The Last of Us 2 Spoilery Ending, Sequel Bait Discussion

Howdy friends, been a while. The Last of Us 2 is the talk of the town, or moreso a bunch of fairly inaccurate/exaggerated leaked spoilers and images are the talk; but behind all that it's actually quite a good game. That said it is sort of the inverse of the first game, I find the first Last of Us to be quite distressing and to more or less transcend the medium on a story front; the gameplay is fine, mildly engaging and occasionally very effective (the house fight most notably, especially if you use spike bombs); but in The Last of Us 2 the gameplay is what shines, being very engaging and even quite fun; also the shocking moments mostly happen while you're playing and not in cutscenes. In the first game basically all of the good story beats are cutscene exclusive, in this one there's just like one or two cutscenes that are extremely effective but blowing a guys leg off with a shotgun and listening to him scream extremely loudly (while he grabs the specific limb you shot) is pretty damn unnerving, turns out; despite something like that happening in almost every other shooter and being par for the course.

However there's no denying the story is worse and with the way it was constructed its hard to imagine a way to make it not worse; though it could maybe be a roughly top 10 game story all time (the first game is third behind The Witcher 3 and Final Fantasy Tactics, bonus points for coming out well before TW3) with perfect decisions. Did they make perfect decisions? Well if your story goes on for 30 hours and there's like 15 fake endings it kind of feels like an overwrought arthouse film that doesn't quite hit the mark. That said maybe an extremely tight 15-18 hour campaign that ended at the best spot could've been better than the first game in every way and not simply on the gameplay front.

Indeed this game has roughly 15 hours of padding, but it is very fun to play so it's not really a problem per se, it just means you'll likely have the most enjoyment out of things that you yourself are actually doing outside the actual narrative (though one of the scripted fights (against a totally anonymous foe) is exceptional as well). Case and point, my finest hour in this game was shooting a dog-walking man with a sniper rifle, laying a land mine and running as the dog was blown literally in fucking half by said mine. That's right, The Last of Us 2 is the best savage dog murder simulator on the market, Machete to a Dog's throat? Check, Arrow to the face? Check, Dog Dismemberment (a first in any AAA game?)? Check. Obviously I'm being somewhat facetious but damn is it ever satisfying.

At its best The Last of Us 2 is a spiritual successor to Spec Ops: The Line and Manhunt, with much more vivid depictions of violence. Ellie does have some Spec Ops-esque dialogue but she only throws it out every once in a while when you're not in stealth; not quite the Nolan North "GOT THE FUCKER" masterwork of yore. An argument I had about the first Last of Us springs to mind here, the discussion: whether Ellie is a mass murderer. Objectively: Yes, but she is a video game protagonist of course she would be; however since the depiction is so realistic and the character's reactions similarly so it actually holds some meaning. People thought at the time that she would have a redemption arc in this game, but on the contrary she kills way more people and the ending is extraordinarily ambiguous as to whether that will keep happening or not (spoilers: because of money it will).

On that point I guess I'll point out that Abigail is more or less a good person, she does brutally torture and murder one person and shoot another guy in the face out of the blue; but essentially everyone else she kills is in the line of duty or self defense; so she's got 2 kills on her tab to Ellie's 150-500+? I'm not sure who the game wants you to root for in the end but they did make the turn on Abigail (around the first visit to the Aquarium; because everyone loves my boy Owen), which is an astounding success all things considered. But it doesn't really matter that much because she's not Ellie and thus I still only care a fairly small amount about Abigail (and a larger amount about Lev) on a personal level; because Ellie is from a better story and is a better developed character.

On to the ending discussion a bit, there are a shitload of places where this game could have ended, it seems like the story was in development hell while the gameplay was near-perfectly refined; a common trend in movies but quite rare in games where usually something else fucks it all up. The best place for the game to end is at the Ellie Boss Fight, Abigail kills Ellie, Dina kills Abigail, Lev kills Dina; fade to black. Nice and neat; very few loose ends, no sequel bait. Also the game probably wouldn't have felt so damn long. Is this the longest linear shooter of all time? Mayhap not but it's gotta be close. The second best ending is if during the Abigail Boss Fight Ellie is killed. Both of these more or less conclude the story a few outstanding character actors notwithstanding (Tommy's arc is fucking amazing), and both of them end the franchise (in its current form) and of course reduce the chance for Sony to make more money. So instead we have obvious sequel bait in the form of the New Game Plus title screen and there being no other logical place for the story to go; the plot of the next game only has a few options for endings but they could make it interesting I suppose; more likely the journey will be satisfying but not the story itself; just like this game.

It should be noted if you wanted to you could have Ellie brutally murder Abigail or vice versa and just stop playing because the number of absurdly violent player death options in this game is massive; a choose your own adventure of post apocalyptic mishaps. It's quite time consuming to actually see or record all of them so I probably won't bother but I am certainly curious. There are so many unique melee weapon animations and each melee craft is distinct unlike the first game; in that regard it is much like Assassin's Creed 2 where you have numerous unique animations that are fun to find and figure out. Though I return again to the dogs as far as what would be most interesting and unnerving. So while the ending was happening and I was mashing square a bunch since having QTE final boss fights is cool I thought back on that guy who I shot with the shotgun; the last regular enemy in the game turned out. Just some dude; screaming in sheer agony, that is a really good narrative moment and it had absolutely nothing to do with the story. Game must be good if it can cause you to reflect on an unscripted moment so much.

Aside: There are ways to make foes surrrender in this game (typically a few melee attacks or pistol shots to the legs on the last enemy of a given encounter), I feel like there's a scripted one in the first game and that was it; the original pitch for the original was something along the lines of moral choice based on encountering groups of enemies; naturally that didn't happen.. Unfortunately if you just sit there pointing your gun at them instead of murdering them (Game: "You know you want to!") they just randomly die after a while; not sure what happens if you walk away though.

Another Aside: The Last of Us 2 has the best depiction of the unappealing nature of war in any game to this point, but since it keeps going for another 5-7 hours after that that aspect kind of loses its narrative punch; large men being terrified of small women is much more impactful in the end. Punished Ellie kind of reminds me of my shitty little cousin; ratty and irritating; tattooed and psychologically abused, but what if he was actually the ultimate badass and a lesbian? Wouldn't that be something. She's a lovable mass murderer guys, it's cool.

Story Time, Brood War Edition

What follows is a sea of memories perforated by lucidity in transcendent megolomania (a la Frank Thomas' legendary Hall of Fame speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMOUf97yWxU), I'll keep it Brood War related to start: I probably played with you a few times (Baron_Efreet was my ID), off the top of my head notable people I've played with: Shadow_Poga, Galdor(WC), Eomer(WC), Ecthelion(WC), semihalfwit, Legolas, Adun, Vexorian, I_Need_Alcohol, Isildur(WC) (in Starcraft 2 ironically), Hell_Razor (runs the discord), Term-of-Use, Duffman911 (still plays) and thousands more. Galdor was definitely the best player as far as how good he was on average across all maps, rest of the top 5 when I was playing was likely myself, Poga, and two randomly selected individuals that are not Semi, Adun, or Lego chosen at random from memory depending on the day (note I did have a Top 5 noted a few weeks ago but somehow can't remember the transient two). Alchy was usually fifth is something I vaguely remember.

As far as Pre is concerned I was playing Risk Marines (made by the DotA mapmaker Icefrog) at the time and did not adapt to LotR for a year or so when LA was the new hotness; I sucked with the Nums for a while and eventually started playing with Galdor and Alchy who had an endless number of maps. Adun at the time was always attended by his two fellatio granting lovers; Semi and Lego; in a tripartite circle jerk which legends dare not speak of. That being said this magnificent cerberus of stupidity somehow brewed up a fantastic map in War of the Soulstones and granted me great happiness as I mastered one faction after another, becoming the best player at five (out of eight) of them and utterly destroying Semi and co. In this process I taught my good friends, non LotR players, how to play WotS and Poga came along; these friends were MrPoey, SmartMan001, Lightning-Baron (who I am still in touch with), Tainted_God, and quite a few more; taking such luddites I beat the mapmaker's toadies repeatedly with such force as to satisfy any sadomasochist gleefully.

I eventually moved on, Galdor took Duff on as apprentice in my stead, a surrogate me if you will; though not nearly as strategically sound or tactically brilliant or ludicrously arrogant (a trait of greatness of course); I'll elaborate on my future goings after a brief discussion of BW remastered.

First it bears mention that Brood War was revived massively in Korea before Remastered, by a few years even, all of the legends returned in the greatest playlist in the history of mankind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td-12J0YmqI&list=PLo2fPnM8EiQxwqKvAnVtue6K4pt82Pudp&index=137

If Starcraft was your childhood it behooves you to watch that playlist whenever depression takes hold as it most assuredly will. When remastered came out I didn't buy it, but I did play the original version with those who did; tragically LotR was not really an aspect of this aside from Last Alliance. W.Emery was my most frequent compatriot in this process, and I did play other games beyond LotR when I was a UMS monster; the aforementioned Risk Marines, Various Diplo Maps, Napoleon's Ambition, and the Civil War maps by Fenix'01; the beloved Emery and his pals gave me just about every map I could've ever wanted; excepting Star Wars AotR, WotS, and various Melkor LotR maps.

At this time I realized that my mechanical skill had become transcendent, much higher than it was before; I destroyed everyone with trivial effort at every map; the reality is that UMS players just weren't very good and while my strategic and tactical ability has always been superhuman my raw ability at games was relatively lacking except for JRPGs in youth. But after I left Brood War (after a brief stint being a top 5 player in the world at WoW and Warhammer online) I moved on to the twin masochistic endeavours of becoming good at Fighting games and playing Souls games, starting with Demon's Souls in 2009.

I won't go into overly mundane details on those tasks but this is a combo I can do in KoF XIV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_eyPPibeio and in Nioh I was the Fourth player in the world to get the hardest trophy (clear all missions); of those who played on release (top 20 including people who had the game several days early): https://psnprofiles.com/trophy/5812-nioh/13-samurai-of-legend . Note I didn't try to get the Nioh trophy quickly, it just happened that way; which I suppose is indicative of the general skill level.

Having become quite good at other games somehow translated to much better RTS skill, though of course nowhere near Korean skill, and makes me wonder what it would have been like to be even better when I was already top 5 back in the day. The answer: Probably wouldn't have mattered that much but maybe would have made my shit talk even better.

A random strand of advice I had at work motivated me to attempt making a youtube channel and it did unbelievably well; in fact I still have a single video that gets 50,000 views a month by itself (it has 2.3 million now); which is more views than this blog has gotten over its lifespan. Most people that attempt Youtube or Twitch fail immediately and now Youtube is all but inaccessible to everyone but corporations and massive singular channels and Twitch is simply the misery of conducting an audience of 12 year olds to donate you money. But somehow despite that I did quite well with youtube leading to relative financial security despite never having a permanent degree requiring Job post university; presumably more self-achieved security than virtually everyone I've ever known who's roughly the same age.

That said I am on the cusp of transitioning into a new phase, writing a (doomed) novel and then presumably becoming a university professor in around a decade. I should be quite well for 5-6 years but who knows what will happen after that; China could invade Taiwan in that timeframe and change the entire global landscape; thus making all future plans irrelevant.

Thanks whoever read this spiel.

Cyberpunk Vs Post Apocalyptic (Two Near Certain Futures) in Philosophical Terms

Hello Friends, given the certainty of dystopia in the near future I am once again compelled to remember the old bud John Stuart Mill and the concept of Utilitarianism. The general idea is that the best way to run society is to create the most happiness while avoiding unhappiness; it's also largely pacifist. In the pacifism lies the utopian nature of the argument, as surely as death and violence are inevitable; but if we accept that death is a necessary component of life then Utilitarianism becomes immensely more interesting in a philosophical sense.

So, as China's incoming Tiananmen Square 2.0 brews in Hong Kong and Holocaust 2.0 continues in the Xinjiang provinces we come to this realization that either World War 3 must occur given China's new imperialist ambitions (as evidenced by films like Operation Red Sea and Operation Mekong (extremely jingoistic, 80'sesque military action movies)) or that Capitalism itself is so embedded into the global economy that restricting China is deemed impossible or impractical to extremely wealthy people who may or may not be pedophiles. The first option leads to a post apocalyptic horrorscape followed by a rebirth of nature and beauty given the absence of most humans and technology and the second leads to Cyberpunk where some very small handful of people has all of the world's resources and no one else has anything (but they do live, if a simulation of machine-life entitles living).

Thus the question presents itself: is it better to have 5 happy people and 20 billion unhappy people or to have 20 billion dead people and 500,000 happy people. This is an oversimplification in many ways but so is utilitarianism of course; wealth does not lead to happiness for most people in today's society so why would it in some theoretical future society? In the post apocalyptic land surely social and economic stratification would re-emerge in some fashion regardless of how technology progressed or was preserved. However if we grant that both of these do not nullify the greater chance of happiness for the remaining aspect of humanity, then the argument is still an interesting question.

It should also be noted that these are not mutually exclusive realities; Cyberpunk is not necessarily a bulletproof society and future decay may as yet lead to some different vision of the apocalypse.

Mill ignores this eventuality by embracing pacifism and eliminating harming others from the thesis; but it is abundantly clear that attempting to indoctrinate large sections of society in largely pacifist ideologies does not remove it from all aspects of society; if some segment of the populace seeks to be armed and/or violent it will not cease to exist because some greater portion merely wags its finger in disgust at them. Similarly if the most powerful actor controls a huge portion of the global economy and chooses to be violent and oppressive it undercuts any and all notions that pacifism is a universal possibility, let alone a universal good.

Why did Starcraft 2 Fail to be Better than Brood War?

Highlight the text and you're good to go.

This is an extremely complicated question but there are a huge number of factors. Firstly: Starcraft 2 (and the expansions) is easily the best single player RTS of all time, nothing else comes close. So they did that part well.

Secondly: Brood War was balanced by accident and SC2 was attempted to be balanced by force; the latter is always worse and leads to "meta" gameplay which is horrible of course, a modern Blizzard concept that destroyed any of the fun in playing multiplayer games well by forcing you to have a 50% win rate; which is only fun if you're terrible. Note this concept is rapidly dying in modern game design so we won't have to deal with it for much longer, much like Bioware's shitty restrictive and repetitive RPG design finally gave way to the Witcher 3's expansive design.

Thirdly: DotA killed Mapmaking and thus killed the replayability and the heart and soul of the community. Now by the time SC2 had come out Indie games would have killed mapmaking for obvious reasons (it takes months upon months to make a good BW map), so technically it doesn't matter that DoTA killed mapmaking. BUT DoTA did kill mapmaking and thus all true brood war fans must inherently hate DotA for by and large murdering the entirety of the RTS genre; else they're not really RTS fans. That said I eventually got over it and occasionally have fun with mobas (a word that sounds like dota)

It should be noted that I played with the creator of DotA/Aeon of Strife and every other good UMS map in Brood War at one point or another (Panzer-Kavalier, Melkor (WC), Ar-Adunakhor, Fenix'01, Theromangeneral etc.); he seemed like an innocent enough fellow (as did the TROP 1.2 creator Isildur (WC) which greatly simplified the excellent LotR genre and made it a lot worse for several years (eventually the good maps that Melkor (WC) came back around; though ironically I met Isildur playing SC2). So I don't place the blame on the map creators; it is the fault of the community for abandoning other map genres, many of which could easily be the biggest game in the world right now since nearly every mobile game genre is just a Starcraft UMS map remade.

As to the Indie Vs DoTA killed Mapmaking genesis question its impossible to solve like any great philosophical conundrum. If DoTA doesn't exist then obviously the entirety of twitch/streaming/esports and a whole lot of other shit is completely different. But I still think we can guarantee that SC2's mapmaking scene never would have took off because you could just make an indie game instead. Now granted there's only like 5 or so actually good indie games (FTL/Into the Breach/Spelunky/Isaac/insert favorite indie game here) and the rest are all just somewhat worse version of SNES games; but the fact that a lot of them are limited in scope etc. is very similar to how Brood War maps were made. But since in BW you're working with a limited toolset as opposed to the limits of your imagination in modern toolsets it was much easier to find like a linear path to a great map with the limited tools available instead of having countless Steam Greenlight games that aren't even close to half baked. I must've played at least 1500 maps I enjoyed to one degree or another and I'm still waiting on my 10th or so indie game that I actually enjoy as opposed to seeing where it could be better in numerous fields.

For me personally the decline of Starcraft led to my embracing console games instead of only playing a very limited number of PC games forever; so it was probably a net benefit aside from the loss of countless friends (I did reconnect, briefly, with a handful when remastered came out at least, the nostalgia vibes and the beep boops at match start in ASL/KSL streams are enough to stave off depression)

Judge Holden and Blood Meridian

Greetings friends, it has been about a year since my last post; in the meantime my youtube has expanded fourfold; my stocks have done quite well, I have more friends than any point in my life except the last two years of high school, and my mental health has deteriorated to strange lows. Of course virtually everyone in First World Countries is unhappy and its possible my pseudo-depression is simply a physical hormonal imbalance of some sort that I can't fix without pharmaceutical assistance; however succumbing to that is not something I'm willing to do at least in the near future. The reliance on medication to solve your ailments is an absolutely crippling one in most cases.

However I've found some solace in simply reading outside, its too cold to do so right now but I began with James Michener's Centennial (followed by Caribbean and the Source) in the summer and enjoyed my experience immensely. In fact being outside in the sunlight is a sort of opiate since I hadn't spent that much time relaxing in this fashion for many a moon. Michener is pseudo Non Fiction in how well researched and detailed the work is; a more grounded Michael Crichton if you will. In the process of procuring more Michener I started using a university library with a close friend and suggested he read Cormac McCarthy; commonly considered the best living author. So it was that he came to Blood Meridian and I return to it after having misplaced my copy (which I still own, somewhere) ages ago.

In Chapter XI Judge Holden (a sort of Ares of the Mexican-American war era) is drawing in his sketchbook and a man requests to not be drawn; the Judge responds with "What is to be deviates no jot from the book wherein it's writ. How could it? It would be a false book and a false book is no book at all." This line gave me some pause, as it is a philosophical argument presented by McCarthy; and oh how I love dissecting those. It's explained a bit more shortly thereafter but the truly perceptive reader will see something awry just from this one line.

The Judge is saying that a man cannot avoid his own permanence; Webster, the man who doesn't want to be sketched, simply wishes to be forgotten; or to go about his existence without external bother until he expires, another speck of dust lost to the ages. But the Judge continues "Whether in my book or not, every man is tabernacled in every other and he in exchange and so on in an endless complexity of being and witness to the uttermost edge of the world."

It is very common to believe that each man's own existence is pointless; though reasonable to acknowledge that the grand tapestry of history is created from the interwoven relationships of countless billions of people. The Judge says otherwise here, that you cannot choose to be forgotten, no matter how much you would wish it; barring a proverbial solitary island existence from start to finish. This is a remarkably optimistic train of thought coming from McCarthy in his most brutal, Macbethian narrative. I don't know that I'm willing to accept it quite yet, but it gives me some solace to spare a thought for it.

Statistically society is become more and more like Max Weber's doomed future where each individual is so disassociated from one another's work lives because each job is more and more specific to the point of absurdity; thus there is no relating to one another through one's work. My "job" as a youtuber has no bearing on my relationship with anyone in my life, it is an esoteric, vague service provided to millions of people from all over the world, but the exact meanderings of its viability still elude most people. The concept of profiting from advertising is simple enough, but what of the prospective value of providing somewhat repetitive entertainment to vast hordes of anonymous viewers, no matter how much positivity I receive from my viewership (dozens or hundreds of comments a day) it still feels like they're abstract unknowable things extracted from the raw core of the NSA internet databases; an endless filtering of chain of consciousness to be rebounded by everyone and no one.

Perhaps historically I've made more of an impact than any other member of my family as far as how many people I've reached, even with just a mid-sized channel; but I can't escape the awareness that I myself am largely immaterial despite having a mind that grasps. If I am immaterial how much more so the millions or indeed billions of dunces roaming the planet. McCarthy, my old friend, says no; each man has meaning because he has contributed to the tapestry of existence. Hopefully one day I'll believe this as well.

Aside: The pointless accumulation of wealth and the evasion of any and all particular difficulties with existence as is given to me by virtue of birth in a first world nation (and essentially all others so gifted) doesn't really hold much attention for me. Instead this act of writing, no matter how little it will be seen or understood or perceived is something that I would like to continue with. Eventually I'll have enough to just sit back and write with no need for success beyond affirming that I was able to write what I wanted with no need for greater affirmation nor financial gain.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer Ending Philosophical Discussion

This was written on reddit, hence the formatting:

The ending of Sacred Deer essentially presents a Russian Roulette scenario to solve the morality issue that the Surgeon (Colin Farrell) has with killing one of his own family members. There are six plausible endings (though there could be many more potentially) that I'll discuss briefly as far as the Moral, Utilitarian, and Cinematic value associated with each.

The first two we can sort of throw out because the ending doesn't fit into a traditional Greek Tragedy format and instead have an "American" tinge to them. (e.g. Wind River has an American ending).

**One:** Colin Farrell kills his son voluntarily after he starts bleeding from the eyes (a sign of impending death), and then kills the perpetrator Martin (kid from Dunkirk, Barry Keoghan) after his Wife and Daughter recover. This ending assumes that Martin is not omniscient and can be killed without instantaneously causing the mysterious Pathogen again.

In my opinion this is the most clean ending and provides the most Moral value, but it does make the movie a revenge fantasy instead of a Greek Tragedy which invalidates various constructs throughout the film.

**Two**: Steven (Colin Farrell) shoots himself instead of continuing the Russian Roulette. At the very least the Son and Daughter die, unclear whether the Wife (Nicole Kidman) would die or not but if we take the Demon Child at his word she would eventually. While this ending is undoubtedly tragic it eliminates the "Divine" element of chance from the ending which seems to be one of the major underlying points, if a not entirely obvious one.

This ending provides the least Moral Value since the antagonist is not eliminated but everyone else is, it ties for least Utilitarian value (though it depends on your interpretation of John Stuart Mill).

The next four endings all fit into the tragic mold nicely without eliminating an element of randomness.

**Three:** Steven shoots Martin in the basement in the hopes that his Pathogen does not continue post death. This either results in just Martin dying or in his entirely family dying, but it is unknown which would happen unless you assume Martin is telling the truth (the movie does nothing to imply that he isn't).

If his entire family dies I think this is a fitting end for a Greek Tragedy and it also ties for least Utilitarian value. Regardless this is the other potential best Moral choice, because Steven does not know whether or not his family will die and is still taking an action that could theoretically save all of them. This seems like the third best cinematic choice, but it is difficult to make an ending work for it without just cutting to black.

The next three results are all directly tied to the Russian Roulette (one of them is the actual ending):

**Four**: Steven shoots his son (Sunny Suljic) randomly.

The son is, as far as the audience knows, already going to die at the point at which he is shot; since he is the only one that dies this provides the most Utilitarian value. However since Martin is still alive he will most likely use his power to torment someone else or Steven again, so it is not a particularly sound moral choice (though it would be if done intentionally) Since a random act of chance determines an ending where only one person dies you can infer that the randomness (i.e. Greek Divinity or whatever you want to input) is morally righteous or at least utilitarian. But since the son is the most pure/youngest person in the film it is also very tragic that he dies (but he was going to die anyway as far as we know). This is also perhaps the most obvious ending which is frequently what happens in Greek plays to assist in foreshadowing. However in my opinion this offers the least cinematic value out of the four viable endings, since the result is quite a bit less unsettling than if random chance results in more chaos. If for example DeNiro dies at the end of Deer Hunter instead of Nick (Walken) and Nick returns and has a happy life in America then it results in a happier, less tragic ending since he manages to save Nick's life.

**Five** Steven shoots his Wife (Nicole Kidman) randomly.

This is the second most tragic ending since the son will also die, and the wife acts in a self serving/self preserving manner in the film. Personally I think any act that pursues survival is morally righteous so I don't actually think the Wife is an evil character or anything (Martin is the only evil character in the film) though her presence makes more sense in a Greek Tragedy than a modern film. However she is older and thus closer to death, so theoretically her death is less unsettling than the death of a teenage girl. This provides the second least moral value and is somewhere in the middle in terms of utilitarian value. I'll discuss this more in the final ending but it is also extremely unsettling as far as anyone who believes there is inherently good in the universe in any way shape or form (i.e. the vast majority of people).

**Six** Steven shoots his daughter (Raffey Cassidy) randomly, Bob also dies since the pathogen has reached a terminal state. This is the most tragic ending other than Steven shooting himself, because the daughter is younger than the mother. Also since random chance is the deciding factor and results in the worst situation we can infer that the universe is some uncaring husk of horrors in which all is nothingness and emptiness; with no moral compass to guide us and no Zeus to help out either. I really like this ending and if the director/writer/whomever made three endings out of the Russian Roulette and then just picked whichever one people liked the best I can sort of respect this not being the result that you end up with. However it certainly causes the most cognitive dissonance in the audience and would probably propagate more discussion than the present ending. This ending provides the least moral value and ties ending #5 for Utilitarian value (in the middle).

While I do very much enjoy the ending setup for this film it does seem like once a character starts bleeding from the eyes a medical cause could be ascertained since you can't psychologically decide to start bleeding from your eyes (though most likely a cure could not be found before all three characters died); and since we grounded the entire film in that frame of reference it should at least be addressed in the film somewhere.

Baseball and Social Justice

"I think its okay to not know, but I think its wrong to deny the possibility of knowing." ~ On Objectivity/whether Justice or "Truth" can exist.

Another Barry Bonds post, reminder: 2001-2004 Bonds put up like 50 WAR and that should give you a hard-on as a baseball fan no matter who you are.

This was written as a response to the fantastic Joe Posnanski article about Babe Ruth which had a dumb sounding comment printed thusly:

"“I wonder if the middle-aged millennials will reclaim their era and turn Bonds and the rest the Selig-era crew into heroes.” — I think this is halfway happened already. When they go into the Hall, which I think will happen in about 4 months, the process will be complete. The reporting will probably say that Bonds’ election is an act of Social Justice. "

And my response was as follows:

"Greetings and salutations illustrious Invitro. So you’re tugging at something that is vaguely intelligent but doing it in such a way that makes you look utterly foolish; but hear me out this isn’t aimed at you as a particular blight or anything. There is a theoretical extant “Social Justice” in all humanity and there are groups that are wronged, except that the vast majority of pursuits in this vein are at least somewhat monetarily motivated bullshit; also the correlation with “Wronged” has more to do with who has money/lives in a first world country and who doesn’t than anything else. My personal viewpoint is simple “All men are equal under the sun except for the unique gifts God has granted them,” Napoleon Bonaparte (who employed African Marshals in the early 1800s); I feel like this is virtually indisputable as written. However the communal sense of justice as it is driven by stupid people by and large fails to see the overarching point and must accomplish some small thing with their task instead of attacking the larger establishment in some way that might actually change things.

To Bonds and Baseball: Bonds unquestionably suffered racism from being African American, but it probably has only a small amount to do with his lack of acceptance in the baseball culture; that’s easy enough to chalk up to image/”Well-Likedness.” Now if Bonds pushed that angle hardcore for the next several years it would probably work quite well getting into the HoF; but he’s only kind of mildly doing that right now; if he does push it harder than you have a point. But ultimately the only fucking thing that matters is whether Bonds was one of the best players of all time. Yes he was. Boom HoF. That’s it. This isn’t a debatable player like Palmeiro; Bonds is better than fucking everyone in baseball right now including Mike Trout, he was better than practically everyone that came before him; Bonds and Clemens are top 5 players all time. It makes no fucking difference how big of a douchebag they are, whether they’re black or white, how much they cheated, how much they abused women (which I’d guess about 50% of HoFers have done to one degree or another); these are the best of the best and that’s the end of the story (and everyone likes stories where the characters have flaws anyway)."

This is a very advanced societal fixing sort of concept and one that most people will fail to grasp because a lack of perception of macro elements, and it's probably not articulated particularly well here, but I always like to push the good ideas given the opportunity. So thanks to Invitro, he of the Joe Pos comments spam.