The Factory Floor - 2017-02-02

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12:30 AM

47

Q: Hacking the universe

Imagine the whole universe is a simulation. This should include also the people living in the universe (so more Simulacron than Matrix). And now imagine there's a group of hackers who knows (or suspects) that they live in/are part of a simulation, and want to hack it from the inside. So they try ...

technology simulated-worlds

this maybe the most reasonable way to rationalize magic

Many narratives present magic as some variant accessing the base code of reality, without the extra complication of having it be a simulation within a larger "real" universe.

The Young Wizards series comes to mind.

1 hour later…

1:34 AM

so, any chance anyone is still around? I have a sort of idea of a question I want to ask, but might like to sandbox it

@DaaaahWhoosh I can hear you out

ah, great, thanks

so, I have this world I am building, set in the future, and I have been thinking it'd be interesting to make it a matriarchy

but something I didn't really consider is whether or not there are certain concepts baked into matriarchies

like, I went into it thinking it didn't matter if women or men were in charge, but the more I think about it the more I wonder if there's any evidence that might suggest that if women are in charge, certain things are likely to happen

That sounds like a historical research question.

@BESW yeah, so part of my concern is whether or not I should ask it on WB

Also, you might be interested in the various ways that societies divide ruling power between the genders.

1:42 AM

yeah, I mean that does sound generally interesting to me

The Iroquois Constitution, for instance, has male chiefs--but a great deal of power lies in their mothers.

yeah, see, that sort of thing seems like something I should start investigating. But I'm wondering if Worldbuilding SE would be a good place to raise such questions

I mean, I could find the answers on my own, but I think they could be useful to others

So far as we can tell the pre-contact Chamorro culture also had male chiefs, but they inherited their position through the female line--which was also the line of inheritance for possessions.

@BESW huh, that seems like it would never work

@DaaaahWhoosh Remember, many Stack Exchange sites have tried to provide general reference resources, and thus far it hasn't really worked out well. "Expert answers to expert questions" means solutions to problems, not general reference guides.

Journeyman Geek

1:46 AM

@BESW not really true

though I agree that the situations where that sorta community FAQ questions work well are rare.

@BESW I don't have to be the person writing the answers, just the person asking the questions

I think it's just a matter of phrasing. I've had this problem with WB, where I want to ask how things are so I can extrapolate, but it seems like it's more on-topic if I ask how it should be and then people give me real-world examples which they extrapolate from

I'm not sanguine about that kind of run-around, but then that's why I'm not active on the main wb.se site.

yeah, I've gotten stuck on most of the questions I want to ask. I guess that's why Andy's so laissez faire about scope

I will warn you that research--your own or others'--into societies with matriarchal dynamics? Gonna be rough to sort out what's true from what's filtered through the lens of the reporter/archaeologist.

@BESW hmm yeah, and then I probably have a lot of my own filters too

1:52 AM

Or you could just read Cold Comfort Farm. [grin]

Journeyman Geek

@DaaaahWhoosh wouldn't the real life examples be kinda organic in an answer?

@JourneymanGeek yeah, I mean either way that's what I'd want to get, I just don't exactly know how to ask for them without being off-topic

Journeyman Geek

@DaaaahWhoosh well, don't, least not directly

@BESW Sorry to intrude. But cultural anthropology is a better source about matriarchical societies. Unfortunately, there's a lot to slog through to find what you want @DaaaahWhoosh

Is it the sort of thing History would handle?

Journeyman Geek

1:57 AM

If someone posts a good answer, they will often reference things they know IMO

@a4android Suggesting Gibbons is a joke. Hence the grin.

Journeyman Geek

._.

WB is my no 5 site, repwise

How did that happen?

@BESW I considered that, but I don't think I could ask in a good way there. And it also occurred to me that the kind of data I could use might be found elsewhere in the animal kingdom

Suggesting Stella Gibbons is a good idea at any time. My comment was in reference to your earlier comment about where to do the research.

@a4android Ah. Anthropology has exactly the same troubles, of course.

2:00 AM

@BESW Of course, it's easy to drown in the deluge of information. Most of which will be irrelevant.

I mean, the cultural filters of dominant anthropology models make it hard to figure out what's really going on when they analyse epistemologies unlike their own.

Goodness knows, the local culture in my area has a hard time even examining itself because there are no academic models designed to accommodate it. Most of Oceania is what's called "undertheorised."

We have to either re-invent the wheel or cram observations into models that aren't shaped right for them.

@BESW The best anthropologists try to compensate for that and sometimes they succeed or almost succeed. When there's more time I'd love to chat about cultural viewpoints and their epistemologies. Usually when I drop it into chat there's no-one here. Love to stay, but sorry, guys, I have to go, lunch time calls.

Oh, yes, some areas of anthropology are recently aware of the problems, but there's a heckuvalotta inertia to overcome.

In part because even as new work sometimes makes efforts to overcome epistemological bias, old work is still taken at face value by most.

Worldbuilding Meta

1

Q: Why do you need reputation to suggest a tag synonym, but not to create a wiki?

When creating a tag wiki, you do not need any reputation or experience with the tag. My interpretation is that if every user who wanted to contribute needed to be experienced, no one would suggest wikis. To make sure they're appropriate, wikis are peer-reviewed, of course, but generally, if you u...

discussion feature-request tags tag-synonyms

2:23 AM

sometimes I wish I could text-search physical books

there was a suggestion in either Red Mars or Green Mars that Russia was at one point a sort of matriarchy, but I will never again be able to find the text

and it seems like it was abstract enough to not be well-documented on the Internet

4 hours later…

5:57 AM

@DaaaahWhoosh why not look for an ebook?

1 hour later…

7:12 AM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

I am having trouble coming up with some back story for (and world to support) the setting I want. I would like to place a lot of the focus onboard an old, creaky, leaky space station, which is forgotten or mostly not cared about, drifting around some moon/planet, with a single lonely, weary astro...

5 hours later…

12:00 PM

@DaaaahWhoosh Try you-books.com/book/K-S-Robinson/Red-Mars It is searchable. Seems to suggest a pre-Bolshevik Revolution matriarchy. Just some old-fashioned googling.

2 hours later…

2:13 PM

@a4android oh, huh, yeah I guess that works. Didn't think to actually search for a full-text of the book

Worldbuilding Meta

2:46 PM

1

Q: Community Promotion Ads - 2017

It is a bit late into this new year, being that we're already in the second month, but we are now cycling the Community Promotion Ads for 2017! What are Community Promotion Ads? Community Promotion Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will show up on the main site, in the right sidebar....

discussion community-ads

ooh, community promotion ads

I wonder if I should try to make one this year

I'm actually not much a fan of the current Worldbuilding ad on SFF

I mean, it's pretty good, it's just not the direction I would want to go in

is there a right way to propose a new ad for WB? Should I just post it in SFF's meta?

3:09 PM

Or WB meta maybe?

How's this for a moto for one to go on SFF: Tired of playing in other peoples universes? It's time to build your own. Worldbuilding.SE

yeah, that does sound like a good motto, I can't think of a good image for it though

I have in mind a picture of a couple astronauts looking at the destroyed remains of a planet, with the motto "Don't panic. We can make a new one. Worldbuilding.SE"

Nice

I do like that

For mine I can see a split picture; on one side is an assembly line or a row of cubicles with people cranking out identical boring trees, one after another. On the other side a single person is building a whole beautiful forest of their own.

Morning wubbers

Sup

Sometimes world builders are obnoxious...

3:19 PM

@AndyD273 I can't tell if that's a Tolkien reference or not

but I'm going to assume it is

@DaaaahWhoosh I'm actually trying to figure out what reference that could be...

Leaf by Niggle

huh?

@James It's the human ones. All those emotions and opinions getting in the way of normal opperation

Huh, haven't read that one

Actually in this case the human should have kicked in and extrapolated.

3:23 PM

The tables have turned

@AndyD273 I never thought this day would come

but yeah, you should read it. It's interesting

Check out the comments on this:

3

Q: Want to contribute a question to the podcast (or try to stump the panel)?

One thing we are considering adding to the podcast is a sort of ask the group a question segment. The idea would be that you, the community, pose questions to us, the panel, and we try to answer them on the podcast. With our current technology set we are not equipped to do this live (its not a ...

discussion featured podcast

@AndyD273 I like that text.

@MonicaCellio TY :)

Hola Monica

3:25 PM

I can share the background image that I used for the new blog ad, if people want to use that base. It's on my computer at home and I'm at work, so there'll be a delay.

@DaaaahWhoosh Looks pretty short. I'll def check it out

I was also noodling around with an external ad based on that; I'll post it in here tonight.

We can tune external ads. We definitely want one for SF&F and one for RPG (maybe others); they don't have to be the same.

@DaaaahWhoosh heh, that's good too. I can't help with art for that one, sorry.

@MonicaCellio that's part of the reason I want a new ad, I want to see if I can draw it

@James hi.

@DaaaahWhoosh ooh, nice! But yes, we should replace our external ads. We can use the site art because we're advertising the site, but we can also make completely new things. Hand-drawn Daaaaawhoosh art would be great!

@MonicaCellio would that be Dwart?

3:30 PM

facepalm

@James sure! And it's easier than trying to get the correct number of 'a's. :-)

Dwart. Dwart. Gotta get us some Dwart. Or is it dwart? No, I think Dwart. Yeah, we can work with this.

@MonicaCellio The more A's the better. It makes it much whooshier when it finally comes.

@MonicaCellio I haaaave no ideaaaa whaaaaat you're taaaalking aaaabout

oh no, I actually did get the number wrong for one of them...

@DaaaahWhoosh aaaaaand why aaaaaare we oooooonly taaaaaalking aaaaaaboooooout oooooone voooooowel? Poooooooooooor little oooooo!

ooooh noooooooooooo!

3:43 PM

Someone on a sugar-rush by any chance?

Howdy

user image

6

(rough sketch of my idea)

Dang, pictures can't be starred...

@TrEs-2b o/

@Pᴇᴛᴇ yeah they can

3:48 PM

Well, the link can, but the photo won't appear in the gallery of stars....

oh, yeah true

sort of a link gamble

except zelda isn't there to comfort you if you lose

ba dum tsssss

@DaaaahWhoosh I like!

What are the dimensions for the ads?

@AndyD273 length and width. No depth nor time

hello

3:53 PM

@Innovine hello

@DaaaahWhoosh That simplifies things, though time would actually be useful.

@Pᴇᴛᴇ Unfortunately not..

@AndyD273 300x250px, or double that for the high-DPI images. The specs are in the post.

Journeyman Geek

@Pᴇᴛᴇ you mean, stars don't onebox ;)

@DaaaahWhoosh I feel like there needs to be a speech bubble from one of the astronauts saying: "What did you do?!" or "This is why we can't have nice things" or "crap" or "I wonder if my stamp collection survived"

3:57 PM

@James my current preference is 'whoops'.

"Dang, it slipped."

Caption: "There's another question VTC'd...."

@Pᴇᴛᴇ Hehe

I guess just putting the "Don't worry, we can build another one." inside the speech bubble would work too

(or maybe there should be no speech bubble because it would take up too much image space, but that's probably beyond the scope of the current discussion)

I think the thing I dislike most about comic books is the speech bubbles. There are so many good pictures of cool stuff happening, and some random out-of-context speech bubble thrown right in the middle of it all

internal monologues ftw

4:18 PM

@DaaaahWhoosh I put up last year's ad earlier today. Feel free to change it.

Or just action and meaningful looks. Its something I liked about the "Lone Wolf" series, pages and pages of no dialogue.

@DaaaahWhoosh I think my preference is profanity...but that wouldn't be appropriate for public consumption

@HDE226868 can we keep that one as an option, and present an alternative in a separate answer?

@James explosm.net/comics/2131

Man I haven't read cyanide and happiness in years

I did pick up their card game though

I picked up "Exploding kittens" when it was on Kickstarter. Huge amount of fun.

4:26 PM

@DaaaahWhoosh I think so. It's worth a shot.

@Pᴇᴛᴇ Yeah thats not a bad one either. Joking hazard is the one I was talking about

You basically create 3 panel C&H comic strips with single panel cards

@DaaaahWhoosh @HDE226868 I'm really not a fan of running last year's ad. We got negative feedback on the text last year. Let's at least put up a placeholder using the site art (that ad I have sitting at home, or someone else can make one) now, and then when the Dwart is ready we can post that instead.

DWART!

...its fun to say

@MonicaCellio Okay, sure. That's fine with me.

@HDE226868 I hadn't noticed that last year's ad already has 4 votes there this year. Hmm.

(I'm sorry that I completely forgot, before I left home this morning, that community ads were coming today. I'd've stashed my draft in this chat room for folks to consider.)

4:47 PM

We need a podcast ad...

5:09 PM

Good point. Linking to the Youtube page with all of them, I presume.

5:28 PM

Yeah thats what I was thinking

2 hours later…

7:23 PM

do we currently have any ads running on RPGSE?

oh, looks like we do. Maybe I'll try to make up a design for them too

8:11 PM

@DaaaahWhoosh "Dungeons feeling boring and stale? You need to build a new one. WorldBuilders.SE"

Over a picture of a dungeon filled with broken chests and decapitated skeletons.

yep, sounds good to me

8:31 PM

@AndyD273 "There are big rats in my basement" with a picture of an adventurer facepalming himself.

Bard's Tale - Chapter 01-02 - Rat-Slayer

lol

exactly

9:25 PM

Pop quiz: How many nerds does it take to define magic?

@James N+1, where "N" is the current number of nerds on hand.

@James 42

...those are both good answers

I think Nex's is more of a geek answer

@DaaaahWhoosh Ooooh, but now we get to define the difference between "Geek" and "Nerds!"

I think it goes something like this:

"Geeks" like fandoms, "Nerds" like STEM, an "Dorks" are the ones who know the difference.

9:28 PM

oh, wait, maybe I have that backwards, then

Yeah, so yours would be the geek answer, mine would be the nerd answer, I suppose?

either way, you're also a dork

Guilty. As. Charged.

@James Trick question; how dense is the person that I'm explaining it to?

@AndyD273 985 kg/m³

9:31 PM

@NexTerren Which body part? Or is that an average? I need exact measurments.

In order to get the dosage right

@AndyD273 I am having trouble figuring out the density of a human body.

The math is hard and I am lazy

Well, it'll be less than perfect, but we'll just round it to 2 tabs.

@AndyD273 Average, I'm afraid. To measure individual parts, I'll need a sample size of 300, and a waiver on basic human morality. And a place to perform my measurements. I was thinking Auschwitz?

plus I would need to measure the circumference of my cranium

zerobio.com/central/density_human_body.pdf

Give me a couple tabs of LSD and 5 minutes and we should be all set.

9:34 PM

@AndyD273 And then there were 2

"Whoa, so like, magic is the untapped spirit of the universe man. It's all so clear now man."

As for an actual definition, I'd go with something like "Magic is comprised of forces that are not explainable by the laws of physics as we currently understand them."

"why would you disassemble a macguffin and spread out the parts?" could I make that work as a question?

@Nzall Seems really broad just by that title

I hope that there would be more details than that?

yeah, there are.

If not, my answer is "to force the hero to have to go on more quests to find all the pieces"

Mithrandir24601

9:41 PM

Now, this is where I come in and say (for the third time) that I have a completely different definition of magic to @AndyD273

so it's an interstellar society that sent out nanotech over interstellar distances

and where they hit a planet, they have some form of uplifting for that planet

one of those planets is an alternate earth

@Mithrandir24601 I was not addressing you. But you can state your definition formally. Maybe we can find some common ground.

@Nzall With you so far

Mithrandir24601

@AndyD273 I don't think we'll ever find common ground on what magic is :P

The story I'm currently working with is that representatives from these planets have formed an alliance to the origin point of that beam

Mithrandir24601

(not that it actually matters)

9:43 PM

@Mithrandir24601 Don't be a chicken, I'm actually curious to hear your definition, just so I have an alternative perspective anyway

and there they find that their uplifting aid is part of the macguffin

or something like that, I haven't quite worked out what the macguffin itself is

but I want to do something different for the macguffin than the traditional superpowerful weapon or trove of knowledge

@Nzall So your question is why would the aliens spread it around, or why would the humans?

yeah, the aliens

the humans are just one of the races that got uplifted

Mithrandir24601

Hmmm... Magic is: 'a subset of the things that are not nature' (nature in the natural/supernatural sense), so in other words, magic is 'a subset of the supernatural'

and a secret society of these races has found where the beams come from

and have sent an expedition there

9:46 PM

Oh, to uplift as many civilizations as possible? They don't want to be alone? It was an unintended consequence of something else they were doing?

Actually, I was more thinking that the macguffin they sent out was a map

Maybe they didn't think there were any other civilizations, and the beam was supposed to act something like radar

Mithrandir24601

My disagreement really lies in your "as we currently understand [the laws of physics]" but we're both entitled to define what we mean by magic differently

so each of the races has a part of the map in their uplift

so the first book would be about finding out about the map, and then the rest of the series would involve tracking down the Xes on that map so to speak

@Mithrandir24601 I guess with my definition, and where it differs from yours, is that there is no distinction between natural and supernatural

@Nzall Do you think the originator race knew where all the other civilizations were before they sent it out?

You might do better to explain it as triangulation instead of as a map

Mithrandir24601

9:50 PM

Yeah, sounds about right

An idea I currently have is that each of the uplifted races, as part of the uplift, got a powerful AI that guides progress for each race

If you are standing in a field in the dark and shine a laser pointer around, I'll see a quick flash of light, but not know how far out in the field you are. Now bob is a quarter way around the field, and he sees the flash too. If we plot out the field and draw a line from where I was standing toward the flash, and where bob was standing toward the flash, where they cross is where you're standing...

yeah, that's the idea

at least for where the uplifting comes from

but the map itself is not part of those uplifting beams

like, the map can be found at the place where those beams originated, but the races themselves don't have the map

To answer your initial question, as is the question is pretty broad, and seems like it's looking for plot advice, which is something that is generally frowned on as a question...

yeah, that's my main issue

Problem is that you need to find a balance between making it general enough so it's not applicable to a single storyline, but also not making it too general, because then it's too broad

9:55 PM

But the good news is that you seem to be most of the way there, so once you decide on a few points, OR figure out how to ask questions to resolve those small issues then the big one will fall into place

yeah, indeed

I got 3 issues right now

1. What's my macguffin and how can I make it feel like more than just a plot coupon?

2. balancing the different characters and how useful they are versus their role

it seems strange to me that you can have a story about a maguffin without knowing what that maguffin is.

@Mithrandir24601 I'm kinda having to trouble figuring how to separate the natural and supernatural... Like if natural is everything we see and can test with science, what does the supernatural encompass?

though I guess that could be your answer, no one knows what it is, that's why they have to find it

@DaaaahWhoosh That's because the story isn't about the macguffin, but about the world

9:59 PM

@DaaaahWhoosh You cant handle the truth! (of the Macguffin)

now I'm hungry for muffins

Actually, it's usually the case that the Macguffin just doesn't matter, it's just the thing that starts the story...

yes, indeed

@DaaaahWhoosh I could go for a blueberry one with the crumbly stuff on top

@AndyD273 Freaking first cause...

@James you know, maybe we're not that different after all

@AndyD273 but that's not very good storytelling, in most cases

10:01 PM

I definitely don't want the macguffin to just be something like you'd find in one of the Librarian movies, where you can replace the spear of destiny with something like the fork of despair or the scalpel of mending

The unmoved mover (Ancient Greek: ὃ οὐ κινούμενος κινεῖ, ho ou kinoúmenos kineî, "that which moves without being moved") or prime mover (Latin: primum movens) is a henotheistic concept advanced by Aristotle, a polytheist, as a primary cause or "mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the "unmoved mover" moves other things, but is not itself moved by any prior action. In Book 12 (Greek "Λ") of his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes the unmoved mover as being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: itself contemplating. He equates...

I'm more looking for something closer to what Indiana Jones does

like, the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail both were more than just something to get the plot moving

Except the Ark made the events of the movie entirely unnecessary....

hehe, and if Indy hasn't been in that movie, it would have turned out exactly the same...

@AndyD273 Beat you to it

:D

10:03 PM

Dangit

@DaaaahWhoosh Shh...dont tell anyone

The Ark of the Covenant killed all those nazis and the Holy Grail did more than just being something Indy was looking for

Actually... Does Indy matter to any of the movies?

Yeah but doesnt the librarian actually use the spear to fight whoever the villain was in that movie? Its basically the same thing.

(I only saw it once)

ah, okay, I have to admit that I hadn't seen that one myself either

I'm talking more about wanting to avoid a macguffin that's just there to be found

10:05 PM

So the Macguffin is whatever starts the uplift

Well you can always make it a personal item or a family heirloom that turns out to be a bigger deal

I still think you could probably get away with a mystery maguffin. Where figuring out what it is and why it's there is half the battle

yeah, at least in the first book

so the first book is about the uplift, and finding what started it

Have you read Scott Sigler's infected series?

Exactly, there has to be an event to kick things off...otherwise people just...farm and stuff. Peacetime is really really boring.

10:07 PM

Aliens send a probe that finds earth, starts dropping probes that contain nano stuff, and horror happens

if that first book turns out well, the rest of the series would use information found at the origin point of the uplifting to have a further macguffin hunt

I don't read horror

Yous could be something similar, except instead of horror it would be awesome happens

yeah, that's more or less what I'm talking about

so there's an initial maguffin, which is the source. And then there is a follow-up maguffin

That works

10:09 PM

The story starts with a beam depositing nanotech on Earth

perhaps a... meta-guffin

actually, that happens 3000 years or so before the story proper

Hmm, part of the mystery is how the beam deposits stuff

Dang it, I gotta go. Sounds interesting Nzall, look forward to the eventual questions :)

o/

I think the kinds of maguffins I dislike most are the ones where the path to them doesn't make sense

@AndyD273 o/

like, the National Treasure movies. There's no point to make it that hard or that easy to find the treasure.

either don't write it down at all, or don't write it on random monuments where anyone could find it

I think the good maguffins are the ones you don't know about, where the journey involves sifting through data that was once complete, but has been lost or destroyed along the way

it's not so much a trail of clues as it is a series of holes you need to fill in one at a time

but I don't know, I'm also evacuating the chat

(good luck)

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Feb '172

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