Can Cutscenes be Art?

[icycalm]

http://gamedesignadvance.com/?p=2219

Subhumans, lol.

[icycalm]

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?t ... #msg423580

So okay, if the goal is to shoot a person, then it's a game. But if it's to hug a person, it's not a game? What if both actions are accomplished by pulling the right trigger? What if it's not a hug but more of a piledriver? What if the game makes you talk to a person to find out where the dungeon is by pressing A? What if pressing A instead makes you kiss them? What if it makes you rape them?

What if it's not a life bar, but a love bar, and you run out of it by getting turned down by girls? Are H-games notgames? Is Okami a notgame because you paint sometimes? Is it only a notgame when you paint? What if the screen was nothing but icons and life bars? Dude all I'm getting out of this is that games are notgames when they do things that you think that games don't generally do. So was Spacewar!, the first video game, in fact, a notgame? At that time, there were no game conventions, so the first video game was indeed "not a game". So I guess it wasn't the first game then! Where does this start? When does it end?

You've created a word with no definition, that you can stretch and spin to fit everything you want it to be. I guess this is what we've all been waiting for, huh. Some dumb word to claim superiority over the games you don't like, for great justice. You're so sophisticated.

That dude is austere from this forum. His friend, who started the thread, also has an account here, but I banned him a long time ago. The thread is 17 pages, but if you really want to understand what kind of despicable subhuman scum we are up against it really is worth reading. And these two dudes posted a lot of good stuff in there (some of it really funny as well), so I might end up digging through and quoting some of it here later. There's also a good post from Josh (quoted from a Shmups thread) somewhere in there.

[A.Wrench]

Actually, I'm Anarkex. It's the name I used when I was younger. My account on Tigsource is fairly old, I just rarely used it.

[icycalm]

I banned you because it is fairly plain (by your quoting Josh from a Shumps thread in which austere also posted, and by the fact that you harp on about Canabalt and that Unicorn game in another TIGSource thread, as austere did on SB under the alt name fraglet) that all these different stupid names (austere, A.Wrench, Anarkex, punkomix, fraglet, etc. etc. etc.) all belong to the same person: some Chinese kid who lives alternately in Australia and perhaps other places, and spends all his time on 4chan and on various forums using a dozen or so stupid usernames.

It's a pity really, because you are quite intelligent. I honestly think you are wasting a lot of perfectly useful energy in this kind of charade. It is one thing spending half an hour or an hour getting an alt account in some artfag forum and making fun of the artfags (something which I do, in fact, do on occasion, and something which we have also done once in the past together, and to great effect...), and quite another thing investing so much effort to build up postcounts in a dozen or more forums, or even under different names in a single forum, on a regular basis. The former kind of behavior is, in my view, a fun way to play around with some mice and have some fun. The latter kind is, it seems to me, a perfectly good waste of energy for no good reason whatever. At least I personally do not see the reason. Perhaps you yourself find these shenanigans amusing or instructive in some sense. All the more power to you, in that case. It's just that I refuse to have anything to do with them, and to knowingly allow them to go on in my forum.

And that is the end of the matter. Now, to return to the present topic, here's Josh's relevant post from Shmups which deserves to be exhumed from that rubbish heap of nonsense where it was originally posted and preserved here for the instruction of future generations:

A bad game can't have good aesthetics because mechanics are part of the aesthetics of a video game, more than audiovisuals because it's the characteristic that distinguishes games from movies, music, and fly fishing. Does this BLOW YOUR MIND folks?

The art of fly fishing involves making a convincing fly out of feathers, fur, and string, a good roll casting technique, and moving your line though the water for the purposes of getting a fish to think your lure is delicious. Dressing the fisherman up like Divine from Pink Flamingos and having an electronic lure that looks like a space shuttle and emits retro chiptunes that scare away all the fish isn't an aestheticized version of fly fishing, as much as some talentless charlatan with glasses with thick black rims may try to convince you. As far as fly fishing is concerned, it's anti-aesthetic.

Moral of the story: Games are games not movies, just like birds aren't dogs, thus having unique criteria that go into determining value. You can't say a particular bird is beautiful, so to make a dog just as beautiful you need to glue a similar beak on his nose and paint him bright green. In summary, Super Mario World and Rocket Knight Adventures are the art platformers, not Braid. Dodonpachi is an art SHUMP not something Kenta Cho cooked up in Java in a week, and Gears of War is the art shooter not Killer 7, etc.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 55#p604455

My only objection to all this is the reference to Killer 7. Killer 7 may not indeed be the "art shooter" (or, more accurately, the "art FPS"), but it IS the "art action-adventure FPS", if you get my meaning.

Disclaimer: I only played Killer 7 for about two hours or so on the day of its original GameCube Japanese release. I was sick that day, and as fate would have it have yet to get around to playing it more, though I would absolutely love to. My characterization of it as the "art action-adventure FPS" is based solely on those first two hours. There is always the chance that if I play it more I may change my mind -- in either direction...

[icycalm]

And since I am quoting Josh, I might as well add another post of his that caught my attention on Shmups recently:

Horrible article. A "punitive system" is called a reward system after practice. Doing bad exists so you can do good. Apparently games should be the equivalent of staring at a lava lamp.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 99#p600799

This is the problem with the casuals. They want to do good without first doing bad, which is why they always do bad, and only bad, lol.


If you only want to do good, you end up only doing bad.

If you only want to do bad, you end up only doing good.


Or, to express the same things but with added explanatory commentary:


If you only want to do good (meaning if you are so terrified of failure or sub-standard performance, that you refuse to take up any challenge whatsoever), you end up only doing bad (meaning that you never manage to improve).

If you only want to do bad (meaning if you are conscious of the fact that every effort is in a sense a failure, since by continued effort you will always end up improving on it), you end up only doing good (meaning that you end up constantly improving).


This is how things are. And things are this way because good and bad are not opposites, something which the casuals (and the moralists, who are merely the "casuals" in the realm of thought -- who basically think casually) are incapable of grasping.

[icycalm]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article ... n-part-1.3

the very notion of ... "artistic merit" in games is relatively recent. In fact, it barely existed in the 16-bit era, much less the 8-bit era. What seems obvious now is actually the result of a long, gradual shift in thinking.

No "artistic merit" in the 8- and 16-bit eras.

The Escapist, ladies and gentlemen.

I am not even going to bother commenting on the rest of his drivel.

[icycalm]

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/on_the_ge ... mes/#partv

[JoshF]

No artistic merit in 8-bit era, just in modern indie games that look 8-bit (though, I've haven't seen one that looks as good as Street Fighter 2010, Dynamite Batman, Rockman 6, etc..)

[dA]

Or, to take the case of videogames, since they are the highest art that could ever possibly exist, they will obviously never reach stage 4. (Or, to be more precise, they will reach stage 4 but, because they are the highest art, this event will not give rise to a new and higher art, but will complete the grand cycle of art itself (which is made up of all the smaller cycles of the various arts, as well as the mini-cycles of their genres and subgenres...) and bring us back to the beginning, i.e. back to chicken-scratches on cave walls.

The only completion of the grand cycle of art I can think of is... life again. First, the catastrophe Baudrillard's writing is trying to make us work towards, then Nietzsche's joy about the Ubermensch. Then art gets its respectable place in life again that it had in the most healthy times in our history from those degenerate times that it was pursued not in the realm of genuine challenge but in that of the appearance of challenge (and because of that degeneration).

It also sounds illogical that we would literally return to cave-paintings, so am I right in thinking that it's more about the place those paintings had in the cavemen's lives?

Reading the articles on this site could make me confused and depressed at times (especially when delving into Baudrillard's stuff, I shouldn't have started in that). But in the end it leads to the exact opposite of nihilism.

[icycalm]

Then art gets its respectable place in life again that it had in the most healthy times in our history from those degenerate times that it was pursued not in the realm of genuine challenge but in that of the appearance of challenge (and because of that degeneration).

Banned for posting insufferable tripe that makes no sense.

[icycalm]

Part II of that stupid article:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article ... n-Part-Two

It concludes that:

So what makes a good game?

Perhaps it's the willingness to change it.

Look, I just made Contra 64 -- BUT I AM WILLING TO CHANGE IT RIGHT NOW, SO IT MUST BE GOOD, AMIRITE?

[icycalm]

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/on_the_ge ... es/#partvi

[raphael]

A few typos:

Yet the decline must somehow be justified, for it eventually becomes so blatant that from time to time even the peasants can see it is as decline.

Not even the "art critics" themselves can understand what they fuck it is they are spouting, let alone anyone else.

[Medal]

One more typo:

...artfags of CUNNING AND DECEIPT.

[icycalm]

Thanks for the corrections, as always much appreciated.

So like, I am wondering, are people following me just fine? Are you getting everything that I am saying? Or, if not absolutely 100% everything (like a few paranteses here and there, for example, which I am certain that no one will get until I've elaborated on them in future essays), at the very least the main points?

Would anyone care to try to summarize "the story so far"? (We are about two-thirds in, by the way.) In, say, a couple of paragraphs or so? Rephrasing the other person's argument is really the best way to see if you've understood it. Above all to see if you can capture the flow of his thought without dropping any links or adding in any of your own that aren't there...

[chb]

I'll give it a try:

You started by showing that the artfags only call the worst games "art", while the best games of all time are dismissed as "childish" and "immature". Why is this definition of "art games" widely accepted in the videogame industry, even though it's clearly wrong?

It's because the people in the videogame industry do not understand that all things which deserve to be called art give pleasure, even supposedly pessimistic artworks like tragedies et cetera. Instead, they only associate the word "art" with boring modern art (like abstract paintings) because all the interesting stuff (like contemporary music, video games) isn't really considered art by society. Because the indie games people can't evaluate their "art games" in terms of pleasure (they're all boring), they have to focus on the "message".

You then demonstrate that this is a wider phenomenon: In each artform, all the boring, ugly stuff has replaced the beautiful, interesting artworks. You use painting as an example for the general process which is as follows:

1. Only rich people with good taste concern themselves with the artform. Because of this, only the best artists are succesful. The artform flourishes.

2. The artform is opened up to the masses. Thus, second-rate artists are able to succeed because they can find people with inferior taste which they can sell their artworks to. New styles replace the older, superior styles. The artform starts to decline.

3. The artform reaches its nadir. At this point, nobody really cares anymore except for the artfags and the rich. The latter buy the "artworks" for prestige reasons (to show they are able to spend lots of money on useless, ugly shit) while the former are happy to give them what they need and praise these "artworks" in order to make some money and to achieve some social status (artfags aren't really good at anything else).

In the final part of the first essay, you also write about how healthy people react to all this: They ignore the shitty modern "art" and instead focus on real modern works of art (like movies, contemporary music, video games). Furthermore, they are still interested in classical art.

The second essay explains a lot of the things you mentioned in the first essay in greater detail: why exactly the artfags and rich people work together, how the decline of art is related to democracy, the differences between older and newer artforms, the decline of art criticism. You also write about how each artform is replaced by a more complex one, the most complex being video games. This "grand cycle of art" seems to be the most important point from the whole essay so far. I really like how you started with Derek Yu and then developed this model of the whole history of art.

These are the main points I got from your article. I hope I didn't forget something or made any major mistakes. I only scratched the surface of the second essay, but I didn't want this to get too long. Maybe there's someone else who wants to write more about it.

[Icemael]

Excellent stuff, as usual.

Here is my attempt at a summarization:

Art is meant to give pleasure (this includes tragic and terrifying art, which gives pleasure to the strong by simulating challenging situations, and the weak when they interpret their values into it). Hipsters and extremely rich people, however, have little interest in the pleasure the art itself gives, and care instead about how they can use it to further their social status. The former do this by producing and pretending to appreciate what no one else does -- garbage, that is to say -- and trying to make it seem like the reason they're doing it is that they are more intelligent than everyone else, and can see in said garbage some hidden value that others can't (they succeed at this by spewing meaningless babble that seems intelligent to the easily fooled masses). The latter do this by spending ridiculous sums of money on art that is rare, and will stay that way. Practically the only modern art that is rare is that produced by the hipsters, and so the two groups form a kind of symbiosis: the rich people give the hipsters, who are far too lazy and talentless to get proper jobs, what they need: money -- and in return, the hipsters give the rich people what they want: status symbols.

The reason we find the creators of classical art more worthy of respect than modern artists, is that the level of craftsmanship was, back in the day, thanks to the extremely primitive (by today's standards) tools, much greater (the more advanced art of today has another -- and more important, as is evident by how much time we spend with it -- appeal, however: it is far more engaging). The artists behind each work were also fewer. Whereas paintings, for example, virtually always came from singular artists, we often have to distribute our respect between dozens or even hundreds of people with movies and video games. This is one of the reasons hipsters are generally drawn to more primitive art forms: it takes far less effort to pretend to respect one person than it takes to pretend to respect many. Another, and more significant one, is that the most advanced works of art are very easy to reproduce and, as a result, practically useless as status symbols. (This is why movie and video game hipsters form little circle jerks: due to their work's reproducibility, rich people take no interest whatsoever in the crap they produce, and they are left with no choice but to consume it all themselves.)

Artfags never appear at the dawn of an art form, the reason being that the only ones capable of creating an art form and its conventions are genuinely talented, passionate, zealous people. It is later, when the art form has been properly established and the masses have taken an interest (and, with their taste for mediocrity, initiated the art form's decline) that they emerge.

It was with the introduction of modern democracy and its obsession with "equality" that artfagotry initially appeared. Back in the day, when people were born into distinct classes with distinct -- and limited -- signs, trying to make oneself seem more distinguished than one was was an exercise in futility. In today's "classless", "equal" world, however, sign-value has become increasingly important, leading to such things as fashion, the collection of rare things for the sake of their rarity and, in the realm of art, artfagotry. Democracy's opening of the floodgates, so to speak, also lead to the decline of criticism. The new critics could never admit that the masses were the cause of art's decline -- they were, after all, from the masses themselves -- and so started to cover it up by pretending that art, like everything else, was progressing. They got better at deceiving over time (naturally), and today, they've reached a point where they've managed to make almost everyone willingly accept such bullshit as the utterly retarded, circular definition: "art is art".

[icycalm]

http://interactive.usc.edu/blog/?p=4504

[icycalm]

http://www.ferretbrain.com/playpen/?showId=3001

Ooh, I should not have started watching that Call of Duty: Black Ops playthrough on YouTube this evening.

At this particular moment (19:58 Eastern Standard Time, 11/25/10), I am watching a CIA agent serve as point man to a massive uprising in a Soviet forced-labor camp by shooting at everyone he sees with a minigun.

Fuck. Me.

No. Fuck video games. Fuck them all. That's it; I am no longer going to consider video games a serious artistic medium. I've fucking had it. If the best they can do is turn the gulag into some sort of goddamned deathmatch arena, then they don't deserve to be taken seriously.

Miniguns in the gulag. What the fuck is wrong with us?

(Oh, and sorry about being even less whimsical than Andy. It's just...fuck.)

How fucked up do you have to be to be offended by this outrageously hilarious scene? The phrase "only in videogames" comes to mind. Isn't that worth anything? Would a MOVIE ever have treated you to such a scene? -- let alone allow you to participate in it.

Again and again you see that all those who have it in for videogames are little moralistic pricks who seem to have been raised inside a church. So yeah, it's not "fuck videogames", it is "fuck the little moralistic pricks who somehow manage to suck the fun out of everything".

[icycalm]

An explanation of the subtitle of my (and Nietzsche's) Genealogy:

A polemic (pronounced /pəˈlɛmɪk/) is a variety of argument or controversy made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion. The word is derived from the Greek polemikos (πολεμικός), meaning "warlike, hostile".

A polemic is a form of dispute, wherein the main efforts of the disputing parties are aimed at establishing the superiority of their own points of view regarding an issue. Along with debate, polemic is one of the more common forms of dispute. Similar to debate, it is constrained by a definite thesis which serves as the subject of controversy. However, unlike debate, which may seek common ground between two parties, a polemic is intended to establish the supremacy of a single point of view by refuting an opposing point of view.

Polemic usually addresses serious matters of religious, philosophical, political, or scientific importance, and is often written to dispute or refute a widely accepted position.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polemic

I thought I'd throw it in here since I expect most readers will be unacquainted with the word.

[icycalm]

http://archive.easymodo.net/cgi-board.p ... ad/6557333

lol, nice. I actually came into this thread with the intention of posting this.

Icycalm is the best writer on videogames today -- this accolade even feels insulting, actually, because it implies he has competition. I've been reading insomnia for 3 years now and have concluded that the dude is a fucking genius. I don't give a shit about what you think of his personality or his morality or whatever it is you nitpick; look at his writing. Look at On the Geneaology of "Art Games". There is no one around writing on games at that level and there never really has been.

The complete dismissal of insomnia by 4chan dwellers is curious, though. I noticed it on /v/ too, but /v/ is full of retards so that's not much of a puzzle. I took the average /jp/ user to be of at least average intelligence, and yet we see cookiecutter subhuman reactions such as:

>All butthurt, all the time.

stated as though they're meaningful. Read, guys. Don't engage in this stupid groupthink. Read the site. There are big words. But that's what happens when you read outside of h-games, you'll get used to it.

I am also lol'ing at this.

>The guy is an idiot and he doesn't know a damned thing.

"The guy" who has the entire history of philosophy at his disposal, as well as a masters degree in engineering (read the Work thread) "knows nothing", while the dude who sits on /jp/ all day and has a wide knowledge base of uh... Fate/stay Night, I guess? knows everything!

-shrug-

Again, a lot of words saying absolutely nothing. You have a problem with the site, but never state why. A stream of ad hominems, yet one of the main criticisms of icy is his use of ad hominems. A bunch of cookiecutter, throwaway words picked up from the internet and designed to render the opponent stupid ("edgy", "teenagers").

>99.9% of gaming websites

lol

Hmm. Trying to take his review at a face value, but he just seems like a very angry nerd. What crawled into him and died?

Put another way, using the article I mentioned:

Have a look (reading is probably beyond you, so I won't go as far as asking that): http://insomnia.ac/commentary/on_the_ge ... art_games/

Tell me one gaming website that reaches anywhere near such a level of incision, depth, sensitivity, penetration, sagacity, etfuckingc.

Just one. No more required. Show me one case of someone on the internet who has even brought up the issues put forward in that article.

And if you wish to dismiss that part by saying the issues are discussed incorrectly, or whatever -- read it, and tell me it doesn't make sense, also showing -why-.

See, this is how we debate things in big boy land. Not with greentext and offhand words we've picked up through years of plaguing our brain with 4chan. With reason and purpose.

The dismissal likely can be attributed to a few things. His scathing, arrogant style of writing first and foremost, the length of some articles and reviews, and most people not being that acquainted with philosophy.

So, someone sees a link to an Insomnia article, reads the first paragraph and says, "fuck this". I know I had a similar reaction when I first encountered his writing. It wasn't until much later that I actually sat down and read anything of his seriously. I'm a convert, but I don't know if all of his fans are. Maybe they got it the first time around.

Oh yeah, I forgot the other stock method retards use to dismiss any discussion of insomnia: "lol u defend dat site u mus be icycolm lol u mad?? lahha"

Oh well. Maybe you'll learn one day.*

*you won't

>So, someone sees a link to an Insomnia article, reads the first paragraph and says, "fuck this".

This is probably 100% correct. Illiterate fucking retards, every last one of them. Oh no, the text doesn't move when I click! There's no h-scenes, lol!

>Yes, I am mocking him.

No, you're showing your own retardation. I take it "ramble" essentially means "anything longer than 2 paragraphs and involving ideas that go beyond children's literature"? Again, you faggots (or should that be fagots?) speak but say absolutely nothing. No real criticism, no real points of contention, simply reflection after reflection of your own stupidity.

Who cares fuck you and fuck that control freak nerd and everyone lampreyed to his ass.

Again:

>all of which say absolutely nothing.

How many times does this need to be addressed? You guys SAY NOTHING. It's remarkable. There is never even a hint of rebuke or criticism in what you write, even (in fact, particularly!) when it's in response to something you disagree with.

The /jp/ response, then, to anything remotely intellectually challenging: 1) 4chan meme 2) some stupid off the cuff groupthink they've picked up through years of reading nothing but the internet 3) the "icy fallacy" as I'll dub it here: aka "you agree with icycalm, ergo you are icycalm". Every single one of them a cop out, a way of eluding the argument because you have nothing to add to it.

My answer is this: He is looking too deeply into it. He takes the game out of videogame. Maybe he should try to have fun, if he is capable of that.

We are not discussing philosphy. We are discussing cute, small games made by one guy in his free time. Nothing more, nothing else.

>My answer is this: He is looking too deeply into it.

And the insomnia answer is this: there is no issue that goes deeper than those relating to video games.

Does that sound ridiculous? Yes, at first glance. When I found the site years back I also remember finding its vision a little farfetched. Skip forward a few dozen or so articles, and it's pretty much complete. Seriously, I urge you to read at least the main articles if you have the time. I'm not even going to swear at you his time, I'm simply suggesting some extremely interesting material to another person who may be capable of appreciating it. If you don't, then so be it. But at least give something a chance before dismissing it outright.

You know what is the worst part about Icycalm?
He is one of few writers on the gaming community worth giving a shit about, even with all his rage and autism.
I swear the gaming community is one of the worst and more ignorant about their own fucking hobby out there.

This is where we are at right now. Everyone is so fucking scared of bringing up stuff like my Genealogy in forums (let alone in blogs or frontpages!), that they will only do so "anonymously" (as if forum posting was NOT anonymous, lol), and even then extremely rarely. But the thing with anonymous boards is that they are generally populated by even greater retards than "eponymous" ones: hence the above.

[icycalm]

From the same thread:

On internet forums, every now and then you might get a rant: "The fucktards have no talent, this is bullshit, let's have a hierarchy". The mods (who are likely retards because being a digital nanny attracts losers) will calmly say, "we're all equal, you're being totalitarian, this forum is about love, be quiet or leave". The ranter will either bend over, leave, or kick up shit storm till the ban hammer smacks down. But no-one thought of starting up a new forum with truth, intolerance and hierarchy clearly in mind. That alone makes Icycalm a genius. In this retarded society, he alone thought, "I'll make Hitler look like a reasonable pussy".

Icycalm is a cunt. But that's okay -- if he is only interested in the truth: it's true Santa Claus isn't real, but telling little kids that makes you a cunt. Telling the truth is beyond good and evil.

But is Icycalm only interested in the truth? Or is he mostly interested in appearing to know the truth. If the latter, he might ban people who are smart for trivial reasons. If there is a scale of intelligence, create a vacuum in the middle by banning anyone who isn't a total retard (because mocking them makes him look smart) or a total kiss ass (because that still makes him look smart).

For example, the gist of his latest essay is that the creation of new artforms changes the perception of old artforms. New artforms are associated with greater men initially, and will have greater immersion. Within two pages of 'The English Novel', Walter Allen indirectly says something similar:

'The comparatively sudden appearance at the turn of the seventeenth century of the novel as we know it was a manifestation of a marked change in the direction of men's interests.'

'Then, as the Renaissance advanced, the painter's attitude to his subject changed; he went on painting Virgins, but more and more his model is obviously flesh-and-blood'

[greater immersion at odds with subhuman morality]

'we have to remember that readers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw them very differently and found in them qualities lost to us almost entirely'

[new artform (novel) has changed our perception of older verse]

How do I ask Icycalm whether what was stated there was the same as his essay? Is it possible that he is merely emphasizing something that a man in 1954 thought was trivial? I would have to create a fake email account, then register, then post and then what? If I'm lucky he'll call me a retard and give some feedback, if not just a quick deletion (whether it was too retarded, or not retarded enough, who knows?).

If Icycalm really wants people (other than total suck ups -- tell me there isn't a circle jerk in his own forum) to discuss his work then he ought to give an indication his work isn't just smoke and mirrors. Allow users to post not just reviews but their own game theories, in an environment where there can be polemics without punishment. Something more than the cocksucking worship of Icycalm that goes on there already. Even start a new forum, insomnia lite, with slightly retarded people moderating, with the best of that forum's threads being transferred to insomnia ac. Do it somebody.

Can anyone grasp what's wrong with the above? From a quick skim I'd say three or four things, perhaps more.

[Eammy]

Basically, he wants you to dumb down your site. In other words, turn it into a regular videogame forum which, of course, would defeat the whole point of this site.

His idea of creating a lite forum moderated by slightly retarded people is also faulty, as it would pretty much only consist of fully retarded members. He assumes that you can take the best of that forum and post it on the official Insomnia site (or forum), but fails to realize that what is deemed 'best' by the dumb people who moderate the lite site would definitely not be up to standard with existing Insomnia articles. This would corrupt the insomnia.ac site, turning it into nothing more than a regular videogame forum.

Even if you were attempting to handpick from the lite forum, it would be way too tedious and time-consuming to find possible bits of gold in all that sludge, and even then you would no doubt have to edit heavily for it to be up to standard.

[Masahiro9891]

Well, I guess we can start from the beginning and work our way down.

On internet forums, every now and then you might get a rant: "The fucktards have no talent, this is bullshit, let's have a hierarchy".

As if a hierarchy system doesn’t already exist. There’s no need to say, “Let’s have a hierarchy”; it already exists, the universe is a hierarchy system. Hell democracy is itself only a disguised and decadent form of this system.

But no-one thought of starting up a new forum with truth, intolerance and hierarchy clearly in mind.

Yes, because there have never been intelligent people on the planet to throw out the retards from whatever hobby those intelligent people were doing. And all forums already contain all of these things, but to such a low degree that they aren’t even recognized. Even the fucking sub-human “art-game” faggots have this, but their intolerance is to good games (because they suck at them), their hierarchy is to making their crap games the highest in the land by clouding up the issue till no one but someone like icy can come in and set everyone straight (in the same way Nietzsche and Baudrillard did in philosophy, Wittgenstein did in linguistics, Kael did in movie criticism, and any other true scholar of their field!), and finally the reason there is no “truth” in what they say, or to be more precise there is, it is just so lowly that it’s easier to just realize that there is nothing to really take from them (other than scorn for the tricks they play to a hobby they supposedly like).

he is only interested in the truth

As opposed to untruth, right? Icy is only interested in the will to power, and seeing as he is the most intelligent person, he is able to go the farthest in whatever field of study he decides to look into. This is compared to someone like you who still thinks that truths exist.

Or is he mostly interested in appearing to know the truth.

Because this site is not proof in what he is interested in.

If the latter, he might ban people who are smart for trivial reasons.

Yes, because spewing out stupidities is what smart people do; O WAIT! That is what retards spew. And who cares what you think is trivial, you cannot write a single sentence that isn’t retarded, so why would anyone, with a brain, care what you think is trivial or not.

If there is a scale of intelligence, create a vacuum in the middle by banning anyone who isn't a total retard (because mocking them makes him look smart) or a total kiss ass (because that still makes him look smart).

I’m sure you would like this to be true since it would make you feel better when you attempt to post something nonsensical, and it gets destroyed, that you can tell yourself it is just icy getting rid of you because you were about to show everyone that he isn’t that smart after all. Also, I love that you don’t even attempt to show any proof at all of this fantastic “vacuum” that icy creates.

How do I ask Icycalm whether what was stated there was the same as his essay? Is it possible that he is merely emphasizing something that a man in 1954 thought was trivial? I would have to create a fake email account, then register, then post and then what? If I'm lucky he'll call me a retard and give some feedback, if not just a quick deletion (whether it was too retarded, or not retarded enough, who knows?).

Yes, having balls in the twentieth century does seem like an impossible task for a sub-human such as yourself. But maybe it is good that he doesn’t have the balls to post a question, saves icy a lot of time having to respond to someone that will never get it anyway. Also, once again his defense mechanism working overtime, since he doesn’t actually want the feedback because if he did he would just grow a set, be respectful, and ask a fucking question. No, instead he wants people to feel sorry for him for not getting an answer (to something he doesn’t actually care about) and throw more dirt in the air to make it look like it is icy’s fault the dude is a loser, with no backbone, for not asking his question.

If Icycalm really wants people (other than total suck ups -- tell me there isn't a circle jerk in his own forum) to discuss his work then he ought to give an indication his work isn't just smoke and mirrors.

Yet no proof to what these smoke and mirrors are, or to this supposed circlejerk that is taking place. Not suprising since he doesn't even know what a fucking circle jerk is (since he's on the inside of it himself).

Allow users to post not just reviews but their own game theories, in an environment where there can be polemics without punishment. Something more than the cocksucking worship of Icycalm that goes on there already. Even start a new forum, insomnia lite, with slightly retarded people moderating, with the best of that forum's threads being transferred to insomnia ac. Do it somebody.

Yes because the world has done so well with this little abortion of an idea. And there are plenty of people who post their theories dumbass, and some of them get banned for them and others actually have something to say, so you aren't saying anything here other than don't ban me for being a retard. Yet more proof that even if you had the balls to ask a question, which you don’t, you wouldn’t be able to understand the answer anyway.

in an environment where there can be polemics without punishment.

This is just disgustingly stupid. For one you don’t even know what the word polemic means and that this has now become a meaningless statement. Because you basically don’t want to be punished for saying something, which is to say, that you don’t want to be responded to period by someone with anything other than “your right” or “well you gave it a good shot”. Since all responses are in some shape or form a punishment, i.e. a response. You basically want the universe to quit working the way it does in order to make you feel better for throwing out trash instead of words. You want there to be an action that has no response, which would mean it wasn't a fucking action in the first place, Jesus Fucking H. Christ, you want something that can't happen. Where have we seen this before, o yeah, every sub-human that has ever existed!!!

[icycalm]

The problem with this guy is that he is not as low down in the hierarchy of intelligence as the rest of the trailer trash on that board: he is a single step above them. So if the rest of them get 1/10 in the intelligence hierarchy, he gets perhaps 2. This very fact makes his pathetic attempts at argumentation EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, for the 1/10 guys do not even attempt to argue, they simply swear, so there's nothing there that could MISLEAD other people. THIS dude, however, and others like him, CAN and DOES mislead others who lack the intelligence to see through his nonsense.

Take for example this:

the gist of his latest essay is that the creation of new artforms changes the perception of old artforms.

Whoever can read ALL OF THIS, and conclude that my "gist" is what this guy said it is, IS NOT HUMAN: end of story. No point in arguing, becoming angry, becoming sad, or react in any way whatsoever apart perhaps from laughing. If you try to teach quantum mechanics to A DOG, it is not THE DOG'S fault for not getting it, but YOURS for TRYING TO TEACH QUANTUM MECHANICS TO A DOG. It is not THE DOG who is being stupid by not understanding you -- the dog is simply being a dog -- it is YOU who are being stupid here FOR FAILING TO REALIZE THAT YOU ARE DEALING WITH A FUCKING DOG.

The problem, as I will be explaining, among many other things, in my Manufactured Realities, is that past a certain point evolution ceases to be so much a matter of BODILY change and becomes more and more centered around THE BRAIN. But the problem that this new state of affairs creates is that it becomes much harder TO TELL THE DIFFERENT SPECIES APART. You'll never see, for example, a tiger going round to a mole and trying to lecture it on why the life of a mole sucks and how much better the tiger's lifestyle is, because the difference between mole and tiger is so immense that even a blind person can tell them apart (can smell them, can hear them, can sense them -- since their bodies are so different). These two species of animal then, since they are so different, will obviously have equally different lifestyles ("philosophies", in other words), and any attempt to make one live according to the lifestyle of the other (a mole hunting elephants, for example, or a tiger burrowing in the mud) will seem ludicrous and even insane to everyone involved. Which is why moles always hang out only with other moles, and tigers, when they hang out with anyone at all (which they usually don't), only hang out with other tigers. -- This is how it stands with the lower animals, but with the higher ones things become, as one would expect, exceedingly more complex. Because the difference between a higher man and a lower one has far less to do with outward appearance (although that still counts to a certain extent, of course) and more and more with brain structures -- i.e. with things that are extremely difficult to discern. Which is why the ability to discern who is human and who is not (and to discern it QUICKLY, without wasting too much of your energy on the task, too much of your quantum of power) becomes increasingly important at the stage of evolution we are now at.