Very well said. Is it even possible to quantify intelligence? I mean, you can obviously measures brain size, which they did, and that was lacking, then they measured amount of gray matter, which matters a lot more, conclusively, but there is also the fact that even losing pieces of the brain cannot stop a person from being fully functioning due to neuroplasticity, and then you have concepts like IQ tests which are verifiable steeped in white exceptionalism aka racist as hell.

It seems like the issue is more nuanced than all that.

Not to mention grades are about doing the work and having the discipline and organizational skills. There are plenty of people who are very intelligent, but lack both of those. US testing metrics (is that the right word?) are heavily flawed. This isn’t even bringing up the racist aspect of most institutions, including educational being headed up and formulated by white people.

I’m so ready to get the kind of polish and mastery that BG3 has applied to a new game in the Divinity universe. I haven’t finished DOS3, not by a Longshot and don’t have time to play it, but it blew me away and I think about playing it again often. I will one day. It is daunting when you haven’t played a game like that in a while, to continue on. Especially on the harder difficulties lol RIP. Larian is the GOAT game studio up there with From Software and the Zelda team imo.

I have a hankering to go back to it regularly and I’m playing on the Switch so it is less smooth, but yes I am a forever fan of Larian Studioes after experiencing just a tithe of DOS:2. Hard to explain why it is so good, but the mechanics are creative, fun, and challenging. The story is epic and actually epic in scope and the characters are all so fleshed out and the voice acting is professionally done and immaculate. It is very open ended and very long but very very good.

This just reads to me that Divinity Original Sin 3 is on the far horizon. YES

There is no cheese.

Would get this in a heartbeat if it had couch co-op. What a shame. My wife would love to play it with me and we only have one Switch and also wouldn’t buy the game twice anyway.

Making a standard dark souls or Nioh like game, but with a co-op that incorporated Puzzle Quest like mechanics could be cool. In order to power up the main character the side kick could make certain matches in their match 3 game, or to pick locks, or cast spells, or even Estus flask use.

So kind of like some of the simulations that exist to allow people a glimpse of what it is like to suffer from schizophrenia with audible and visual hallucinations, constant repetititious dialogue in your head etc, that I have seen videos of. I don’t think they’re widely available, but if someone made an actual fleshed out game with that, I agree it would be really cool. Unfortunately the stigma that still exists regarding mental illness would make it hard for anyone to really go for it, unless it was entirely indie.

I think the only reason I got as far as I did, which was to the Mantis Lord’s fight, is because of Hyper focusing lol and being a masochist.

I want someone to revisit MUDs, but integrate Chat GPT with it and just make it better in every way. I know it can be done because I’ve tricked GPT into starting a MUD and it was awesome and Legend of Zelda TOTK themed before the game launched.

I hope for you to one day have the time and energy to pursue your passions…

Harvest moon like game, but survival horror. It could be first person, but would be cooler if it was like Stardew Valley. Terraria is KINDA like this, but it’s vibe isn’t really horror because it is too colorful and goofy. I’m thinking older RE vibes

Bro. We are already there. The tobacco industry sued Australia for fighting to keep graphic pictures and descriptions of lung disease/cancer on cigarette packs and WON. Against the entire fucking government of Australia.

Those armies are going to want to be paid and that’ll be hard to do once currency has no meaning. If we are going to go that route. As a matter of fact, a bunch of the 1% have recently had meetings with “experts” on ways to keep their hired mercenaries from turning on them once things truly collapse.

Thank you! I’ve been reading the responses and many of them hit the mark, but yours is the only one mentioning the sbortsightedness of it all. My brother and I have had many conversations about this subject and agree that part of it has to be some kind of collective brain misfire for the lack of a better phrase, that happens to organisms that get to the level we’re at, since everything that we build moves faster than evolution will allow our brains to adapt to, and while we see all of this as a mistake we’ve made or a small subset of us being greedy and upsetting the apple cart, I posit that it is just our species finally reaching a bottleneck that all species eventually face. We just artificially pushed the ceiling further and further upward so we didn’t see it. I think we are starting to see it though and it’s unlikely that we can do anything to stop from hitting it now.

Time to sharpen the guillotines again…

This could be applied so many different ways and is especially topical right now with that’s currently going with the world policitically cough cough

Don’t let assholes sway your convictions, regardless of what they are. Convictions are personal. Sure, it is really great to have a community that shares in some of the ways that you think about the world and your behaviors, but that isn’t the end all be all, right? Furthermore, people are going to be more negative than they are positive (Especially on the internet) so I bet if you keep looking, online and in person, you’ll find a group that you mesh with. People who gatekeep are just insecure about their own positions because they aren’t being authentic and like others have said… they’re probably just wanting to be part of a club.