Actually, I reject the theory of evolution precisely because of mathematics. On my own I have eventually come into the conclusion that intelligence in a closed system cannot increase, and that it is a natural law much akin the law of entropy.
"Intelligence" is an ill-defined term. "Information" is a better-defined term, especially when we are talking about the sort of information that's closely related to entropy.
Increasing the amount of information in a system decreases its entropy.
The total amount of information within a closed system cannot increase. However, there's nothing stopping information increasing, ie. entropy decreasing, locally, as long as entropy increases by at least that much somewhere else within that system.
By writing this text I'm actually locally reducing entropy. Am I breaking any laws of physics by doing so? No, because at the same time I'm also increasing entropy somewhere else by at least an equivalent amount (and in fact, by more.) (The most abundant source of entropy increment comes from excess heat from me, this computer, and everything else involved.)
We see order increasing, and thus entropy decreasing, all the time around us. And not just by the act of humans. A blob of molten lava is composed of a chaotic mess of mineral molecules. Then it cools down (thermodynamics happen), and inside crystals may form. Crystals are highly organized and ordered mineral molecules. The amount of order increased in this process tremendously. Was some kind of natural law broken in this process? No, because entropy increased by at least that much somewhere else (again mainly due to the excess heat).
Water is a chaotic blob of molecules. When it freezes, these molecules organize in highly ordered crystalline structures. Entropy was decreased. Did this break any laws of nature? No. (You know the drill by now.)
There are no natural laws being broken in the idea that life could arise from non-life via natural means. It's simply a more complex version of the two examples above. (A lot more complex, for sure, but in no way law-breaking.)
In the same way there is no physical impediment for the amount of information, even "intelligence", increasing. Our collective brains form a dynamic system that's constantly developing and selecting new random ideas, and distilling the best ones, which form new ideas, new information, new "intelligence". This just means that at the same time we are increasing entropy by at least that much around us (again, mainly due to excess heat.)
There is nothing controversial or difficult about this, once you understand the principle and the mechanisms.
However, I don't like that using easy mode can be used as an argument not to publish, given that, for the majority of TASes (especially platformers) there is minimal difference.
Show me a single case where gameplay footage creator posting his videos without any aim for monetization lost such a case, and then we'll listen to your nonsense (maybe).
I don't understand why you use such a dismissive and even hostile tone.
Gameplay footage is being shut down all the time. There is no "lost such a case" because they don't even go to court. How many letsplayers will sue a corporation when they DMCA a video?
If you feel so in the right, then go right ahead, sue Nintendo. Take them to court.
When you do that, then maybe I will start taking you seriously.
What if you uploaded a TAS with a commentary track over it?
"Commentary" in this context means more like "social commentary". Say, like you are making an essay on how a piece of art has affected modern society, or something like that.
I do not know if "commentary" in this context extends to commenting the work of art itself, from start to finish. My guess is that it probably doesn't, especially if you are showing the whole original work.
Even in reviews and commentaries, there's a (fuzzy) limit to how much of the original work you can use. Usually you should use only small portions of it. Probably once you start approaching something like 50%, it might be too much. But yeah, it's probably really fuzzy, and in those borderline cases it depends on who has the better lawyers.
If it makes no difference, then use the hardest difficulty. Nobody will complain. It's that simple.
...do you know how ignorant that sounds? That's like saying "Just accept the most offensive jokes thrown at you because nobody will hate or attack you for it. Plain and simple.". I'm sure you'd like to believe that it works that way, but it doesn't. Regardless of the choice taken, there will someone that'll complain about it.
You can't simply claim "this is fair use" and have it be so. Derivative work is, in general, protected by copyright to the original author.
The line between copyright-infringing derivative work and fair use is really fuzzy. Needless to say, you probably will not win the legal battle against a megacorporation on this question, so it's useless to even try. Unfortunately this is one of those things you'll simply have to accept, unless you have really good lawyers as friends (or can afford them) who will back you up all the way.
Review, commentary and parody are generally protected under fair use, especially if they use only very small portions of the original work. TASes arguably do not fall into any of these.
From an outsider's perspective, just knowing that the game was played on Hard will make the run feel more impressive by the difficulty choice alone. But in reality, when you look into it, it can be the same overall difficulty as on Easy.
I don't know why you are dismissing that aspect. It's more impressive to see a game beaten knowing it was played at the hardest difficulty, than see it beaten at the easiest difficulty, even if the two runs were extremely similar.
Making the hardest difficulty look easy is the impressive part, not making the easiest difficulty look easy.
My opinion would be that this should be stated as: hardest difficulty is always publishable/preferred, while any other difficulty is publishable if the audience finds it sufficiently entertaining.
What happens if someone submits a TAS of a game using the hardest difficulty and it gets published, and then later someone submits a TAS of the same game at a lower difficulty, and the audience finds it entertaining?
The point is, under normal circumstances you don't have to argue why you chose the hardest difficulty. That ought to be the default. However, you have to give a good reason for a lesser difficulty.
The basic and most fundamental idea behind preferring the hardest difficulty is that a TAS is supposed to represent a perfect superhuman beating the computer at its best, at its most challenging. It's not very challenging to beat the computer at its easiest difficulty, when even a mediocre unassisted player can do that easily.
The entertainment value becomes from seeing how the "player" mops the floor with an an extraordinarily difficult game, which can be excruciatingly hard to play unassisted. Seeing it being beaten at its easiest difficulty is more often a "meh". If there is no challenge, there is little entertainment.
Of course this is not true for 100% of all games, but it's a good rule of thumb. Deviating from this ought be done only if there are good reasons for it.
The character of Q is best known for his role in Star Trek: The Next Generation, especially for pestering captain Picard, but he did make some appearances in the other spinoffs as well.
This scene is just marvelous:
Link to video
Given how easy it is to use Google today, you present an amazing amount of intellectual laziness and, quite frankly, intellectual dishonesty.
I can never stop wondering how much irony is there in our life. While one person was ready to discuss our notions and provide links, the other one, who's never able to use google even after being told to do so within a few pages of a hot discussion, is now telling me to just go use google. Ahahahahahahaha!
I honestly can't understand what you think you are doing.
I'm starting to wonder if you are just a poe.
And Warp, I'm going to be frank with you and state that I don't like the tone of your remarks, nor do I appreciate your claims that I'm being dishonest or attempting to present a "straw-man" argument of some sort.
If that's the way you choose to conduct yourself, fine. But don't expect any further responses from me if you're going to operate that way in this thread.
When you call the theory of evolution a "belief system", then you are using the archetypal creationist straw man, whether you realize it or not. The fact that you show zero respect towards the life work of thousands of people, who have worked hard to increase our understanding of this world, elicits no respect from me.
If you were intellectually honest, you would approach the subject in a more serious and respectful manner than calling a well-established scientific theory with derogatory names intended to poison the well and build a straw man. Even if you don't accept it doesn't mean you have to use mockery or derogatory terms to describe it.
Consider how much respect would you give to someone saying that the Bible is nothing but a fairy tale.
Again, if you have an actual argument to make against the theory of evolution, present it, and we can discuss.
Frankly, I'm sick and tired of the creationist dishonesty. They completely misrepresent and distort what the theory of evolution is and what it says, fabricate claims that it doesn't make, and include into it vast amounts of fields that do not belong to it, and keep repeating the mantra that it's a "belief system".
Basically, anti-evolutionism is effectively a conspiracy theory. It's the idea that hundreds of thousands, if not even millions, of scientists from all around the world, from different countries, cultures, backgrounds and philosophical stances, are all in a huge world-wide conspiracy to push this one agenda, all agree on it even though they know it not to be true, and can somehow coordinate to do this, and have been doing so for over a hundred years.
Why would thousands of scientists from northern Europe, China, Japan, India, central Africa, South America, North America, Australia, Israel, Russia and a myriad of other culturally completely distinct places all agree on pushing the same "lie"? What exactly is their motivation, and how exactly do they coordinate to do so? And why would they do that?
Do you even understand how the scientific process works? If you publish something of dubious veracity, peer reviewers will shred it apart and point flaws in it. If your methodology is wrong, they will point it out. If your results are not repeatable, they will point it out. If it goes against known facts, they will point it out.
I'm also sick and tired of creationists bunching into "evolution" all kinds of things that do not belong there. Cosmology and the big bang theory are not part of the theory of evolution. Thermodynamics is not part of it. Particle physics and chemistry are not part of it. Abiogenesis is not part of it. Geology and paleontology are not part of it. Basically, when a creationist says "evolution" he bunches pretty much all of natural sciences into it, even though evolution is a theory of biology relating to a relatively narrow aspect of it (it provides a model of how existing life diversifies). It has nothing to do with those other fields.
The theory of evolution not explaining every minute detail, and there still being unknowns about the history of modern lifeforms, doesn't mean that the theory is not sound. There exists no scientific theory that explains everything. The theory of relativity does not explain everything; quantum mechanics does not explain everything. The fact that there are some details that they don't explain doesn't mean that they are wrong and useless. They work on their own field, and they have been verified to the extent that they do explain things. The theory of evolution is one of the most well-established and verified scientific theories that exist, no matter what creationists like to claim.
If you have a concrete argument against it, please present it. We can discuss it. But please make it about what the theory of evolution actually says, not some creationist straw man.
Yes, I see you have a good explanation on how the eye actually appeared. Your detailed post nearly convinced me I was wrong all along.
Given how easy it is to use Google today, you present an amazing amount of intellectual laziness and, quite frankly, intellectual dishonesty.
I'm not repeating here what can be very easily found via a couple of seconds of googling.
If you have an objection to what the theory of evolution actually says, then present it. Straw man arguments are weak.
(Besides, technically speaking the theory of evolution itself does not take a stance on how exactly something like the eye formed. It simply delineates the physical model that explains the diversification of life. It does not make specific claims like "the eye formed like this, this and this". It explains the mechanisms by which things like eyes can form, and why that happens.)
In favor of this movie and others like it in categorical choice (In its completion of a game under various restrictions, making the completion itself a technical feat) for the following reasons:
This TAS is of high technical and entertainment quality
A TAS with arbitrary goals and/or limitations can be of high technical and entertainment quality, but there ought to be a reasonable limit to how arbitrary those can be. Else we could have literally hundreds of TASes of the same game, each with a slightly different set of goals/limitations.
Any% and 100% completions get pretty much a free pass (at least for games that are TASable for speed, and the latter only if the game is such that there is a sensible definition of "100% completion" that is clearly different from the any% completion). Other categories are not out of the question, but ought to be considered carefully. There should be remarkable merit and uniqueness of some sort, and even then we should avoid the number of different categories exploding uncontrollably.
Do you trust all that? Because I simply don't believe it.
I don't believe that either, because nobody is saying that's what happened (except a few deluded creationists.)
If your only objection to the theory of evolution is a blatant straw man, then I think theory is on pretty solid ground. You can't attack what it actually says, so you have to invent a distortion to attack.
