The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other oddities.

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Merowingg
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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

Post by Merowingg »

It's not funny man, I would never ever consider his name to be seen by me here :)

It was as probable as Monica Beluccii typing to me by accident ;)
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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

Post by Rman Virgil »

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I suppose I get what your saying, Mero. Let me try to explain my position.

However much I enjoy playing, pure and simple, I equally enjoy trying to understand the very primal nature of play itself. To that meta facination, and joined at the hip, is my interest of recent years in the defineing movements called serious games, virtual reality games and gameification. All these being intimately linked to the literary world building of Sci Fi storytelling prognostication, which inturn leads me to want to more clearly understand how the actual world we live in came to be. This is where Chomsky's efforts in uncovering the machinations of the political-military-industrial-complex over the last 40-50 years are instructive.

To the above mix throw in the fact that the compelling gaming tech we pass the time so enjoyably playing, these innocent vid-comp constructs like WZ that inspire us to voluntarily, and gleefully, overcome unnecessary obstacles, are being subsumed in the conduct of RL war making. Now you end up with a rather sobering picture of fantasy play shapeing death-dealing reality, even to manufacturing consent and participation through complacency, which inturn feeds the very madness of hegemony at any cost, includeing genocide, as much by omission as commission.

In closing I leave you with this paradoxical literary allusion:

"Eyes wide shut."

Which could be taken as a reference to the neurological hard-wireing known as selective exposure.

========>

But as I posted a couple days ago when I got back from my AZ trip recharged, I wanna take a different turn here from these dark and dire explorations. Follow an alternate path for a spell with these oddities to come.

Humor through cartooning and in the vein of copia a la Francois Rabelais but using contemporary idiom.

Cartoon I'm working on now is inspired from a memorable image conveyed in the original WZ campaign back story - with my own twist, natch. Hope to have it completed by the end of Sunday.

So Mero, it doesn't end with Chomsky. Here I am invoking the spirit of Francois Rabelais in the context of WZ. ;) How is that even concievable ? :hmm:
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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

Post by aubergine »

"...participation through complacency" -- I think "apathy" is more the cause. Most people are so overwhelmed by the geopolitical landscape that they simply glaze over and become apathetic towards it's effects.

On deeper inspection of people's apathy, particularly based on long discussions with such people, there are a number of factors that drive the apathy - most notably:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
2. A fear that if they rock the boat or speak their mind that they'll lose some or all of the "luxuries" they have built their life around
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

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aubergine wrote:"...participation through complacency" -- I think "apathy" is more the cause. Most people are so overwhelmed by the geopolitical landscape that they simply glaze over and become apathetic towards it's effects.
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On deeper inspection of people's apathy, particularly based on long discussions with such people, there are a number of factors that drive the apathy - most notably:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

2. A fear that if they rock the boat or speak their mind that they'll lose some or all of the "luxuries" they have built their life around

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
I can see and agree with that.

At the same time the old conundrum over what came first, the chicken or the egg, comes to mind.

~ Apathy <=> Complacency

~ Cognitive Dissonance <=> Selective Exposure

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_exposure_theory)

But that is no more than an idle thought on my part.

Dynamically, they all come into play, I think, in shapeing the madness that is our norm.

Then added to that mix there are the neurologically hardwired heurisms that served us well enough as a species on the savanna running around buck naked trying to avoid the big carnivors, but not so much as residents of the global megalopolis where Madison Ave joins hands with Hollywood dream merchants to exploit these very hardwired heurisms to evangelize consumption (and so called "free" markets - which have never existed anymore than a manticore) over and above Spaceship Earth survival itself.

And lastly, the fragmented mediascape of interuption technologies, back-boned by the Net, has turned into the perfect medium to exploit these neurologically hard-wired heuristics to not only sell us junk food, cars, FB "friendships" and Twitter "community belonging" but also half-baked ideaologies, factoids, and even the shady ideologue purveyors themselves (should they seek the power brokering of political office), to create, in essence, the worlds first post-fact society.

http://suite101.com/article/mental-heur ... ts-a308120

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/fa ... bad-habits

I suspect we won't have to wait to 2086, like in WZ, for the collapse to befall us and I think it will come with mass whimpers, not massive bangs.

....
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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

Post by aubergine »

I'm not sure it will collapse with a whimper, more a plethora of bangs of varying sizes.

In terms of neural heuristics, I've personally encountered computer assisted heuristics in business decision making within the tech sector - lots of CEOs and CTOs use a little known function of Apple Macs called the "Summarize Service". It's effects can be disastrous because people who use it start of with basic tests, deem it to be accurate, then throw entire volumes of text at it assuming it will still be accurate. It basically strips all the subtleties and nuances from the meaning of the text leaving a bleached and sterile effigy that can train wreck entire projects and companies.

----

Which summarizes to:
Summarized version of above wrote:In terms of neural heuristics, I've personally encountered computer assisted heuristics in business decision making within the tech sector - lots of CEOs and CTOs use a little known function of Apple Macs called the "Summarize Service".
See what I mean? Insane, huh? But busy "business professionals" will do anything to reduce overheads associated with everyday tasks... like communication.
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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

Post by aubergine »

Oh, and regarding a post-fact civilisation, one of the major issues is the amount of lies that are currently published as 'facts' by the corporate media and government / megacorp institutions.
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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

Post by Rman Virgil »

aubergine wrote:Oh, and regarding a post-fact civilisation, one of the major issues is the amount of lies that are currently published as 'facts' by the corporate media and government / megacorp institutions.
Farhad Manjoo, a tech writer for Salon, Slate, NYT & Fast Company, published a scary study on all this in 2008 called True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society.

He went back to the formative stages of the current exploitation in the 2004 campaign for the US presidency. Thoroughly covering the ready exploitation of the fragmented mediascape (precipitated by the NET) in combination with the subversive application of knowledge derived straight from neurological heuristic studies, cognitive dissonance and selective exposure theory to promulgate blatant lies as factual truth. Absoluting chilling just how effective, how successful, this can be..... as well the associated banality of evil itself in our age.

Here's a short review / summary of the work: http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/2008/07/24 ... ad-manjoo/

=======>

Reason I said whimper and not bangs, is that I believe the collapse will be the result of a human engineered pandemic-pestilence (delberate or by accident) or famine induced by critical biospheric degradation, and not the nukes of WZ's backstory. But this is no more than purely speculative on my part.

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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

Post by Rman Virgil »

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Changin' it up...
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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

Post by Merowingg »

Rman few seconds before falling asleep I decided to type and.. do I sleep already?

Eh.. I wanted to say that I was surprised in positive way, it was something simply extraordinary for me. But not in a way "oh no, not here" I wanted to tease, but the surprisement was enormous.

I understand what you have been trying to tell me, and I believe it is very beginning too :3

I was a little bit busy lately, both Easter, and BioShock 1 :)

But it is last moments of bigger freedom. Soon I will type to you about my Masters work. The man did not approve my plan yet :/

Ok now I can g... dlkdlsdpefvo ZZZ ZZZ z zZ ZZZZ zZzzz ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzz
“Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof.” - V

"Mark my words boy, Mark them well, I have survived your predecessors and I will survive you." - Merovingian

Regards - Mero
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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

Post by Rman Virgil »

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Oh, the subtle tease blew right by me. :shock: Sorry 'bout that. :)

Yeah, sleep. Sometimes you can't get enough when you've fallen behind your norm. O_o Before my trip I was doing an embarassing imitation of a bobble-head doll at my work desk with an escalating frequency. :oops:

Your Masters, you bet. :3 Look forward to the conversation. :D

Oops. Looks like I'v suffered an episode of emoticonitist. :P :lol2:
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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

Post by Merowingg »

Yes yes (plan laugh) buahahaheheh buahehehhiiiiiii the Smiley disease spreads as I planned!

Buehhhhhhaahahahaiiiiiiiiiiiiii

You are back from the journey, and yet you leave us for over two days. We vote to terminate you :(

Or if it is the Masters, believe me, it scares me even more :3
“Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof.” - V

"Mark my words boy, Mark them well, I have survived your predecessors and I will survive you." - Merovingian

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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

Post by Rman Virgil »

Merowingg wrote:Yes yes (plan laugh) buahahaheheh buahehehhiiiiiii the Smiley disease spreads as I planned!

Buehhhhhhaahahahaiiiiiiiiiiiiii

You are back from the journey, and yet you leave us for over two days. We vote to terminate you :(

Or if it is the Masters, believe me, it scares me even more :3
Ah yes it spreads, to fertile ground and that would be to the fun minded temperment of the artistically inclined, generally speaking. :)

Nah, the Masters doesn't scare me. As a very young teen (15) one of my mentors was a micro-biologist at Mount Sinai in NYC. He exposed me to the Masters process at that early age, as well the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His wife exposed me to the work of Jane Austen. I owe them much and pay it foward. :D

======>

The British novelest and scientist , C.P. Snow, delivered a very influential lecture over 50 years ago called "The Two Cultures" where he contrasted the mindsets of the sciences and the humanities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures ... I find it more useful to contrast the engineering mindset with the artistic temperment and here is one of the principle reasons why. The artistic temperment can, in a free-wheeling sense, embrace and thrive within imperfection which is also a wellspring for much humor.

On the other hand, imperfection is the bane of the engineering mindset and understandably so. Thus the engineering mindset tends to be very controlling, solemn and dour. 'Course there are exceptions that can harmonize both mindsets and can be fun to be around, inspiring and who do not feel compelled to excercise an iron fist control over others. Leonardo would be a famous example but closer to our time another example would be a giant of the 20th century, the amazing Buckminster Fuller. There are many more notable examples but I wanna avoid getting long-winded. ;) Besides, there many exceptions who are not famous who can glide between both mind-sets at will, and quite effectively, and live far richer lives for it.

Instituting transformations at work that are keeping me busy. Also my new interest in cartooning has taken a turn to satirizing mainstream cultural phenomenon and political events which I've started posting to my blog and the response there has also kept me busy. Likely won't be seeing anymore of those efforts in a WZ context here going forward. :3

However.... I have returned to work on my WZ fan fiction. Specifically, continuing with the novella "Crude In Sur Amerika" which I already posted chapters 1 and 2 in this thread a few weeks ago. I'll post chapter 3 by the weekend and continue from there. It is basically the story of first contact between the Project Protectorate and the Scav Seven Nations of the Yucatan Penninsula and the very different cultures, and post-Collapse missions, they embody. It also introduces the heroic journey of Captain Malory of The Project and that of Chandar, son of Akbar who is the chief of chiefs of the Seven Nations. I may yet illustrate key scenes of this story with graphics too, as that is also a source of happy crafting for me. Though, I must confess, I will never love digital in the same way I love oils and watercolors. It's that imperfection affinity, i would suspect. :hmm:

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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

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NEWS FLASH... Orson Scott Card's classic SciFi novel Ender's Game has been made into a major motion picture that is in post- production and will be released this coming November. With O.S. Card having totally artistic control, a budget of 110 million and all star cast with academy award winners, we have high hopes. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game_(film)

The WZ connection ?

Re-booting Commanders to Pumpkin's original GPM design. :shock:

As Bolos (a la Keith Laumer) with the gamer commanding them as would Ender Wiggins. :3

Even as a mod I have no doubt its popularity would far surpass, and supplant, what came to be the original by the economic and technical shortfalls of pre-retail release circumstances, '98_'99. O_o
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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

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While writing chapter 3 of Crude In Sur Amerika a scene struck me as potentially making for an interesting illustration. This is the result. It is The Seer on the right conveying bad news to Akbar, chief of chief of the Scav Seven Nations and father of Chandar, on the left.

Should be done by Sunday with this next chapter and will post then with a convenient link to the Chapters 1 and 2. Carry on from there with the rest of the novella on a weekly basis. Chapter a week is my thought.
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Re: The Doc's Bio Lab for Scav Experiments - & other odditie

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===========>

You can find Chapters 1 and 2 here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10480&start=75

Now the tale continues...
Crude in Sur Amerika


~ Chapter 3 ~

Tatanka's moon hung low, barely over the hump back peaks that sheltered the Seven Nation's solstice vision camp. The air was balmy and weighed heavier yet with the scent of burning sage and sweet grass wafting from hosts of Yuwippi lodges scattered throughout the winding valley floor and atop the three switchback plateus called the "Spinsters".

Again, for the second time this night, belieing his years with the sure-footed stride of a much younger man, the grizzled Seer of the snowy mane ascended the anchient pronghorn path, the sand stone trail glistening flecks like constellations.

"As above, so below," he whispered, as much to himself as to his spirit guide, the raven and to the bretheren flock that followed his ascent cawing.

Criss-crossing the layered cliff face leading to the cavernous entrance of Akbar's sanctuary, the flickering torch flames cast dancing shadows on glyphs of blood ocher mingled charcoal. Glyphs of creatures and peoples long gone but alive yet in the four-fold way of the Seven Nation's warriors. Glyphs that bespoke the lore of thier origins from the mud pools of the Palo Verde sink holes in the midlands to the greatest strife of their ancestors across the length and breath of these lands, some 30 generations past, at the hands of the red-bearded, green-eyed ones. The long dead interlopers from beyond the vast sea's horizon, whose blood-letting still stained the earth. Invaders who also wore helms of metal and wielded weapons that killed from great distances like the Mekka of the Northern wastes alighting on thier shores for the third time in as many new moons.

"Would history repeat ? Was it an omen ?" His far-sight didnot answer these questions but rather posed another.

More precarious than the narrow, crumbly, slope leading to the chiefs council retreat, was the nature of his duty. To be messenger of ill tidings not once but twice within hours was to try the patience of even fair-minded Akbar. Worse was it that this later vision went to the heart of his chief's hopes & dreams for the peoples of The Seven Nations. Hopes reaching out to the generations yet to come.

This new vision was not the long-sight of events in action but rather the far-sight vision of what was yet to be and it concerned Chandar, the chief's son and sole offspring.

Under a westering sun The Seer had narrated the Mekkas coastal landing as seen through the lead scout Silvana's eyes with the gift of the long-sight.

Akbar would hear nothing of dampening the vision quest camp fires of the solstice enclave, stilling the drumming or cry-chants, as a precaution to discovery by the Mekka. Those youth who'd been escorted four days earlier to thier sacred circles, up Mount Grey Beard, to endure solitary days & nights, no food, no water, singing & dancing for their naga vision, Akbar would not allow them to suffer the rites of passage without the steady spirit support arising from the Seven Nation's steam sweltering Yuwippi lodges.

This the chief swore before his ancestral totem and the Mekka men be damned to thier infernal masters !

"The greater risk is honor's sacrafice and that is forever misbegotten," as was told in the lore of the Snake Clan as handed down, elder to youth, in a long line of Seers stretching back to the begining of time on Turtle Island.

Chandar was one of those unbearded youth due to return this very dawn, hoping to have engaged thier naga vision and be surely on the threshold of the four-fold way of a true scav warrior.

"Warrior hood...," The Seer mused, "therein lay the salt in the wound."

Having reached the uppermost level of the trail, The Seer turned and gazed over the valley. The fire pits, thier smoke billows and cinder trails licking the night, were ringed by torch-bearers like undulant serpents coiling and uncoiling.

"Hoops within hoops," The Seer reflected, "the four-fold way is everywhere."

From the corner of his eye, a momentary glint, a sense of flowing; the meandering creek that ran the length of the fertile valley floor. The sight made him long to quench a thirst he had not heeded before making the ascent.

He turned and headed to the deepest recess of the yawning, smoke charred cavern. The chief of chiefs retreat and where Akbar sought the council of the seven chiefs, along with their accord, in whatever was decided to be the path of the Seven Nations in a world brought to its knees, a generation past, by the madness of a few who would hold themselves above all others, even onto the Great Spirit, teasing the fires of creation itself.

Akbar's guards motioned The Seer to enter the sanctum as they had but hours earlier.

Akbar was already holding council with the seven chiefs. Voices were heated, excited, stepping over one anothers words. This recent incursion of Mekka men had veteran warrior chiefs anticipating battle.

When The Seer crossed the sanctum's inner threshold all faces turned to him and free-wheeling conversation subsided as if a summon for silence had been decreed.

"Seer, enter. Make yourself at ease. I thought not to see you again till the sunrise prayer and our greeting of the youth descending from Grey Beard's sacred circles." Akbar kept his tone lighthearted but The Seer could read the concern in his hawk like stare and clipped gesture.

The elder bowed, then shuffled gingerly round the dieing fire to sit, cross-legged, on the chief's left as tradition honored the tribal seer's place.

"My chief, I come again, this time bearing tidings of the far-sight... for your ears alone."

Akbar's jaw clenched causing the cheek welt of a long healed wound to quiver as he gestured to his guards and his co-chiefs.

"Allow me some moments with the Seer, my brothers." And without another word, the seven retreated to the other side of the chamber's threshold, along with the guards, and through the over-lapping boar hides which were let to shutter behind their exit with a soft thud.

"Wakan ! Come old man, we will smoke from the red pipe. I will tell you of night journeys with my naga and you will speak of the bones, the sacred circle and what whispers of the Northern Mekka have lodged in the hearts of our people."

Akbar the sly and his canny tests of mettle, baiting his trap with comraderie. The Seer would have none of it.

"No disrespect, my chief, but I would get to the heart of it."

Akbar tucked his chin into his left collar bone, looking askance briefly, then gave The Seer a full on, lopsided, toothy grin.

"You know me too well, old man. Cut to the quick then."

There was no way to lessen the blow with words of wisdom.

"Chandar's path remains forked and his naga, the trickster. Upon his return from Grey Beard it will be no clearer. He will not have had his naga vision. I have seen with the far-sight this outcome, my chief. Shall he follow the way of the warrior or the way of the seer ? I cannot say, you cannot say, even he cannot say. But this much I have also witnessed in my vision. Chandar will be in the thick of battle with Mekka men and only in the heat of conflict, on pain of death, will he move forward in seeking his One path ... though even then, I fear, his journey will remain unclear."

Akbar nodded as if this news came as no revelation.

"It is then as I have sensed since he first toddled at my feet. Your duty came heavy this night and you have acquited yourself with honor, Seer."

The Seer said nothing.

"Are Silvana and her scouts on thier way back to camp ?"

"They are, my chief, and will reach our valley well before sunrise."

The Seer could tell in Akbar's eyes, the chief of chiefs was making plans and that tasks for him were forthcoming.

"Silvana will come to me directly, that is assured. What I would have you do, old friend, is meet Chander. Asure him, as I know you can, and then bring him to me directly. His disappointment, and deep uncertainty, must be turned to a great task."

"That is wise, my chief. Will that course be to the vision I have imparted ?"

"It will indeed. A new quest. I will send Silvana and her scouts back out after a short rest to track the Mekka movements inland. Chandar will join them."

The Seer nodded approvingly.

"Take your leave old friend and see to my guards - I would not be disturbed again till Silvana's arrival. Wakan !"

The Seer spoke no more. There was no need to. He would do as he was bid and would melt the other side of twilight till then.


(Next: Chapter 4)
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