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[Eric Blank]

Can't. That's an unforgivable act of nerdism.

We're all nerds here.

[MaxTheFox]

I play adventure mode only and usually use it as a virtual punching bag for my anger issues. Does that count?

[dragdeler]

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[Yoink]

But is it a good idea?

[dragdeler]

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[Jopax]

NEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRDSSSSSSSSSSSSS

*ahem*

That is all, good day.

[Hanslanda]

*doesn't use YouTube or Twitch, plays only single player offline games by himself and also spends significant amounts of time  outside *

... is being not a nerd the new being a nerd?

You play Dwarf Fortress... How can you claim not to be a nerd?

Does he, though? There's a lot of people here just for lower boards and Forum Games/Roleplaying. S'like saying the janitor at a fitness center is just another swolemate.

I haven't in... Several months. And usually it's just Arena or Adventure mode. I've started a couple forts but can't get into them because I don't minecarts or new stuff well.

Same with Urist McStation. Too much new stuff.

[Yoink]

Bloody hell, I just slept in way too late and had this insanely detailed dream. I don't remember all that much of it but there was a lot going on, all sorts of crazy plotlines and themes.
On the one hand I'm annoyed about sleeping in, but... I dunno wtf just went on in my brain but it sure was exciting.

[MaxTheFox]

So, a WTF for me is people thinking that killing off dwarves or whatever in DF or going on a world-cleansing rampage in that same game is actually unethical. It's literally just a game. Single-player games are exempt from ethics or morality unless you are roleplaying or something.

[Kagus]

Anyone remember way back in the day with Creatures, they tried to stir up some controversy due to the code for norns purportedly being set up so they could "understand" pain and suffering, and therefore whether it was defensible to let people just mess around with them as they wished?

So, naturally, people had to get together and devise the most effective methods of torturing norns and terrorizing them with as much trauma as possible.

[MaxTheFox]

In almost all cases, those mechanics in games are just a number, rather than complex interactions of hormones as in real, living beings. Saying that those entities can feel pain is like writing "Pain: 0" into a text editor and then adding a 1 to it so it's "Pain: 10". Only a fool would think that the text editor actually feels pain from you doing so.

[Reelya]

https://www.vox.com/2014/4/23/5643418/this-guy-thinks-killing-video-game-characters-is-immoral

Brian Tomasik ... has become interested in the question of what moral standing, if any, we should give to non-player characters in video games (NPCs). He argues that, while NPCs do not have anywhere near the mental complexity of animals, the difference is one of degree rather than kind, and we should care at least a tiny amount about their suffering, especially as they grow more complex. We spoke on Gchat this past Tuesday. An edited and condensed transcript follows.

This guy doesn't understand how computer games work. Until we actually start implanting simulated brains in the NPCs, it is a difference of kind, not degree. A marionette is not a living creature. Asking whether current NPCs are at all sentient is basically asking whether basic algebra is sentient, so is it ethical to do maths puzzles?

Really, this thinking is just riddled with dumb cognitive biases. People are worried that game NPCs will become sentient solely because they are human-shaped. But ... how many of them are concerned that say, the game itself, or the entire game console spontaneously evolves consciousness? After all, that's far more plausible than game NPCs doing so, because game NPCs are far simpler.

 it's just the old tendency to attribute human-like qualities to things which resemble humans.

[Kagus]

In almost all cases, those mechanics in games are just a number, rather than complex interactions of hormones as in real, living beings. Saying that those entities can feel pain is like writing "Pain: 0" into a text editor and then adding a 1 to it so it's "Pain: 10". Only a fool would think that the text editor actually feels pain from you doing so.

That said, the things did have something like 200 digital hormones they were programmed with and that could be messed with either environmentally or directly through the use of a chemical injector. And the production of which could be altered through genetic mutations.

The question was, at the time, at what point does a simulation resemble reality enough to be treated like it?


This was back in the 90's though, so their perception of reality was pretty messed up to begin with.

[Reelya]

We can worry about that later. People get confused because games are effectively very elaborate cardboard cut-outs of things. Let's start worrying when the humans have insides and stop being just an empty shell. A wooden beam in a game isn't like a wooden beam in the real world, it's an elongated empty box with nice paintwork. But the humans are no more complex, they're just more elaborately shaped empty boxes. A game human has the same sentience as an empty crate in the game.

a human cell has about 10^14 atoms. those atoms consist of protons, neutrons and electrons. The most complex game we have has significantly less data in it than a single cell.

[scriver]

Right now the only argument I will affect as valid is "killing npcs is immoral because it simulates killing real people".