"Do or do not. There is no try."

via BBC

 

This statement has caused quite a bit of dismay. Added to that another quote:

"A female character means that you have to redo a lot of animation, a lot of costumes [inaudible]. It would have doubled the work on those things. And I mean it's something the team really wanted, but we had to make a decision... It's unfortunate, but it's a reality of game development."

via io9
 

So basically what happened was that Ubisoft, the company behind numerous top titles (Including the Ghost Recon series), declared that the new Assassin's Creed game would not include female assassins. The previous games have had them, but making female models for the new one seemed like too much work. While this may be an excellent chance to take pot-shots against game developers being all male and girlfriendless, in my opinion there is a larger issue here. So what if they chose to cut female assassins out of the game (though they had the framework done for the NPCs), it won't be the only game with no female playable characters out there. What bothers me is that they had to cut anything at all.

 

The point of making a sequel, aside from making yet another ton of money, is that the original had something to be improved upon. Something that could have been done better or could be done better using new techniques and technologies. Something you think could have been done differently. Those are the sequels that people want and expect, not cheap copies with cut content. DLCs are for adding to the game, not for finishing it. But Assassin's Creed is not the first game to be published before it is a finished product. EA has faced angry criticism to that regard plenty of times.

 

Time for nostalgia. Back in the good old days when a game came to the market, it was ready. Maybe it required some patches to nail even the tiniest of bugs, but as it was, it had 99.9% of all features and content there would be. Anyone wanted more, there were the modders. When you thought 'hey, this faction would be cool in this game' you did not have to wait for the developers to implement it, you did it yourself or got some people together who would do it together. Developers maintained the project, any more work they did was free extra.

Nowadays, you can publish the game before you finish it. There are plenty of publishing platforms that will let you start earning profit regardless of whether you actually create a wholesome product. Part of the problem are the preset publishing dates that have often been declared overly optimistically. Fortunately there are some (relatively independent) developers such as Triumph Studios that will give a very foggy release date (year, season) until they can be absolutely sure they can have a finished product by the time the clock runs out.

But it is not about games, it is about attitude. It is about the creators' willingness to commit to the project, to make it as good as they can, to make it something they are proud of. It is difficult to do with sequels to successful projects because there is very little new to add. Without anything to add, there is no 'new' project. It is redoing what you've already done, nothing significant has changed. And if you can't be bothered to make it at least as good as your previous work (or aren't enabled to by your publisher/boss), the sense of enjoyment somewhat goes missing. Making a successful product is great, but is it as good as you want it to be? After creating the first few epic titles, I'd imagine you get a bit more freedom to improve upon them as you see fit.

Independent developers often release beta-products. They show what they've done and share it as they develop it. More often than not, these developers do it as their side project. Something they do for fun. They may earn a bit from it, but they rarely put it on sale until it is ready.

All in all, I get that with strict deadlines everything might not be ready by the time it is due. I don't get that the limits are found too constraining until it is too late. I get why releasing a product too early makes sense where money is concerned, I don't get why it has become more of a rule than an exception.

 

Time and tide wait for no man

The doctrine of unintended consequences.

Recently, I came across this[1].

It is a recap of a Canadian TV show Continuum which tells a tale about time travel. It also touches upon the problems involved. What started as a skirmish in time between two factions has grown to be one crazy mess where anything is possible and everything hangs in the balance. The reason for that mess: unintended consequences.

The doctrine thereof is an easier version of chaos theory. Where chaos theory says that everything is in perfect balance and changing something no matter how small by interfering with the past will lead to... yes, chaos. To put it simply, say you go back in time and end up in an art school. You reject a few people who want to enrol because they are simply not good enough. Chaos theory suggests this would lead to total annihilation, everything everywhere would be in ruins. Life might persist, but might not. By the doctrine of unintended consequences all that happens is Hitler rises to power. Not that bad considering the alternative.

What it all leads up to is that you cannot always predict what happens when you choose to do something. How it affects others, how it affects what happens next. And in a linear world, you don't really need to, you don't care. Sure, what you intend to happen and what does happen doesn't exactly have to be similar, but you have to frame of reference. You don't know what would have happened if you chose to do any differently. Yes, fighting for your ideals may lead to death and destruction, but you don't what what would happen if you didn't. Until you see the results, you don't know whether or not you have caused any negative unintended consequences or not. Thus changing the past... you never know if you've succeeded until you are past the point of no return. Even the attempt to change something significant is a monumental risk.

All that is well and good, but most of us don't have the power to lead the world into chaos or prosperity. So the unintended consequences don't affect many people, whatever damage we may cause, it remains local. The risks are smaller, but so are the gains. Sometimes we get someone fired over something we did not intend to do, sometimes we get amazing offers just because we decided to take part in something. The best we can do is aim for something, do lots, and hope it works out. Yes, it can turn out badly but it is likely you cannot cause anything catastrophical. On the other hand, you risk more by doing nothing.

Well this may be a bit awkward

I mean this.

It is an article that promotes an author of a book about seducing women. In the article is a link to a video about the book and about the fantastic system that is The Tao of Badass. It teaches any man, great or small, rich or poor, pretty or hideous to get any woman they want. Either for a one night stand, a week's dating or even for love. Even keep multiple women happy and in love at the same time. Seems ridiculous, but you've yet to watch the video.

The video first gives a small taste of what he promises, then leads on to a tragic tale that explains how the author knows so much (apparently he read a lot of books and got horny), then gives a few simple tastes of psychology. The common putting visual or cognitive stress on lips for example. Breaking down tension by uttering babble that can be misinterpreted as showing trust, confidence and convenience. The video is rather lengthy, filled with vague promises and success stories, leaving many watchers glued to the screen. All while making those watchers begging for more - available for a humble sum of money.

While I must grant psychology does work when trying to gain attraction from a member of the opposite sex. We are no penguins, we need social interaction before we choose a mate (or to mate), how we interact has obvious consequences pertaining to prolonged contact with that person (fancy words to avoid being too blunt and distasteful). Some psychological effect can be abused in most situations, some hardly ever. But even psychologists know that even though people are not snowflakes, they are somewhat different. Even minute differences in the limbic system (especially the amygdala) or the prefontal cortex change how or what a person feels or does. So vague promises or not, there is no magic bullet to get with any girl.

But is there a need for a magic bullet? Should a man be able to go after any girl he pleases and have guaranteed success? Is it perhaps okay then for any man to have the following situation every now and then?



For this convergence to work out mathematically, women would have to become extremely active sex-wise. This may be a bit of a slippery slope argument, but would this not lead to a sudden rise in overall sexual activity and lower the importance of meaningful long-term relationships? Not saying that we should immediately assume this is bad, but it's food for thought.

This may be a bit narrow-minded, but I prefer a traditional approach. Loyalty to your partner. Respect. Having a family that you trust and can trust you. No need to sleep around, no desire to risk everything you have. It doesn't matter if you have a male or a female partner, as long as the relationship is stable and worthwhile for everyone involved. This cannot happen when one or more of these partners doesn't value the relationship enough not to stray. As I said, might be a bit narrow-minded, but it works for me.

All in all, a playbook that gets any man any woman they want is a fake, it's a scam. It cannot be done. The fact that the salesperson grades women on a ten point scale depending on how they look and stresses how every man should go for the 9s and 10s simply adds insult. Not to just women, degrading them into mere numbers based on looks, but men as well, simplifying them to the extent where all a man wants is frequent intercourse with physically arousing women. To believe such a person would be able to make all that happen? That just manages to insult the intelligence of those he is selling it to. Sometimes a conman can be cool, sometimes... not so much.

Even a tiny pebble can start a rockslide

It's the little things that matter.

Imagine you meet a person. Let's call him Rico. He's alright when he comes into your circle of friends, eventually he will leave. He does no harm, he's just passing by, sometimes even gets forced out. But give him a dark seed, infect him with foul wishes, and he will bring death and destruction to anyone he meets. In the end, it is the person we blame, it is the person that is evil and is therefore hated. Not the seed.

While this may seem random, the same is true for microbes. Vibrio cholerae is a tiny little bacterium that nobody really should mind. Yet when you hear of him, you basically know he causes cholera, a disease that can kill, and even if it doesn't, is at the very least very unpleasant. But he doesn't have to, he doesn't even want to. He just wants to live his life to the fullest, making sure he has plenty of offsprings that look just like him, eating away at anything suitable they might find. They don't want to attack anyone. In a normal situation, they don't. They can infect anyone without causing any symptoms, which is why we don't hear about how safe and harmless it is. Well, mostly harmless.

Because that all changes when it is infected by a virus. The virus isn't just some ordinary cold virus, it is a nasty one, and it aims for V.cholerae with a mighty desire to get under its membrane. Once there, it abuses the bacterium's own proteins to insert some totally badass genes to the bacterium's DNA. These genes include directions to produce a myriad of dangerous toxins. The most famous one: Cholera toxin. But among other genes are other toxins that have similar effect - though through a slightly different action mechanism. Some cause damage to epithelial cells, some weaken the links between them, some activate ion channels in their membranes... but they all cause a sudden efflux of water. That in turn causes severe dehydration that, left untreated, can be fatal. Treatment includes the administering of water. The bacterium itself is safe enough that it gets thrown out by the immune system.

But for some reason little cute V.cholerae gets the blame for doing something that he was forced to do by some nasty virus. You know the virus' motto: 'Your cells under new management', in this case they take over a bacterium and brutally abuse it for evil schemes. It is not even a situation that can be compared to being held at gunpoint and told to do something you don't want to. In that situation you would have a choice - do or die. In the case of this tiny helpless bacterium there is no 'die' option. It is forced to become a weapon of mass excretion. And even so it gets the blame for it, not the bacteriophage that gave him the wherewithal to be evil and forced him to use it. It is quite unfair.

After all, when you think of it, we are talking about a virus that uses an innocent bacterium to attack a giant lifeform, even bring about its death. It can kill a healthy individual without ever even entering a human cell. It doesn't have to. Somehow in its evolution it, a virus that cannot even be seen using a light microscope, has specialized to kill humans by way of bacterium-induced diarrhea. That's amazing, but sort of evil nevertheless. I would not root for the underdog.

The lesser evil

What should be the preset morality of autonomic cars?

For background, companies (sadly including Google) are developing systems to make cars that drive on their own. You just sit in, input the destination, and the car makes sure you get there by finding a route, adhering to traffic rules etc. How it reacts in situations where your normal GPS would lead you to a field or into a lake is of much musing, but for now let's just leave it there.

A car as such would have to be programmed. It would have to follow strict rules regardless of the situation. Avoid a crash if possible, if crash cannot be avoided maximize damage to the front, if there is no crash imminent, follow traffic laws, whatever. What has cause somewhat of a stir are questions about situations when a crash is inevitable. One of the examples is driving an SUV, a tire blows and you have two options. Either steer or let it swerve left into the oncoming lane and traffic... or sharply turn right to compensate, turning the SUV into a sliding box going off the road to the right. If there is a pasture on the right or no oncoming traffic this would not be a problem at all. But what if there is a small car coming on the opposite lane and a cliff on the right? A situation you would probably not happen to experience, but for the purposes of explaining the problem, it works.

A SUV hitting a small car head-on at great speed (for the purposes of crash damages, the speeds of both vehicles get added up) would probably mean a death sentence for anyone in the small car, but the SUV passengers would probably live, even walk away from the crash. On the other side, a cliff is a cliff and anyone going over would probably die. So, should a car aim to kill people in the wrong place at the wrong time to protect its owner... or should it kill its owner to avoid collateral damage? Either way it is kind of messed up, after all when we buy a car we would assume that the car is built so that it would protect us. But how far should it go to fulfill this aim?

The problem here is the fact that the car requires rules to follow. These rules must the wide enough to be applicable in most situations, but strict enough to be enforceable. One of these rules would either have to say 'protect the passengers at any cost' or 'protect other people at any cost'. Drawing a line between these extremes would be riddled with a plethora of ethical dilemmas. But the car would always have to act the same way.

Another situation that people have found troubling is yet another inevitable crash. A crash where the car has a choice - to hit a small car or a large car. If the speeds are low enough that the crash would not mean instant and definite death to all those involved, the basic logic would be 'a larger vehicle can absorb more energy of the crash, thereby decreasing actual damages. Should the car then be programmed to aim for larger vehicles (we are assuming here that damages inflicted to the passengers of the soon-to-be crashing car would sustain similar injuries either way - not going fast enough to kill them, but not slow enough for the choice not to matter; the problem is the jolt of the car hitting the other car that can cause neck and other injuries for the passengers of the other car)? Should car makers punish people driving SUVs? Or let fate take its choice and remove any person from responsibility?

These are the kinds of problems we didn't have before autonomous machines. But these are also the problems science fiction authors have been dealing with for decades. Even Isaac Asimov's proposed rules seem perfect, but leave a lot of gray area between them. Then again, the problems arise from perceived morality which is always subjective. It is not about the cars or computers, it is about the people.