Search results

It is not inherently capricious. If you interpret it as such, that's as much on you as the speaker. The solution here is to not assume capriciousness without a real reason to. Don't make assumptions.

It was not. It was used to describe the attitude that a being without a soul is somehow lesser.

I play elfgames. The idea that I would be dismissive of my own hobbies is interesting to say the least. As noted above, it's a term that tries to put things in perspective when discussing this hobby.

This is a massive misrepresentation of my words. I said that calling something like that described above "just a robot" is gross. That if you don't have a soul in a world where souls exist you're a lesser being, you're "just a robot." That idea is gross.

Cool. But dictionaries don't decide what words mean. Sapience has come to be used more and more to differentiate between abstract thinking and awareness. Hopefully your dictionary will catch up at some point.

That's backwards. Sentient is able to sense the world around you and react to it. Sapient is able to think about your own sentience abstractly.

Cool. I do.

There is no difference in effect between "it tastes better to me" and "just because." Plus when you're dealing with elf games, you don't need a "good reason." Any reason will do.

I said sapient, not sentient, and sapient beings don't do that in any meaningful sense of the term, since there is no programming, which implies externality. But this really isn't the thread for navel-gazing.

"Just a robot" in this sense means not being sapient, essentially. You follow your programming. Like a robot.

If I desire to eat chocolate ice cream, it's because chocolate ice cream tastes better to me than other ice cream. There is no "reason" other than my personal tastes.

If you mean that the reason would actually be what is creating the desire, then technically true but not meaningful. If someone has a subjective desire that they can't explain, that's still perfectly valid.

From SOME folklore. In folklore, the lines between different types of supernatural creatures are very blurry. The firm line between elves and dwarves, for example, is a newer idea. In folklore it's fair to say that dwarves are a type of elf, or fairy. In Norse folklore, for example, it seems...

You can largely thank/blame Tolkien for that, and the subsequent modern fiction that has arisen since then which has tended to adopt the idea that elves/elfs are lithe and pretty. In folklore they did not have that connotation.

I would suggest that's not what people mean when they say "just a robot." They don't mean "only has this life to live." If that's what you mean, fantastic, but that's not the meaning I was referring to.

This doesn't help. If you can't be brought back from the dead, it's equivalent to being "just a robot"? Again, gross.

The idea that without a soul they would be "just robots" is pretty gross TBH.

If the potential market is known, sure. But it wasn't known. It was uncertain. Trying to expand into a new potential market, which might not even exist, at the cost of irking your existing market is risky. Besides which, my actual point is simply that it's a matter of perspective, and the use...

This is a very good point, not often raised. The modem idea of a muscle-bound warrior is not very realistic in itself. Bodybuilder muscle is very showy but not overly useful in practice. Much better to have more wiry strength like most pro athletes. But that complaint doesn't seem to apply to...

Absolutely. Mine was more a commentary on the use of "playing it safe" in a pejorative sense.