Theory

[Bananadine]

Hi, icycalm--I was recently linked to your site, and for the past few days I've been reading your work (mostly the essays in the "videogame culture" section of your site, but also a few reviews, and various posts you've made in scattered forum threads). I find you, and to a lesser extent your essays, interesting. I have questions about your motives. It may be presumptuous of me to ask them, but I will do so anyway.

First, I would like to know whether you are aiming to create works of genius. It's clear, at least, that you employ Schopenhauer's model of genius--and occasionally, in your essays, you mention the great difficulty most people would face in trying to understand what you're saying, which suggests that you consider yourself to be, if not at the top of the hierarchy of ability Schopenhauer describes, at least much closer to the top than almost every other living human is. And I've seen you alluding to your certainty (but maybe you were being facetious at the time) that in a few years (or possibly decades), the world will learn the great value of what you're making here. In spite of all this, I'm uncertain about your basic intention in this regard. Maybe you've made it explicit somewhere on the site, but if so, I haven't seen it. Could you make it explicit here?

A related question: Whether or not you're aiming to produce works of genius and publish them on this site, do you think that you have already done so? Again, this isn't clear from your writing. I've read your statement about how you "recycle" the work of other philosophers, Pauline Kael, etc. because you wish to use them as a starting point, and then go further. But have you gone further? Here is why I ask that: On the one hand, you're a smart guy and you seem to think you have gone further. On the other hand, I came to your site having never read a word of Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Baudrillard, or Kael--and still I have yet to encounter any major point in any of your essays that surprises me, or any substantial model that's new to me. I understand that there are many humans for whom the idea that a JRPG has no roleplaying in it is not just surprising but unthinkable heresy, that people are often virulently resistant to the prospect of working to improve their skill at playing complex games, and so forth. But, as you seem to recognize, these are not difficult ideas. Do you further recognize that they aren't extremely rare, either? I, simply via my own thought, and ordinary game-playing experience, and occasional exposure to the words of intelligent people--people like Chris Crawford, Ernest Adams, Frank Lantz, and miscellaneous speakers at the Game Developers Conference (no, of course not ALL speakers there) and writers on certain online forums--have reached the point where I can read one of your essays and feel like the stuff you're saying, while good enough, is just normal. I may even develop the urge to skim, because, although I agree with what I'm reading, I've seen it before. Does this make <i>me</i> a genius? I don't believe a person has to think at Wittgenstein's level in order to grow the ability to understand what icycalm says. Am I wrong?

What I haven't seen before is all the stuff you're saying here, said in one place at once. There is value in that--is that the value you're aiming to produce? That is, are you trying to build a solid, though not extraordinary, basis for further thought--perhaps one on which you intend to build extraordinary things? Another thing I haven't seen before is a videogame-related reason to read Baudrillard and the rest--and now, because of you, I have one. Thank you for that.

The last new thing your site brings to me is an incomplete appreciation of you, and of your strange, haughty way of communicating. About this, I am very curious. Of course I've read enough now to have a general idea about why you are so often contemptuous of others, why you frequently ban people from your forum, and so forth, and if you will deign to answer the preceding questions, then I will understand these things better. But I will still have one more question: Why do you put so much of your scorn <i>into your very work</i>? Each time you pause one of your essays to point out, for the nth time, that everyone who doesn't agree with you is a moron, or that most people will never understand what you're saying because they're retarded, it makes your writing a little bit noisier--and therefore, a little more like the bountifully noisy writings of Tim Rogers. Why would you want that? If you're aiming at someone who thinks like you, someone for whom your ideas are just natural and ordinary, then surely you would do well to increase the clarity you claim to value, by removing these unhelpful little blasts of scorn--because otherwise a person like that wouldn't have <i>time</i> for your work. And if you're trying to evangelize your ideas to the people at the fringe of the moron blob, in order to pull a few over to your side, then surely you're not helping your cause by distracting them with regularly delivered insults! Why do you write this way?

That's the last question I will ask you. Your answers, should you provide them, will help me determine the answer to one more question: that of whether, if I ever come back to the non-Schopenhauer, non-Baudrillard (etc.) sections of this site in the future, I will find more than a scorn-poisoned expression of a lot of good ideas I've mostly already thought of myself.

[icycalm]

lol. You are a rare breed indeed. I can tell from your GDC comments, and the people you namedrop, that you are part of what I like to call the "industry, shmindustry" crowd. I mean the Western, Gamasutra-reading, indie-game-evangelizing crowd that is currently infesting gaming, and flooding the market with hopeless slop like World of Goo.

The difference, however, is that you are sitting right at top, or at least very near, of this group of uneducated imbeciles. So your reading comprehension skills are very good, your writing and communicating skills are flawless, and you have the sense to realize when you are a guest somewhere and to behave appropriately.

All of the above, however, are the absolute minimum you need to get anywhere with philosophy in this world -- the absolute minimum, which by itself doesn't suffice for much.

So yeah, I'll be back soon with an extensive reply to all your points, so don't go anywhere. This is a fun little challenge.

[icycalm]

Okay, so we'll try a little experiment. Because, you see, the funny thing is that the answers to your most important questions are already present in your post. And how did that happen? It's an interesting psychological question and perhaps I'll answer it later, but for the time being try to figure out the answers, or at least some of them, by spending some time ruminating on two of your own remarks:

What I haven't seen before is all the stuff you're saying here, said in one place at once.

Another thing I haven't seen before is a videogame-related reason to read Baudrillard and the rest--and now, because of you, I have one.

You claim to be pretty capable of thinking for yourself, while not presenting a shred of evidence that indicates that, so this is your chance to show me what your brain can do. Of course, even if you do manage to figure out some answers (highly unlikely, but you never know), that would technically still not be "thinking entirely for yourself", because I've already pretty much pointed you towards the answers. Still, if you do meet with some success, that will be a good indication that you can do at least a little bit of thinking for yourself.

I'll answer everything in detail either way, but this is your chance to back up your one and only claim to fame. After that it's game over, dude. You'll get exactly what is coming to you.

[Bananadine]

lol. You are a rare breed indeed. I can tell from your GDC comments, and the people you namedrop, that you are part of what I like to call the "industry, shmindustry" crowd. I mean the Western, Gamasutra-reading, indie-game-evangelizing crowd that is currently infesting gaming, and flooding the market with hopeless slop like World of Goo.

I don't read Gamasutra and I haven't played World of Goo or made anything like it. But I think that if you knew more about me, you probably wouldn't change your assessment.

So yeah, I'll be back soon with an extensive reply to all your points, so don't go anywhere. This is a fun little challenge.

Okay, thanks.

What I haven't seen before is all the stuff you're saying here, said in one place at once.

Another thing I haven't seen before is a videogame-related reason to read Baudrillard and the rest--and now, because of you, I have one.

Do you consider these to be large accomplishments? I was only trying to be generous. A lot of people could have compiled such a body of writing as what I've seen of your site. And though you mention philosophy a lot, I've only seen you apply it trivially. The philosophy itself may well have enormous value, but the application has little--except maybe for people who are unused to applying rigorously formulated ideas to real life at all. Children, for instance.

You are so reasonable when you're being reasonable, and so uniformly humorless and dense when you're talking about how stupid somebody is, that I'm beginning to suspect that your scorn is completely fake, and not just the clumsy expression of a lazy attitude for which I've been taking it. That idea seems a bit too wild, but who knows. (Well, you do, which is why I originally asked.)

I smell a banning on the way.

I'll answer everything in detail either way, but this is your chance to back up your one and only claim to fame. After that it's game over, dude. You'll get exactly what is coming to you.

Yes, that's why I wrote such a long message to begin with--I knew I couldn't expect your window of tolerance to remain open long, no matter what efforts I might make to strip my text of allergens.

...Or is "nothing" the thing that's coming to me? I don't expect to post here after this thread has run its course, regardless. What do two people have to say to one another, when each isn't worth the other's time!

[icycalm]

I am not worth your time? Is that why you spent "the last several days" reading my website, then registered an account in my forum, and posted a complicated and involved series of questions?

Compare that with how I see you -- Mr. "Bananadine", who as far as I am concerned has never written a sentence in his life worth reading, and of whom I neither ask for nor expect anything.

Wake up and realize your position. Show the appropriate respect, and I will help you with your problems. That, after all, is what this forum -- that's what this site is for.

Or else piss off and stop wasting my time you fuckin' imbecile.

[icycalm]

Oh and,

A lot of people could have compiled such a body of writing as what I've seen of your site.

lol, yeah. And if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a skateboard.

No one could have compiled such a body of writing as what you've seen on my site. You wouldn't be here asking questions otherwise -- you'd be on someone else's site.

And,

The philosophy itself may well have enormous value, but the application has little--except maybe for people who are unused to applying rigorously formulated ideas to real life at all. Children, for instance.

You got that right at least -- children like you.

[Bananadine]

I am not worth your time? Is that why you spent "the last several days" reading my website, then registered an account in my forum, and posted a complicated and involved series of questions?

It took a few hours--I don't know how many--spread over those several days. In my view: During those hours, it was worth my time to do that reading and writing. I don't think it would be worth spending further time on the reading part, except insofar as you communicate here on the subjects I've asked about. That is why I asked.

Compare that with how I see you -- Mr. "Bananadine", who as far as I am concerned has never written a sentence in his life worth reading, and of whom I neither ask for nor expect anything.

Unlike what I said about you, your claim is that I was never worth your time--and as of that writing, you're still talking to me! You're so nitpicky, yet you make little silly mistakes like that. You're a fascinating character, and a puzzle--I don't understand you, or how you see me or much of anything else! That is why I asked some questions about you.

Wake up and realize your position. Show the appropriate respect, and I will help you with your problems. That, after all, is what this forum -- that's what this site is for.

It seems that, despite having read your thread about posting guidelines, I don't know what respect you consider appropriate. Would it be inappropriate for me to ask?

Or else piss off and stop wasting my time you fuckin' imbecile.

If you either finish this conversation with me, or ban me, then I will piss off.

No one could have compiled such a body of writing as what you've seen on my site. You wouldn't be here asking questions otherwise -- you'd be on someone else's site.

Okay, yes, to be literal: Almost every person I was referring to would have done it with less scorn, and some of them would have written rather more clearly.

You got that right at least -- children like you.

Now you're just flaming me. Are you angry, or are you being casually dismissive?

I'm certainly ready to apologize for being inappropriately rude. I'm aware that I'm developing a tone of haughtiness, here, that mirrors yours--which, in a way, seems like it's perfectly appropriate. But then, you're the sovereign and all that, so maybe it isn't. Do you think I should already know whether it is?

[icycalm]

I don't think it would be worth spending further time on the reading part, except insofar as you communicate here on the subjects I've asked about.

Further time on WHAT reading part? You've already read all that you wanted to read. What sort of silly attempt at a barb is that? And I've already read all I wanted to read from Baudrillard. How does that make him "not worth my time"? So give up on the silly excuses and the furious backpedalling -- you are the reader with the questions and I am the author with the answers and that's all there is to that.

Unlike what I said about you, your claim is that I was never worth your time--and as of that writing, you're still talking to me!

I am not so much talking to you as putting on a show for the benefit of the couple thousand people who read this forum on a weekly basis. It's more like a Q&A session for the benefit of my readers. I couldn't care less about anything you have to say, especially since you've so far clearly demonstrated that you have nothing to say -- UNLIKE many other people who have registered accounts here over the years. Many of THEM had at least a few things to offer. People like you, on the other hand, have as much to offer as test monkeys in a classroom -- as demonstration tools.

You're so nitpicky, yet you make little silly mistakes like that.

lol, yeah. "Little mistakes like that" -- only it wasn't a mistake as I have clearly demonstrated. It was that you were too stupid to realize the kind of situation you were getting yourself into when you registered an account here, monkey.

You're a fascinating character

Unlike you.

and a puzzle

It's only natural. I am sure that when a rat looks at a man he sees a puzzle too.

I don't understand you [...] or much of anything else!

lol, yeah. That's pretty clear by now.

It seems that, despite having read your thread about posting guidelines, I don't know what respect you consider appropriate. Would it be inappropriate for me to ask?

If you have to ask how to behave with proper decency it means you are not capable of it. Other people come in here humbly and respectfully, and their humility and respect are repaid with gratitude and patience. People like you, on the other hand, with their fakeness and their bluster and ridiculous haughty attitudes simply get banned within a couple of posts. Goodbye then.

Okay, yes, to be literal: Almost every person I was referring to would have done it with less scorn, and some of them would have written rather more clearly.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. They didn't because they couldn't, and they won't, because they can't. Not to mention that you can't diminish the scorn without diminishing the message. And in fact their lack of scorn is among the main reasons they constantly fail at all the important problems.

You got that right at least -- children like you.

Now you're just flaming me. Are you angry, or are you being casually dismissive?

I am just being honest. You said one correct thing -- that the articles on this site are directed to children. And indeed they are. I do not know of a single person in the games industry who is not a child. Will Wright? Hideo Kojima? You name them -- one is more childish and uneducated than the other.

I'm certainly ready to apologize for being inappropriately rude.

People who are ready to apologize simply apologize -- they don't say that they are ready to apologize while at the same time holding off on the apology for as long as possible. You've drawn it out too long and now it's too late. Perhaps this will be a lesson for you. Perhaps you'll realize that when you request something from someone the onus is on you to be polite.

I'm aware that I'm developing a tone of haughtiness, here, that mirrors yours--which, in a way, seems like it's perfectly appropriate.

Yes, it's appropriate for every student to go up to his teacher and ask questions with haughtiness. Oh 21st century! Oh internet! Oh imbecility! What else will we hear next!

But then, you're the sovereign and all that, so maybe it isn't. Do you think I should already know whether it is?

Questions, questions, questions, for the tiniest little problem. And this from a man who claims to be good at thinking for himself!

[icycalm]

If anyone wants to see the original post answered, by the way, just say so. I don't mind answering it, as long as I know that at least one of the regular users wants me to. Otherwise, well, who cares? It's not as if he asked anything actually intelligent.

[Kuzdu]

I'd like to read an answer to his post if you have the time to write one.

[Molloy]

Goodness, after that very attractively written initial post Bananadine ran out of steam very quickly.

[icycalm]

Okay, here goes.

First, I would like to know whether you are aiming to create works of genius.

Indeed I am.

It's clear, at least, that you employ Schopenhauer's model of genius--and occasionally, in your essays, you mention the great difficulty most people would face in trying to understand what you're saying, which suggests that you consider yourself to be, if not at the top of the hierarchy of ability Schopenhauer describes, at least much closer to the top than almost every other living human is. And I've seen you alluding to your certainty (but maybe you were being facetious at the time) that in a few years (or possibly decades), the world will learn the great value of what you're making here.

Not so much the great value of what I am making "here", but what I am making in general. What I am making "here" is the best videogame site in the world, and that can be of value only to people who play videogames. My second book, however, which will only deal with videogames in one or two sections, will be of value to anyone in the world who wants to stop being a dumb beast and evolve to something higher.

In spite of all this, I'm uncertain about your basic intention in this regard. Maybe you've made it explicit somewhere on the site, but if so, I haven't seen it. Could you make it explicit here?

I think my reply above has taken care of this.

A related question: Whether or not you're aiming to produce works of genius and publish them on this site, do you think that you have already done so?

Schopenhauer: "It is not only in the activity of his highest powers that the genius surpasses ordinary people. A man who is unusually well-knit, supple and agile, will perform all his movements with exceptional ease, even with comfort, because he takes a direct pleasure in an activity for which he is particularly well-equipped, and therefore often exercises it without any object. Further, if he is an acrobat or a dancer, not only does he take leaps which other people cannot execute, but he also betrays rare elasticity and agility in those easier steps which others can also perform, and even in ordinary walking. In the same way a man of superior mind will not only produce thoughts and works which could never have come from another; it will not be here alone that he will show his greatness; but as knowledge and thought form a mode of activity natural and easy to him, he will also delight himself in them at all times, and so apprehend small matters which are within the range of other minds, more easily, quickly and correctly than they."


Therefore my writings, if I am indeed a genius, will always be "works of genius" regardless of the subject matter. A genius, by Schopenhauer's definition as well as by anyone else's, is not capable of NOT producing works of genius, just as a cow is not capable of not producing works of cows, and so on. A genius is a genius and a cow is a cow from birth to death -- and that's the end of that.

So, to get back to your question, what I have done so far, in every subject that I have tackled, is tackled them with genius. Some of those subjects may be more important than others (the Videogame Culture essays, for example, are more important than any review I have ever written), so of course my works that deal with them will also have more value. Ultimately, the most valuable thing I will ever write is my second book, again due to the importance of the subject matter.

Again, this isn't clear from your writing. I've read your statement about how you "recycle" the work of other philosophers, Pauline Kael, etc. because you wish to use them as a starting point, and then go further. But have you gone further?

Yes, indeed much further, almost to the very end (and I'll be arriving at the end any day now). There are posts of mine scattered around this forum, perhaps one or two dozen of them, in which I talk about, or in some cases merely allude to, things Heraclitus and Nietzsche and Baudrillard either did not manage to understand because they couldn't, or simply did not get the chance to. Nietzsche, for example, never managed to completely understand the concept of simulation (nor the problem of the actor, which are closely related), mostly because 19th century technology was not very advanced. No doubt he would have understood everything about it had he lived longer, but he didn't. Baudrillard, on the other hand, understood a lot about simulation, perhaps even everything, but he lacked something (most probably the courage) to draw the ultimate conclusions from it. So what he left us, as Gerry Coulter says, was his "ambivalence" -- but ambivalence is not exactly what one asks for from philosophers, so he ultimately failed in this regard.

I, on the other hand, in contrast to Nietzsche and Baudrillard, understand everything about simulation and have the courage to go to the very end. Indeed, I have so much courage I don't even know what to do with it anymore.

Here is why I ask that: On the one hand, you're a smart guy and you seem to think you have gone further. On the other hand, I came to your site having never read a word of Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Baudrillard, or Kael--and still I have yet to encounter any major point in any of your essays that surprises me, or any substantial model that's new to me. I understand that there are many humans for whom the idea that a JRPG has no roleplaying in it is not just surprising but unthinkable heresy, that people are often virulently resistant to the prospect of working to improve their skill at playing complex games, and so forth. But, as you seem to recognize, these are not difficult ideas. Do you further recognize that they aren't extremely rare, either? I, simply via my own thought, and ordinary game-playing experience, and occasional exposure to the words of intelligent people--people like Chris Crawford, Ernest Adams, Frank Lantz, and miscellaneous speakers at the Game Developers Conference (no, of course not ALL speakers there) and writers on certain online forums--have reached the point where I can read one of your essays and feel like the stuff you're saying, while good enough, is just normal.

lol

The stuff I am saying is normal.

That's why the internet gets a collective aneurysm every time one of my articles gets linked somewhere.

Because the stuff I am saying is normal.

I may even develop the urge to skim

That doesn't say anything. I have skimmed Nietzsche and Baudrillard and everything else you'd care to mention. Skimming is an art, and a necessary one if one is to get anywhere with philosophy. In fact skimming is not a substitute for careful reading but a part of it -- I usually skim some parts, then read them carefully, then skim them again. Other parts I just skim with the intention of returning to them -- or of never returning to them. It all depends. Besides, the essays on this website are not, in Schopenhauer's terms, objectively interesting -- they are highly subjectively interesting. See here:

"Again, subjective tediousness is merely relative: this is because the reader is not interested in the subject of the work, and that what he takes an interest in is of a very limited nature. The most excellent work may therefore be tedious subjectively to this or that person, just as, vice versâ, the worst work may be subjectively diverting to this or that person: because he is interested in either the subject or the writer of the book."
--Schopenhauer

because, although I agree with what I'm reading, I've seen it before. Does this make <i>me</i> a genius?

No, it makes you a self-deluding liar.

I don't believe a person has to think at Wittgenstein's level in order to grow the ability to understand what icycalm says. Am I wrong?

Yes, you are wrong. Because icycalm says many things, some of them directed at one group of people (gamers), others at another (philosophers), and it is clear that you have come across very few of these things, and apparently only those which fall in the first group. Here, for example, is a thing which icycalm has said and which, judging by your posts in this thread, you probably have no hope of ever understanding:

"Fairness", in the way humans use the concept, is fundamentally unfair. Similarly, what humans mean by "unfairness" is the only way that fairness can be defined.

http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?p=8203#8203

If anyone reading this thinks they can explain what the above means, start a new thread and do so. To make things interesting I promise to send a couple hundred euros to anyone who can nail it.

What I haven't seen before is all the stuff you're saying here, said in one place at once.

And doesn't that make you wonder why that is so? No, it doesn't, because, contrary to what you claim, you are incapable of thinking for yourself. So let me explain to you why that is so.

Human beings in general are very stupid beasts, and always see things in a fragmentary fashion. This is of course partly because of the limitations of our senses, but also because people do not know the fundamentals of inference and deduction (which our education systems take great care to avoid explaining). So what ends up happening is that when people think, when they speak, when they write, you get the so-called "monkey effect". Think of an army of monkeys banging away on typewriters for an eternity. Most of what they type will be rubbish, but every now and then, by pure chance, they'll churn out one of Shakespeare's sonnets (or, for a more appropriate example for our case, one of Netwon's laws or Leibniz's theorems). But what good will that do them? They are monkeys, they are not capable of understanding even the things they write! They simply STUMBLED ON the truth -- they didn't DISCOVER it! And that is why they are never capable of PRODUCING truth with any degree of consistency.

The very fact that I am able to hit on the truth, again, and again, and again, without missing anything and with no failed or botched attempts, says everything -- or it SHOULD say everything to those who are capable of thinking for themselves (which group clearly does not include you).

That is why Schopenhauer says "Those who emerge from the multitude, those who are called men of genius, are merely the lucida intervalla [lucid interval] of the whole human race." Everyone else may get this thing right, or that thing right, but they get everything else wrong, and when they try to connect the one or two right things they know, with all the wrong ones, they end up with absurdities.

There is value in that--is that the value you're aiming to produce? That is, are you trying to build a solid, though not extraordinary, basis for further thought--perhaps one on which you intend to build extraordinary things?

I think I have covered all this by now.

Another thing I haven't seen before is a videogame-related reason to read Baudrillard and the rest--and now, because of you, I have one.

But again you fail to see the all-important consequences that follow from this and all they presuppose. The first question on your mind should have been "Why is Alex the first person to connect Baudrillard "and the rest" to videogames? Why didn't one of my GDC heroes make such a connection first? Why have they YET to make such a connection?" And the answer is all too obvious (to anyone who can think for himself, that is): because the uneducated imbeciles that you namedrop are running around in circles, trying to analyze videogames BASED ON VIDEOGAMES, or based on some abortive little cinema theory or literary criticism theory they came across in some silly little magazine or blog, banging away on typewriters day and night, producing countless articles, papers and books -- all of which lead to nowhere -- because they lack the most basic, the most fundamental grounding in philosophy, without which videogames, and the entire culture that produced them, make absolutely bollock-all sense.

Hence we get people talking about ethics -- AS IF ETHICS WAS NOT ALREADY A SUBJECT THAT HAS BEEN DEAD AND BURIED FOR WELL OVER A CENTURY.

Or they talk about "contemporary art" -- AS IF THIS "CONTEMPORARY ART" HAD NOT ALREADY BEEN PRONOUNCED DEAD AND USELESS.

Or they talk about messages -- AS IF THE VERY IDEA OF A MESSAGE HAD NOT AREADY BEEN EXPLODED AND WIDELY DERIDED SINCE THE SIXTIES -- not to mention that the CONTENT of these messages has already been shown to be completely false.

So yeah. I LOL at GDC and all the idiots that you namedrop.

But I will still have one more question: Why do you put so much of your scorn <i>into your very work</i>?

It's not so much that I put scorn INTO my work -- it would be more accurate to say that my work IS scorn. Scorn is a central, a fundamental part of it, perhaps even the most fundamental.

If you're aiming at someone who thinks like you, someone for whom your ideas are just natural and ordinary, then surely you would do well to increase the clarity you claim to value by removing these unhelpful little blasts of scorn

Removing the scorn would make the works meaningless, as I explained. Besides, scorn increases clarity, it doesn't decrease it. It makes the distances more easily perceptible.

--because otherwise a person like that wouldn't have <i>time</i> for your work.

Everyone who is smart enough to understand what I am saying, if he doesn't have time to read me, makes time. Whoever says that he doesn't have time simply doesn't understand. Even Nietzsche and Baudrillard would have time for me if they were still alive, let alone everyone else.

And if you're trying to evangelize your ideas to the people at the fringe of the moron blob, in order to pull a few over to your side, then surely you're not helping your cause by distracting them with regularly delivered insults!

How little you understand the way people work. Nothing helps my cause more than the insults -- and not only because the insults are my cause.

Why do you write this way?

Ah, the eternal question of those who have never created anything -- who have never felt the need to create anything. They naturally assume that the creator has a choice in how to go about creating something. But no such choice exists.

That's the last question I will ask you. Your answers, should you provide them, will help me determine the answer to one more question: that of whether, if I ever come back to the non-Schopenhauer, non-Baudrillard (etc.) sections of this site in the future, I will find more than a scorn-poisoned expression of a lot of good ideas I've mostly already thought of myself.

lol. "You have already thought of yourself", lol. Mr. Bananadine has already thought everything for himself, yet STILL spends several days reading things he already knows. -- Lies, lies, lies, and yet more lies, and flagrant indications of near-pathological lying everywhere. Why was this guy so offended by the contempt found in my articles? Only those who have a reason to be offended are offended -- the person who already understood everything, before reading my articles, would have no reason to take offense. Someone who had been 1CCing games for years, for example, would not be offended by anything in my arcade essay -- but a credit-feeder, or a limp-wristed JRPG fag, would.

All of which is clear proof that, not only is Mr. Bananadine incapable of thinking for himself, but he is also very clumsy in his attempts to hide this fact from others.

[icycalm]

And since the issue of scorn -- of contempt -- was a central one to Mr. Bananadine's objections to my writings, as it is to so many others, I would like to post here Nietzsche's preface to The Anti-Christ, the greatest preface ever written -- and the most scorn-filled one. It is perhaps time some of us got beyond this silly little prejudice, that there is something wrong with scorn, and that intelligent people are supposed to shy away from it. I think it's time to realize that the truth here, as in so many things, is the exact opposite to what the masses think, which is to say that nothing more clearly distinguishes the intelligent man from everyone else than the degree of contempt with which he views them.

Foreword

This book belongs to the very few. Perhaps none of them is even living yet. Possibly they are the readers who understand my Zarathustra: how could I confound myself with those for whom there are ears listening today? -- Only the day after tomorrow belongs to me. Some are born posthumously.

The conditions under which one understands me and then necessarily understands -- I know them all too well. One must be honest in intellectual matters to the point of harshness to so much as endure my seriousness, my passion. One must be accustomed to living on mountains -- to seeing the wretched ephemeral chatter of politics and national egoism beneath one. One must have become indifferent, one must never ask whether truth is useful or a fatality... Strength which prefers questions for which no one today is sufficiently daring; courage for the forbidden; predestination for the labyrinth. An experience out of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for the most distant things. A new conscience for truths which have hitherto remained dumb. And the will to economy in the grand style: to keeping one's energy, one's enthusiasm in bounds... Reverence for oneself; love for oneself; unconditional freedom with respect to oneself...

Very well! These alone are my readers, my rightful readers, my predestined readers: what do the rest matter? -- The rest are merely mankind. -- One must be superior to mankind in force, in loftiness of soul -- in contempt...

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

[Doctor Fugue]

Scorn was a stumbling block for me a few years ago when writing my doctoral thesis. In the preface, I showed my position through unlimited contempt of other so-called experts in my field. I felt it was completely normal and the most honest way to approach the subject. Several professors read it and were subsequently offended; I had to remove it entirely or risk being tossed from the program. The reason they were so upset was because it was TRUTH that I wrote. They realized I had every RIGHT to be scornful of their complete idiocy, and that scared them.

[Afterburn]

What was your doctoral thesis in, Fugue?

Anyways, your anecdote just shows how retarded academia is. It's no surprise that Nietzsche and others operated outside of it; they had no use for it.

[Doctor Fugue]

"Opposition as a Guiding Principle for Performance in J. S. Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge"

An attempt to provide useful analysis of music through the fundamental characteristic of conflict.

[Archonus]

I find icy's scorn kinda funny, myself.

[icycalm]

Conversation between me and user Eidoloclast via PM:

Hey, man. Thanks for splitting the Spelunky post off into its own thread and adding the link/screenshot. I went back and added in a little more detail about the game now that it's a free-standing thread. Not my best work, in terms of writing, but maybe better than nothing.

I really enjoy that this site exists, even if I'm not sure I agree with everything you say, and I'm glad to have become a part of it, even in a small way. There's a lot of learning that I can do here.

(Thanks for turning me on to Baudrillard and Schopenhauer, by the way. As well as giving me impetus to continue my readings of Nietzche. Fascinating stuff, and the main reason that I'm not sure that I agree with you is because I haven't caught up to you yet. If I do, I'll let you know what I think.)

...just re-read the posting guidelines and saw that you hate PMs.

Sorry about that.

And this.

even if I'm not sure I agree with everything you say

No one cares. You are just some nameless cunt on the internet -- why would anyone care whether you agree with anything? The only thing I care about is arguments. If you have none of those shut the fuck up.

I am sick of people like you. Every other comment has to be a retardation of some kind. WAKE THE FUCK UP!

Fine, then. I'll clarify what I mean.

Your essays on videogames are, one and all, excellent works with which I can wholeheartedly agree. I acknowledge that you are a visionary, and make no claim that anyone else could draw the same connections that you did between Neizche, Schopenhauer, Baudrillard, Wittgenstein and gaming.

This site has been incredibly important to my development as a human being recently, both in influencing my design philosophy when it comes to attempting to organize my friends to create good games, in influencing my desire to be a video game critic, and in pushing me to read more philosophy, and actually think about it. I had read a good deal of Plato, and some Nietzche, but the rest of your influences were unknown to me.

I am one semester away from completing an undergraduate degree in Physics at a liberal arts college, and I have a minor in Political Science, through which I've been explosed to some philosophy. I have also spent a fair bit of time in English and Art History classes. I want to be a science fiction author, a video game designer, and a journalist.

I do not feel that I have the necessary background in philosophy to either agree or disagree with certain of your notions unreservedly, but my instincts tell me that there may be types of phenomena which your deductive genius is not best suited to describing--situations in which your reductionist method may not be able to describe the emergent complexity of a system in a reasonable amount of writing-space.

There is a type of holism that emerges in poetry and the very very best of 'New Games Journalism' that can sometimes tell me more about a game than the most exhaustive feature-by-feature bulleted review. This is not to say that NGJ is, in general, good. Quite the opposite.

I am going to use this paragraph as an aside: I know exactly what I mean when I say 'emergent', and do not intend it to be a vague, catch-all term. The emergent properties of a system are the properties of a system which are not immediately apparent from its rules. You have commented about the possibility space of games, claiming that nothing can happen in them that the developers did not intend. That there are no possibilities present in the game that were not intentionally coded in. Certainly, a game cannot perform actions other than what it was programmed to, but often in sufficiently complex games, such as Dwarf Fortress, behaviours emerge that the creators never intended or expected. I don't have the quote I'm thinking of handy, and you may not have meant to imply that the coding of a possibility must be intentional.

Where I can no longer be certain that I agree with you is when you discuss human nature, human society, and justice. As someone with more than a passing interest in political science, I believe that the world can be made a better place, not just for me and a select group of my friends, but for everyone, or at least most people most of the time.

I also understand that this sort of world may not be desirable, but I'm enough of an idealist to keep clinging to the idea that a better world that does not constrain the ability of human beings to be great is possible.

I understand what you mean when you say that (from memory, so I may paraphrase) 'Justice (as it is popularly conceived) is anything but just, and the thing that is actually most just is what is popularly termed injustice.' I understand the logic inherent in the strong deserving to be strong and the weak deserving to be weak. "All that matters is the quantum of power you are. The rest is cowardice."

I also understand that you are sometimes too hasty to dismiss, too reticient to believe in the capacity of other human beings, and that patience is not your strong suit. I hope you'll forgive me for being forthright with you in your own home.

If I had a specific argument for why you were wrong, and where, and how, I would have presented it immediately. I do not, possibly because no such argument exists, but also possibily because I just haven't found it yet, due to a lack of knowledge, vision or time.

I am becoming more knowledgeable, and sharper sighted. If I see anything, I'll let you know.

In the mean-time, I have many other responsibilities besides establishing my philosphical street-cred on an internet forum, even if it is the best video gaming forum in the world. Thank you for making this place, and thank you for always pushing back on your readers. The world, I'm sure you would agree, needs more real arguments.

I hope to have one of consequence for you some day.

I'll be back soon to destroy his puerile waffling. In the meantime, people are free to take shots at him if they want to -- and if they can.

[Eidoloclast]

Okay.

[icycalm]

The little cunt's impudence has no limits.



I will be replying to his retarded little attempts at an argument anyway, for everyone else's benefit.

[icycalm]

http://insomnia.ac/essays/the_tyrants_of_the_spirit/

[Eidoloclast]

I may never have another chance to say this, so I'd best 'run rampant' while I can. I meant no disrespect in my response, above--I was simply rendered all but speechless by your magnanimity. It is rare that one receives such an honor as a drubbing at the hands of the perfected sage.

You've banned me five times that I can remember, and I suspect there will be six soon enough. I'll still be around, reading and thinking, growing richer, whether or not I can speak here.

Try not to die before you finish your books. I'm looking forward to them.

You're still not entirely right about emergence, or about the solving of the possibility space of Go, or even about progressive rock. But these are all minor issues. I'm years away from being able to challenge you on anything substantive, I suspect.

Did you have a hard time overcoming whatever sense of morality your parents or community attempted to instill in you, or was it effortless? How much poison was there in you, and of what type? Do you really think yourself the Overman, or just another heavy drop?

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is a much better Roguelike than ADOM, by the way, as can be seen by the fact that there is a thriving competitive community for it.

I think that covers most of the things I wanted to say to you. I apologize for not saying them in the proper subforums, but you might notice, and ban me before I finish.

Thanks again, for everything. Some day, I hope to destroy you--or at least to lift the weight of your ideas off my chest.

[icycalm]

lol, I had forgotten all about you, and now you've given me twice the bullshit to debunk. Here it goes then.

I do not feel that I have the necessary background in philosophy to either agree or disagree with certain of your notions unreservedly, but my instincts tell me

No one cares. We already know what your instincts tell you. Lions have their instincts and sheep and worms have theirs. But how could the instincts of one species be of use to those of another? So stick your instincts up your ass and leave me the fuck alone.

that there may be types of phenomena which your deductive genius is not best suited to describing--situations in which your reductionist method

My "reductionist" method. As if all of philosophy and science, indeed all of THINKING, was not reductionist in essense. As if there EXISTED another "method" from reduction. As if we had a CHOICE in the fucking matter!

There is a type of holism that emerges in poetry

Meaningless babble.

and the very very best of 'New Games Journalism' that can sometimes tell me more about a game than the most exhaustive feature-by-feature bulleted review.

You are even missing the point of NGJ. The point of NGJ is the author, not the game. If you are getting any proper insight on the game the piece you are reading IS BAD AS NGJ -- in other words IT'S NOT EVEN NGJ, DUMBASS.

I am going to use this paragraph as an aside: I know exactly what I mean when I say 'emergent', and do not intend it to be a vague, catch-all term. The emergent properties of a system are the properties of a system which are not immediately apparent from its rules. You have commented about the possibility space of games, claiming that nothing can happen in them that the developers did not intend. That there are no possibilities present in the game that were not intentionally coded in. Certainly, a game cannot perform actions other than what it was programmed to, but often in sufficiently complex games, such as Dwarf Fortress, behaviours emerge that the creators never intended or expected. I don't have the quote I'm thinking of handy, and you may not have meant to imply that the coding of a possibility must be intentional.

All of this was written before my article and shows that, besides putting words in my mouth, you have no idea what the term means. Emergent behavior has nothing to do with the "intentionality" of anyone, but with predictability. The intentionality of anyone is irrelevant in the matter, as any real scientist who's studied these things will tell you.

Where I can no longer be certain that I agree with you is when you discuss human nature, human society, and justice.

This is because you are a wretched, weak, uneducated and stupid peasant. Therefore, of course you will disagree.

As someone with more than a passing interest in political science, I believe that the world can be made a better place

Listen to what you are saying. "The world" can be made "a better place"! By whom? The only one who can change the world is someone OUTSIDE OF IT. How could someone INSIDE the world change the thing HE IS A PART OF? How can you change a house if you are LOCKED INSIDE THE FUCKING BASEMENT? At most you might mess up the furniture or something, but that's about all you can do. -- And let's go along for a moment with the absurd notion you propose: how UNFAIR would that be to all the hecatombs of human beings who came before, not to mention all the other life-forms. Baudrillard: "The eschatological perspective of a better world is itself immoral", get it?

not just for me and a select group of my friends, but for everyone, or at least most people most of the time.

Therefore unfair, therefore immoral. And of course you and your friends will be part of these two "mosts" in this little fantasy world of yours amirite?

I also understand that this sort of world may not be desirable, but I'm enough of an idealist

So you understand that this "better" world of yours is undesirable, THEREFORE IT IS IN FACT BAD, but you are enough of an "idealist", i.e. in Nietzsche's terminology a LIAR and a SWINDLER to STILL WANT IT.

to keep clinging to the idea that a better world that does not constrain the ability of human beings to be great is possible.

But it is precisely this "better" world of yours, where everyone would be equal, that would flatten human beings and make them indistinguishable -- it is this fantastical world of yours in which GREATNESS WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE.

I also understand that you are sometimes too hasty to dismiss, too reticient to believe in the capacity of other human beings

There ARE no "human beings" -- there is only a bewildering range of individual and unique life-forms, hence why am "reticent" to believe in the "capacity" of "other human beings", camels, palm trees, rocks and other electrons.

If I had a specific argument for why you were wrong, and where, and how, I would have presented it immediately.

Instead you have nothing and yet still proceed to vomit thousands of words on my site as if you had some inalianable right to waste some of my time today, and nothing in the world can stop you! Not even me banning you several times! And you want the world to be filled with little impudent, inconsiderate little pieces of shit like you! And this, to you, would be "a better world"!

A thousand Auschwitzes would be far too gentle a solution for you and your kind, and certainly not a final one.

I do not, possibly because no such argument exists, but also possibily because I just haven't found it yet, due to a lack of knowledge, vision or time.

Don't worry, you are doing just fine. You can manufacture meaningless, self-contradictory crap just as well as any other slave, from where I am standing.

I am becoming more knowledgeable, and sharper sighted. If I see anything, I'll let you know.

lol yeah. Don't forget to do that, please.

In the mean-time, I have many other responsibilities besides establishing my philosphical street-cred on an internet forum

No one ASKED you to "establish" anything. YOU signed up to MY forum, and proceeded to email me that there are many things in my writings which you find wrong. It is not therefore "street-cred" that I asked you for, you goddamn imbecile, BUT TO BACK UP YOUR OUTRAGEOUS CLAIMS WITH ANYTHING RESEMBLING A COHERENT ARGUMENT -- A SIMPLE TASK IN WHICH YOU UTTERLY FUCKING FAILED.



That was the older post taken care of, and now on to the latest one.

I meant no disrespect in my response, above

No one gives a shit what you "meant". If you contact a philosopher to tell them that they made many mistakes, but that you can't be bothered to explain what these are, YOU ARE BEING DISRESPECTFUL, whether you understand it or not. If you don't understand it that is simply a consequence of you having been raised by peasants and therefore being incapable of good manners, or even basic decency. Nor do you seem to have learned anything in the meantime, as your latest post -- AS THE VERY FACT OF YOU DARING TO POST AGAIN AT ALL -- betrays. Not to mention your continuing to register here even after I've made it explicitly clear THAT I DO NOT WANT YOU HERE.

I'll still be around, reading and thinking, growing richer, whether or not I can speak here.

lol whatev

You're still not entirely right about emergence, or about the solving of the possibility space of Go, or even about progressive rock. But these are all minor issues. I'm years away from being able to challenge you on anything substantive, I suspect.

SO HOW DO YOU KNOW I AM WRONG, FUCKFACE? AND WHERE ARE THE ARGUMENTS AGAIN? Not to mention that none of these issues are "minor" (especially emergence, which is as major as it gets -- it is precisely the reason why videogames, and art in general, are dangerous -- not to mention that, as I have explained in the forum, videogames CAN in fact exhibit emergent behavior -- just not in the way fuckfaces like you think). So basically you have again fucked everything here and understood nothing.

Did you have a hard time overcoming whatever sense of morality your parents or community attempted to instill in you, or was it effortless?

No one instilled anything in me, I am the one who instills things in others. You are just projecting into a being orders of magnitude greater than you -- which is why your suggestions are laughable.

How much poison was there in you, and of what type?

You are the one who is filled with poison here, as your behavior and your every word suggest. I am filled with nothing but love, understanding and tolerance -- which is why you will not see me suggesting that the world should become full of beings just like me in order to become "better".

Do you really think yourself the Overman, or just another heavy drop?

Meh, quoting Nietzsche to impress me, and of course misunderstanding him. There is no "Overman". There is a rising order of rank of creatures. It is not possible to cut the line somewhere and say, "from here on everyone is an Overman", any more than you can cut the electromagnetic spectrum somewhere and say "from here on everything is red". It is a matter of increasing greatness, or energy, etc. But my words are being wasted on a lying little scumbag like you.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is a much better Roguelike than ADOM, by the way, as can be seen by the fact that there is a thriving competitive community for it.

And SFIV is a much better fighting game than SFIII as can be seen by blah blah blah, bleh.

Not to mention that I never made any comparison between the games, indeed I haven't even played "Stone Soup" (lol) so you are merely attacking a straw man here. If the attack was successful, it certainly was not any kind of defeat for me.

Thanks again, for everything. Some day, I hope to destroy you--or at least to lift the weight of your ideas off my chest.

To destroy me, lol. And this is the equal rights democracy person who wants love and peace to prevail -- AFTER, of course, HE HAS ELIMINATED EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE THAT IS NOT LIKE HIM. No greater fascist than the anti-fascist, etc. Have a nice poison-filled life, little dude. You have earned it -- and certainly deserve it.