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vexwerewolf · 20 hours

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why is it that we only have like two licenses from any mech producer that’s a good guy? For a game where like there are clear good and bad guys (even if who you play isn’t necessarily linked to that) it seems strange to me that the only loot and XP you get is… more benefits from the bad guys

I can tell you the answer, but to do so, we're gonna have to talk about a completely different TTRPG.

If you've read @makapatag's truly excellent Filipino martial arts TTRPG Gubat Banwa (and if you haven't, here it is), you may notice that every single character class description (with one notable exception) ends with one of these babies:

I am not Makapatag, and I cannot write with quite as much grace and eloquence as he can, but I will try:

If you choose to become a Lancer, ask yourself why you mock the name of peace with these weapons of war. You call yourself a saviour, but your steed was forged from the murder of a world. You stride across the sky in a colossus built in your own image, so why are you too cowardly to give it your face? Why do you believe these machines of death can preserve life?

It is important to note that the admonitions in Gubat Banwa are not just there to make you feel bad; they are there as legitimate questions. The Sword Isles have seen so much blood, death and tragedy. Wars are not glorious and killing is not a game. So, knowing all of that, why have you taken up this discipline - no matter how noble and virtuous it might claim to be - to shed more blood, to bring more death, to write more tragedy? What could possibly drive you to this? What need is so great that you must kill?

The thing with Gubat Banwa is that there are legitimate answers to these questions! There are bad people doing bad things, and some of them will not be stopped with words or kindness. Sometimes, as sorrowful as it is, killing is the correct choice to prevent greater suffering and deeper tragedy - but adding less misery and death to the world is still adding some amount of it. Even the most necessary wars will drench the ground in the blood of the innocent.

A sword is a tool meant to kill humans; while it can be used for other things, it is not well-suited to anything other than this. A mech is, in its most basic essence, just a very complicated sword: it's usually used on things larger than a person, but it's still a tool built to kill.

So why have you taken up this path? Humanity was saved from the brink of extinction and has created wondrous technologies like printers, cold fusion and mind-machine interface, and yet you use them to play soldier in a giant metal man. Why do you choose to take up this machine of death, built by the greedy and pitiless? Why do you think these machines can ever make things right?

Because sometimes, despite everything, they can.

Warhammer 40K shows an awful world full of monsters and monstrosity, and in the darkest moments of its history, Lancer's world looked just as bleak, but Lancer's world differs in one crucial way. Warhammer's world has long given up trying to be better, but Lancer's world never did. Lancer's world kept insisting a better world is possible, and it used what tools it had to make it so.

Sometimes the correct choice, no matter how bitter it may seem, is to kill someone. When you need to do this, a sword is a perfectly good choice for the job.

If you find yourself discomforted by the fact that all the people you can buy mechs from are corrupt and immoral - good! You have correctly engaged with the text. You have understood that the sort of people who would make giant walking death machines and sell them for profit are not good people. But you still have a job to do, and you need the correct tools, and those people have them.

Lancer is not a game about a perfect world - it is a game about a deeply flawed and imperfect one that does not let its imperfection stop it from trying. You have to try to make a better world, even with imperfect tools made by unpleasant people.

#lancer #lancer rpg #lancerrpg #lancer-rpg #gubat banwa #philosophy #ethics #ttrpg

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philosophybits · 2 days

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There is fire in the flint and steel, but it is friction that causes it to flash, flame and burn, and give light where all else may be darkness. There is music in the violin, but the touch of the master is needed to fill the air and the soul with the concord of sweet sounds. There is power in the human mind, but education is needed for its development.

Frederick Douglass, "Blessings of Liberty and Education (1894)"

#philosophy #quotes #Frederick Douglass #Blessings of Liberty and Education #education #learning #development #growth

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typhlonectes · 2 days

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#philosophy #friedrich nietzsche #nietzsche #memes

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jaggedjawjosh · 2 days

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Dealing with your own mind is the toughest battle of all. Sometimes it's your ally, sometimes it's your opponent.

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send-guy-laugh · 3 hours

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#inthelittlewood #patroclus #kyoto #philosophy #loren gray #gadismelayu #foolish gamers #forever21 #techno #tao #jeans

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liberatingreality · 2 days

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If you find from your own experience that something is a fact and it contradicts what some authority has written down, then you must abandon the authority and base your reasoning on your own findings.

Leonardo Da Vinci

#Psychology #Philosophy #Education #Wisdom #Critical Thinking

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voidic3ntity · 1 day

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that which we seek, in the moonlit evenings of calm pale dusk,

the shimmering of something beyond ourselves, lost within:

as the embers of campfires begin to rise towards the sky,

I wrestle with that which I cannot see, myself in totality;

an endless ache for something more than our eternity.

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alpaca-clouds · 2 days

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Travel is good, tourism isn't

I said in the blog yesterday, that I think travel is good, but tourism isn't. So, let me explain this. And I will put this here first: I am going to explain it on the example of Japan, because I know the most about what is happening there in terms of travel and tourism - and what issues arise from it.

See, I do think travelling to foreign places (whatever that means for you) is a good thing. Experiencing other cultures and interacting people who due to their culture have a very different outlook on life and the world is a good thing. Not only to move away from a certain worldview (which for white people tends to be an eurocentric one, and for Americans an US-centric one), it also fosters empathy to other people.

And I think of this dramatic thing especially when it comes to Americans travelling, who due to their lacking education system often do know jack shit about the rest of the world.

However: I do both think that the thing we right now call tourism does not really help, but actually does hinder this - and is harmful in many other ways.

Right now, foreign tourists are no longer allowed in Gion, the Geisha quarter of Kyoto. The reason for it is, that too many of them were fucking disrespectful. Some made photos of the Geisha without asking, some even touched the kimono and the hair of the Geisha. Some even got angry and started arguing, when people told them to not do this.

Especially when it comes to Kyoto I can think of a variet of other examples. People have carved their names into temples. People touched things that are not supposed to be touched (like idols). People otherwise behaved inappropriately, for example towards kannushi and mikos. Folks have bathed their feet in pools meant for ritual cleansing. There are a lot of examples of this.

And I think part of this goes back to two things. For one again eurocentrism and the way, that a lot of especially white folks to not perceive other cultures as real. But also, and maybe more importantly, the mindset that: "I have paid $1500 for this trip and I get to very well do what I want." The different culture in this mindset gets treated like a themepark, not as a place filled with real people, rather than performers there to enhance the tourist's experience.

Meanwhile the tourists generally are not really interested to interact with the other culture further than that. Which is also, why they tend to flock to the same few places, to all go make their own photo of the same place that a million people have photographed before - as compared to going exploring in a foreign place.

And in some cases - like Kyoto - this also leads to the fact that the local people often get pushed out of the places they actually live in.

A lot of people will often say: "Yeah, but it is great for their economy." Which... leaving my capitalism-hating-ideation aside for a moment... Well, actually it is not good and COVID showed us. Because it makes the economy totally depedent on tourism. In places that are heavily dependent on tourism, the sudden complete anihilation of tourism with the pandemic pushed those places further into a crisis than anywhere else. Heck, keeping it with Kyoto: Given a lot of folks had jobs related to the tourism industry and there were in fact not many other jobs, a lot of people found themselves forced to move away from Kyoto during the pandemic.

So while the entire "but economy" thing will seem true on a short term, it actually is not on the long term.

And that is without going into the environmental impact that comes from a lot of people flocking to certain places. This is shown especially in areas, where folks go for "nature", destroying nature while they do so. Because nature just cannot handle thousands upon thousands of people travelling through.

So, what do I mean with "travel, instead of tourism"? Well, frankly: Yes, you still go to other places. But - to keep with Japan - instead of going to Kyoto you might go to Morigushi or Beppo, and instead of touring from one temple and shrine to the next, you will just interact with the places and explore them. To actually experience them, rather than some preconscieved notion of what it is supposed to be. And you interact with the people.

And you learn. Because we all just need to learn about different people, different cultures and different places. Rather than just consuming them.

#travel #tourism #anti tourism #anti capitalism #fuck capitalism #eurocentrism #solarpunk #lunarpunk #philosophy #japan #kyoto #gion district

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ven-of-the-valley · 3 days

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I am going to try and put this in as few words as possible, because my roommate and I spent an hour talking about this today; but there is truly nothing more incredible to me than human creativity.

Like, you’re telling me someone made this? You’re telling me this art came from someone’s own hand? You’re telling me this story came from someone’s mind? You’re telling me that someone as flawed and mortal and lost as me made this?

There is a beauty in math and in science, I am not here to argue that. But mathematics existed long before us. Science will exist long after us. And while the knowledge we have is a wonder, it is not ours. We did not make one and one equal two, we only learned and accepted that it did.

But our art is not universal. Our music was born through us. Our writing will die with us. And there is so much more beauty in knowing that we have made something. People have language and culture and poetry not because it was fact, but by our own whim and design.

This is something AI can never fulfill. An algorithm cannot create, it can only compile. A computer generated image has no link to us, to human emotion. To human flaw and struggle and passion.

Art is beautiful, and creation is the most powerful thing a person can do. Your stories, your art, hell, your fanfic and original characters, they exist not because of universal laws of math and physics, but because of your mind and skill; and if that isn’t the most amazing thing in the world, then what is?

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fancywordology · 2 days

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So true. I always lived my life being proud of being weird and that things I did weren’t perceived as normal. It’s worked out well enough for me overall.

Not everything has to be nor does it need to be normalized.

Let’s normalize people being weird and different in general rather than normalize all specific things.

#normalization #philosophy #social commentary #social justice #people #humans are weird

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ancientorigins · 1 day

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Quote of the day...

#philosophy #quoteoftheday #wisdom #marcus aurelius #history #quote

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wordswithloveee · 1 day

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The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing....

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philosophybits · 3 days

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Freedom demands that man maintain his dignity and purity, that he control himself.

Nikolai Berdyaev, Christian Existentialism

#philosophy #quotes #Nikolai Berdyaev #Christian Existentialism #freedom #autonomy #character #virtue #ethics

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philosophors · 1 day

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“Wherever you come near the human race there's layers and layers of nonsense.”

— Thornton Wilder

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jaggedjawjosh · 2 days

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Overthinking doesn't just mess with your head; it messes with your heart, your vibe, your joy, your spark, and your love. It's sneaky but deadly self-sabotage.

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ninarexic · 2 days

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#girlblogger #girlblogging #just girly things #this is what makes us girls #i’m just a girl #hell is a teenage girl #tumblr girls #girlhood #this is a girlblog #just girly thoughts #just girly posts #philosophy #meme #coquette #lana del rey #sillyposting #my silly little posts #girly blog

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