[ck3D]

jkas789, on 11 June 2021 - 07:33 PM, said:

Also the comments are gold:

"Autistic schizophrenia", wow. That's enough Internet for the day, and it's 8 am here.

[NightFright]

Boy, those comments are pretty messed up, almost constructed. But I guess this is the new world. Madness everywhere.

[jkas789]

ck3D, on 11 June 2021 - 09:57 PM, said:

"Autistic schizophrenia", wow. That's enough Internet for the day, and it's 8 am here.

Surprisingly, autism and schizophrenia are kinda related symptomatically: Autistic Symptoms in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

I actually did not know that. Shame on me, I should brush up a bit on my psych knowledge.

[NightFright]

And the rest of the Doomworld comm starts to obediently fall in line, applying self-censorship in their mods retroactively without anybody actually complaining about anything:

https://www.doomworl...um/post/2328552

[ck3D]

jkas789, on 12 June 2021 - 11:29 AM, said:

Surprisingly, autism and schizophrenia are kinda related symptomatically: Autistic Symptoms in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

I actually did not know that. Shame on me, I should brush up a bit on my psych knowledge.

I mean you're so nice I originally started a more serious reply and all that, the subject is interesting too but in the end no, I refuse because judging from their naive wording, this person we're talking about in the first place is obviously either 13 years old, or just the general type who would rather blame an imaginary illness than recognize weakness and work on their personality flaws like a decent person - and then, paradoxically, has no problem going around acting like a saint, never questioning themselves just because they adhere to some plastic status quo they can't even begin to grasp. So I will get back to you, but only the day that to all the RandomGuy7's in the world, PubMed doesn't sound like the next tourism operator specialized in all-inclusive holidays.

OK now seriously, because you on your end are worth our time - thanks for sharing that study, always interesting - however, on the subject of less interesting things, my honest first impression here is it might be to an extent rather superficial by being focused on symptoms; granted I only skimmed through everything (only my RandomGuy7 synapses are awake right now), but the gist of it that I got was basically 'both conditions have the observed common denominator of being a cognitively invalidating mental health condition' which really is nothing new under the sun, when the whole point of differentiation to begin with is in understanding the specifics, so I don't know. Research is great but calculating phantasmal quotients only teaches us so much about the original nature of each condition at the end of the day, every individual is essentially their own walking bag of troubles and so I wouldn't really dare question the possibility of this or that profile regardless of how absurd it might first sound, but here really it's just this dude's dead ass cop out that got me to choke on my spliff. Can you imagine if the world really was as simple as "WOW, PILLS" or "I totally just invented myself a mental illness as cover up for shitting the bed because it looked like some clean clothing I could wear casually, but will police the heck out of you every time you drop the R word" (which I don't condone either, by the way). I don't know man, I'm getting out of here, this is the vortex.

[jkas789]

ck3D, on 12 June 2021 - 02:25 PM, said:

I mean you're so nice I originally started a more serious reply and all that, the subject is interesting too but in the end no, I refuse because judging from their naive wording, this person we're talking about in the first place is obviously either 13 years old, or just the general type who would rather blame an imaginary illness than recognize weakness and work on their personality flaws like a decent person - and then, paradoxically, has no problem going around acting like a saint, never questioning themselves just because they adhere to some plastic status quo they can't even begin to grasp. So I will get back to you, but only the day that to all the RandomGuy7's in the world, PubMed doesn't sound like the next tourism operator specialized in all-inclusive holidays.

OK now seriously, because you on your end are worth our time - thanks for sharing that study, always interesting - however, on the subject of less interesting things, my honest first impression here is it might be to an extent rather superficial by being focused on symptoms; granted I only skimmed through everything (only my RandomGuy7 synapses are awake right now), but the gist of it that I got was basically 'both conditions have the observed common denominator of being a cognitively invalidating mental health condition' which really is nothing new under the sun, when the whole point of differentiation to begin with is in understanding the specifics, so I don't know. Research is great but calculating phantasmal quotients only teaches us so much about the original nature of each condition at the end of the day, every individual is essentially their own walking bag of troubles and so I wouldn't really dare question the possibility of this or that profile regardless of how absurd it might first sound, but here really it's just this dude's dead ass cop out that got me to choke on my spliff. Can you imagine if the world really was as simple as "WOW, PILLS" or "I totally just invented myself a mental illness as cover up for shitting the bed because it looked like some clean clothing I could wear casually, but will police the heck out of you every time you drop the R word" (which I don't condone either, by the way). I don't know man, I'm getting out of here, this is the vortex.

Lol no problem mate. I'm actually sure that was the guy pulling the "iM AuTiStiC!" card to try and reflect criticism. I was just only curious to see if there was some medical knowledge backing it up. In regards to the article itself, I don't think it is that bad as knowing if certain symptoms overlap makes diagnostic and treatment management better IME.

Anyways, compare the BoA virgin devs to teh CHAD FNAF DEV:







That last one gave me this vibes:

[Ninety-Six]

Damn Scott. I haven't followed the franchise in years but good on him. Mad respect to anyone who stands up to the mob.

[Aristotle Gumball]

It's still too kind, but I think it will look good in a few years when people have moved on from the witch trials and are looking back, going "what the fuck did we do?"

[Player Lin]

After this whole BoA drama happened...I feel like it's good idea I decided become lurker again on Doomworld forum(only check the screenshot thread and totally give no shit on other threads anymore) some months ago, it's not worth my time to check and post my shit on that forum anymore...

If they like censored shit, go ahead. I don't care anymore.

[Ninety-Six]

Jesus Christ, on 12 June 2021 - 10:31 PM, said:

when people have moved on from the witch trials

I don't know if they ever will.

[Phredreeke]

Player Lin, on 12 June 2021 - 11:10 PM, said:

After this whole BoA drama happened...I feel like it's good idea I decided become lurker again on Doomworld forum(only check the screenshot thread and totally give no shit on other threads anymore) some months ago, it's not worth my time to check and post my shit on that forum anymore...

If they like censored shit, go ahead. I don't care anymore.

Well, I for one am glad I'm modding Build and not Doom... as much as people can be brash assholes at times at least no one is trying to dictate what others make.

[ck3D]

jkas789, on 12 June 2021 - 06:13 PM, said:

In regards to the article itself, I don't think it is that bad as knowing if certain symptoms overlap makes diagnostic and treatment management better IME.

Oh yeah, you're right on that, any form of progress is interesting. Treatments for those conditions though, perhaps it's because of their current stage of advancement but I don't really know what to think of them just like I can be skeptical of Western medicine in general. I've observed the short and long term effects on many different drugs on autistic, schizophrenic and psychotic people, my humble conclusion so far is it will just change them, sometimes for the better (occasionally I did witness some really impressive results) and sometimes for the worse, with the 'rewired' patient not knowing what to do in life anymore or giving up on everything their previous existence was about. I also find the ease at which doctors can prescribe this or that product to a person for a few weeks, only to then change their mind radically and order something else as 'more appropriate treatment' scary as shit, as though some didn't realize the extent of the effect on the actual patient's life and we were talking candy and not drugs designed to override your default system - seeing people you care about pretty much slip out of existence for months just because some pseudo-qualified ass didn't really think about their job and rushed it (or wanted to 'experiment' and push a certain product on a certain profile) is quite the distress. And so it raises all those existential questions that don't really belong to this thread - now for a RandomGuy7 kind of disclaimer, I hadn't slept in three days when I made that previous post and I'm still sort of running on fumes right now, and so I'm aware some of what I'm saying is bound to be bullshit or could be misinterpreted.

Re: moving on from witch trials, I share the same sentiment Ninety-Six just expressed, but it's also not a new thing. Witch trials have always been a thing, heck the saying itself is older than all of us, it's just that now we were force fed all those modern terms to pick at the phenomenon but in reality humans have always been primitive and wacky and tried carrying out the cancelation of everything that reflected their own personal fears and shortcomings. Just now the ritual sacrifices happen on Twitter as the 'community' altar.

[jkas789]

ck3D, on 13 June 2021 - 04:20 AM, said:

... perhaps it's because of their current stage of advancement but I don't really know what to think of them just like I can be skeptical of Western medicine in general. I've observed the short and long term effects on many different drugs on autistic, schizophrenic and psychotic people, my humble conclusion so far is it will just change them, sometimes for the better (occasionally I did witness some really impressive results) and sometimes for the worse, with the 'rewired' patient not knowing what to do in life anymore or giving up on everything their previous existence was about. I also find the ease at which doctors can prescribe this or that product to a person for a few weeks, only to then change their mind radically and order something else as 'more appropriate treatment' scary as shit, as though some didn't realize the extent of the effect on the actual patient's life and we were talking candy and not drugs designed to override your default system - seeing people you care about pretty much slip out of existence for months just because some pseudo-qualified ass didn't really think about their job and rushed it (or wanted to 'experiment' and push a certain product on a certain profile) is quite the distress. And so it raises all those existential questions that don't really belong to this thread - now for a RandomGuy7 kind of disclaimer, I hadn't slept in three days when I made that previous post and I'm still sort of running on fumes right now, and so I'm aware some of what I'm saying is bound to be bullshit or could be misinterpreted.

I'm gonna level with you. I have said this before on the Discord and I think so as well in the forums. Large swats of Psychiatry and potentially other areas of medicine are fucked because people published research that was manipulated. Mainly because negative or neutral results are not conductive to be either:

1.- Given more money to fund a project that is actually important/lets you leech off for the rest of your life
2.- Be published in a medical journal. Medical journals prefer big headlines that say "ayo this shit is real y'all" instead of "yeah we tried to do this shit that X said could happen and it failed miserably"

Therefore we have a tragedy were a large amount of research across medicine (and mainly in psychiatry) can't be reproduced independently. Big Pharma may or may not be involved in some cases. And as you may already be realizing this might leave us doctors in quite a conundrum, as when you start doubting long standing medical research, you gotta wing shit. Winging medical treatment is not a bad thing per say. Half the time you will be winging it as all patients are special little snowflakes that require special individualized treatments sometimes. However you do need that guideline of best practices to have an idea of what the fuck to do. You don't have to reinvent the wheel every single fucking time to come up with a method to do a appendicectomy when there is already a tried and true way that has a minimum amount of complications that you can plan for.

But for all the areas that do require heavily amount of empirical treatment based on the individual metabolism of patients, like say fucking psychiatry, well then doctors are well and truly fucked. As fucked as a college girl in mardi grass.

[MusicallyInspired]

jkas789, on 12 June 2021 - 06:13 PM, said:

Anyways, compare the BoA virgin devs to teh CHAD FNAF DEV:

E3uM5PYWYAUAikS.jpg

E3uM578XoAUi52N.jpg

E3uM7vVXMAgMQco.jpg

Dang. I was never a fan of FNAF but now I wanna support the guy just for standing his ground.

[Ninety-Six]

Jesus/Immanuel brought that up too, a few times. The replication crisis.


I was extremely not shocked to find out that psychology is one of the fields that suffer a lot from it. One look at how people have been turning out over the past few decades was all you really needed to see to tell that something was very wrong.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying that psychology in of itself is hogwash. Just that the current mental health system is.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Yeah, replication crisis affects many fields outside of medicine as well. Even technical fields sadly. Anyone remember the Bogdanoff affair? Things like that really lend credibility to the science deniers. I mean, someone without time, skill and understanding of how to read studies will be easily frustrated by it, and once you add corruption to the mix, it's real easy to just dismiss the whole thing. I've run into that a bit lately. There's this observed trend in human beings that we basically turn more conservative with age, and I used to wonder why, but now I realize as I'm getting older that it's simply because we lack time. Everything also gets more stressful, more high stakes. You start to realize that the life you built is actually "here to stay" and so you want to hold onto it, and get angry at people who wanna make radical changes that might affect you, etc. Kids also contribute to that conservative tendency. But generally I'd say it's due to lack of time. (Just my opinion; there might be studies showing something else, lol)

I quite regret wasting much of my youth tbh. Sometimes we never realize what we had until it's gone, which is also how I feel about video games. I remember thinking in the 90s how everything was only gonna keep getting better. Couldn't predict what corporatization would do to the industry.

Side note: I changed my name to Jesus Christ when a religious person (can't remember who it was now) insulted me by name, and I thought it would be really funny if they had to say "Jesus is such an asshole".

[Phredreeke]

An ass by any other name lol

[ck3D]

Jesus Christ, on 13 June 2021 - 08:56 AM, said:

Yeah, replication crisis affects many fields outside of medicine as well. Even technical fields sadly. Anyone remember the Bogdanoff affair? Things like that really lend credibility to the science deniers. I mean, someone without time, skill and understanding of how to read studies will be easily frustrated by it, and once you add corruption to the mix, it's real easy to just dismiss the whole thing. I've run into that a bit lately. There's this observed trend in human beings that we basically turn more conservative with age, and I used to wonder why, but now I realize as I'm getting older that it's simply because we lack time. Everything also gets more stressful, more high stakes. You start to realize that the life you built is actually "here to stay" and so you want to hold onto it, and get angry at people who wanna make radical changes that might affect you, etc. Kids also contribute to that conservative tendency. But generally I'd say it's due to lack of time. (Just my opinion; there might be studies showing something else, lol)

I quite regret wasting much of my youth tbh. Sometimes we never realize what we had until it's gone, which is also how I feel about video games. I remember thinking in the 90s how everything was only gonna keep getting better. Couldn't predict what corporatization would do to the industry.

Side note: I changed my name to Jesus Christ when a religious person (can't remember who it was now) insulted me by name, and I thought it would be really funny if they had to say "Jesus is such an asshole".

The Bogdanov affair story is so fantastic I just clapped at my screen, in their country of origin they are merely seen as public entertainers and so I had no idea of the extent of their pseudo-serious bullshit, holy fuck, their whole act is modern art right there. It's also a great demonstration of how easily people are duped by pure allure, playing with appearance is so powerful in terms of manipulation, think of how placebo 'functions'. Heck now this just reminded me of how in high school I once heard the dumbest bully in the class say (to the super serious history teacher no less) he wished Jacques Chirac would always remain the French president because he 'liked his face'. And so you have the whole character play on one end, but on the other end we also have those mechanisms that are getting exploited, that are deeply ingrained in how the human mind functions. For instance all the theatrics in Western medicine where the doctor is this demi-god trope of a wise character with a monopoly on universal knowledge, with the typical office crammed with books and diplomas on the wall to really insist on the credibility of their role, making it so that in the end patients will actually remember the date and time of their meetings three weeks in advance and show up (in which other social situations does that happen?), swallow every word and then spontaneously start feeling better after the visit (if not during or before) and not just directly thanks to the chemicals in the medication. Whereas in Eastern medicine a doctor with a good reputation is one with zero patients, because the intention there is that no one falls sick in the first place, whereas in the West we're the complete opposite by having the people fall sick via industrial food, and then banking on damage control.

@jkas I appreciate hearing your opinion, just so you know I'm not necessarily a science denier at all (I embrace all progress in principle) and I really respect the struggle of everyone who genuinely tries their best with the clues that they have (and humility, which is key) to better this place, which really is a basic human thing to do and yet one a lot of people give up on. Being stuck in a field you originally volunteered into because you had grand inspirations, only to then feel set back in your momentum if not paralyzed and used by the current social realities of this world is not something exclusive to the medical, but that has to be one of the fields where it's the most problematic (along with education).

[jkas789]

ck3D, on 13 June 2021 - 11:49 AM, said:

Being stuck in a field you originally volunteered into because you had grand inspirations, only to then feel set back in your momentum if not paralyzed and used by the current social realities of this world is not something exclusive to the medical, but that has to be one of the fields where it's the most problematic (along with education).

You have no idea. I have literally wanted to seriously quit at least like 8 times with how demoralizing and shit the system is in México. You think gringos have it bad but they really, really have no idea how good off they are.



However unironically, there is something to be said for that feeling of doing something meaningful for people within your reach, even if at the end of the day it amounts to nothing but piss in the wind when compared to the increasingly soul less machine that is the Mexican Public Health System.

[ck3D]

jkas789, on 13 June 2021 - 11:22 PM, said:

You have no idea. I have literally wanted to seriously quit at least like 8 times with how demoralizing and shit the system is in México. You think gringos have it bad but they really, really have no idea how good off they are.

However unironically, there is something to be said for that feeling of doing something meaningful for people within your reach, even if at the end of the day it amounts to nothing but piss in the wind when compared to the increasingly soul less machine that is the Mexican Public Health System.

I'll tell you sincerely, a lot of your frustration is probably rooted in your age as well. Not sure if it's our generation in particular and how much of the phenomenon is a consequence of extra social pressure during Covid, but I've noticed this trend in mindset where most people in their early 30's who have reached their ideal profession (usually after years of personal effort and investment fueled by raw belief) quickly burn out on whatever their field is once they realize which strings really are pulled for the whole system they operate in to even function.

Also it's always tempting to think your case is a particular and isolated one in such situations but - although every individual case obviously comes with its technical specifics - it's really not, regardless of one's field and country of origin, as though a general manifestation of something larger. I'm sure you're aware that these people you like to call 'gringos' come from a variety of (also culturally) different places that really are just as fucked up as yours, just in their own language, corruption and the excesses of capitalism and their side effects on the human mind seem universal to me, the exact mindset you're demonstrating here I've seen it expressed by many friends from countries such as Brazil or places in Eastern Europe where everything is equally fucked, just in a different position. Something I've observed is those places are so stigmatized by the media as lower-tier (because there is only so much economy to conquer there and the approach seems to be profit over people), even the local communities will believe the demoralizing hype around their supposed inferiority, that their local context in particular is especially doomed and the grass has to be much greener on some other side (that just so happens to be for sale, what a coincidence) - except that other side really only exists so much, a big part of it is a projection of the image of the world as being sold in the media. In reality no matter their pseudo-sophistication, everyone in the world suffers from the same causes on different levels, everyone has their richer regions and ghettos where the poor stack up in unhealthy conditions, everyone suffers from oppression, develops the same personal frustrations and neurosis and in no country in the world does it feel good to be sick or homeless in a resourceless area. Now, I'm well aware of the privileges and that places such as India have people literally dying on the streets with their corpses just staying there (in such realities, the idea of Western-style medical care is pure phantasm), but more developed countries aren't exactly an absolute utopia either, they have their perversions and plagues that kill people too and just better equipped and trained to hide the bodies (literally or metaphorically). Absolute misery is absolute misery - at the end of the day if everyone thinks they have it particularly bad then, really, there is no denying anyone - but that's because they're all correct in some way or another.

What I mean here is actually difficult for me to express without coming off as some privileged asshole (especially on the Internet and despite my actual reality of someone who struggles for food and rent, which I'm aware is still more comfortable than having no roof over my head), I guess what I do mean to convey is the idea that there's a stage in misery where your context becomes an abstraction and the look in the eyes of the suffering people worldwide is the same. And although there will be obvious disparities in general comfort from country to country, there is part of that apparent facade that is pure Woody Allen-styled distraction only meant to divide the people even further, all the while fueling the economy and international competition while everyone is busy trying to 'make it' (oftentimes 'out'), and this form of mass media-based manipulation and cardboard imagery in particular I'm not really trying to play along. What's especially disheartening to me is when the people actually has all the strength they need (and usually then some) to conquer whatever their demons are, but they never realize that due to being bombarded by constant reminders of how they're supposedly weak and, really, better off waiting for an outside savior to pillage help them. That in particular is being a victim of politics.

Also bound to our age group is being practically forced to come to terms with exactly how both powerless and powerful we are as individuals. Some have no problem accepting the idea that they personally only have so much control over how the world (but also where this little control really resides) from an early age on, whereas some believe in their own ego and the actual value of their naive aspirations for a little longer, oftentimes until it bites them in the face. I don't think that's depressing at all though, at the end of the day that's really just learning finer control over the direction of your life, and recognizing this or that usual investment of time and energy of yours as either worthwhile or a mistake^[1]. Anyhow try and keep your chin up, I reckon that's not the most tempting thing to do whilst in a non-stop shit storm but the second you look down is when you get buried.

^[1]I have been working on my Duke Nukem 3D fan episode for two years.

[Danukem]

I don't know as much about Mexico as I should, but when I read some of the news articles, such as a recent one about drug lords systemically assassinating police officers in their homes to tell them to fuck off, I'm inclined to agree with jkas789 that we in gringoland don't know how good we have it.

And...I just realized we are in the Wolfenstein thread. Damn convos can drift off topic quickly.

[Aristotle Gumball]

I know some Mexicans and they are all without a single exception trying to get out of there.

[ck3D]

Jesus Christ, on 14 June 2021 - 11:57 AM, said:

I know some Mexicans and they are all without a single exception trying to get out of there.

Of course they do, just like you have people trying to get out of Brazil, Japan, India, France, Hungary or the U.S. because they are being sold the promise that whatever struggles they happen to be facing with their present system are specific to their region and doesn't really happen somewhere else. It's very important for me to reiterate that I'm not talking actual quality of life, numbers and privileges here but really basic psychology from a trend I've observed worldwide, no matter how sophisticated their context, people will find their disconnections and discontentments with the present system, because the present system is flawed and artificially operated in some way or another everywhere civilized you can go to benefit the casts at the top, which in turn results in the rest losing touch and thus the corresponding criminal, social and educational issues to the codes in place. This or that country is always carrying the cross of its own negatives, the spectrum isn't just two-dimensional, except people are instead taught to think in teams and exotic little postcards as opposed to focusing on what exactly is wrong with more than just their position directly. Obviously I can understand why a Mexican could dream of moving to Paris (completely random example that has to exist although I hope it doesn't), except I can also tell they would be in for quite a joyride once they end up in a squat or shelter for months before they're allocated a dilapidated one-room apartment too small to be legally rentable a two-hour drive into crime-prone suburbs, with no access to a car nor the basic social rights but perhaps to some more less illegal manual labor that doesn't cover food and rent (plus feel free to add some cultural and linguistic difficulties in certain cases), regardless of their qualification in their country of origin. That's not a caricature, by the way - that's the local reality, it's the utopia that is the caricature. Oh but here it's easy to, say, work with Nike, sure, it's also just as easy (perhaps even much easier) to get fucked over whilst working for Nike than it is back home by what's probably a more respectable enterprise. I've seen hundreds of my friends in Brazil spend years of work on a video production before and then finally, during the public premiere, out of the whole film the moment that got the most reception from the crowd was the disclaimer with all the U.S.-based sponsors - no shit, man. Everyone's reality is a thing but should also stay rooted in all of reality, in reality people are lost (and found) everywhere and all the paper mâché in the media only designed to encourage escapism as opposed to federating with your community to develop your people's own strength, and discourage locals everywhere from the mere idea of spending energy and organization towards solving their problems. So I in fact do agree that most people do not know how good exactly they really have it, or how bad for that matter, unless they've seen a lot of the world by themselves and even then it can be hard not to be a tourist, especially in places where you're directly being held as such by the masses.

Sorry about the off-topic, I do tend to get caught up in my own bullshit at times but really don't necessarily intend this side discussion to drag on as it's in fact quite time-consuming for something on a gaming forum. And it all stemmed from RandomGuy7, damn. All I wanted to do is appreciate jkas' strength for keeping doing what he's doing, because in one's worst moments of doubts, forgetting about the actual positives of your role vs. focusing on the negatives in comparison to your ideals is easy, but amidst all the confusion one really still is worth the weight of their daily actions.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Dude, the people I'm talking about would never end up in the situation like you described. One is my anarchist ex-gf (now software engineer), the other is a dentist and a third one admittedly is a 24/7 internet wanker. But none of them are under the illusion that things are perfect in Europe (or anywhere else). You've created some weird straw man. Let me tell you something that is a primary concern (at the expense of almost all others) once it exists: the threat of rape, murder, kidnapping. No matter what unique problems exist elsewhere, as long as it's relatively safe, people will put up with almost anything.

But, I do think it's kinda lame if everyone with an education leaves and then their country of origin gets even worse, but life is also short. Depends on your personal sense of responsibility I guess. I tend to err in favor of individualism because in many cases things have crossed the point of no return and a few individuals deciding to "hold the line" are no longer going to make a difference.

[Doom64hunter]

NightFright, on 12 June 2021 - 02:12 PM, said:

And the rest of the Doomworld comm starts to obediently fall in line, applying self-censorship in their mods retroactively without anybody actually complaining about anything:

https://www.doomworl...um/post/2328552

At the end of the day, it's about covering your ass lest the mob attacks you.
And I can understand -- if you're not someone who's loaded with cash and free time, you might end up having someone call your employer telling them what a monster you are.

I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of users just fall in line out of fear, rather than agreement.

[ck3D]

Reply to @Jesus Christ in spoiler tags as not to clutter the thread with O/T (splitting the thread would honestly kill the discussion for me, I'm already over it, but the subject is sensitive and so it's important for me to end on clarifying what exactly I meant):

Spoiler

Jesus Christ, on 14 June 2021 - 11:44 PM, said:

Dude, the people I'm talking about would never end up in the situation like you described. One is my anarchist ex-gf (now software engineer), the other is a dentist and a third one admittedly is a 24/7 internet wanker. But none of them are under the illusion that things are perfect in Europe (or anywhere else). You've created some weird straw man. Let me tell you something that is a primary concern (at the expense of almost all others) once it exists: the threat of rape, murder, kidnapping. No matter what unique problems exist elsewhere, as long as it's relatively safe, people will put up with almost anything.

But, I do think it's kinda lame if everyone with an education leaves and then their country of origin gets even worse, but life is also short. Depends on your personal sense of responsibility I guess. I tend to err in favor of individualism because in many cases things have crossed the point of no return and a few individuals deciding to "hold the line" are no longer going to make a difference.

I'm not sure you understood (but I can't blame you since I'm having a hard time expressing my exact point, and spontaneously feeling like shit in front of the ways my post could be misconstrued) - the situation I described wouldn't be on your friends, it would be on the country because that's how shit the bureaucracy here is and the reality of how shit it handles people, like I was saying, regardless of how qualified they are and with especially weird standards when they happen to come from abroad. It doesn't matter how strong or smart your friends are if they dip into the pool of a context that doesn't even start recognizing any of their inherent traits and will insist on treating them as outcasts, and placing them with the outcasts, where at the end of the day they will most likely just end up living the exact same life just on a different land unless they really are exceptional cases who can pick up on how to beat the system as opposed to trusting it. My own sample for this observation is, again, hundreds of people who otherwise do amazing stuff in their home country and are generally brilliant, but their own local difficulties made it so that they never got to get around and see more of the world first hand, and so Plato's cavern style they can only fantasize about it from what they perceive in the media and it downright pains me to say that but if they ever made the move they talk about, I'd say maybe one tenth of them wouldn't be disenchanted. Talking about France for an example I'm especially familiar with, it has this international reputation of being a welfare country where the system is easy to abuse and people are living sophisticated lives, but I could still take you to literally hundreds of suburbs here (and that's a massive piece of the land) where every woman and even some men are scared to leave home between dusk and dawn and for damn good reasons. You think rape, murder and kidnapping isn't a daily occurrence here on the basis of what - your perception from the media, at the end of the day, am I incorrect? But that's because the media only shows the misery the rich can bank on. No developed country wants to show the actual misery that can and does exist within their system because those highlight their weaknesses and that's not good for tourism and international commerce (let alone population control), so instead they sweep the mess under the rug by never communicating around it and only presenting the fine stuff (an easy task when you control the media), handicrafting this paper mâché image all the while pointing fingers at the other countries with more evident struggles to reaffirm their own definition of poverty, and lower their own people's standards and narrow their perspectives. At the end of the day, there's a lot more marketing to each country's branding than I guess most people realize, resulting in those weird phantasmal representations of areas of safety when again I can tell you, I'm lucky enough to have amazing friends in most countries that I've visited more or less extensively which is what probably made those projections crumble for me, whether you are in the world you can easily meet absolute misery, and only the (oftentimes secluded) privileged will have a voice to tell you otherwise. Now of course people should aspire to leave their misery, and some are reasonable in their expectations, but it's also a thing that many aren't and I feel like thinking in terms of competing/comparing countries (which in itself solves zero actual issue) is the best point to start going down that road. I'm an individualist too who really just want as many people as possible to live happy lives, except happiness doesn't lie in geographical localization in terms so temptingly simple and conveniently placed is all I'm saying. But at the same time, those illusions can also fuel the individual's drive in amazing ways, probably directly touching on survival instincts, just misdirected so I don't know. By being the bearer of bad news I most certainly do not intend on crushing hopes, those just deserve a more solid foundation.

[Aristotle Gumball]

@ck3D

It's really hard to read your posts btw because of the lack of paragraphs, but I don't know why you're bringing up France or any of these bigger countries. Everyone already knows France is a shit hole overrun by people from the MENA region who cause all kinds of problems. I live in Estonia and know many professionals who have had an easy time living and working here. I'm not trying to invalidate your experience, but I'm saying it doesn't apply to everyone, and anyone who doesn't do their research (like talking to locals instead of buying some government propaganda/postcard fiction), that's on them. I don't consider them particularly intelligent.

What you're saying is definitely a thing that happens, but that's why you make sure you know wtf you're getting into before uprooting yourself. Btw, I should say in Eastern Europe everyone laughs at those welfare countries, man. They know all about it.

[ck3D]

I mean, you have 'professionals' having an easy time living and working in every country too, regardless of how arguably shit said country really is ran, some will spontaneously rise to the top of the structure that they do have because they're wired in a way that it does work for them. I think I stated a few times that this wasn't a generalization I was making but I trend I've been observing. Plus if one's seriously trying to go there, then they should also take into account all the differences in culture that are bound to determine one's definition of happy (e.g.. I consider myself as much as a happy person as one can be in my context, but I'm sure many would hate my living conditions and routines), and pick apart individual examples which would be unreasonable and why I'm saying this was never a generalization.

About the people's intelligence, I think most people (now) generally are basically smart by default and just conditioned from an early age on to only develop their personal potential in very specific ways (that really benefit interests that mostly isn't theirs but their community's, country but also direct family, etc.), and so I never downright doubt it but I also don't exactly expect it (that way I'm also always amazed when I do see it), because in many ways we all get taught not to think to different extents. What about access to education and culture in general? Besides that being a sign of the Western economic model gradually spreading, how come there is so much bullshit pseudo-entertainment floating around the Internet from every other possible country that is meant for mindless instant consumption and yet, comparatively, only small niches of substantial communication, and how is such a trend possible in a world where only a select few countries seem to have a great educational system, where are the funds and where is the care there for what should be a priority before you start distracting people with flashing images of whatever is going on at the neighbors', revisited and distorted a hundreds time over to fit your desired narrative? Ah yeah, you need the distracting images so that your population doesn't realize how really it's getting milked (and I'm being nice with just milked). And a population never solely includes happy, fulfilled professionals - far from that. The people who do find happiness, they usually find it from within and that has a lot to do with giving up on expecting a lot from the outside world, and using your struggles to shape your strengths because there's no miraculous escaping from struggle anywhere. I'm glad you yourself are aware of that, but I wouldn't be so quick to generalize your own case. Just the great quality of your eloquence demonstrates that you're not exactly humanity's lowest standard when it comes to cognition. But then it's also funny how grandly intelligent we're all tempted to think we are when in the (actually) grand scheme of things we all really know nothing, isn't it?

And so, about Wolfenstein. *slips outside of room*

[Aristotle Gumball]

When I was a kid, I thought Wolfenstein 3D was based on the Windows 95 maze screensaver.

[jkas789]

@ck3D I kinda disagree, but thankfully because we are not Doomworld, we can all agree to disagree and live our lives. And have interesting conversations like this one.

Quote

I don't know as much about Mexico as I should, but when I read some of the news articles, such as a recent one about drug lords systemically assassinating police officers in their homes to tell them to fuck off, I'm inclined to agree with jkas789 that we in gringoland don't know how good we have it.

And...I just realized we are in the Wolfenstein thread. Damn convos can drift off topic quickly.

Aye, it is sobering.