• 0 Posts
  • 52 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 15th, 2023

help-circle


  • It’s not a tool? If I plug it into Blender and get a skeleton of an asset I wouldn’t otherwise be able to make with my resource constraints, that’s not a useful part of the process? Just because it has tradeoffs doesn’t mean it has no applications.

    I understand people who argue against it on ethical grounds, but I’ll never understand arguing it always makes everything 100% worse. Telling people “just spend X hours learning to make it” or “just pay someone on fivver” or “restructure your project so you don’t need it” just to protect the sanctity of the artform is thinly veiled elitism.

    I’ve personally used Gen AI in projects and found some useful applications. My own personal experience is corporate propoganda? Or am I just a filthy plebeian because I couldn’t dedicate multiple days to learning other tools?

    If I followed your advice those projects wouldn’t have been finished. You can scroll up and read your own comments, I was on a shoestring budget and wasn’t willing to cut into other responsibilities or shrink the project into a toy. Or is this just “framing” as you say, when really I shouldn’t have pursued my art at all because I wasn’t willing to risk my paycheck?

    These are genuine questions, what should I have done? Why would it have been better to do it another way? I don’t want to make a strawman, I want to know how your pontificating results in anything useful outside of an internet discussion.



  • I’m not perverting any argument, you’re just arguing something completely orthogonal to the point people above are making. We all understand creativity and that having more control and agency in a project is a good thing.

    My argument isn’t framing, it’s reality. Time is a resource and the creative process is irrelevant when you’ve got bills to pay. The vast majority of people don’t have the luxury to maintain a passion project, much less the chance to recoup a portion of what they poured into it.

    Yes, in a vacuum with no regard for money or other responsibilities, the creative output is better for working through those problems. There are examples of this: Transport Tycoon, Undertale, Stardew Valley, Minecraft, etc… Usually games made in spare time over years by someone with a well paying tech job or game dev experience.

    These indie games having success is very much the exception. The growth of the indie scene came from the wide availability of dev tooling and distribution platforms. Cutting out those hurdles massively expanded the pool of people who could now make games, thus we get more gems.

    Not everyone needs to use Unreal Engine or Steam, but having them as an option is the only way that many games get made. That doesn’t have any correlation to quality, they can be masterpieces or shovel ware. Gen Ai is the same, it just lowers another barrier of entry.

    The choice isn’t “Gen Ai or flop”. The choice is in how you allocate your limited resources to make your project. It could add no value to a small project or be the key to unlocking a larger project. If your goal is to make some money from your efforts, it can be great at adding that veneer of polish that gets eyes on your game. I’m not one to judge someone for that just because lazy people can also do lazy things with it.


  • You’re certainly free to lovingly craft every byte of a game but that doesn’t automatically make it a better product. You’re describing a creative outlet, not something that needs to appeal to some random customer in the 10s they skim your store page.

    Regardless of how important it is to your creative vision, there are some boxes you need to check. Visual texture on an otherwise forgettable wall is that exact case. If you need some background wall art your options are:

    • Spend X units of time putting something together. Most likely a poor use of time unless you’re already proficient
    • Fundamentally simplify your art style to keep X manageable (your game ends up in the pixel art bin, sales plummet)
    • Sacrifice other parts of development to free up X time (content, mechanics and other features suffer)
    • Pay somebody else (literally never in the budget for an indie game)
    • Gen AI gives something passable in a few minutes

    Or everyone could take your advice: if you don’t have the time or money to approach your dream game, don’t even try! In my opinion, more people making their art is a good thing, even if it doesn’t pass everyone’s purity test.

    If you’re (rightly) worried about the livelihood of the displaced background artist that’s fine, but complain about the economic system and not the tool.


  • You don’t nose dive your country and lock up/deport dissenters over chump change, you’re losing more in stability and face (and the more lucrative bribes that come with those) than its worth. Trump’s irrational instability has dropped the dollar value more than any of these donations could cover. The math doesn’t add up.

    The payment you’re describing is a tithe; a show of gratitude and servitude. You wouldn’t say a feudal vassal has power over his lord just because the material exchange only goes one way.


  • I really don’t understand where this idea comes from of a country with the 40th rank GDP having the pull to mastermind politics worldwide. For reference: their revenue is about the same as Apple, whose lobbying sees less success despite being more politically neutral.

    The reason they have international support is because it’s convenient and their location + antagonism align with the geopolitics of a large group of states. Isreal is a dog on a leash, what we’re seeing Trump do is give them unprecedented lead to genocide at will.

    Letting them go this far and long without tugging their collar back to peace talks is not the historical norm, no matter how hard you point at Biden. Did Biden take direct military action to support them? Has any US president?

    This Isreali lobbying is a boogeyman; Isreal could dissolve tomorrow and you would see another antagonist spring up in the region with international backing. People are just uncomfortable with their country being aligned with the bad guys of their own free will.






  • I understand from your comment that you’ve read too many sci-fi books to understand what a massive resource sink that would be with negligible benefit. It’s pretty basic physics.

    We’ve already got cheap transportation, look how that’s turning out for the planet. But I’m sure burning God knows how much energy to launch more junk into space will save the world.

    We’re already approaching a critical mass of private equity space trash in orbit, what’s a few more lowest-bidder megastructures? At least the ultra rich will get their life rafts while we burn.


  • Because the world has actual things in it like people, wildlife, culture and history. Space has none of those things. Unless you’re there working as a scientist to study things that can’t be studied on earth, it’s pointless.

    As of now it’s a glorified roller coaster. At its best private space travel could be Disneyland in space. At worst it’s just rich people paying to be carried up mount everest for clout but with exponentially more resources wasted.




  • When did I say that? All I want is for all belligerents to be held to the same standard. Show me the evidence that these missiles are falling on targets with strategic importance; show me that they’re making efforts to not waste human lives. It’s clear that Israel’s attacks are not and they’re rightly called out for it. Why is Iran above the same scrutiny?

    US was the invader during the Vietnam War so that’s a bad example all around

    Why is it a bad example? Does being the defender in a war make you immune to war crimes? It’s indiscriminate killing of non combatants either way.


  • You’re just wildly incorrect on all fronts here.

    since you were the one talking about nations’ flags

    A nation is not a nation state, and a population doesn’t have to be a sovereign state to have a flag.

    No, they did it in order to hit their targets, which were often cities.

    Exactly, to limit collateral damage. Germany (and the RAF’s night bombing, to be fair) also targeted cities with strategic war industries, they just cared more about their pilots’ safety than civilian lives.

    You’re putting words in my mouth.

    I’m not at all, I’m pointing out the lack of criticism for clips like the one above. There’s not even reserved judgment until we know what got hit and who died, just full throated support based only on the name of the city being bombed. I’m the only one here wanting evidence that these attacks are targeting anything of value and limiting non combatant deaths.

    Remember when Israel was criticized for half-hearted pamphlet dropping to warn of barrages? All the scorn at Israel’s reports of the use of human shields? The outrage over bombing population centers and refugee camps allegedly hiding rockets? Zionists saying Palestinians deserved bombing because they elected Hamas and had parties celebrating Oct 7 and X% of Palestines supported Y?

    I’m seeing the exact same comments in reverse. Just read the comments on this post. But this time nobody bats an eye because the “right” people are dying.


  • I don’t see how that makes a difference? Israel bombing civilians with precision doesn’t make imprecise bombing of civilians more acceptable. Everyone ends up just as dead. It just makes it more palatable for people who value retribution above civilian lives.

    To put it another way: if you want to hit a military target but can’t do so without outsized collateral damage, you don’t have ethical grounds to make the attack. You don’t see people defending the USA’s use of Agent Orange in Vietnam just because it was the only feasible way to clear foliage.


  • Holy fuck you don’t even know what a nation is lmfao

    If there’s anything to be learned from WWII, it’s that no one is more antifascist than communists.

    If you knew anything about WW2, you’d know that strategic bombing of population centers was a futile effort that wasted lives. Allies and Axis both admitted it, and the Allies even stuck to day bombing to limit collateral damage.

    I’ve been asking up and down this thread for any context on what these bombs hit, any evidence at all, and all I get is equivocation like yours.

    Your “critical support” isn’t very critical at all, it’s pretty one dimensional. Isreal bombs a population center: bad. Iran bombs an Isreal population center: good. I’ve seen no depth beyond that.