Kind of a meta question again : If being moral (some kind of moral, atleast!) is something kind of rented rather than owned, paid for with resources (ie, giving to others is a kind of morality - but you have to have something to give to do that), traditional writing seems to involve chiding this or that action as being wrong or questionable - but this style of writing seems to assume that as long as the bad habits are pruned off, that's all that's needed. As if nothing about logistics needs be said, just something that might get in the way of logistics. Which makes sense given for millenia we were all doing the same old things, agriculture and livestock and it was people sleeping with other peoples spouses or starting wars and such was the thing that got in the way. So story writing isn't about agriculture and livestock back then because everyone does it already and knows it like the back of their hand and don't want to hear about it. Logistics just doesn't have a tradition in story telling.

But now - well, people will vote for what they think will get them jobs. Ie, people need jobs to get food and shelter because they don't at all control their own food supply, so it's easy enough to control voting by controlling food supply. Never mind how people will close mindedly lock on to an idiology if their bread and butter depends on it - the less control they have of their own food supply, the more closed minded folks get (probably scientifically provable, that). It seems there are strong moral issues inside of logistics, but writing has no tradition of logistics - it's all this interpersonal drama like who is sleeping with whom, who is angry at whom. All the things that, yes, used to get in the way of a functioning community - but now are peripheral with regard to how that community is being manipulated from external sources.

Where is genre going when it doesn't address logistics? And I mean a hands dirty address of logistics - actually talking about food production as part of the story. Not just writing about how Johnny is skiving at the back of the shed and should get back to work/yet again some pruning of abberant behavior, but instead the actual steps of production in story, how it can be re-implemented and the political upshot of having more control of food supply. Where's genre going when it avoids this?

Ages ago I made a small flash game that, without impinging on IP, was basically about fighting sranc.

It might not have blown socks off - I think the pacing probably wasn't fast enough, but at the time I was entranced by the D&D six second combat round - which is surprisingly slow in real life game play.

Now pretty much every feature, even a simple one like 'you can make bandages' takes about an hour to program. Or it does for me. I'd love to see some faster programmers doing something with the prince of nothing series (err, I mean the totally not the PON series, a completely different IP that only harkens to PON as much as is legally legit to do so!). And more complex features break down into multiple basic features, which means multiple hours. I'm saying this to basically destroy your hopes - so I can sift amongst their shards and find fragments I am capable of building into a game inside my lifetime!

Anyway, I bought construct 2, which is a HTML5 game language and I'd like to have another crack. Maybe pester one of the awesome artists of SA to borrow some artwork for it. Once again the game would have links to Scott's blog, citing it as an inspiration and links to here and links to any contributing artist, as it's part promotional of the novels.

Basically making this post as an open work space, to ping what I'm thinking of to see if it mixes with some kind of momentum out there amongst ye, or if I'm starting the snowball all by myself (and, maybe even ending it all by myself, if fates are poor). Feel free to post your shattered hopes for a game so I may pick amongst the shards, or I can shatter them for you : "I want GTA but in Earwa!!1!" "Well, fuck no, that's not gunna happen - but *picks up shard* maybe a more text based and basic graphic 2D game of running down sranc?". That sort of breaking of hopes and dreams! >

So jot down any ideas you have, if feel kind enough to give them, then I'll stamp them into shard! And maybe one day I'll get back to doing the text based multiplayer browser game - if I wrangle some free server space with a database. It'd be cool to do something like Urban Dead, but with sranc.

DJ Snake and Lil Jon "Turn Down for What"

NSFW

I have this plan - it's taking a few years to really get it going but I'm pretty certain it's viable and didn't want to wait until it's done to start spreading the idea. I'm describing it in rough form here as I've mostly had it in my head.

The base of it is resource generators - ie, growing food. Yes, I can hear some of you groan from here - how is that sexy? But really it's just a replication of the structure that keeps you alive right now - someone grew that food you just had, right?

The antagonist here is basically the sort of fiscal singularity coming up or that exists - everywhere ends up as part of, to various degrees forgotten, America (or whatever is the fiscal heart of the world - maybe China soon?). Further the idea that beauty and art, not just on our walls but in the very structure of the town/city you and I live in requires charity or generosity. Think of the old building in your town with their ornate stone work - now look at the new building made of graveyard slabs of stone thrown together in an effort for the least cost for the 'most' result. This is the fiscal singularity reaching out - because the economic map is stretched out to the world, businesses don't form cosy little complacent cul de sacs where the businesses do not enter into ruthless economic play and so they start being indulgent and spending money on nice buildings and other community forming structure. Ie, being charitable and generous. The global financial structure does not allow such cul de sacs of complacency to form, because as soon as anyone in the world gets ruthless about money (and someone will, of course) everyone has to get ruthless or otherwise be out competed by the ruthless ones. Thus the ugly slab buildings entering your community - the harvest of the global ruthlessness.

That horse has essentially bolted on that, I think - especially as it hinges on everyones desire for 'cheaper!'.

The idea here is not just that producing your own food leads to more political indepedence relative to the amount of your food supply you can meet (taking into consideration a ceiling on that due to 'land taxes'), but as the very source of charity and generosity to reinvigorate the artistic domain of your community rather than the economic singularity turning where you live into more and more of a battery hen. I mean, think about it: Imagine all of the advertising on the walls of the businesses your community hinges around were all just one uniform shade of graveyard grey. How incredibly ugly would it all be - yet this is where you'll live your life, to a great degree? And the 'levity' of the advertising you see is all weaponised - they just fake happy, smiling faces and just emulate the idea of bright colours=good times, so as to lever money out of you. Perhaps the old signs from the early nineteen hundreds or earlier, with their ornate art were actually beautiful additions in themselves. But again they were a product of indulgent businesses who had not yet had a reason to become ruthless.

It's funny that it's the antagonist that is complicated in this matter, but the idea here is fairly simple - an exchange structure that is based largely on generosity, of providing food stuff in a certain, metered extent, for free as an act toward building community and further food stuffs for the exchange of art. What art you say? Those big expensive canvas things, just for some spring onions? No, not at all. In fact I've seen art exhibitions from a group who used to paint upon the lids of cigar cases - just for a little money but after many years these became important and collectable works of art that warranted their own exhibition.

So the art could be on the back of recycled paper (ie, something printed on the other side) and in biro! Indeed some biro art is amazing and there's an example in my local gallery that was short listed for a prize of 12 K, as I recall. This would also includes texts/stories (as in selling a copy of it, not selling the rights to the words. The exchange simply grants the capacity to sell the material object, like second hand book shops sell books. I'll have to look at the legals to ensure an ethical structure is written in explicit ink). And I will be glib and assume people can access biro's pretty easily - even if they do a quick sketch in a bank using one of their chained pens - heh, now that's subversive!

Further the model I'm looking at may even have a return policy - if the art is not sold after a certain amount of time, the artist can simply pick the art back up, having kept the food stuffs he'd gotten from turning it in - possibly even turning it back in immediately for more food stuffs.

The capcity for the art to be sold allows this structure to marry into the global economic singularitys currency system and to subvert it. To quell the ruthlessness, to the degree this structure is practiced. Part of that would be by (with a formula I've yet to map out) not only give food stuffs, but take part of any profits from art sales and actually give food stuffs and money for the art works. Thus feeding money into the artistic communities that lend the artistic life to the greater community. I would dare say even make community worth forming (for surely we don't just form community to protect ourselves from the elements anymore, do we?).

The giving of food stuff here is a structured thing - it involves in part giving some for free to each individual, but with a limit, so as to make further trading for further food stuffs attractive. Even the art for food stuffs exchange is fixed at a limit per individual. And indeed the whole structure is set at a hard limit as to how much food stuffs you can produce anyway. The exact trade ratios are contentious and their integrity at an ethical level is vital to the whole structure and...I haven't worked the ratio out yet! I'm sure it's workout-able but right now I'm at a place holder idea - if you want to shoot the idea down, okay, but please do it from a 'Without a ratio explicitly stated, you offer nothing!' position, rather than 'This wont work!' position. Without the ratio, you don't really know if it wont work.

Further structures I've considered are food stuffs being traded for money and a ticket lottery for part of the moneys paid. I really dislike pure lotteries, as they give you nothing - here the traded food stuff (remember that each person only gets so much food over a certain time period, so to get more involves trade) definately gets something and with that the chance to get even more. This seems more fair to me instead of what seems to be exploiting peoples hopes. Then the remaining segment of money is segmented again and used as part of the art trade or straight donation to charity or even trickled into a hard luck fund that can be granted at discretion (with a time cap on it - if it's not used it goes back into art trade and starts refilling, so as to stop a few issues that come with stagnant money). However I do not know the local laws about what you have to have to run a lottery - I've been waiting to get my resource generators fully into gear before researching this. I'm guessing it wont be any exorbitant fee to do a small scale local lottery (though I could be wrong).

This, essentially, is my fight against a multitude of issues I feel exist beyond those I outline here (and I can get into them if you ask!), because it fights the very economic structure who's self serving nature means those issues continue because no one has a buck to lay against those issues. The generosity of giving from resource generators (from gardens/urban farming) lays the foundation for defection against the world wide economic structure, instead of repeating its semi invisible dogmas (think about it - how much can you give to oxfam or other charities - is this restriction not a kind of dogma?) for not having any alternative way to live. Here is an alternative - thus allowing some different philosophy to form than one that is beholden to money and thus beholden to the global structure/whatever is the global economic power and the degree they are disinterested in your particular welfare.

Some philosophers try to find a way of living with integrity and honour in light of various nihilistic cognitive science findings - I do not find this the first and foremost issue, especially when the structures of money exchange colour our philosophies so much. With the battles of cognitive science & philosophy, how on earth can we fight when we neglect the very fundimentals of war? Our supply lines? To just try and win this in our heads - I do not think this works. The war, at it's roots, is earthly. The head in the clouds part is part of it, but to just concentrate on that is to have your feet swept out from under you in short order. Where your feet are swept, so too will your head shortly follow.

Thank you all for reading.

I was thinking one method I'd accept for a universe with an objective morality (for that particular universe) is where the creator of it goes and makes it the only minds that can form in it are ones that follow the morality he lays out. Either making it that only that type can evolve, or more crudely perhaps intervening during a childs development in the womb.

The thing about this is that the creator takes on the task of making his creations follow his morality. Ie, he takes on the responsibility of that and should one stray somehow from his model, then the creator takes it that they are at fault (they simply didn't implement the morality enforcement properly)

Thoughts?

I'll make my argument by making an argument for...

We are in a battle, friends! We all know that to earn a living, to have food and shelter takes work! Labour! It always has and always will! There is no getting around it! Nobody expects to get something just for simply being - and with good reason! That's why I speak to you today, beamed live from my office with it's fantastic view! We all know you need to go find a job! To do otherwise is to shame your peers, your family and your spiral into poverty is only your own damn business and fault! If you find yourself living on the many streets of concrete and other land that was cleared of vegetation for dwellings in a fine example of progress, you're inability to find food is your own fault. It's no one elses - get a job! Anyone can get a job! Just grab one like you might grab an apple from a tree, by going to job interviews where a panel will decide if you get the job.

And whether were athiest or religious, we all know land is something that is owned - you have to buy it or there are plenty of kind people who will rent a space to you. If you wish to buy it, you can! By which of course we mean buy a mortgage (it's silly to think that anyone could just buy land outright - that's old mode thinking that weve well and truely moved on from now!). The land is owned - you can't expect you just have some roots somewhere! The civilised approach is to buy rights to land. To expect to just have them is the mark of someone practically a traitor to his fellow men (as they all work hard to pay their mortgages, as they should).

You really need to work if you expect to keep a stocked cupboard. You had to work in the middle ages for your food - why would anything have changed now? All the experts at our panel tonight, enjoying the excellent spread put on, have researched this thoroughly. Weve looked into it - we even have a department, dedicated to checking out statistics on the matter. In fact all our corporate endevours often have department after department, some of them there simply to oversee the others, running various research projects that would simply not work without you and your fellows working for them. Of course we have to tighten our belts - weve taken on various consultants on the board here, with the appropriate salaries for their position, to determine how many positions will be appropriately cut. But remember you can always grab the bull by the horns and get back into it, by sitting in front of a panel (should you get that far in the application process) for them to decide if you get a position with their company.

We honestly couldn't do anything about that situation - were all busy with getting our businesses ahead in todays competitive marketplace. Were desperate (for those of you qualified or needed) for you to keep our businesses strong! Really the fight against nature to get food - it hasn't really changed. Your good notions to work hard and keep your head down? They are as relevant today as they were on the savanna! You know in your heart that if you work hard, you will prosper! We developed in the wild with a strong urge for survival - and that urge has the same place it always has - work hard now! You need to - we need you to, because were all in it together, in this tough battle! And we toast you! *raises a glass of bubbly*. With work, we can all appreciate finer things, just as much as you might enjoy watching a forumla one race on TV, for example - and the champainge they splash around at the end is no mere bottle of bubbles! It's a fine thing - we should know *clinks around the table*. The thing is, you've worked hard for years, knowing that prospering was ahead - and keep working know, knowing it is still ahead! You're a smart bunch and you've figured out that working hard is definately the only way ahead (which is to say ahead of the starvation that we all face should we turn from civilisation) - and without you, many fine institutions and companies could not have formed and have their venerable status. Our corporate meetings are all about you, the statistics of you, in fine detail - often we put considerable effort into collecting data, to make sure they are about you! Sometimes we laugh 'aren't these things only a mother would know?' - but in a way, can't you see how we look after you...you can see it, right?

And of course you need leaders - for, while it's clearly established that you need to work to survive, who will assign the work then, hmm? You have to work - nothing is clearer. But jobs? They don't just come out of nowhere. No, you need people who can lead you into the future - who, while you've got your head down, nose to the grind stone, we keep look out. For you! The helmsmen (and lets not forget these days, helmswomen!) of industry! You're strong, proud, and know your place is with us - should you pass the usual panel. Just stick with your sense of survival, that sense that you have to tough out some rough times if you wanna make it! It's gotten us all this far and it can get us *looking from the camera to around the table* even further! If you realise nothing has changed, then you'll make sure nothing will change - your job position, your qualifications, they will all remain stable and pertinent - remain reliable! For if we were to fall, naturally neither would remain - how could we be expected to maintain either?

So, remember, were in a battle! It's a tough world out there - keep at it and realise that that isn't just about to change tomorrow! So stay strong with what you're doing today! Keep toughing it out! We all think you're doing a great job! There may be regretable cuts - weve had some sad days in top office - but were sure you're doing a great job, or will be doing a great job of getting in front of a panel!

Work - and smile!

I was reading this

The central benefit of money is its predictable purchasing power. A monetary commodity is not easy to produce. The cost of mining is high. Money is slowly adopted by a large number of participants. These participants use money as a means of exchange. Why? Because it was valuable the day before. They therefore expect it to be valuable the next day. Money has continuity of value. This is not intrinsic value. It is historic value. So, a person can buy money by the sale of goods or services, set this money aside, and re-enter the markets in a different location or in a different time, in the confidence that he will probably be able to buy a similar quantity of goods and services.

And I was thinking that a Dunyain is less or not inclined to be taken in by the illusion of expectation. To them the objects we use as money would be a node in a web of causations they might cause in world born. Never mind how the above text mentions history, and the Dunyain are a people without history.

Further, sure, we can think about money as just an arbitrary object - but here's the social inertia, the social current that sweep us back in. ARE we going to treat the money object that way? Or are we going to treat it that everyone else is going to treat those objects as being a worthy exchange for their goods, and so we let ourselves get swept back into that fervour and start treating those money objects as a worthy exchange for our labour? Wait, no, we don't think of them as a worthy exchange for our labour - instead we let ourselves get swept back into the current of believing the money objects we currently hold ARE worth someone else trading their goods for our money objects.

Basically a religious fervor.

I think it's interesting to be able to see oneself being swept into that. Anyone else get that when they pause and consider the money in their wallet as just a papery or plasticy object? As much as that candy wrapper being blown along in the wind down the street is a papery or plasticy object? But then the feeling of being swept back in...?

Something that bugs me in online games are the totally genre breaking names people give their characters. Stuff like 'Killerdude' or 'Ilikepie' or even more inane names.

If making a text based browser game for the scalper era of the PON series, I was considering methods of managing this. One might be to have the user name as a nickname in the middle of it's full name, and either the full name is randomly generated, or the full name is built by the player using three letter fragments from a drop down menu, building a name from several of those. So surnames are traditionally first in the three seas, then the nickname in the middle in scare quotes, then the characters first name. Because stupid nicknames are more plausible.

With the three letter fragments I'd be looking for help having ones which sound right.

(on a side note, as an option, characters can face perma death - I'm thinking they all share the same 'nickname', but have new character names)