Author's Note: Bad, Bad Word

[avatar (Alistair Young)]

Comments migrated from WordPress:

@FooQuuxman <revan2342@gmail.com> on 2016-11-27 17:25:24 wrote

I’m pretty sure that there is never a time when it is inappropriate to quote / reference Bioshock*.

*: this may or may not be due to the typer’s recent obsession with the franchise.

@MirrorField <mirrorfield@gmail.com> on 2016-11-29 08:43:04 wrote

The Question remaining is simple: “What’s then the local cultural equivalent to phrase ‘Would you kindly’”?

(Read: The Brainwashing trigger phrase that’s so holovid-cliché that nobody sane would actually use it in real life…)

@Mark Atwood <me@mark.atwood.name> on 2016-11-30 12:03:52 wrote

ISTR a post where the conlang was stated to have a way to say “do this thing right now, this is not a request”, OTOH, it’s not a “trigger phrase”, its instead an opportunity to make a snap decision between complying, and committing suicide by cop.

@John D. Bell <jdb@systemsartisans.com> on 2017-01-06 17:20:27 wrote

Mark - I think you may be remembering this:

Worldbuilding: The Eldraeic Imperative

@Specialist290 <specialist290@hughes.net> on 2016-11-30 18:04:02 wrote

On a related note: Do the eldrae have any sort of understanding of the idea of “bad faith” as used in the existential philosophical sense? (Bad faith (existentialism) - Wikipedia)

(For example, to use yet another pithy science fiction quote: “There is always choice. We say there is no choice only to comfort ourselves with the decision we have already made.”)

@Alistair Young <athanasius.skytower@arkane-systems.net> on 2016-11-30 23:32:31 wrote

Well, not in the existential sense, inasmuch as existentialism in their context is down there competing with nihilism for the title of Least Reputable Philosophy Ever.

They certainly have the concept of inescapable freedom of choice, but its roots and implications are quite distinct.

@Specialist290 <specialist290@hughes.net> on 2016-12-01 17:15:52 wrote

Interesting that this should be the case, given that existentialist thought espouses many of the same sort of values that the eldrae themselves do – elevating and valuing the individual for themself, a commitment to freedom of thought and action for every thinking being, a belief that we must forge our own purpose and impose it on a universe that intrinsically has none, etc.