Recent content by Umbran

If I understand what you mean by that comment, no. Not magic in all but name. Just tech and understanding we haven't gotten to yet. I don't claim that knowing about aliens will magically solve all our problems - just that we'd learn a lot.

Yes, but unless it just happens to be a very special frog, it probably isn't crawling up there to cure your cancer, either. :p But actually, the way science spins off knowledge, information on those aliens is likely to help in human medicine - they imply new materials, new physics to be used in...

No, but, "I'm just asking questions," is a key phrase of the sealion.

During my lifetime, no, it has not. Real wages have remained basically flat for most of the American population since about 1979. That's not "more than compensating" - that's treading water. Cite: Real Wage Trends, 1979-2019, Congressional Research Service...

That is... arguable. :p

Well, his personal style isn't for everyone. But, in terms of the content, he's pretty spot on in this one. What are you talking about? He addresses why in the first minute of the linked video. As Mr. Green says in this video, there is more unexplained phenomena going on in your own colon...

No. For one thing, debate only differs from standard argument if it employs some structure or formalism. Plus, the challenge of "debate me," has taken on some significant connotations of its own, which I find unsavory.

The objections to generative AI are recent, not "sudden", and are so because the concerted pressure for its widespread corporate adoption is similarly recent. OpenAI only started trying to monetize ChatGPT in February 2023, for example. And, objection to technology taking away people's jobs...

AD&D was my second RPG. Tunnels and Trolls was my first. Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP) was my third.

And, raise your hand if you recognize that a hammer is not the right tool to confirm this, one way or another...

Baldur's Gate 3 is a videogame, not a print TTRPG. Different products, different audiences, different expectations. Folks will accept a "M for mature" videogame in a way that they may not in print RPGs that sell to 12-year-olds.

Mod Note: Please consider the possibility that your approach - that has you calling folks juvenile, and then dismissively telling them to move along, when you have no authority to speak of - is part of the frustration. We expect you to be respectful. If you cannot manage that, we expect you to...

I mean, folks trying to sell you AI, will tell you it does everything, if that's what you mean. But, really, you don't only have a hammer. You have a human brain. Right? RIGHT??!??!

Yes. And note how folks don't mistake a hammer for an all-purpose tool? That's the point. Yes. And that's the problem.

Okay. I can see that point. And it has been a while since I have seen it. But the read I remember getting off it was not "we were right to be militaristic or we weren't that bad", but more "having been militaristic, we were left in this awful state, and we can now redeem ourselves"...