aluminiumtrioxid

I don't think trying to nail down exactly what criteria are responsible for a bunch of people with a common cultural frame of reference to graduate to being "a civilization" (do tribes count? city-states? historical empires only? are we admitting cultures based on technological advancement? geographical area? organizational complexity in their system of governance? cultural achievements? some? all?) is pointless sophistry. I disagree. How can you have a discussion about something without knowing what that thing is?

I don't think trying to nail down exactly what criteria are responsible for a bunch of people with a common cultural frame of reference to graduate to being "a civilization" (do tribes count? city-states? historical empires only? are we admitting cultures based on technological advancement? geographical area? organizational complexity in their system of governance? cultural achievements? some? all?) is pointless sophistry.

I just think the agnostic-religious dichotomy is a bit of a red herring here. What you need is a common frame of reference, and a certain level of anthropocentrism is pretty much unavoidable because in the absence of information to the contrary, it feels intuitive. Are you a philosophy major, by chance? No. Was the question relevant to the discussion at hand in any way, shape or form?

Well... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Juris_Civilis I think you might have missed the point ("how do you define the continuity of a culture?").

Surprising as it may sound, one may find better use of one's time than arguing about something that's literally impossible to prove or disprove. That's not quite how proving statements work. If the claim being debated is "all civilizations are based on a founding religion" (implying that this is a universal rule and no civilization could ever emerge without one, versus "all sophisticated historical civilizations we know of had a founding religion", which is closer to what Mesh originally said, but irrelevant to the debate at hand), the onus is on the side making the claim to prove the necessity of religion. Also worth considering: if one's definition of "civilization" only includes a fairly small number of cultures, keeping in mind the confidence level derived from one's sample size when making sweeping universal statements is generally prudent. Thank you.

Fix'd. Oh sweet summer child...

"But what do they eat?"

I just think the agnostic-religious dichotomy is a bit of a red herring here. What you need is a common frame of reference, and a certain level of anthropocentrism is pretty much unavoidable because in the absence of information to the contrary, it feels intuitive.

Your ignorance does not offend me. I'm fairly sure they're not. Mesh is full of **** more often than he isn't. Can you name a civilization that was built without a religious base? Define "civilization" and "religion", I guess?

I thought you were of the opinion that people, by and large, are idiots?

I'm fairly sure they're not. Mesh is full of **** more often than he isn't.

To me, that kind of sounds like saying "Hitler had the right idea, except for that pesky nazi thing".

How... original.

Do want.

Never played a cipher, so I have no idea how useful Defensive Mindweb is. For me, the clear winner seems to be Gaze of the Adragan.

I never got the sense the fanbase was rebuked at all by Pillars - which I presume you mean it missed the mark of our collective expectations. In some sense yes I would say the game did not live up to expectations, it never could of course, but that isn't to denigrate its quality but instead acknowledge its own message to us about the nature of expectations, especially those born out of nostalgia and memory. The whole game is suffused with melancholy and many of the characters and quests involve people in some ways trapped in the past to their detriment. The soul reading mechanic seems to exist only to reinforce the idea of the cyclical nature of violence through cultural memory, the dozens misappropriate the collective memory of others to justify themselves, you literally enter GMs memory, Saganis vision quest involves her village memory and she frets about whether her own husband will remember her in her absence. The game explicitly says 'hey you shouldn't live in the past because it's the past and it's not like you remember it anyway. Don't let your memory of the past dictate your future, things change and it's unhealthy to try and pervert that process'. Is it a coincidence that a game that was made by strapping our memory of the infinity engine to a table and forcing 4 million dollars into its lifeless husk has so many Frankenstein references in it? The whole world of Eora is on the cusp of change. The gods are dead, boomsticks obsolete the arcane, people are weary of religious conflict and so modernism is approaching fast. Our heroes solving problems with swords and chivalry are an anachronism. A bunch of people who can't adjust to the changing times, every one an exile in some way, six outsiders marching gamely in lockstep to the next area who can't accept that everything around them has changed. Therein lies the rebuke. If this is trolling, it's the most artful example of such I've ever seen.

Because every single time his peers appeared on screen, the writing and storytelling took a nosedive?

Although, to be fair, you're fairly unlikely to get a tangible return on your investment. I'm not with you, are you saying helping others get a better education is not a good investment? I doubt Sadie means she will get a personal benefit, like someone she indirectly helps get educated is going to give her money But an educated and skilled society is one of the requirements to achieve economic transformation, people with jobs contribute towards the tax base and are critical to the basic spending power of any society So this then benefits everyone..so yes its not tangible but its still an expected positive outcome of a progressive society Well, paraphrasing Constantine: "Let me tell you the secret of science... any **** could do it." Scientific progress is largely built on soul-crushing drudgery. Sure, some will be better at it than others, but if you educate someone decently enough, they will be able to contribute to some extent - the problem is that for any given person, this is going to happen exceedingly slowly, and will only have an exceedingly minuscule impact on the total body of knowledge accumulated by mankind. My point is that the likelihood of any given person funding the education of a world-changing genius whose work will then have a tangible benefit on their lives in return is astronomically small.

Yeah, the kind of gonzo insanity commonly associated with epic levels just doesn't fit the very grounded style of Pillars. The writing was always at its weakest when it came to the handling of world-changing revelations, really.

Fix'd.

Although, to be fair, you're fairly unlikely to get a tangible return on your investment.

...Why exactly? I mean, seriously, who benefits from having a minimum wage so low, most people on it have to apply for various welfare programs to cover basic necessities? Why is it fair that people indirectly have to pay for services and goods they never use nor want through taxes, because the reason said services and goods are available at such low prices is that the employer is paying minimum wage to its workers? Gfted already linked a good article on some of the issues, but I'd add that all employers are different. It is pretty easy for me to tune out the big chains when they complain about minimum wage. McDonalds is not going to go under because it pays the fry cook a few bucks more. They should trim the fat at the top, and given they are a consumer driven business, the consumers should be driving for that. But small businesses don't have the same profit margin. The difference of a few bucks and hour may drop them into the red. We need to make sure that doesn't happen. I remain skeptical. After all, this isn't the first time the minimum wage was raised, and it was always precluded by much flailing and doomsaying, which generally turned out to be without substance in hindsight.

I honestly fail to see how Confucius would be relevant to anybody in the western world, and I'm one of those people who read not only him, but also a sizeable chunk of the commentary and related works written by his most prominent students.

...Your education never covered, say, Dante or Petrarca?

...Why exactly? I mean, seriously, who benefits from having a minimum wage so low, most people on it have to apply for various welfare programs to cover basic necessities? Why is it fair that people indirectly have to pay for services and goods they never use nor want through taxes, because the reason said services and goods are available at such low prices is that the employer is paying minimum wage to its workers?