NPCs: Born or made?

[L50LasPak]

What if there could have been an increased natural urge to cooperate or empathize, without having an "NPC state"?

Of course, centralized civilization - at least or especially technological - may have been unable to emerge then.

Cooperation and empathy don't overrule the basic problem of people being unable to communicate with each other or decided their loyalties between multiple factions. The main issues are time and communications. For something as complex as leadership in a human society, its often difficult for someone to fully explain even their point of view in a succinct manner. This is one of the major reason you see most factional issues being dumbed down as much as possible in public discourse; its not just because leaders think their people are stupid, its also because you by default are trying to avoid a nine hour lecture on what your position even is let alone what you intend to do. The average person has the time an attention span to deeply learn about a few sides to an issue, yes, if they are willing, but there are hard limits on that kind of thing and they'll be unlikely to fully understand more than one or two.

Besides, consider that someone has the instinct to cooperate by default, but then they are presented with multiple factions. Two factions, they will try to compromise between them of course. Three factions, compromise is still possible. Ten, now its getting difficult. One hundred? Compromise is impossible. Being able to empathize with many or all of these factions too would be a disadvantage in a situation where compromise is impossible, and it would prevent you from being able to ignore or sweep aside the chaff and focus on what you think would work best.

In both of these situations, it is therefore advantageous to have as few factions, and therefore as few leaders as possible.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

In both of these situations, it is therefore advantageous to have as few factions, and therefore as few leaders as possible.

So with no "NPCs" or "hive mind", the biggest a society could get is something like a village, or at most a city state?

(Reminds me of what I heard: there's a genetic limit of knowing around 150 people - beyond that can be psychologically unhealthy.)

 

[L50LasPak]

So with no "NPCs", the biggest a society could get is something like a village, or at most a city state?

(I heard Homo sapiens has some kind of genetic limit of knowing around 150 people, but beyond that can be psychologically unhealthy.)

Probably even less than that honestly. That genetic limit of knowing about 150 people is actually the optimistic estimate, which is usually paired with an estimate of about 35 you're capable of having a very close relationship with and knowing very well.

Even a relatively tiny group of friends like just four or five people can have crippling arguments or schisms if two or more members disagree on who's direction to take. At some point, you need the majority of the group to back down and not just accept the direction of the leader, but also be happy with it. A group composed of five leaders will equal five very frustrated and unhappy leaders, because even if four of the leaders submit and accept the judgement of a superior, they will always resent it and always be thinking they can do better, and always take the first opportunity to show that they can do so. Which leads to chaos. And of course the leader who is their superior will be unhappy because their authority is weak, constantly being questioned and their minions are always insubordinate.

Human beings do have various artificial structures to deal with this problem in real life, like hierarchical command structures, but those can only do so much to mitigate the problem. I know business people who sometimes spend their entire workday in meetings, discussing bullshit, purely because company doctrine indicates that X amount of people are supposed to have a say in whatever, which means every major descison and many non-major ones must be discussed at unwiedly all-company meetings. As much as it infuriates me to take the side of a large corporate machine, I agree that method makes it impossible to get anything done.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

crippling arguments or schisms

So it seems civilization may have been unlikely if NPCs weren't there.

Unless most could somehow be "on the same page" in one way or another.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

So it seems civilization may have been unlikely if NPCs weren't there.

Unless most could somehow be "on the same page" in one way or another.

Perhaps, but that still rests on a few faulty assumptions.

Even a relatively tiny group of friends like just four or five people can have crippling arguments or schisms if two or more members disagree on who's direction to take. At some point, you need the majority of the group to back down and not just accept the direction of the leader, but also be happy with it. A group composed of five leaders will equal five very frustrated and unhappy leaders, because even if four of the leaders submit and accept the judgement of a superior, they will always resent it and always be thinking they can do better, and always take the first opportunity to show that they can do so. Which leads to chaos. And of course the leader who is their superior will be unhappy because their authority is weak, constantly being questioned and their minions are always insubordinate.

Firstly, we're coming to the conclusion that everyone who thinks more for themselves will automatically develop leadership ability and secondly, that they would want to exercise it. Leaders are important to society and their word can't be challenged too much if we want to keep a system running but it also runs on specialists and general labor.
While intelligence and independent thought could predispose people towards leadership, it could also lead to them simply being above average versions of the workers I just talked about. These workers include scientists, inventors, engineers and scholars. Each of them may not be leaders but they require independent thought and above average creativity.

 

[L50LasPak]

Firstly, we're coming to the conclusion that everyone who thinks more for themselves will automatically develop leadership ability and secondly, that they would want to exercise it. Leaders are important to society and their word can't be challenged too much if we want to keep a system running but it also runs on specialists and general labor.
While intelligence and independent thought could predispose people towards leadership, it could also lead to them simply being above average versions of the workers I just talked about. These workers include scientists, inventors, engineers and scholars. Each of them may not be leaders but they require independent thought and above average creativity.

I should have clarified: intelligence and creativity do not disqualify a person from being an NPC (or commoner as I prefer to call them). I consider the matter to be entirely a measure of a person's willingness to default to authority and how content they are in doing so, as well as to some extent the strength of their personality. Being a genius does not mean you'll show imitative or even have a terribly well developed sense of self preservation. A lot of extremely intelligent people are actually very content following along with the herd or defaulting to the first strong leadership figure that makes an impression on them.

Intelligence also has seemingly no bearing on whether or not a person develops a personality either. intellect and creativity can help you express your personality better, but if you have a weak one or none at all the begin with you're shit out of luck.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

I should have clarified: intelligence and creativity do not disqualify a person from being an NPC (or commoner as I prefer to call them). I consider the matter to be entirely a measure of a person's willingness to default to authority and how content they are in doing so, as well as to some extent the strength of their personality. Being a genius does not mean you'll show imitative or even have a terribly well developed sense of self preservation. A lot of extremely intelligent people are actually very content following along with the herd or defaulting to the first strong leadership figure that makes an impression on them.

Intelligence also has seemingly no bearing on whether or not a person develops a personality either. intellect and creativity can help you express your personality better, but if you have a weak one or none at all the begin with you're shit out of luck.

That's all true but then we have to ask ourselves the issue of how much being an NPC is inversely correlated to being a leader or perhaps a hermit. Can someone with a strong impulse to leadership be an NPC? How do we find out what exactly denotes an independent personality or how to develop one? We know the NPC concept itself isn't necessarily new (Gnosticism, old Chinese folk religion and even arguably Calvinism have takes on it) but how much truth is there and isn't can be hard to denote. For all we know, we're just looking at different levels of sheer stubbornness.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Not to insult you, ignoring the incel vibes, men generally aren't looking for the same things in a friend as they are in a partner who could potentially be the mother to their kids. Being pleasant and fun to be around is way more important that being smart and someone you can "debate" with when you come home to that person every day.

What part of "all else equal" do you mongs not get? Of course being pleasant is more important, I'm saying that I've seen numerous men IRL say they don't consider it an advantage even as a tiebreaker or a direct disadvantage. For what it's worth, one of them comes across as being real insecure and the other's a hedonist. But to summarize some implications:
1) Apparently being more intelligent/learned (not the same thing) has nothing to do with the quality of a mother
2) Apparently being able to have discussions about things that interest you has nothing to do with being fun to be around (that should probably go, too, for having things like hobbies in common)

Also, since some others were sperging about MBTI, I did an experiment and took an estimate of percentage of male and female population in each category, sorted from largest to smallest share, and graphed. Naturally men have a larger distribution. That's both a common sense and scientifically proven thing, men tend to have more variance in lots of things (height and IQ are the two main ones I'm familiar with), the argument being that evolution rewards using men as experiments but keeping women more similar. Being more variable is not in itself an advantage, it depends on what you're looking at.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis#:~:text=A%202014%20review%20found%20that,and%20the%20causes%20remain%20unknown.

SJ types in general are known to basically be the biggest conformists for the most part.

Spoiler: MBTI Sperging

If we're bringing in MBTI then we need to pay close attention to what the 4 main groupings are. There's SJ, SP, NT, and NF. SJs (ESFJ, ESTJ, ISFJ, ISTJ) are normies and make up at least 45% of the population combined. SPs are probably something like 35% (ESFP, ESTP, ISFP, ISTP). Both of these groups act totally differently from each other in a lot of cases and won't really see the world in anywhere near the same way since the underlying functions are different. An ESFJ wants to please and be liked. An ESFP wants to have fun and stick his dick in everything.(

ESFP sounds way better to interact with than ESFJ. I like people who have a strong sense of self.

It's too bad most MBTI breakdowns are mainly concerned with jerking off how great each special snowflake type is. Even when they go into weaknesses you tend to see that "their weakness is caring too much about others" type stuff.

 

[Sailor Kim Jong Moon]

What part of "all else equal" do you mongs not get? Of course being pleasant is more important, I'm saying that I've seen numerous men IRL say they don't consider it an advantage even as a tiebreaker or a direct disadvantage. For what it's worth, one of them comes across as being real insecure and the other's a hedonist. But to summarize some implications:
1) Apparently being more intelligent/learned (not the same thing) has nothing to do with the quality of a mother
2) Apparently being able to have discussions about things that interest you has nothing to do with being fun to be around (that should probably go, too, for having things like hobbies in common)

Also, since some others were sperging about MBTI, I did an experiment and took an estimate of percentage of male and female population in each category, sorted from largest to smallest share, and graphed. Naturally men have a larger distribution. That's both a common sense and scientifically proven thing, men tend to have more variance in lots of things (height and IQ are the two main ones I'm familiar with), the argument being that evolution rewards using men as experiments but keeping women more similar. Being more variable is not in itself an advantage, it depends on what you're looking at.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis#:~:text=A%202014%20review%20found%20that,and%20the%20causes%20remain%20unknown.

View attachment 3179491


ESFP sounds way better to interact with than ESFJ. I like people who have a strong sense of self.

It's too bad most MBTI breakdowns are mainly concerned with jerking off how great each special snowflake type is. Even when they go into weaknesses you tend to see that "their weakness is caring too much about others" type stuff.

To be fair, what snowflake would want to buy their premium service if they’ve been told they’re a soulless NPC or drone worker bee. I mean, You can’t go too hardcore on telling people they’re boring and bland and used for menial labor in society. You have to use words like “stable” and “harmonious” and “hard working.”

 

[L50LasPak]

That's all true but then we have to ask ourselves the issue of how much being an NPC is inversely correlated to being a leader or perhaps a hermit. Can someone with a strong impulse to leadership be an NPC? How do we find out what exactly denotes an independent personality or how to develop one? We know the NPC concept itself isn't necessarily new (Gnosticism, old Chinese folk religion and even arguably Calvinism have takes on it) but how much truth is there and isn't can be hard to denote. For all we know, we're just looking at different levels of sheer stubbornness.

Maybe this is a matter of interpretation but I've always seen the insult of NPC being this kind of deep philosophical cut that basically says to the target that they are incapable of choosing their own path in life. Its not like there aren't NPCs in vidya that aren't well-liked, or that players get attached to, or even that they're all stupid as enemy AI can actually be quite brilliant and capable of doing exploits the average player can't. But something an NPC can never do is overcome its programming, its always a slave to where the mechanics, or more often, the narrative will take it.

Obviously if you look at it scientifically we're all inherently slaves to the laws of physics and so forth, so I've always figured the NPC term related more to society. How able you are to defy society's mechanics and society's narrative, for better or worse.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

If there could be civilization that somehow works without "NPCs", yet many in the civilization are jerks - like IRL - there'd probably still need to be government and law.

 

[Getting tard comed]

What part of "all else equal" do you mongs not get?

The part where you actually typed it.

Of course being pleasant is more important, I'm saying that I've seen numerous men IRL say they don't consider it an advantage even as a tiebreaker or a direct disadvantage.

Dont consider being nice an advantage? Dont see a personality as a disadvantage? What are you saying here?

For what it's worth, one of them comes across as being real insecure and the other's a hedonist. But to summarize some implications:
1) Apparently being more intelligent/learned (not the same thing) has nothing to do with the quality of a mother

It doesn't. Which is why it doesn't matter to most men.

2) Apparently being able to have discussions about things that interest you has nothing to do with being fun to be around (that should probably go, too, for having things like hobbies in common)

It doesn't which is why most men don't care how smart the girl they are with is. And why most smart men actively avoid "smart" girls. It gets annoying AF to have to argue with someone all the time when you know you're right and they are wrong.

 

[Fish Fudge]

To be fair, if I remember the study correctly it wasn't "no inner speech" but that most (like 70%) people when randomly asked throughout the day what are they thinking reported nothing. Implying that they are just passively navigating life on autopilot for the majority of the time. Imo its not that they aren't capable of it just that they don't.

The whole thinking in words vs thinking in images is unrelated to the original study but still a fascinating concept to ponder. As someone who is constantly in my own head just thinking/talking to myself, being able to do it in images would be pretty cool. Not to be confused with visualization (at least I think, maybe i'm wrong on that. Also a super cool thing to try out), which was another thing tangentially related that pol was running with.

I think that's what a lot of people got wrong about the whole topic - the claim mistakenly being that most people think in complete sentences.

Personally, my thought process feels a bit overlapped - a combination of inner visualisation and some form of 'inner speech'. Obviously it's hard for me to conceive what it's like for individuals who have no ability to visualise images, but I'm not about to label them as subhuman troll people. Likewise for people who don't really use any inner speech - I'm horrendous at mathematics, and it's a completely alien process to me in terms of how people hold complex numbers and equations in their head. If we didn't have these divisions in terms of thought process, we wouldn't wind up with specialists in fields of architecture, engineering, graphic-design, programming, etc.

The bizarre bit as you pointed out, is when people don't have any of that. People self-reporting that they operate on an almost purely instinctive basis, reacting to situations out of muscle memory more than anything else. Which, to me, sounds like how a wild animal operates. That's the bit that disturbs me, that there's people fundamentally missing the cognitive element that defines us as human.

There's certainly people in the world who are cognitively incapable of it - where I get a bit lost, is with the whole NPC angle. It's really not clear if it's an innate inability with them, or - like you're angling towards - a passive apathy towards even trying. 'Thinking' often involves challenging yourself - breaking down ideas, and rigour-testing new ones. I'd wager a lot of people spare themselves that hardship purely for the sake of social cohesion/comfort.

 

[Sailor Kim Jong Moon]

I think that's what a lot of people got wrong about the whole topic - the claim mistakenly being that most people think in complete sentences.

Personally, my thought process feels a bit overlapped - a combination of inner visualisation and some form of 'inner speech'. Obviously it's hard for me to conceive what it's like for individuals who have no ability to visualise images, but I'm not about to label them as subhuman troll people. Likewise for people who don't really use any inner speech - I'm horrendous at mathematics, and it's a completely alien process to me in terms of how people hold complex numbers and equations in their head. If we didn't have these divisions in terms of thought process, we wouldn't wind up with specialists in fields of architecture, engineering, graphic-design, programming, etc.

The bizarre bit as you pointed out, is when people don't have any of that. People self-reporting that they operate on an almost purely instinctive basis, reacting to situations out of muscle memory more than anything else. Which, to me, sounds like how a wild animal operates. That's the bit that disturbs me, that there's people fundamentally missing the cognitive element that defines us as human.

There's certainly people in the world who are cognitively incapable of it - where I get a bit lost, is with the whole NPC angle. It's really not clear if it's an innate inability with them, or - like you're angling towards - a passive apathy towards even trying. 'Thinking' often involves challenging yourself - breaking down ideas, and rigour-testing new ones. I'd wager a lot of people spare themselves that hardship purely for the sake of social cohesion/comfort.

I’m not entirely sure about the last part. I think it’s familial.

I am constantly thinking - constantly. I think in insanely vivid images and in long dialogue. Either way, I’m always “on.” It can be frustrating being lost in thought because I sometimes have little awareness for what is directly in front of me. I’m literally watching a screen of ideas or having an internal conversation.

However, when I ask people around me “what are you thinking about?” The answer is almost always “nothing.” And not nothing as in, I don’t feel like talking or It’s personal. They mean nothing as in NOTHING. Which links back to the animal instinct, lump of meat operating on a primitive level idea.

I’ll get hate for this but whatever: I used to think this phenomenon was a “male” problem. As in, men just don’t think. That’s because the women in my immediate family all agreed with the observation that men tend to having “nothing” in their head for the vast majority of the day - save for what might be right in front of them. (Aka, “I am driving.” “I am filling paperwork.” Is all the thoughts they tend to have. Nothing new, fun, creative, or hypothetical.) When asked for creative inputs or ideas on business, innovation, politics, philosophy, etc etc most males had nothing to say. When pressed, they literally couldn’t come up with ideas. Their brains just didn’t operate like that. Of course there were a few exceptions but they were the exception.

The problem is that I didn’t know many unrelated females to sample as well - except females in my immediate family. Now that I’ve talked to and worked with a lot of women, I know it’s not a male dominated problem. Instead it’s a problem across the board. Remember 70% have no thoughts through our a given point in the day? 70% of the world is “S” according to Meyer-Briggs, which I think is the same demographic.

So, that leads me to believe that there’s a largely genetic or familial component. You’ll see that NPCs breed NPCs either by nature or nurture. Families that are a bit more eccentric, odd, pioneering, or entrepreneurial will beget children in the same vein: non-NPCs.

There are some flukes, obviously. But it appears inherited. And This isn’t directly tied with IQ or intelligence either. Or even political persuasion. The eco-warrior, frog venom huffing hippie can be just as non-NPC as the conservative military kid, for instance.

Also, the non-NPCs will tend to be in higher positions of authority, power, or wealthy compared to NPCs. I thinks it’s survival strategy adaptation. NPCs survive, as do non-NPCs. They just choose different routes.

NPCs can’t become “not an NPC” because there is something fundamentally different about their brain. It’s not a lack of effort. If you force an NPC to generate thoughts they become frustrated, stuck, and annoyed. Their brain is developed for what is in front of them and for taking orders.

So with that information, the best we can do is control what programming we send to the NPCs (in a happy world: by a quality education and honest/healthy media.)

We have neither. So we’re fucked.

Anyway, this is just a shitpost theory of mine. I’m not particularly sentimental towards it.

 

[gang weeder]

The problem is that I didn’t know many unrelated females to sample as well - except females in my immediate family. Now that I’ve talked to and worked with a lot of women, I know it’s not a male dominated problem. Instead it’s a problem across the board. Remember 70% have no thoughts through our a given point in the day? 70% of the world is “S” according to Meyer-Briggs, which I think is the same demographic.

I can second this. I've interacted with tons of women who were, to put it frankly, vapid empty shells.

NPCs can’t become “not an NPC” because there is something fundamentally different about their brain. It’s not a lack of effort. If you force an NPC to generate thoughts they become frustrated, stuck, and annoyed. Their brain is developed for what is in front of them and for taking orders.

So with that information, the best we can do is control what programming we send to the NPCs (in a happy world: by a quality education and honest/healthy media.)

I think your "theory" has a large degree of truth to it and also implies that the ideology of democracy, in which every person is theoretically assigned an equal voice via their single vote, is fundamentally flawed. After all, NPCs don't really have a "voice" of their own, they just parrot whatever programming they've internalized.

 

[Sailor Kim Jong Moon]

I can second this. I've interacted with tons of women who were, to put it frankly, vapid empty shells.



I think your "theory" has a large degree of truth to it and also implies that the ideology of democracy, in which every person is theoretically assigned an equal voice via their single vote, is fundamentally flawed. After all, NPCs don't really have a "voice" of their own, they just parrot whatever programming they've internalized.

The problem is that you can’t test who is an NPC and who is not an NPC. It transcends education, intelligence, wealth, sex, race, etc. absent of testing everyone, it’s not feasible. Plus a lot of wealthy NPCs may be excluded & build resentment. I’ve met a few medical students and attorneys that couldn’t think outside the box if their life depended on it. But they knew the formulas required. (I bet most attorneys that go into personal injury are just intelligent NPCs, for example.)
Also, NPCs do have their merits. An NPC that works on a farm may not be capable of independent thought… but he still can dominate a discussion about traditional farm practices against say a quick witted LA attorney. Their practicality and concern with the immediate can be beneficial for a healthy democracy assuming they have useful training for what’s in front of them and can consider to some degree basic policies that would impact their profession.

I think Plato may have been on to something with the gold/silver/bronze groupings tbh Gold is PCs. Silver is intelligent NPCs. Bronze is average to below average NPCs.

The goal then is for the “Playable Characters” (or whatever you want to call them) to control and inspire the NPCs for the good of society so that their equal vote is a positive force. Unfortunately, power corrupts & the imaginative nature of PCs make them capable of conjuring up destructive or greedy ideas.

But, yes. Democracy has its flaws. I just don’t see a way around it that wouldn’t cause more destruction.

 

[Fish Fudge]

I’m not entirely sure about the last part. I think it’s familial.

I am constantly thinking - constantly. I think in insanely vivid images and in long dialogue. Either way, I’m always “on.” It can be frustrating being lost in thought because I sometimes have little awareness for what is directly in front of me. I’m literally watching a screen of ideas or having an internal conversation.

However, when I ask people around me “what are you thinking about?” The answer is almost always “nothing.” And not nothing as in, I don’t feel like talking or It’s personal. They mean nothing as in NOTHING. Which links back to the animal instinct, lump of meat operating on a primitive level idea.

I’ll get hate for this but whatever: I used to think this phenomenon was a “male” problem. As in, men just don’t think. That’s because the women in my immediate family all agreed with the observation that men tend to having “nothing” in their head for the vast majority of the day - save for what might be right in front of them. (Aka, “I am driving.” “I am filling paperwork.” Is all the thoughts they tend to have. Nothing new, fun, creative, or hypothetical.) When asked for creative inputs or ideas on business, innovation, politics, philosophy, etc etc most males had nothing to say. When pressed, they literally couldn’t come up with ideas. Their brains just didn’t operate like that. Of course there were a few exceptions but they were the exception.

The problem is that I didn’t know many unrelated females to sample as well - except females in my immediate family. Now that I’ve talked to and worked with a lot of women, I know it’s not a male dominated problem. Instead it’s a problem across the board. Remember 70% have no thoughts through our a given point in the day? 70% of the world is “S” according to Meyer-Briggs, which I think is the same demographic.

So, that leads me to believe that there’s a largely genetic or familial component. You’ll see that NPCs breed NPCs either by nature or nurture. Families that are a bit more eccentric, odd, pioneering, or entrepreneurial will beget children in the same vein: non-NPCs.

There are some flukes, obviously. But it appears inherited. And This isn’t directly tied with IQ or intelligence either. Or even political persuasion. The eco-warrior, frog venom huffing hippie can be just as non-NPC as the conservative military kid, for instance.

Also, the non-NPCs will tend to be in higher positions of authority, power, or wealthy compared to NPCs. I thinks it’s survival strategy adaptation. NPCs survive, as do non-NPCs. They just choose different routes.

NPCs can’t become “not an NPC” because there is something fundamentally different about their brain. It’s not a lack of effort. If you force an NPC to generate thoughts they become frustrated, stuck, and annoyed. Their brain is developed for what is in front of them and for taking orders.

So with that information, the best we can do is control what programming we send to the NPCs (in a happy world: by a quality education and honest/healthy media.)

We have neither. So we’re fucked.

Anyway, this is just a shitpost theory of mine. I’m not particularly sentimental towards it.

Makes a lot of sense. I suppose I just wondered if there was a subset of people who had the capability, but chose not to engage with it - because in this day in age - social cohesion/comfort can be a powerful driver for some.

The "what are you thinking about / nothing" element has always caught me off-guard. My brain never stops - it's what drove me to abuse cannabis/alcohol in my younger years, desperately searching for some sort of off-switch so I could just be-present and 'fit in'. I'm willing to admit though, there's definitely an element of just being a bit neurotically inclined going on with that.

It definitely makes a lot of sense for there to be some sort of genetic factor. I'm not sure how much the hypothesis holds water these days, but I was reading a little bit about the Bicameral Mind approach - the general idea being that some humans heard "voices" that they couldn't understand originated from their own mind, instead assuming them to come from an external God/entity, before finally our minds developed to the point that we resolved that division.

Whether or not it's bullshit, I don't know, but it did make me wonder if there wasn't an even larger section of the population that never even went through that evolutionary process. Historical figures who had 'visions' or 'phrophecies' may well have been misinterpreting the conclusions of their own minds as coming from some external source, while the NPCs of the time, incapable of that kind of thought, got drawn into whatever the compelling message was.

Equally just shitposting around the topic, but it's interesting.

 

[Dilbert]

To be fair, if I remember the study correctly it wasn't "no inner speech" but that most (like 70%) people when randomly asked throughout the day what are they thinking reported nothing. Implying that they are just passively navigating life on autopilot for the majority of the time. Imo its not that they aren't capable of it just that they don't.

I never really understood the idea of thinking about "nothing". Whenever I tried meditation I always got that suggestion and never knew what to do with it. I end up just thinking about the idea of thinking about nothing which just turns into me thinking about stuff. Even when I am doing nothing and/or being an idiot I still have thoughts behind it so the concept is odd to me.

Also what do they mean by "nothing"? I would be kind of self-conscious about answering what I was thinking about (even if its not really embarrassing) and would possibly just respond with "nothing" just to get out of answering. Maybe a lot of them are also doing the same.

The whole thinking in words vs thinking in images is unrelated to the original study but still a fascinating concept to ponder. As someone who is constantly in my own head just thinking/talking to myself, being able to do it in images would be pretty cool. Not to be confused with visualization (at least I think, maybe i'm wrong on that. Also a super cool thing to try out), which was another thing tangentially related that pol was running with.

Wait so can you not picture images in your mind or do you just not really rely on it or use it much? I know there are people who have a disorder that makes them unable to visualize things but I'm sure it exists as a spectrum (like a lot of disorders) so maybe some people can do it but less so than normal?

Tbh I always found the idea/topic of how people think and how everyone's thinking varies to be interesting.

 

[Sailor Kim Jong Moon]

Makes a lot of sense. I suppose I just wondered if there was a subset of people who had the capability, but chose not to engage with it - because in this day in age - social cohesion/comfort can be a powerful driver for some.

The "what are you thinking about / nothing" element has always caught me off-guard. My brain never stops - it's what drove me to abuse cannabis/alcohol in my younger years, desperately searching for some sort of off-switch so I could just be-present and 'fit in'. I'm willing to admit though, there's definitely an element of just being a bit neurotically inclined going on with that.

It definitely makes a lot of sense for there to be some sort of genetic factor. I'm not sure how much the hypothesis holds water these days, but I was reading a little bit about the Bicameral Mind approach - the general idea being that some humans heard "voices" that they couldn't understand originated from their own mind, instead assuming them to come from an external God/entity, before finally our minds developed to the point that we resolved that division.

Whether or not it's bullshit, I don't know, but it did make me wonder if there wasn't an even larger section of the population that never even went through that evolutionary process. Historical figures who had 'visions' or 'phrophecies' may well have been misinterpreting the conclusions of their own minds as coming from some external source, while the NPCs of the time, incapable of that kind of thought, got drawn into whatever the compelling message was.

Equally just shitposting around the topic, but it's interesting.

Yes, bicameral mind! I found the old book in my college library and stole it years ago. They never noticed it was missing or fined me. You’re the first I’ve met that’s heard of it.

The idea that cognition evolved or presented differently in our not-so-distant ancestors is fascinating. Even more so if you consider it’s applicable to a % of modern man. If it is an inherited or familial trait, even more interesting

Now, hate on the Jews all you want, but my best friend is of Ashkenazi Jew descent. Smartest fucker I’ve ever met and an obvious Playable Character. Sometimes I wonder if the success/intelligence of Jewish people isn’t related to their PC status. But that’s just race sperging I’m really not committed to

 

[gang weeder]

The problem is that you can’t test who is an NPC and who is not an NPC. It transcends education, intelligence, wealth, sex, race, etc. absent of testing everyone, it’s not feasible. Plus a lot of wealthy NPCs may be excluded & build resentment. I’ve met a few medical students and attorneys that couldn’t think outside the box if their life depended on it. But they knew the formulas required. (I bet most attorneys that go into personal injury are just intelligent NPCs, for example.)
Also, NPCs do have their merits. An NPC that works on a farm may not be capable of independent thought… but he still can dominate a discussion about traditional farm practices against say a quick witted LA attorney. Their practicality and concern with the immediate can be beneficial for a healthy democracy assuming they have useful training for what’s in front of them and can consider to some degree basic policies that would impact their profession.

I think Plato may have been on to something with the gold/silver/bronze groupings tbh Gold is PCs. Silver is intelligent NPCs. Bronze is average to below average NPCs.

The goal then is for the “Playable Characters” (or whatever you want to call them) to control and inspire the NPCs for the good of society so that their equal vote is a positive force. Unfortunately, power corrupts & the imaginative nature of PCs make them capable of conjuring up destructive or greedy ideas.

But, yes. Democracy has its flaws. I just don’t see a way around it that wouldn’t cause more destruction.

Well, you could start by narrowing it down to some principles that the rulers, PC or otherwise, are bound to and which can't simply be overruled because 51% of the sheep voted a certain way. But again, that wouldn't be "democratic" so it's typically considered a non-starter.