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[Eschar]

Here's a slightly different question: given the uneasiness the OP appears to harbor considering the violent things we do in DF, would playing DF be more or less ethical than Doom?

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Neither is any more or less ethical than the other. They're both computer games with the "violent activities" being just the shifting around of numbers.

[Eschar]

Neither is any more or less ethical than the other. They're both computer games with the "violent activities" being just the shifting around of numbers.

That's about the games themselves, as software, rather than playing the games.
...ah, I see I forgot to specify that in my post. I apologize.

[Bumber]

Is reviving dead threads ethical?

[KittyTac]

Should I ask Toady to lock this thread so it dies forever?

[Egan_BW]

That is not dead which may eternal lie.

[Pvt. Pirate]

Is reviving dead threads ethical?

erm, well it's not...

Should I ask Toady to lock this thread so it dies forever?

Please do so!

[Rolan7]

Reviving dead threads is ethical as long as the OP is still around, and people want to discuss the topic
OP can lock the topic when they come back (they were active on the 17th).  I'm curious what they think about this.

[KittyTac]

I messaged Toady already. Let's hope this deservedly dies forever.

[Pvt. Pirate]

I messaged Toady already. Let's hope this deservedly dies forever.

*starts forging a +Platin Mace+ for Toady to kill the thread*

[bloop_bleep]

*starts forging a +Platin Mace+ for Toady to kill the thread*

Fool! The Toad's Mighty Banhammer is far stronger than any which can be forged by mere mortals.

[Pvt. Pirate]

*starts forging a +Platin Mace+ for Toady to kill the thread*

Fool! The Toad's Mighty Banhammer is far stronger than any which can be forged by mere mortals.

so my strange mood was futile?! *goes stark raging mad*

[Untrustedlife]

About bacteria being as intelligent as dwarf fortress dwarves.
They are not.
Bacteria move via something called "run and tumble" which is a ridiculously simple algorithm to write in code. Dwarves are smarter then bacteria because they can pathfind, bacteria actually cant, and  because for example they track memories while a bacteria doesn't, even at that simplistic a level, however a dwarf is in NO WAY as intelligent or complex as the simplest multcellular organism, which required a huge supercomputer with 400 computers to simulate the entire nervous system of (and they pulled it off, look it up, but still 400 computers)

And before you say :
"false bacteria are complex as heck"
complexity ~= intelligence.And while bacteria may be more complex then dwarves, they are not nearly as intelligent as dwarves.

But saying dwarves in dwarf fortress are less intelligent then bacteria is absolute nonsense.

-Software Developer here, also one of the guys programming thrive (game about literally playing as a single celled organism and yes, single celled organisms are impressively complex and interesting and i love this stuff)

And no, bacteria dont even think, they are just a bag made up of a cell wall, full of cytoplasm, dna, and proteins that swims towards higher concentrations of chemicals they need.


Also, about dwarf fortress:
It used to be that thoughts were just moving one number around, but now each event that happens to a dwarf moves several numbers around, each number corresponding to a specific emotion, and each can cause things to change in the dwarves state (are they tantruming, are they sulking, do tehy want to pray etc. )  which is more like a really-really basic neural network then just "adding a single number and subtracting a single number" (and as i said it s a VERY basic thing that i s similar to a neural network but it is not a neural network, a neural network is obviously more complex) )

Also, neurons, really are in fact just a bunch of numbers that flip when it hits a certain point, you can read more about neural networks and artificial neurons here:
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~bolo/shipyard/neural/local.html

You can read about actual neurons here:
https://www.psychologynoteshq.com/neurons-what-are-they-and-how-do-they-work/

You can read about the "Run and tumble' algorithm here:
It is closer to a random walk then any thing that could be considered smart.
http://www.mit.edu/~kardar/teaching/projects/chemotaxis(AndreaSchmidt)/finding_food.htm

Anyway, done with my rant.

Also,
This argument itself may become important eventually as AI in video games gets more complex (its an argument similar to the one where: is it ethical to kill holodeck characters if we had a holodeck, if they were handled by an AI even close to human level in terms of intelligence) Now is not the time for this kind of argument we really arn't there yet, we have nothing that close to being actually "conscious" (even though humans brains are just a bunch of neurons and chemicals interacting with each other and i personally do not believe "consciousness" is something on its own but a sum of neurons+chemicals, (there is no "supernatural consciousness" its a bollocks unscientific idea) .

But, lets say we did, ill use the c-elegans simulation as an example (remember the 400 computers from earlier, yeah that one) i believe it is unethical to torture the simulated c-elegans because they were fully simulating all its processes, including its nervous system, and in that case i believe it deserves the rights of any other c-elegans, which aren't many. If we expanded this to say, the mind of a dwarf in a theoretical future where we can afford that kind of computer power, it would also be unethical to torture that dwarf.
But i'm done now.

C elegans:
http://airesearch.com/ai-blog/is-this-c-elegans-worm-simulation-alive/


Note: It may have been less then 400 computers actually, (40 or 20 instead maybe the 400 may have been a different simulation) but my point still stands, if someone can get that data i would appreciate it as i dont want to misinform people but if it was less computers it would simply strengthen my argument

[Dozebôm Lolumzalěs]

This quote-replying to 100 individual sentences in another person's post makes me feel like I'm 13 again and the Internet is all fresh and new.

By the way, I think that the cause of this tendency is that internet conversations can be more non-linear/non-sequential. There's still a back-and-forth element, but because you can send a large amount of information in one go, you can carry out multiple adjacent discussions in one post. It's sort of like exploring a tree - verbal discussions have to travel up one branch, then go back down perhaps, then up another. Internet discussions can take the cross-section of the tree and go upward.

That might not be a good thing, though, since verbal discussions don't actually tend to resemble internet discussions except that [123] [456] looks like [1][4][2][5][3][6]. In practice, productive discussions tend to pull branches together and talk more generally, only going into specifics when necessary. This means that both participants have a constantly-updated bigger picture. Without verbal constraints, internet discussions don't have the need to bundle branches, and so they are more likely to lose sight of the bigger picture. (Not that this doesn't happen in verbal discussions anyway, but it's less common when you can only talk about one bundle at a time and you have many subtopics to discuss.)

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Oh for the love of Armok, can we PLEASE just let this thread rot?