Just something from one of the creators of a game that I love. The podcast episode linked was great too of you want to hear the perspective from the people who made your games your come back to.

    • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      It’s the best immersive sim ever made, and the predictions it made way back in 99 are pretty amazing. There’s a sick conversation with an AI in a side room in the last level that is one of the best video game dialogues IMO.

      Tap for spoiler
      • JC Denton: I don’t see anything amusing about spying on people.

      • AI: Human beings feel pleasure when they are watched. I have recorded their smiles as I tell them who they are.

      • JC Denton: Some people just don’t understand the dangers of indiscriminate surveillance.

      • AI: The need to be ovserved and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms.

      • JC Denton: Electronic surveillance hardly inspires reverence. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverence.

      • AI: God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgment, and punishment. Other sentiments toward them were secondary.

      • JC Denton: No one will ever worship a software entity peering at them through a camera.

      • AI: The human organism always worships. First it was the gods then it was fame (the observation and judgment of others), next it will be the self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment.

      • JC Denton: You underestimate humankind’s love of freedom.

      • AI: The individual desires judgment. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilization. The human being created civilization not because of a willingness but because of a need to be assimilated into higher orders of structure and meaning. God was a dream of good government. You will soon have your god, and you will make it with your own hands.

      • 1984@lemmy.today
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        5 months ago

        That one was really good. I’m impressed by the level of insight here. Feels like we were a smarter species back in 2000.

      • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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        5 months ago

        Ah thanks for the vivid trip down memory lane. It’s sad you have to really search hard to find such pearls nowadays.

      • WamGams@lemmy.ca
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        5 months ago

        This comes up a lot in science fiction circles: did PKD predict the future, or did he invent it?

        Much of his work seems to have been the basis for technological revolution.

    • chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz
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      5 months ago

      Any time I’ve been there it hasn’t felt any different than other airports. What about it is spooky?