Tryhard

I think it's better to think of it like this: Let's say in the future our technology advances enough for a personal robotic girlfriend/boyfriend to be sold as a product. They look exactly the same as a human, and they may even be capable of all the mental faculties of any human. Some people would be feeling pretty skeeved on that concept, even if there is nothing exactly "wrong" with the technology that would allow you to produce that. Partly because that robot was conditioned into a certain role without any free will, but also partly because they believe love from a human to be worth more than something like that. If that was possible, they would be tredding into human emotions and spirituality. And some people would probably think nothing weird about that concept at all. While not as extreme, this is the sort of paradigm I tend to think about AI produced materials.

While I do believe it is harder to determine if the origin is obscure, there is at least a sense of human expression that went into it, if you know it was produced by a human. That is less sure now that it is possible that an unknown piece of art could have been created by AI now. As well as, AI art is always obscure. I also don't see "no value" in AI art. I think it has less value than art created by humans, but I don't think it has no value. It is still an impressive show of machine learning.

The question is not so much that the technology will be exploited, or that there will be ethical concerns, because it already is. My contention is that art, even bad art, has a principle of human communication tied to it. You can, in most cases, find the original artist(s), find other art produced by them, develop a following of them, notice a congruent style. In the case of AI art, it is always the output of an algorithm that has been learned over various materials that are completely unknown to the common consumer. There is almost certainly no congruent style or continuinty, and certainly no idea of human expression other than an amalgamation of its learning materials. It is difficult to describe such an ethereal concept. It is sort of like trying to explain the concept and significance of the human soul to someone who does not believe it exists. For me, the idea of a world in which it is impossible to determine if all the art or writing we consume is the product of even one humans spiritual input is one that is surreal. To the person who only cares for the output, they will see no distinction about an AI or a human producing art. If you treat art like fast food, something thats sole purpose is to be consumed and discarded, then well, you're not going to think much more of it than that. But there is something to be said of the process to get there, something that is immaterial, and that's why people will disagree stridently on the topic of AI art. All that said, I do believe AI art has its place, I do think it's an interesting technology, my contentions are only assuming the supplantation of traditional art, which will probably not happen for a long time.

To make it clear, the bill doesn't change anything about gender reassignment surgery. That still remains as it always has. It doesn't make it any easier for people to get hormonal or any gender affirming care. That still remains as it always has. People already could 'socially transition' at their own will. It's not like you can stop someone who does so. So there is no "medical" consequences of the bill that is proposed. That's honestly why a lot of the arguments made against it are irrelevant, and baffling. Because some don't truly understand what it actually affects. What the bill does do is make it easier for people to get a gender recognition certificate, which has already existed since 2004 in the UK. At best, this would maybe mean a few hundred people per year get access to a gender recognition certificate, when before they could not. All this allows them to do is change their legal gender, which can be reverted by their own will as well. I'm going to be honest, I don't see the life-altering decisions that getting a GRC is going to cause, regardless if the conditions are made more lenient. I've compared it to legally changing your name because that's pretty much the closest implication. 16 year olds (or even earlier!) could already unofficially self identify as the gender of their choosing, all this changes is you see that reflected in your birth certificate, marriage document, and death certificate. If you are a trans person who doesn't even care about changing this, then you don't even need to care about a GRC in the first place. In that regard, the bill is actually very inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, I would argue it doesn't actually help tackle the more serious problems trans people face in any meaningful way although I'm sure some would be happy with the bill passing, and yet it is still somehow controversial, requiring a far deal more scrutiny over six years than any other legal bill has required for consultation. The fact is that probably any pro-trans legislation, regardless of content, would be absolutely unacceptable to the Tories and the base they choose to tell untruths to, because trans people have been a convenient scapegoat for not only them, but in general in the UK.

Federalism has been talked about before, even Starmer has mentioned wanting to do it. The problem is mainly that the man is a politician that has very few true convictions and has already shown himself to be flip-flop on issues like the one this topic is about - Labour did have a section about gender recognition reform in their manifesto. Labour’s 2019 manifesto pledged to uphold transgender rights and to push for reforms to the Gender Recognition Act “to introduce self-declaration for transgender people”. He said the UK should be pushing for pro-trans laws as recently as a few months ago. ...And yet he is now arguing against that very thing. I cannot trust him. Believe it or not, some Tories actually supported federalism, even Boris Johnson back in 2015, less so around now. It never actually materalised into anything. I don't think an actual push towards federalism is going to happen. I'm not going to say that federalisation would be unpopular but there's always going to be a portion of the populace that would prefer to cut ties and support independence over it.

They are, but I wouldn't really call the SNP or the Scottish Greens a major UK party. Since they are only active in Scotland. I was more referring to Labour, Conservatives that are actually active in the rest of the UK. Some of their members in Scotland have voted for this bill but the majority of them elsewhere in the rest of the UK support the government motion to block it. In my opinion, it sorta feels like the SNP and the other Scottish branches of the parties are the only ones that have tried to do anything good for trans people. And even then they have had pushback within their own parties too. I'd be careful saying how much Scotland back independence. While I support it myself, the polling on independence has been pretty consistently hovering around 50%. This whole situation may potentially move the needle but it's hard to say. There's still a lot of unionists in Scotland. We asked about another referendum in the last few months and the UK supreme court shot it down. So I'm not really sure what our path should be going forward because it does seem like the Tories at least are content to never give us the ability for another referendum. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/supreme-court-judgment-on-scottish-independence-referendum/ I believe the SNP have pretty much ruled out any kind of Kosovo situation because they want to win independence democratically, and to not try to do anything that will harken back to 2017 Catalonia since it may be a sticking point for Spain considering voting on re-entry into the EU.

While I don't necessarily disagree with you, it's more that it's the way the law currently is. And let's be honest, if getting some minor changes to making it easier to get a GRC is so controversial that the UK government is unilaterally blocking the bill over it, then any attempts to remove gender from legal documents would make them absolutely flip their shit. It's not going to happen.

It's mainly to change your gender on legal documents. Having a gender recognition certificate is required for your gender to be changed on your birth certificate, any marriage or civil union documents, and your death certificate. Basically, it's like legally changing your name, which trans people also often do at the same time. I'm not trans myself but I can imagine that being legally accepted with your appropriate gender can give some peace of mind as well as accurately representing yourself on legal documents. I can see why a trans person would consider that important.

I know UK politics isn't often mentioned here but the situation that's happened over the past month or so has been nothing short of a farce. The Scottish government, in combination of not just SNP politicians but members from each party in Scotland, passed a gender recognition reform bill shortly before Christmas, in which it would make it easier for people to acquire a gender recognition certificate (GRC). https://www.parliament.scot/bills-and-laws/bills/gender-recognition-reform-scotland-bill In reality, this bill changes very little about the existing process. The three main points is these - that it lowers the age needed from 18 to 16. In Scotland you have more rights when you are 16 as you are able to legally change your name, marry, age of consent, have a provisional driving license, et cetera. This brings this in line with that. The second is that it reduces the amount of time that you need to "present" as your desired gender (socially transitioning) from 2 years to 3 months. And the last part, commonly referred to as "self-id", is that you would no longer need a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. The problem with the latter is that often specialists are required to be able to do such a diagnosis, and the NHS is under a lot of strain currently that means that it will take months (or even years) for people to get such a diagnosis currently, as well as generally being an involved and invasive process. The "self-id" legislation has already been implemented in several countries, beginning with Argentina in 2012. You would think this bill, which has been in consultation for around six years before being introduced, is not really doing much other than making life a bit easier for trans people who want to acquire a GRC... Well, the UK government has decided to block the legislation using the section 35 of the devolved Scottish parliament. Section 35 has never been invoked since the Scottish parliament's creation in 1998, so not for 25 years. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64288757 Basically, the Tories have managed to completely prove the SNP's arguments correct. Even if you hate the SNP, this move pretty much cements that they don't care about Scottish representative democracy, devolution is basically a joke and the so-called "union of equals" is questionable indeed. Now the precedent has been set for using section 35, there would be nothing preventing it from being used in any other situation, even if you disagree with this law. Since Scotland is meant to have its own devolved parliament and laws, this flies in the face of that, and is being invoked over a honestly rather trivial piece of legislation which all it does is make life a little easier for trans people. And comments from the leading opposition party show that Labour are not much better on the issue - and would most likely have done the same thing if they were the party in power currently. The UK is sort of notorious for being anti-trans/TERF in nature and this just proves that they seem to have an influence over the major parties in the UK. The issue is that this bill happens to be pro-trans at all, rather than the contents of what it actually does. https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1614918595548520448 It looks like the law will be going to court, but I just wanted to rant on the current situation. Some people have said this may inflame the discussion for Scottish independence (just last month as well the UK supreme court slapped down an attempt for holding a new Scottish independence referendum), but I am just very sad right now.

you really don't seem to understand what asexuality is asexuality is not just "one thing" other than a lack of sexual attraction. this is not the same as libido. to lift an explanation I've heard elsewhere. "Sexual attraction is a feeling of desire towards a specific person to have sex with them. Libido is a need for sexual release. An asexual with high libido has never experienced sexual attraction to any specific person but they often feel the need to release themselves if you get what I mean. A person who is sexual with low libido experiences sexual attraction towards people but rarely feels the need to get off." asexuality by most definitions is said to exist on a spectrum of its own. some (maybe even most tbh) asexuals still watch porn or masturbate because it's pleasurable. that's because it's a libido thing. some asexuals are so sex-repulsed to the point where talking or thinking about sex is uncomfortable for them, nevermind doing the act themselves. some asexuals are not really sex-repulsed, but just do it so they can please their partner. they may not feel anything about the sex acts. it's a giving thing, for them. and thus Jotari can absolutely be an asexual and still give sexual needs to their partner.

neither is it for me really, i was more just suggesting that being asexual has its own problems that may not be considered. we as humans tend to crave social acceptance to some degree and trying to describe asexuality to someone who doesnt understand it is not a fun experience. I'd prefer not to be a pariah if i could help it. nor would being asexual necessarily fix any of your problems with libido since many asexual people still have that including myself, they just struggle to have sexual attraction. while we are wishing, i'd rather have the ability to turn on/off libido at will as a human, sounds like a better superpower.

being asexual means you experience a lack of sexual attraction to varying degrees - it does not necessarily mean you are not ever horny or aroused. what you are describing is more like sex drive/libido. unless you're specifically an aroace that doesn't even want a romantic relationship, I don't find asexuality on its own very desirable. 1% of the population, probably less, would even qualify in the first place. a good sexual relationship is considered a basic prerequisite for most non-asexual people and thus you are immediately relegating any romantic relationships to 1% of the population. even besides that, you still have to live in a world where sex is both normalised and you are considered strange if you have little interest in it. many think that a relationship without sex is no relationship at all. to the point where asexuality is both considered a social abnormality, and in some cases, also shunned in LGBT/queer spaces because you could potentially be a cis heteroromantic asexual, which is considered "not queer enough." i'm not saying that sexual pressure cannot be a negative force but I do question people who wish they were asexual. source: am asexual

i don't even know how I had the game to begin with either but duty called and i answered

cutting off seaths tail for the moonlight greatsword with a magic build was peak fun, truly (it was ass) imo bloodborne is the "best" of the recent from games, at least from the standpoint of having a polished mostly linear experience. but sekiro goes hard on the depth of gameplay and is also super good, while elden ring goes anti-sekiro and goes full breadth gameplay style. some people are going to hate either of those depending on their preferences. if you hate open world games ER isnt really gonna change that maybe ill actually try armored core if thats their next game

I remember the original campaign difficulty just being downright unfair at points. some highlights being The Great Hunt, Nineveh and I'll Be Back. The former being especially egregious. I may have just been younger and bad at video games but some of it just seemed ridiculous and it had a reputation for being a unforgiving RTS on anything above Easy. I think it's pretty much confirmed that the AI cheats resources (and does on higher difficulties of AoE2 as well). And the pathfinding is just atrocious. I will say I do love the music to this day. It's simple, sure, but catchy and even though I do also love AoE2's soundtrack, most of the AoE1 songs are very nostalgic to me. "how dark, is this soul" ~ john dark souls i do feel somewhat like an insane person sometimes because I've seen many people act like the only bad thing about dark souls 1 second-half is Lost Izalith, even though there is a prevailing attitude that the quality drops after Anor Londo. But people rarely describe anything other than Lost Izalith. And the fact that the bosses are pushed as some kind of standard for the series when the average is Moonlight Butterfly and Gaping Dragon. Indeed people have a problem with later games and the bosses and compare them unfavourably to DS1, which I've never understood. I'm glad it rocketed From into mainline status but I can barely bring myself to play it anymore. I did pvp a lot back in the day but then I realised Souls PVP is bad, and dumb, after getting lag backstabbed while facing an opponent for the 500th time. I do enjoy DS3 considerably more although I have always conceded that it relied too highly on callbacks to DS1. But at least the game doesn't feel like I'm moving through an oil pool whenever I try to control my character. any plans for Eldong Ring? I would say Bloodborne as well but we all know that a pc port is never happening. (despite the many, many rough edges ER has I'm starting to consider it my favourite From game just because of the sheer variety compared to any of the other games, and a lot actually feels viable after recent patches)

It is worth noting that in the original post where we got the screenshots leak from 3 months ago, there was a mention that a FE4 remake was already in development, although nothing really more than just mentioning it exists. It would not really be that surprising to me if the FE4 remake is sometime in the future (although how close that would be is hard to tell).

One set of documents is listed as “Various classified TS/SCI documents,” a reference to top secret/sensitive compartmented information, one of the more closely-held forms of top-secret information. In addition to the four sets of top-secret papers, agents also took three sets of documents classified as secret, and three sets of papers classified as confidential — the lowest level of classification. So at least eleven counts of at least classified documents according to WaPo. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/12/trump-warrant-release/

I'm not 100% sure I follow but I would say the phrase "you cannot be X and be a Christian" is implying that you cannot be a Christian because X is prohibited in the religious text or tenets of that religion. Even if people agree that murder is bad for non-religious reasons that particular phrase is specifically calling into consideration the prohibition of X in Christianity. (and of course they think abortion = murder, which is why they say it)

I don't think you've been looking very hard. I'm not saying that it is the only argument, since I have seen both pro-choice Christians or religious people, and pro-life non-religious people, but many times when people open their mouths to justify their pro-life position, they will talk about God. And I have also seen pro-life people remark that on seeing the aforementioned pro-choice Christian say, many times, "you cannot be pro-choice and a Christian." Anyone who says the above is basically making it very clear that religiosity is their sole reason for their position. And if you haven't seen that... well, I don't know what to say, because I have. I would also say so, but the truth is the Bible mentions virtually nothing about abortion directly, either favourably or unfavourably, and this is maybe the only passage that talks about anything similar. Trying to use it either way on abortion seems pretty inconclusive.

If you want to know how much Republican states actually care about "exceptions," there was this story out of Ohio: https://www.businessinsider.com/10-year-old-girl-travel-out-state-ohio-restricts-abortion-2022-7

Liberals never make a big deal about state legislation in the same way Republicans do. It's a common talking point for them. Just because some liberal state law gets passed doesn't invalidate that states rights arguments have primarily been used historically to justify backwards views lol. A lot of the problems in America stem from the fact that states can vary wildly in their laws, over federal laws. It's more that it is an impasse. Because it becomes a philosophical or moral question. There is simply no argument that can conclusively be brought to prove to someone who morally thinks that abortion is murder that life does not begin until X week. It's mostly because the US is notorious for any kind of child support spending compared to any similar country. Perhaps pro-life positions would carry more weight if the people that hold them actually want to improve the lives of struggling parents. Like in Poland, abortion is banned, which is unusual for a European country, but at least they actually have some childcare support programmes (they aren't in above graph but they recently had a new childcare programme where they would pay families for having children) Poland are governed by a right-wing populist party but at least I can see the consistency with them wanting to provide for people who do go through with having children. Yes, and the far-right believe it to be true because external malicious forces are making the white birth rate go down while other races are "planted" in the US. It is true that the race demographics are shifting in America, but it's not for the nefarious reasons the far-right think it is. Nor does it really matter.

The invocation of "states rights" has always been used by conservatives to justify a certain type of behaviour. It is the last gasp of conservatism trying to desperately cling on to old outdated ideas as they realise they have become politically unfeasible when they are federally settled. Most notably with racial segregation laws, the same states rights arguments came up.

the stuff mentioned makes me think that this game is a do-over of the Wii FE that was eventually canned. Mainly because it was Kusakihara's first director role, and he is assumedly the director of this game as well after being it for Echoes and Three Houses. Because the plans for that Wii game were that it would have open exploration of towns just from the small amount of concept details that we got.

https://imgur.com/a/HGYtCpt hmm edit: to clarify, this is from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/vcgblq/the_new_mainline_fire_emblem_leak_is_real/ supposedly, a fe4 remake is being developed at the same time, and the screenshots are old

Self defense has always been a poor justification for owning a firearm. A house that has a firearm in it is actually less safe. Homicides, accidental deaths or suicides. If people want to use them for hunting or for recreational purposes, at least there is no flimsy reasoning for that. But owning a gun for self defense is like taking Ivermectin for covid-19 and thinking you are safe. Speak to any European socialist and they'll tell you that firearms just seem to get the proletariat murdered (or used in suicides, which is often understated) in the US. Leftists in the US are generally in favour of gun ownership even if they'll gesture at gun control. And yes, in that regard I am anti gun ownership, completely. This shooting and the one at Sandy Hook remind of Dunblane - and how handguns were rather swiftly restricted for UK citizens shortly after, which was a better solution than anything I've seen the US come up in the past 30 years. The problem is that a ban is simply unfeasible and so the discussion is not even worth having because there are more guns in circulation than people in the US, much less a majority of people wanting to give up their toys to possibly value human life. Also, feeling you have to own a firearm is not exactly an indication of a stable society and if that's the case the US shouldn't consider themselves that far above less developed states in South America and Africa.