All these theories and no experiments, science is about falsifiable results if you can't even experiment on your theories it's philosophy not science. All imo of course.

Just for clarity, people agree on this, yeah? One isn't "doing science" if all they are doing is proposing un-falsifiable claims, right? There is some division between theoretical vs. experimental of course, but is there a point where theory is so far from being verifiable that it ceases to be scientific?

That's definitely something that has been proposed in some form or another.

The nature of the gods being 'outside time' yet seeing events within it, leads to some interesting, yet endlessly regressive, thinking.

On top of the time strangeness, there's also the fact that the events in the books tend to repeat themselves, though in most cases on a larger scale. The First Apocalypse, the first Ordeal, even writ small as the Vulgar Holy War and the Holy War, not to mention all the parallels between the various Anasurimbor men.

Its a very reciprocal system, and Bakker seems very fond of characters creating their own demise. So while I'm not sure its the way the story is going necessarily, I think it would fit within the bounds of what has been set up so far - that the events in the story created the gods which in turn retroactively create the events that lead to their creation.

The Broken Eye by Brent Weeks, Lightbringer 3 (28)

I continue to be impressed with Weeks' writing. The books primary focus is on the plot, but the characters and relationships are unfolding in a complex way that really drives things along. I find myself feeling very strongly for many of the characters, which brings a solid poignancy to many scenes. Some plot twists you can guess or see coming, there are others that are shocking while still making sense in retrospect.

This is still something I highly recommend. It's not in the same vein as Watts or Bakker, but its great fantasy writing if geared more towards 'fun' than 'deep'.

Yeah we played a few games of Gloomhaven, there are some quirks like "no sharing or trading" that seem ridiculous for a co-op RPG lol.

7 Wonders base game has a 2 player rule set, but it adds a non-player character to be a 3rd player. Dual I guess was redesigned slightly to make it better for 2p.

Twilight Imperium would be awesome, but I don't have anyone that would want to play a game like that with me. Too much time investment for the others I guess. Games that size (gloomhaven, descent, etc.) just aren't on the docket.

Wingspan is a resource management / engine builder. You get a player mat that has different biomes, and your goal is to get points by placing/growing various birds on your mat. The artwork is brilliant and pleasing, and it seems to be a good engine builder with simple mechanics which can lead you down a couple different paths to victory.

My most recent purchase was Ex Libris - you play as the curator of a town library. You compete with other players for the best/rarest books, trying to impress the city inspector who assigns points based on size, stability, variety, rarity, and theme. Basically you collect cards in various ways, arrange them in alphabetical order as best you can. Its pretty fun, a worker replacement game, and the book titles (of where there are some 600+) are pretty witty and brilliant making it fun to read them.

Also recently played Bargain Quest, though only about 15% of it as we ran out of time. You are a shop owner trying to sell wares to heroes, who then go out adventuring with your gear. If they live and kill monsters, you get fame, and they get gold which they can then bring back for more gear. They can also die, in which case you get no fame. The dead heroes are rotated out with new ones. Each turn you compete with the other players to attract 1 hero to your shop. This one was quite fun, and I wish I played more of it. There's something of a bidding phase each turn where you compete mildly to grab the best customer who can buy your stuff, which means plenty of interactions with other players without be overly competitive.

Could be that the first one is so short you can't get a solid feeling for it. But also, in generally I find people don't like books that are confusing and throw you into the middle of a story that already happening. This is definitely what happens in Gunslinger, so I'm not surprised it is not fondly remembered by many.

I'm pretty sure there's sranc POV at the start of Judging Eye, where they are tracking the Skin Eaters.

There might be other instances, but not many, and not any I can recall off hand.

(also it looks like you double posted so I removed the other topic)

I think modern economic theory diverges from previous theory by realizing that humans do not act either rationally nor in their best interest. SO I think that supports your thought there.

I would think stability is, or at least should be, a viable measure of economic value. Things tend to not be great when people don't feel safe. Probably because our economies are built on spending money, when people feel unsafe they hoard it, which makes things even more unstable - downward spiral ensues.