voodoo47]

told ya. but hey, at least I'm honest.

also, highly doubt I would actually join a cheering crowd and encourage the act - I would probably just sigh, try to get out of the jam in a best possible way, and carry on with my own business. ain't got no time for such nonsense.

[6743953d418ffKolya]

It's not reasonable to kill yourself in the first place. So how can you expect the person to make reasonable decisions about how to do it?
Sure, if it's some 50 year old who's drawn up the balance of his life and decided in cold blood he better quit. But those people don't stand on bridges or skyscrapers.
It's usually the younger spontaneous suicide type who's had his heart broken or been abused or a thousand other reasons. There may be an element of drama in it, the proverbial cry-for-help and yes it's kinda ego-centric. But for the person it is real despair nevertheless, because subjective pain is still pain. They don't go up there to create a traffic jam but because they don't see any other way.

I've seen you help hundreds of people with their games. Why do you do that, what's your motivation? In the end, whether you played SS2 in your life is a relatively meaningless fact, compared to ending that life.

[6743953d41af6RocketMan]

K beat me to it but I would assume that most of these public suicides are done out of desperation because they haven't been able to find someone in their life who gives a damn or they wish someone would help them without having to beg for it but they don't.  They know that emergency services and perhaps family who finds out about it on the news will try to talk them out of killing themselves so it's like a last ditch effort to give others a chance to convince the guy he's got something to live for.  Even if they intend on following through with the suicide, they probably don't want to die alone, the last thought in their mind being that their life was without purpose or meaning.

It was really great for me to finally learn why, at a cellular level, people stick to their guns sometimes no matter what you tell them.  Apparently, the same fight or flight defense mechanism that serves self-preservation also influences the higher brain functions and tends to reinforce the left brain's propensity to preserve the current world view as a means of coping with dissidence rather than to re-write itself as the right brain challenges it with contradictory information, as it tends to do.

[6743953d41c09Kolya]

http://pbfcomics.com/31/

[6743953d41d05RocketMan]

That sounds about right lol   With split brain patients it must be even closer to the truth.

[6743953d41e8dvoodoo47]

still, being miserable does not give you a free ticket to make life miserable for others. whatever your deal is, don't screw up other people's life/day/whatever. doing so will make you a douchebag no matter what your deal is, and more douchebags is not what this world needs.

as for why I do what I do, I believe that if one has an ability, he also should utilize it in a best, most efficient way possible. my ability seems to be helping out people with their broken stuff, bringing joy and happiness.

oh the irony.