You can tell a lot about a culture by its highest values.
I would posit that the highest value of American culture is freedom. However, in a capitalistic, consumption-driven, plutocratic society, freedom is expressed through consumption choices. Obtaining income increases your choices, which increases your freedom. Obtaining the highest levels of income allows you access to the democratic process, allowing you to further define freedom for yourself and others.
Monday, November 30, 2015
On religion (part 1?)
Fairly recently, I was catching up with an old acquaintance from college, who we'll call Adam. Adam was a wild man when I knew him - he did every kind of drug, drank every kind of alcohol, and generally engaged in every kind of activity that I had been taught all my life to avoid. He seemed to have calmed down since that time, and we spent most of the night in pretty deep conversation.
At some point, I brought up that I was atheist, and asked why I had left Christianity.
At some point, I brought up that I was atheist, and asked why I had left Christianity.
I thought about it for a good bit, and realized I didn't have a snappy answer, because it's a pretty complicated affair.
Growing up, I went to a church of one denomination and a school primarily of another denomination. When I was a kid, this mattered very little to me - I remember having conversations in grade school with friends that being Christian is the important part; what kind of Christian was secondary. Being deeply religious, from parents that emphasized education, and from a denomination that emphasized education, I experienced growth in my faith by learning. I read the entire Bible at least a couple times in my life, memorized books of the Bible for competitive events, listened attentively in church and Sunday school, and generally applied a significant portion of my attention to it. The Bible was the Truth - learning from the Bible meant learning about the most powerful being in existence and the most fundamental laws of the universe He created.
As I got older, I understood more and more the difference between the Christianity I was taught in church and the one I was taught in school. The God I was taught in church was a lover, dedicated to move heaven and earth to redeem His chosen people; the God at school was a petty tyrant. I realized that occasionally the sermons at chapel would be direct, conscious attempts to build and knock down straw men of my own denomination. Beyond all that, the preachers were often just wrong. They didn't know the Bible that was their job to teach others about. It'd be like hearing a biology professor saying that cats and dogs weren't mammals because they have tails.
One of the most particularly enraging instances was a missionary who proudly taught savages in Africa that "real" wedding ceremonies involved a ring. He wasn't trying to make them Christian; he was trying to make them American. It reminded me of Matthew 23:15 (which was the book I was memorizing at the time):
As I got older, I understood more and more the difference between the Christianity I was taught in church and the one I was taught in school. The God I was taught in church was a lover, dedicated to move heaven and earth to redeem His chosen people; the God at school was a petty tyrant. I realized that occasionally the sermons at chapel would be direct, conscious attempts to build and knock down straw men of my own denomination. Beyond all that, the preachers were often just wrong. They didn't know the Bible that was their job to teach others about. It'd be like hearing a biology professor saying that cats and dogs weren't mammals because they have tails.
One of the most particularly enraging instances was a missionary who proudly taught savages in Africa that "real" wedding ceremonies involved a ring. He wasn't trying to make them Christian; he was trying to make them American. It reminded me of Matthew 23:15 (which was the book I was memorizing at the time):
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You traverse land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are."
So a divide began in my mind: There was what other Christians believed, and then there was what I believed, and I was going to believe the Bible. It infuriated me when Christians didn't know the Bible (still does, to tell the truth). Christians who said that dinosaurs weren't real - there are dinosaur-like creatures in the Bible! Dinosaurs should be a proof of the Bible, not a condemnation against it! Christians who were bigots - the Bible says that in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile, no slave or free, no male and female. Christians who were obsessed with the end times and phrases like "wars and rumors of wars" - the Bible says that wars and rumors of wars mean it's not the end times yet.
But it was OK. That's what other people believed. I believed in the Bible.
At college, I fell in with a much more diverse crowd than my tiny Christian high school. D&D nerds, tech junkies, the aforementioned drug-fueled partiers (never what I did, but they were great for conversation), international students, punk-rock anarchists, and (most relevantly) Rocky Horror Picture Show shadow cast members and pagans.
At college, I fell in with a much more diverse crowd than my tiny Christian high school. D&D nerds, tech junkies, the aforementioned drug-fueled partiers (never what I did, but they were great for conversation), international students, punk-rock anarchists, and (most relevantly) Rocky Horror Picture Show shadow cast members and pagans.
The pagans played a fairly simple role: It had always annoyed me when Christians said things like "ghosts aren't real" or "magic isn't real" - the Bible explicitly mentions at least one ghost, and explicitly bans necromancy. Why would the Bible ban something that wasn't real? Talking with pagans was exciting and continuously stretched the boundaries of my "I believe the Bible" mantra - any of these occult topics might be real - the Bible didn't really say one way or the other.
RHPS strangely helped me grow as a person because I always strive to be appropriate for my situation. At RHPS, the appropriate, polite, expected thing to do is scream obscenities, dance wildly, and make the crudest jokes imaginable. It's a bit of the when-in-Rome idea. I could let loose because I wasn't letting lose. Dressing up like a zombie with a knife in my side, fake blood trickling down to the floor, groaning in agony was a way to win a costume contest, not a cause for concern.
Well, there's a funny thing that happens to human beings when you cram them together, make them dress differently, sing songs, and dance together: The oxytocin starts pumping. One night, belting out increasingly vulgar renditions of "Hot Patootie" and the like, I was overwhelmed with deep, deep feelings of love, peace, and connection. When I started to think about it, I'd had similar experienced before - singing hymns in church on Sunday morning.
RHPS strangely helped me grow as a person because I always strive to be appropriate for my situation. At RHPS, the appropriate, polite, expected thing to do is scream obscenities, dance wildly, and make the crudest jokes imaginable. It's a bit of the when-in-Rome idea. I could let loose because I wasn't letting lose. Dressing up like a zombie with a knife in my side, fake blood trickling down to the floor, groaning in agony was a way to win a costume contest, not a cause for concern.
Well, there's a funny thing that happens to human beings when you cram them together, make them dress differently, sing songs, and dance together: The oxytocin starts pumping. One night, belting out increasingly vulgar renditions of "Hot Patootie" and the like, I was overwhelmed with deep, deep feelings of love, peace, and connection. When I started to think about it, I'd had similar experienced before - singing hymns in church on Sunday morning.
There were a few other major events - a pastor telling me that God says to leave the love of my life, a deeply depressed friend reaching out to Christians I trusted (basically begging to know how to be saved) and being snubbed - but I'll try to cut this post a little shorter.
My wife showed me a video (related event starts at ~41:00) in which primate researchers hide a treat in an opaque box. They perform a complex series of actions, and then take the treat out of the box. They taught the complex series of actions to primates and human children; both groups perform the series of actions and get the treat.
They then put a treat in a clear box, in which it is completely obvious that the treat can be taken at any time. Only a fraction of the primates bother with the unnecessary steps, but all of the human children do. This experiment was repeated with children from cultures around the world with the same results.
This video deeply unsettled me, and I ended up walking through downtown at 3 in the morning thinking heavily. I came across a woman sitting at a red light. There were no cars coming in any direction. The roads around were straight, empty, and completely visible. The box was clear, the treat was there, and still she did the unnecessary action.
It was one of - if not the - final straw for religion for me. Religion was an unnecessary series of actions (ceremonies, guilt, singing, etc.) to obtain a treat (social order, ethics, etc.). It wasn't that religion didn't contain truth or value, it was just that you can freely reach out and take it at any time.
Maybe that'll be my snappy answer from now on.
My wife showed me a video (related event starts at ~41:00) in which primate researchers hide a treat in an opaque box. They perform a complex series of actions, and then take the treat out of the box. They taught the complex series of actions to primates and human children; both groups perform the series of actions and get the treat.
They then put a treat in a clear box, in which it is completely obvious that the treat can be taken at any time. Only a fraction of the primates bother with the unnecessary steps, but all of the human children do. This experiment was repeated with children from cultures around the world with the same results.
This video deeply unsettled me, and I ended up walking through downtown at 3 in the morning thinking heavily. I came across a woman sitting at a red light. There were no cars coming in any direction. The roads around were straight, empty, and completely visible. The box was clear, the treat was there, and still she did the unnecessary action.
It was one of - if not the - final straw for religion for me. Religion was an unnecessary series of actions (ceremonies, guilt, singing, etc.) to obtain a treat (social order, ethics, etc.). It wasn't that religion didn't contain truth or value, it was just that you can freely reach out and take it at any time.
Maybe that'll be my snappy answer from now on.
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Memories
I want to record a fond memory I have.
I went to high school in a small, private Christian school where chapel twice a week (and Bible class the remaining days) was a part of the curriculum. Being the keen sort of Christian young man I was, I both used words like "keen" to friendly derision and complained about chapel because of quality of the doctrine that was preached. Most days, I walked out angry at the appalling lack of biblical knowledge of the day's speaker.
I don't remember the speaker's name or even what they looked like, but one day, a speaker gave a pretty moving sermon about helping those around you. A focal point was young man named something like "Jerry" that mostly acted like he was fine but felt severely depressed and alienated and ended up committing suicide (if I'm remembering the story correctly - it's been 10 years). That day, I left the room in deep thought, wondering who was really hurting among my friends and fellow students.
I hardly noticed that Garrett, a friend of mine was moving towards me. Garrett was a good-ol' boy - thick accent, always goofing around, no guile, all heart. He came up, put his hands on my shoulders, and looked me dead the eyes. His face was dead serious, but I could feel the emotion pouring off him.
"Don't be a Jerry," he said, and left.
I busted out laughing.
In the moment, I was so concerned that I needed to be looking out for the people around me. The idea that I was the one someone immediately thought of was so ludicrous - combined with Garrett's complete reversal of his usual goofy demeanor - set me giggling uncontrollably.
Looking back with a little more perspective, I was actually emotionally unstable and contemplating suicide at the time, so Garrett was right, but I also probably needed the laugh.
I have enormous amount I want to say about related topics, so I'll say a good chunk of it now with little to no organization. You have been warned.
I have a terrible memory.
Well, that's not entirely true. I can remember thousands of obscure scraps of data about Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 - as well as the Bible, despite not having studied it seriously in 5ish years. Just tonight, I was cold, and I remembered that days ago I accidentally knocked a t-shirt (the one with the Venn diagram of "never" and "more" with a raven in the middle) off a coat hanger in my closet, and it landed on a suitcase being stored there. I remembered where it fell well enough to find it in total darkness at 4 a.m.
But in many other aspects, I have a terrible memory. I cannot remember state capitols. I cannot remember my parents' exact birthdays (though I know the month and plan accordingly). I cannot remember whether I should have spelled it "capitols" or "capitals." Most importantly, I have a very hard time remembering my own life.
For a specific example, take 3rd grade: I don't remember any of it. At this point, I can't even remember my teacher's name, though I couldn't recognize her by junior high. I once told this to some of my classmates, laughing "Yeah, I don't remember anything about third grade except that it was the year that Justin was here." They gave me odd stares and informed me that Justin was at our school in fourth grade.
Most of it is normal stuff. I have a hard time separating the decade of 2000-2009 from 2010+, but this seems to be a widespread cultural phenomena. I remember "The Berenstain Bears" being spelled "Berenstein," but remember it being pronounced stain; my friends have humorously informed me that this means that I am the nexus of a trans-dimensional rift in space-time, and they will use me to get back to their proper timeline.
But I digress: The point is that I often forget large swaths of my own life. My brain takes data that it deems unimportant like my old friends, favorite media, most intense feelings, and allocates it as writable space. Unlike a computer, I don't even have defragment function, so the memories I do have are scattered and hard to access without specific triggers.
This is one of the primary reasons I've been trying to blog more, and blog about some personal topics and deep memories. I don't just want to display them for others, I want to record them for myself in 10 years, 10 months, or 10 days who has completely forgotten what he believed, thought, and felt at that time.
I was looking back at my old Livejournals (always a perilous idea), and I was struck by a number of conclusions:
-I was even more deeply depressed than I realized (see Garrett story above; though part of that perception was just that I rarely felt like posting except when I was feeling emotional).
-I was much more religious than I remembered, and for longer.
-I had a seismic shift in mood when I met the lady who is now my wife, and another when I came to terms with my own atheism - but I also used Livejournal less and less thereafter.
-I wrote much more then than I give myself credit for now.
-I don't remember it that well.
-I don't have any reliable way of remembering what I didn't write about.
So the obvious conclusion was to write more.
My wife (who has been reading this over my shoulder) contends that it's not a problem of memory but perception - and my complete unawareness of my own surroundings is definitely part of it.
I didn't even get to the bizarre quasi-religious experience I had last night, but it'll have to wait for another time.
I went to high school in a small, private Christian school where chapel twice a week (and Bible class the remaining days) was a part of the curriculum. Being the keen sort of Christian young man I was, I both used words like "keen" to friendly derision and complained about chapel because of quality of the doctrine that was preached. Most days, I walked out angry at the appalling lack of biblical knowledge of the day's speaker.
I don't remember the speaker's name or even what they looked like, but one day, a speaker gave a pretty moving sermon about helping those around you. A focal point was young man named something like "Jerry" that mostly acted like he was fine but felt severely depressed and alienated and ended up committing suicide (if I'm remembering the story correctly - it's been 10 years). That day, I left the room in deep thought, wondering who was really hurting among my friends and fellow students.
I hardly noticed that Garrett, a friend of mine was moving towards me. Garrett was a good-ol' boy - thick accent, always goofing around, no guile, all heart. He came up, put his hands on my shoulders, and looked me dead the eyes. His face was dead serious, but I could feel the emotion pouring off him.
"Don't be a Jerry," he said, and left.
I busted out laughing.
In the moment, I was so concerned that I needed to be looking out for the people around me. The idea that I was the one someone immediately thought of was so ludicrous - combined with Garrett's complete reversal of his usual goofy demeanor - set me giggling uncontrollably.
Looking back with a little more perspective, I was actually emotionally unstable and contemplating suicide at the time, so Garrett was right, but I also probably needed the laugh.
I have enormous amount I want to say about related topics, so I'll say a good chunk of it now with little to no organization. You have been warned.
I have a terrible memory.
Well, that's not entirely true. I can remember thousands of obscure scraps of data about Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 - as well as the Bible, despite not having studied it seriously in 5ish years. Just tonight, I was cold, and I remembered that days ago I accidentally knocked a t-shirt (the one with the Venn diagram of "never" and "more" with a raven in the middle) off a coat hanger in my closet, and it landed on a suitcase being stored there. I remembered where it fell well enough to find it in total darkness at 4 a.m.
But in many other aspects, I have a terrible memory. I cannot remember state capitols. I cannot remember my parents' exact birthdays (though I know the month and plan accordingly). I cannot remember whether I should have spelled it "capitols" or "capitals." Most importantly, I have a very hard time remembering my own life.
For a specific example, take 3rd grade: I don't remember any of it. At this point, I can't even remember my teacher's name, though I couldn't recognize her by junior high. I once told this to some of my classmates, laughing "Yeah, I don't remember anything about third grade except that it was the year that Justin was here." They gave me odd stares and informed me that Justin was at our school in fourth grade.
Most of it is normal stuff. I have a hard time separating the decade of 2000-2009 from 2010+, but this seems to be a widespread cultural phenomena. I remember "The Berenstain Bears" being spelled "Berenstein," but remember it being pronounced stain; my friends have humorously informed me that this means that I am the nexus of a trans-dimensional rift in space-time, and they will use me to get back to their proper timeline.
But I digress: The point is that I often forget large swaths of my own life. My brain takes data that it deems unimportant like my old friends, favorite media, most intense feelings, and allocates it as writable space. Unlike a computer, I don't even have defragment function, so the memories I do have are scattered and hard to access without specific triggers.
This is one of the primary reasons I've been trying to blog more, and blog about some personal topics and deep memories. I don't just want to display them for others, I want to record them for myself in 10 years, 10 months, or 10 days who has completely forgotten what he believed, thought, and felt at that time.
I was looking back at my old Livejournals (always a perilous idea), and I was struck by a number of conclusions:
-I was even more deeply depressed than I realized (see Garrett story above; though part of that perception was just that I rarely felt like posting except when I was feeling emotional).
-I was much more religious than I remembered, and for longer.
-I had a seismic shift in mood when I met the lady who is now my wife, and another when I came to terms with my own atheism - but I also used Livejournal less and less thereafter.
-I wrote much more then than I give myself credit for now.
-I don't remember it that well.
-I don't have any reliable way of remembering what I didn't write about.
So the obvious conclusion was to write more.
My wife (who has been reading this over my shoulder) contends that it's not a problem of memory but perception - and my complete unawareness of my own surroundings is definitely part of it.
I didn't even get to the bizarre quasi-religious experience I had last night, but it'll have to wait for another time.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Random ideas:
-A near-future world where votes are actively bought, sold, and managed by powerful vote-brokers. People don't have time or will to know issues or politicians, and would rather sell their votes off to the highest bidder. Voter "unions" band together to keep the price of votes high and maintain an appearance of integrity (i.e. each voting bloc will only take a contract with a politician who meets x% of their beliefs).
-A man who takes a deal with the devil/a necromantic force just to keep working his normal, boring job. "I have no life, man."
-Jerry Springer with Greek/Roman Gods. "You had sex with 16 different goatherds while transformed into fucking waterfowl!"
-Animal shelter that's a front for a cult of necromancers.
-A near-future world where votes are actively bought, sold, and managed by powerful vote-brokers. People don't have time or will to know issues or politicians, and would rather sell their votes off to the highest bidder. Voter "unions" band together to keep the price of votes high and maintain an appearance of integrity (i.e. each voting bloc will only take a contract with a politician who meets x% of their beliefs).
-A man who takes a deal with the devil/a necromantic force just to keep working his normal, boring job. "I have no life, man."
-Jerry Springer with Greek/Roman Gods. "You had sex with 16 different goatherds while transformed into fucking waterfowl!"
-Animal shelter that's a front for a cult of necromancers.
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Monday, November 2, 2015
Topics of conversation
Making a post to remind me of posts I want to make in the future:
On the bullshit that is gender
On dreams, sleep, and nightmares
Why I left religion
What I'm looking for in a religion
Why I watch way too many Let's Play videos on Youtube
On the bullshit that is gender
On dreams, sleep, and nightmares
Why I left religion
What I'm looking for in a religion
Why I watch way too many Let's Play videos on Youtube
Binding of Isaac - Afterbirth
People say to "write what you know." Well, for about 20ish years of my life, I tried writing novels about just about everything - things I knew, and things I didn't know. I never got more than about 50 pages in. I guess that's still a minor accomplishment - plenty of people don't even get that far - but it frustrated me.
Then, I tried writing for a tabletop game I like. I've got one small book that'll be released once whoever is doing the layout finally gets to it, and a contract for another to be published next year.
I guess "what you know" is kind of subjective. I was never able to finish a book about a kid in school when I was a kid in school, but I can get paid to write a book about necromancy after spending years playing games about smacking skeletons and zombies.
It's a strange world.
Anyway, I've had an idea in my head for about seven, eight years now about a guy, his girlfriend, and her friends playing an MMO together - inspired by a time in my life in which myself, my girlfriend, and my friends played MMOs together. A lot of it was going to be about a new expansion launching - the protagonist has never played the game before, but his girlfriend is near the top of the global leaderboards. The guy and his friends have to catch up with years of backlog before he can get to the point where he can actually continue to discover new material with his girlfriend.
Anyway, it has some fun ideas in it, but I had an urge to write about it again in light of the release of The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth. The Binding of Isaac vaguely follows the biblical story of Isaac (his mother hears a voice from "heaven" telling her to kill her son Isaac). Most of the enemies are twisted babies, undead babies, sentient poops, and demonic entities. Most of the upgrades have some kind of reference to the occult (you can permanently reduce your maximum health to make deals with the devil) or semi-veiled references to child abuse (the belt, the wooden spoon, a carton of rotten milk labelled "breakfast"). It's very cartoony and adorable. It's a rogue-like, meaning the game is heavily randomized, full of unlockable content, and incredibly replayable. It's a ton of fun.
Anyway, so the last time an expansion-ish thing dropped for BoI (The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth), the game's creator, Edmund Mcmillen, included an extremely difficult to unlock secret character. You had to purposefully die multiple times with multiple characters in highly specific ways. There were only the vaguest of hints that the character existed or how to unlock them. A few weeks after launch, the community started to piece everything together, when a dataminer showed up and explained the exact sequence of how to unlock the character.
Ed was pissed. He put a lot of time into creating a cryptic mystery, the fan base was just starting to get serious about working together to find it, and then someone showed up and spoiled everything.
Ed was pissed. When BoI: Afterbirth was announced, he said it wouldn't contain something similar. A strong movement started on the subreddit to ban datamining for at least a few months to everyone could discover the new secrets naturally.
Well, Afterbirth launched on the 30th of October. After the initial roaring gush of enthusiasm and sheer joy, people started to ask questions. Ed and the team specifically and repeatedly promised 120 new items and ~500 pickups, but there were less than 80, even after finding several secrets and killing all the hardest bosses with the most underpowered characters. Pitchforks were raised and then lowered in quick succession - there are still achievements in the game that nobody has unlocked. There are still strange quirks - why can you only put 109 coins in the donation machine in the new game mode, when you could put 999 coins in the old one? What do these seeming useless items do? Did the trailer contain secrets about unlocking it all?
Ed and his team have already announced that there's going to be a patch, so it seems likely that at least some of the pieces of the puzzle aren't there yet to find.
However, on another subreddit, there's a group working feverishly to hack the game and discover the secrets, driven by all kinds of motivations - fame, the competitive spirit, displays of skill - trying to be "the guy" who found the secret. Some are probably driven by the primal human instinct to know - there's something hidden, and they can't rest until they unearth it. Some are driven by simple enjoyment of the game; even if its creator disapproves of their actions, they still want to enjoy the fullness of its experience that's just out of their reach. Some are killjoys who enjoy the fact that the secreted was outed last time and can't wait to do the same.
Edmund just waits. He knows what is and isn't there. He knows the theories of the "good" players who want to solve everything fair and square. He knows the actions of the "bad" players and whether or not their designs even have a chance of succeeding. He has the answers that both sides want out of them, and if he's prepared enough, they'll both know when he wishes.
The power struggle is energizing to me.
Maybe I'll work it into the MMO story someday.
Then, I tried writing for a tabletop game I like. I've got one small book that'll be released once whoever is doing the layout finally gets to it, and a contract for another to be published next year.
I guess "what you know" is kind of subjective. I was never able to finish a book about a kid in school when I was a kid in school, but I can get paid to write a book about necromancy after spending years playing games about smacking skeletons and zombies.
It's a strange world.
Anyway, I've had an idea in my head for about seven, eight years now about a guy, his girlfriend, and her friends playing an MMO together - inspired by a time in my life in which myself, my girlfriend, and my friends played MMOs together. A lot of it was going to be about a new expansion launching - the protagonist has never played the game before, but his girlfriend is near the top of the global leaderboards. The guy and his friends have to catch up with years of backlog before he can get to the point where he can actually continue to discover new material with his girlfriend.
Anyway, it has some fun ideas in it, but I had an urge to write about it again in light of the release of The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth. The Binding of Isaac vaguely follows the biblical story of Isaac (his mother hears a voice from "heaven" telling her to kill her son Isaac). Most of the enemies are twisted babies, undead babies, sentient poops, and demonic entities. Most of the upgrades have some kind of reference to the occult (you can permanently reduce your maximum health to make deals with the devil) or semi-veiled references to child abuse (the belt, the wooden spoon, a carton of rotten milk labelled "breakfast"). It's very cartoony and adorable. It's a rogue-like, meaning the game is heavily randomized, full of unlockable content, and incredibly replayable. It's a ton of fun.
Anyway, so the last time an expansion-ish thing dropped for BoI (The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth), the game's creator, Edmund Mcmillen, included an extremely difficult to unlock secret character. You had to purposefully die multiple times with multiple characters in highly specific ways. There were only the vaguest of hints that the character existed or how to unlock them. A few weeks after launch, the community started to piece everything together, when a dataminer showed up and explained the exact sequence of how to unlock the character.
Ed was pissed. He put a lot of time into creating a cryptic mystery, the fan base was just starting to get serious about working together to find it, and then someone showed up and spoiled everything.
Ed was pissed. When BoI: Afterbirth was announced, he said it wouldn't contain something similar. A strong movement started on the subreddit to ban datamining for at least a few months to everyone could discover the new secrets naturally.
Well, Afterbirth launched on the 30th of October. After the initial roaring gush of enthusiasm and sheer joy, people started to ask questions. Ed and the team specifically and repeatedly promised 120 new items and ~500 pickups, but there were less than 80, even after finding several secrets and killing all the hardest bosses with the most underpowered characters. Pitchforks were raised and then lowered in quick succession - there are still achievements in the game that nobody has unlocked. There are still strange quirks - why can you only put 109 coins in the donation machine in the new game mode, when you could put 999 coins in the old one? What do these seeming useless items do? Did the trailer contain secrets about unlocking it all?
Ed and his team have already announced that there's going to be a patch, so it seems likely that at least some of the pieces of the puzzle aren't there yet to find.
However, on another subreddit, there's a group working feverishly to hack the game and discover the secrets, driven by all kinds of motivations - fame, the competitive spirit, displays of skill - trying to be "the guy" who found the secret. Some are probably driven by the primal human instinct to know - there's something hidden, and they can't rest until they unearth it. Some are driven by simple enjoyment of the game; even if its creator disapproves of their actions, they still want to enjoy the fullness of its experience that's just out of their reach. Some are killjoys who enjoy the fact that the secreted was outed last time and can't wait to do the same.
Edmund just waits. He knows what is and isn't there. He knows the theories of the "good" players who want to solve everything fair and square. He knows the actions of the "bad" players and whether or not their designs even have a chance of succeeding. He has the answers that both sides want out of them, and if he's prepared enough, they'll both know when he wishes.
The power struggle is energizing to me.
Maybe I'll work it into the MMO story someday.
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