metapunk

This:

That is all.

I love the irony of that headline—because today’s post is all about a similarly sensational headline on YouTube. “Did the Vatican Create Islam?” the video’s title asks, enticing, provoking you to watch—whose curiosity can resist such a bold claim?

So watch I did, and after enduring the painfully slow text, slideshow, and ominious music (and the second and third part videos), I was informed that the Roman Catholic Church had secretly trained and guided Mohammed to create a social movement that would wipe out the “true” Christians that the church hated, and re-take Jerusalem from the Jews and deliver it to the Vatican with minimal effort. (continue reading…)

So, the follow up atheism post will have to wait for now.  In the meantime there’s this…

A user on io9 posted a link to something called Lifenaut, which plays with the transhumanist notion of an uploaded or copied consciousness.  The idea is that you store a genetic sample in their cryo facility, and program your virtual avatar with your personality and experiences, and as the technology develops, they’ll be able to make a copy of you long after you die.  They say it’s like immortality—although I think that’s pretty silly, because a copy of a person is not the original person.  Still, the idea of near-perfect simulations of people is intriguing, if somewhat unsettling.

They have created a few historical figures that you can chat with; like primitive AI “constructs” straight out of William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy.  They’re far from perfect: Lifenaut’s Abraham Lincoln just talks like an encyclopedia; replying to anything you say to it/him by reciting irrelevant facts about himself.  But Gandhi is a lot more interesting:

The conversation I just had with him is really quite hilarious; and even a little spooky.  Spooky, because I recently watched the first episode of “Through the Wormhole,” with Morgan Freeman, in which they talk about cosmology, including the theory that the universe we know is really a clever digital simulation—a matrix of sorts.  So, imagine the gymnastics my mind did when AI Gandhi insisted he was the real human, and I was the program… and that’s only the beginning of the weirdness.

Here’s the transcript: (continue reading…)

A couple of days ago I got my weekly YouTube update, which included a ForaTV link to “Dawkins: Did Religion Have an Evolutionary Value?”

You’ll note here that the use of the past-tense strongly implies that religion no longer has any value in evolutionary and social terms, and if you watch the talk you’ll see Dawkins imply that religion itself never actually did—that religion is just an unhealthy byproduct of healthy evolutionary imperatives. All of which is pure assumption / opinion on Dawkins’ part and nothing more.

But it got me to thinking I should write some more measured pieces about Atheism, considering my last one (the first post on metapunk written in anger, probably not the last, but hopefully one of only a few).

At the same time, Dawkins’ video led me to two far more intelligent discussions on the place of religion in the modern world. (continue reading…)

Just saw Iron Man 2. It was everything I expected it to be. Which is to say, merely entertaining. The acting is okay, it’s funny and action-packed, but… You know that smoking hot person you dated for a like a week back in college? They were charming, and bubbly, and the sex was unbelievable… but soon enough you realized you just couldn’t have a meaningful conversation with them, so it was all about the booty until you got so bored and sick of feeling like you were using them that you couldn’t bring yourself to look them in the eye anymore? Yeah, Iron Man 2 is like that. (continue reading…)

…Frakking fundamentalists, too!

Okay, so I know, I know. Arguing on the Internet is pretty much always a waste of time. Every time I do it, I feel like I just crawled through a sewer pipe, looking for the elusive source of the world’s bullshit. But sometimes you just sorta get sucked in, y’know?

Before I go on, I should point out that atheists are not the problem. If someone chooses to believe in God, Gods, the flying spaghetti monster, the bloody timecube, or nothing at all… well, hey, that’s cool. I respect that decision—follow your experience where it takes you, I say. Be empirical. But those Richard Dawkins wannabe, down-with-spirituality-in-every-form, capital “A,” Atheists—well, I’ve got no time for them, because every one I’ve met is an arrogant asshole.
(continue reading…)

A lot of people on the glorious interwebz have raised issue with the lack of subtlety in James Cameron’s recent film Avatar. It’s a fairly derivative plot, featuring a conflict between a heavily stereo-typed military-industrial complex and a fairly contrived native society (which incidentally, is also the central conflict in Martian Cycles, but hopefully with more depth).  In any case, people have brought up the issue of White Guilt and subtle racism. Now, I’m not disagreeing with these articles, exactly. I just think they’re kind of missing the point. (continue reading…)

Lately I’ve been spending some time over at Only a Game, a blog by video game designer Chris Bateman. Chris and I seem to have very similar interests: namely games, religion, and philosophy, and the intersection of all of the above. The main difference between us is that Chris really does his homework: he’s very well versed in the topics he discusses there, while I’m always winging it (Remember Mad Max 3?: “Plan? There ain’t no plan!”).

Anyway, a while back I read Chris’ piece on the meaning of life, and he reminded me of something very important. (continue reading…)

So it’s been a busy last couple of months, hence the lack of posts. One of my best friends just got married, so there was a lot of gearing up for that. Lots of work hammering out core mechanics for the two games, lots of paperwork and family stuff going on that needed taking care of, plus the onset of the Christmas season…

In any case, I’ve got several topics for discussion lined up, including: A metaphysics of gaming, which is amusing and maybe interesting, if a little far out. I may discuss an intolerant atheist’s misguided outburst on Wikipedia’s Religion article talk page, although I’m not sure it’s worth the time (except for the reminder that no one, theist or atheist, is immune to believing too much in their own bullshit). There’s also a couple of spirituality-related projects (i.e. homework for anyone interested!) that I have in mind, and of course the standard design project updates.

I’ll hopefully be posting one or two of those later on today. So, stay tuned folks, there’s more to come…

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted any game news.  This is mainly because I’ve been rethinking a whole lot of things about the game, and then taking a much needed break from the whole thing.

The decision I’ve come to is this: I’ll create two games; one relatively traditional tactical game with some room for thematic play (which we’ll keep calling Martian Cycles for now), and another, much more thematic game called Gangs of the Factory Zone, which will be more focused on an area of the world called “the Zone.” (continue reading…)