This is gonna be the thread where we talk about stuff

2014 YEAR OF THE REBOOT
2014 YEAR OF THE REBOOT
2014 YEAR OF THE REBOOT

(we won't get to use this one for much longer o_o)

A merry MMXV to all, and to all a

good night

Fuck everything and everyone

I-i mean happy 1998

This is the year that the angels attack in NGE and that Marty McFly arrives in the future

Sounds like a wacky sitcom incoming to me

7:31 DragonFogel The premise is that magic exists, but Earth is in a magical deadzone.
17:31 Norivia haha
17:32 Norivia I like this
17:32 DragonFogel So they don't know about this until they develop FTL technology and go beyond their boundaries.
17:33 DragonFogel And then suddenly, everyone uses magic, and for the most part doesn't really understand science, because they didn't have as much need to when magic could solve their problems.
17:33 DragonFogel You may not know the germ theory to understand why the village keeps falling sick year after year, but if the mages can heal everyone up in a couple of days, do you really care?
17:34 DragonFogel But like I said, my issue's been bringing it down to a personal level.
17:35 Norivia Fogel, you ever heard the term prosthetic knowledge?
17:36 DragonFogel I haven't.
17:36 Norivia I dunno if it helps as far as bringing it to a personal level, but I think it's relevant
17:36 DragonFogel What is it?
17:36 Norivia so, prosthetic knowledge is knowledge you don't possess, but you can access through a tool
17:36 Norivia like something you look up on wikipedia
17:37 Norivia people are already saying there's a lack of this knowledge retention because we have all this data at our fingertips
17:38 Norivia there's no need to really /learn/ it if we can look it up on the fly
17:38 Schazardous fine by fucking me
17:38 Schazardous instant accessibility to the sum of human history and knowledge is fucking amazing
17:38 Norivia I agree!
17:39 Norivia I think like do-anything-with-magic is an extension of this
17:39 Schazardous yeah there is work and knowledge that requires training and muscle memory but like
17:39 Norivia why do we care how it really works if we can fix it up with magic whenever
17:39 Schazardous it's a huge advancement from relying on /individuals/ to act as a repository of knowledge for a specific subject
17:39 Norivia yeah, definitely
17:40 Norivia It's a movement to a collective knowledge base
17:40 Schazardous yeah no offense but like
17:40 Schazardous in a generation where we don't get a whole lifetime career's worth of job security like our parents
17:41 Schazardous it's inefficient to cram/retain a bunch of extremely specific information about a very specific job/thing/whatever
17:41 Norivia totally
17:41 Schazardous better to be better at picking things up given sufficient documentation/prior advice
17:41 Norivia didn't mean to sound like I was advocating against it, just wanted to draw parallels
17:42 Schazardous yeah no it's cool I'm not ragging on you actually
17:42 Schazardous I'm just like
17:42 Schazardous very enthusiastically pointing from personally experience why the thing you said is cool
17:42 Norivia yeah!

Who wants to talk about this, I have to get my butt out of work and go find food but I didn't know there was a term for this! And it makes me pretty happy!

As far as I can tell (through the usual goog avenues at least) there isn't a widely recognized one? But that's a pretty neat term for it so props Norivia n' who/wherever you got it from (if so).

And yeah while moving to a collective knowledge base does come with its own set of problems (see: problems w/ accuracy etc.) I think those're yeah much less of a problem than those involved in the pursuit of knowledge without the wikipedia-y kind of tool at our fingertips. Both from an efficiency standpoint (re: not being able to specialize that much) and also I suppose to some extent a gatekeeping standpoint? (Where you can learn almost infinitely more specific stuff these days without having to pay for loads of books/university courses/etc.. I mean you have had public libraries for quite some time but they pretty obviously had/have less scope/breadth and also that involved a relatively huge time investment a lot of people probably couldn't afford).

Just going to drop in my immediate and fairly obvious observation that you still need some people doing the in-depth research, to check that the knowledge base is accurate.

I'm not actually sure what the consequences are of this fact; they're mainly relevant to the story I'm pondering (the one I allude to at the start of the log), in which magical societies just plain don't have much of a scientific knowledge base. But in the real world, is this something we need to worry about, or is it something that mostly takes care of itself?

I'm inclined to think that enough people have strong senses of curiosity about science, math, history, and whatever else to learn the necessary skills to keep the knowledge bases going, so maybe there isn't much more to say about this specific point. On the other hand, maybe there are obscure disciplines where this is actually a real concern? I guess I'm mostly curious if anyone else has particular thoughts on this aspect; I can't see a lot to say about it myself, but maybe I just haven't looked into it enough.

Maybe learning the maths/sciences can help you apply magic more intellgently. ie if you learn the behaviour of fire in the real world, you'll be as versatile as any 60-year old pyro mage who had to learn the old fashioned way anyway.

I feel like, depending on the culture... Well, hm. People with scientific leanings have-do-will exist for any topic in any environment. Yes, Problem X can easily be solved with the application of Magic Y, without necessarily needing to know what's going on under the hood for either the problem or the magic, but some people will Want to Understand regardless. Earthpersons, since they grew up without magic and thus the need to understand how all things work, may be seen as a force of Understanding. (Which is not to say individual humans may or may not care about how magic works; people are people and you can deal with that as y'do. Just that, depending on how interplanetary relations unfold, Earth may pick up preconceptions and stereotypes specifically relating to their Need to Understand.)

And that might be the crux of interactions. Depending on how a given culture treats Magic and Understanding, that should affect their interactions with Earthpeople. So, some things to consider might include:

What are the cultural limits on magical use?
- Free for use by anyone? Reserved for ruling class/religious leaders/other? Treated as an academic field, with all that that mess brings?
- How are those that want to Understand magic treated?
- Is the existence of magic kept secret from nonmagical persons?
- What rituals are involved with magic use?

What are the mechanical limitations on magic, and how does that affect a magic-using culture?
- What fuels magic?
- Is magic biological/hereditary? Can it be learned?
- Is magic faith-/willpower-based?
- What rituals are required for magic use? (As distinct, if applicable, from cultural attaches.)
- Is magic universal? That is, does magic work the same or differently in different parts of the universe? Why?

What about Earthpeople?
- Does their nonmagical upbringing preclude them from magic use entirely?
- Was Earth always in a magical deadzone? If not, why is it now?
- How might their presumptions about the way the universe works affect their studies, use, and subsequent presumptions about magic?
- How does Earth handle extraterrestrial relations? Or, the Prime Directive question.

And finally: How will all of those factors affect interplanetary relations and interactions? And not just those involving Earthpeople, if magic and culture allows for extraterrestrial travel.

Bear in mind the wording on all those questions carries that dumb assumption of One World One Culture-- but it's a start, maybe. If that's a lot to consider (it is), see if picking one and expanding on that leads you anywhere interesting, maybe?

While I appreciate all that, the "magic" stuff is specific to me and my interests, and this was intended as a discussion on the idea of "prosthetic knowledge". If people want to have a talk about the Space Magic setting I'm trying to put together, that's something I should probably make a thread for in Projects.

In fact, why don't I do that.

Edit: I did that.

I stole the term from this tumblr, which is a collection of a lot of current VR research projects and other cool projects on similar subjects.

happy beef and explosions day, now that it is not that anywhere any of us live

and a minority I think of people here even celebrate such

I went to a fourth of july party! No fireworks though and I didn't realise it was (in part) a July 4th majigger until I realised the Brits in question who were hosting it had put red-blue-and-white decorations up.

I heard fireworks, but i think that was one of our (dutch) neighbours using any excuse he can to let some more of them off. He's a bit of a pyro; he lights so many during guy fawkes our house gets engulfed in smoke :')

i didnt even play ffxiv all fourth of july like i planned to, im sorry, im disappointed in myself too

I didn't even realize it was the fourth of July. Living in Europe does have its drawbacks I guess

I didn't even realize it was the fourth of July. Living in Europe does have its drawbacks I guess

don't worry they celebrate it on the 19th over there

My friend's birthday is on the 4th of July and he closed his Facebook that day LMAO what a nerd

That video is like the end credits of a videogame or something, just super impose some random names over it.

How were you recording? Driving with one hand?

I've always preferred to watch fireworks from a distance of several miles, for two reasons. The first is that the first and then the second of the houses I grew up in were/are somewhat far from urban centers, and both were/are close to places where it's possible to see a lot of the SF bay area at once, which makes for interesting quantity-over-quality July 4th fireworks experiences and that's what I've gotten used to by this point. The second is that, also when I was growing up, I was told that the reason one of my Uncles' hands has a number of fingers better suited to dressing up as a character from The Simpsons than delicate manual tasks was that when he was around my age (at the time) he had shown a less than advisable amount of care in a brief foray into amateur firework-handling. As far as I know, the precedent of the second reason did not contribute to the institution of the first. Also, I'm not scared of fireworks or anything, I just always end up being surprised at how loud they are whenever I happen to be near one.

I like the flashy colorful stuff but the loud dangerous ones can fuck off and should be banned everywhere (they probably are already but)

Not very consistently banned here in good old Explosionation. In Texas you can buy pretty much whatever you want, and much the same is true in Washington. Since I live in Oregon, pretty much everyone I know makes a yearly pilgrimage to stock up on big fiery mortars.

Your research is correct.

Shit that sounds great

If I buy two drugs do I get four?

No viagra = no deal.