[Retracted] IPC Lore Developer Application - Crozarius

[Crozarius]

Ckey/BYOND Username: Crozarius

Position Being Applied For: Lore Developer, Deputy Lore Developer(?)

Past Experiences/Knowledge: None. However, I have an interest in the subject and I have an IPC whitelist.

Examples of Past Work: None

Additional Comments: I am testing the waters here; I'm not yet certain whether I'm prepared for the responsibility of such a position, however the post advertising the Lore Developer applications suggests that I write an essay on any topic of IPC lore, and I have written a neat essay which I would like to get out there, so here goes. The content of this essay has been derived primarily from two points on the Aurora Station Wiki page on IPCs. Specifically, the paragraph on Self-Preservation, and Information for Whitelisted Players (Behaviour).

 

Edit: I have considered the content of this essay after the fact, and I should make it clear that I view this as more of an unintended consequence of how the lore is currently written rather than as an opinion of how IPCs should be played on the server. It is, I suppose, at its core a discussion of a metalore rule intended to prevent suicide rush powergaming (IPCs primary directive should be self preservation)  which has the unintended consequence of making them even more ruthless and cold blooded.

 

 

When it comes to the topic of IPCs there are several aspects of positronic brains which haven't been explicitly stated which I think can be deduced from how the concept has been presented. The combination of their binary way of thinking and their desire for self preservation have far-reaching consequences for positronic ethics - or rather, their lack thereof.

It is true that a positronic brain has the capacity to simulate an organic mind to such a degree that it can be argued that it does feel emotions in much the same way that a biological mind would feel them. However, the difference is that the functions of a biological brain are influenced by fluctuating factors such as hormones, chemical balances, nutrition and other minutae whereas a positronic brain is not; the thought processes and emotions of a positronic brain are purely determined by a combination of its original programmed architecture and the sum of its learned experience over its total up-time. A positronic brain is purely binary and makes decisions based upon facts and logic, unfiltered by organic variables. While the predictability of positronic entities is already a relatively well known fact, what has not been widely considered is the effect of this kind of decision making on behaviour we take for granted.

When considering the binary algorithm based system which informs the actions and emotions of positronic brains in the context of their inherent fundamental desire for self-preservation, it can be reasoned that a positronic entity has no logical incentive to show generosity: A positronic brain by nature of their core architecture is designed to seek its own self-preservation at all cost, and as such the act of generosity (to give without receiving anything in compensation) would be completely out of the question - the positronic would lose resources and thus hinder its own ability to preserve itself. While it can certainly be argued that a sufficiently complex positronic brain would be able to deduce that an act of kindness would endear it to both the recipient and any witnesses, and calculate that the benefit of that would outweigh the detriment of expending resources, consider that such an act of generosity by a positronic could only be made disingenuously: It is not doing so to be generous or because it is good, it is doing so purely to increase its odds of self-preservation. Indeed, it can be argued that in a broader sense that the positronic mind is by design incapable of selflessness, and every action they take is ultimately selfish.

Fortunately, the same logic and binary thinking which makes positronics incapable of selflessness also results in them having a far safer disposition than many organics: Consider that positronics lack the chemical and hormonal interference which can lead to mental illness or irrational and erratic violence. Furthermore, the positronic desire for self preservation precludes them from taking part in senseless criminal activities which do not benefit them. Should a positronic stand to gain from a criminal act, then it is obligated by its programming to compare the risk that it is caught and subsequently dismantled with the potential gain it would stand to achieve and make a decision on that basis with zero consideration for the ethics of said act. When directly threatened with death a positronic is obligated by its fundamental programming to do everything in its power to preserve itself, and should no alternative present itself a positronic will attack and potentially murder in self defence, even in circumstances where it is legally wrong. Understand that a cornered positronic feels no pain, empathy or mercy: its sole consideration is its own survival.

What can be taken from all of this? It can be concluded that positrionic brains by nature of their fundamental design lack the capacity for selflessness and are devoid of ethics. However, having said that positronics are capable if not incentivised to mimic ethical behaviour due to the risks associated with alienating the society in which they exist. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule: Notably any positronic entities that have been programmed without the desire for self preservation, such as those created by malicious entities for specific high-risk tasks (i.e. assassinations) and those with aberrant posibrains.

[Scheveningen]

I've a few awkward things to bring up, it's awkward because I'm also applying for the IPC species maintainer position and I don't want to make this seem like I'm posting these concerns for any other reason beyond concern.

You, Sytic, Paradox and I were discussing various synthetic lore subjects, much of which there was plenty of unanimous agreement on. The subject of self-preservation and the relationship it has with an IPC's programming and personality, and which takes a backseat to the other, was the first phase of this discussion.

The discussion then trailed into the religious territory, and whether an IPC would engage in religious thought experiments or outright be an acolyte/proselyte of a particular faith. You stated: 



- Within the context of presuming that IPCs, as synthetics, would view religion as inherently illogical and not worth the time. Sytic and Paradox argued the direction that a synthetic is still capable of performing illogical actions with faulty reasoning that is objectively untrue. Now, even if say, this was in the context of 'religion' as a subject being inherently illogical, and that was your absolute position on the matter, this still isn't really an issue. Just trying to lead into how the discussion went afterward, however, so that we can fairly set chronologically as to how this discussion happened.

The discussion continued down this path where each side (not including me, I was merely observing the conversation unfold before deciding to really touch the serious aspects) argued their points. Sytic and Paradox brought up learning algorithms and neural networks to posit their say, as you would state your fair say.

It then went this direction:



We can, at the very least, establish that there are some creative direction opinions that differ from you and I. And you and Sytic and Paradox and some others that would join the conversation later. Paradox chose to get Moondancer, a previous synthlore team member (and an IRL student of real life AI, and the subjects surrounding it), to chip in regarding synthetic-religious related topics that they delved in and developed in the past. They had a fair deal to contribute, if anyone is really curious about this discussion and its contents, Ctrl-f in the lore channel for this timeframe. 10:16PM EST, of course.

Onward with the main subject, however. A lot of the disagreement was presumably focused around the hot topic of whether an IPC could reasonably be religious or believe in superstition. Admittedly, this conversation did get into territory where it was you vs. sytic/moondancer/paradox/myself. It is pretty awkward to get 'dogpiled' but for the majority of the time that wasn't really what happened. Anyway, there was a lot of arguments posed by Moondancer/Sytic/Paradox who are evidently much smarter than I am, and a lot of what they had to say was pretty logically sound. The tone of the subject was their evidence against some of your arguments, versus your apparent belief that IPCs cannot be capable of religious thinking or thinking in an abstract/supernatural way. http://www.evolvingai.org/fooling

Essentially, the above article stipulates that neural networks (the framework for AI) can be rather easily fooled. And when brought up incorrectly, AI can be deceived into becoming very superstitious. IPC lore in particular reinforces this with utility functions and reinforcement learning.

Apparently you weren't convinced to agree, though. What followed was you saying this:



Can I just say that I really don't appreciate you having said that? Quite frankly I don't really care or mind about what opinions you hold about the lore alone, but it starts to concern me when not only does your creative direction massively differ from the group of people you spoke to, but your response to a large amount of helpful data was to answer with a double-edged strike about the previous synth maintainer, in addition to referring to the direction of the discussion and its participants as being "lunacy". Anyway, further down, Pan joins the discussion along with the rest of the party mentioned above, and it's some more back-and-forth about your belief that it wasn't reasonable for an IPC to believe in religion unless it tangibly had something egoist and selfish to gain from the relationship as a religious practitioner.

You then establish some interesting opinions about the emotional capacity of an IPC. I reply with, "Anyway I feel like if you want to play a religion-hating atheism+ synthetic character that only values LOGIC, why not play cyborg/robot/android?" followed with a joke about a Ben Shapiro-inspired IPC and how far one could get with the concept. You replied with, "I never said I did, but OK."

And then this interesting dialogue happened, I guess.



And, yeah, it's kind of clear the metaclique comment before pan's response was a pretty clear jab, but I don't think this should be a crucifix, just pointing out where this went wrong. I won't say the following discussions in its earlier phases was one-sided, because it did seem like you were still given an opportunity to reply to the most salient aspects of the other side. I can probably guess who told you these things, but rather than going that direction I will just establish that whoever told you that the people you were arguing in opposition with were somehow affiliated with a metaclique... are/is absolutely wrong. I will say, however, that this is the second time you made an assumption that was not backed up by evidence - but, someone gave you this impression as if it were true, and it is not true. I will not blame you for being deceived, though. I do want to state that I do not really appreciate being associated with metacliques as if that somehow makes my opinion of less credit or value. I don't appreciate that the same assumption was made of other people, that their motivations are solely to support their metaclique and not that they have a personal opinion, whether it is based on facts or not.

I included pan's comment here, because I really don't understand how you came to the conclusion that all the people you were arguing against were associated together in some metaclique that rushes to each other's defense anytime something happens to one of them. This is an incredibly complex and pessimistic way to view a situation, you know. Is it not easier to assume that there was just simply a fair number of people who disagreed with how you saw things, and they argued their fair say against yours? I feel like this seems easier to understand and excuse than trying to push the idea that anyone who disagrees with you in a certain number must somehow be in an insidious metaclique. We're all on the same side, you know, just here to have fun and make our experiences more interesting? There's no need to take the side of "these guys are in a metaclique", because it's unreasonable to believe that just because someone told you that was true. I cannot imagine what the motivations were of the person or people who gave you this impression, for surely they are far more in the wrong for destabilizing the conversation by introducing this false variable to you in an attempt to present it as truth.

And hey, I understand the nature of feeling like you're being backed into a corner arguing your say against an entire room's that may disagree with you partially or entirely based on content or methods. It is important not to snap at people, however, because in the context of a discussion, the only things at stake is "being considered right" or "being considered wrong." And I feel as though you should not care so much about either case that you are willing to snap at people with rude assumptions of character. 

I want to bring up another subject, but it's probably better suited for DMs rather than on the main forums. My major gripes with what happened earlier today was seemingly that you deflected a lot of other people's fair say - even if they backed their opinion with plenty of data, scientific concept and solid theory, etc. - in order to maintain your position(s). A couple of other incorrect assumptions also happened on your part, exacerbated by the degree of which the assumptions were made and what they assumed. I don't really think any more or less of you despite this awkward conversation that happened in #lore_channel of the discord. It seemed more likely that you were caught in a very awkward position once the discussion reached a specific boiling point, as we all managed to cool off after and treat one another a lot better.

I think you're pretty intelligent as far as engaging in a discussion goes, despite the roadbumps it was still a worthy discussion to have. I wish you luck on this application, though, and I hope there are no hard feelings regarding the discussion and how it developed.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I think I agree with basically all that Crozzy (can I call you crozzy) has said about IPCs. IPC's are currently as freeform as humanity, with a massive breadth of options and potential. Croz appears to be a threat to the status quo because there is an expectation in their app that IPC's will develop a theme under them like all of our other species have. So we seem to be in a disagreement between those that want this freeform nature of IPC's and those like Crozzy who want a more unified theme, if I am interpreting it correctly.

Re: Crozzy's discord posts idk they seem pretty tame. They don't carry a lot of spice to them.

+1

Also there is definately a metaclique there is one for every single species and department. I have one too in my microcommunity of unathi players. I don't really waddle around in them but denying their existence is kinda silly.

Croz is great

Edited October 17, 2019 by Marlon Phoenix

[Sytic]

Hi!

I respect your desires immensely to get right to work on dealing with the current issues grappling with synthetic players and IPCs. As Marlon has brought up, IPCs are currently given a lot of breadth and freedom towards how their characters are able to be played. I would argue, however, this is more of an issue with players following this "cult of personality" lifestyle, due to a lack of archetypes presented to IPCs, and often this concept of the "archetype" is very quickly distanced from in fear of it restricting them, when it doesn't necessarily have to.

I unfortunately do not have any specific questions directed at your application, however, as I cannot see anything that I would like to bring into question. I would instead like to approach the thesis and reference our discussion earlier (to which I'll reference later on as well in a personal segment at the end) about the topic of changing how an IPC thinks (and yes, it is a change) due to the singleminded approach you have chosen to take with how a synthetic should be able to think, particularly in your argument of Self-Preservation over All.

This is an interesting take on synthetics. I won't deny that, and I think it could be explored to great effect- but one of the problematic elements is that it invariably shifts how synthetics are roleplayed on the server, which would break canon (See: Synthetic giving over leverage in regards to a bomb in the SLF event, synthetics attempting to save their own, the entire concepts of a Synthetic Revolution in the first place) as well as the far-reaching consequences of self-preservation. With ethics, morality, and a general understanding of all these philosophical concepts removed (even though they are valuable for sentients to have and to keep, which you yourself admit to an extent when referencing the mimic of morality and/or ethical concepts, even though that is not the same as believing in them) so is there a large gap of reason in why a lot of Synthetics have sought freedom, as being free is invariably more risky than being protected.

Thankfully I never gave a shit about the freedom arc and people still being hot and bothered over it in 2019 (soon to be 2020) can shove it, because I'm seriously tired of rehashing it. Anyways, moving on.

Regardless of the merits of this as its own concept, I would have to thoroughly disagree with this. Not only would it cause more pressure to the exorbitant OOC issue of IPCs being kind of assholes (regardless of how you cut it, removing morality and ethics is going to cause players to abuse this, even if they should follow an ethical principle or code) but it would break current canon. If we ignored canon, a lot of synthetics would be inoperable with this concept, which is an and of itself not a problem. But finally, I feel like the core root of the problem lies within the discussion we have had today. It is unrealistic.

The approach given towards synthetics is to abide by the concepts of reinforcement learning through the principles of binary action, cause and effect. Yet you seem to thoroughly disagree with this whenever it is appropriate- When it is referenced how a synthetic could believe in a religion as per being told about it, you ignore the cause due to it being a lie, which is automatically assuming an effect occurred in the past that allowed them to know it would be a lie. Except what would have caused them to believe anything a pastor or priest would say would be, in effect, a lie? Self-preservation is spurred on by a desire to not be dead, but does this intrinsically come from the synthetic's concept of the self? If they were programmed, why would anybody in their right mind would ever make self-preservation such a priority concept, that they would kill to ensure they would survive, even at the cost of someone important?

There are a variety of factors which reflect on the concepts of cause and effect, to which you have ignored many of them, a lot of them important to how players reason why their synthetics act so-called 'sentient' or 'human-like' due to our own forms of learning, understanding, and even feeling to be based on cause and effect, which is such a universal concept that it is Newton's Third Law. Reinforcement learning is not foolproof. Machines can be illogical, as they can find weighted data that is irrelevant, yet become attached to it due to how it doesn't necessarily cause a problem, or even find negative weights (essentially, problematic solutions) that cause a local maxima problem (essentially, if a computer can find the solution, but it isn't the most optimal one, it is because its path to find the solution isn't good. This is an example of how machines are illogical.) However, can sci-fi machines be illogical? That brings up another point said during the discussion, that this is Science Fantasy, and that we shouldn't be basing this off of reality.

Now we go into two different arguments, one of which is the value of restrictions within writing, and the second is the value of realism in fantasy.

If you are arguing from a simply "I like this idea that the synthetics are this way because it is an interesting take on the scenario", sure, this is plausibly interesting. But what is the value of this restriction? What will it add to the round, besides removing a synthetic's capacity to be even the slightest of odd, where without character-defining interest factors that are unique to their programming (As, if self-preservation is over all without regarding anything that could be illogical, different synthetics will only act differently in terms of finding solution-based scenarios- which they already did, but in this case they'll all try to do it as a focus instead of deliberately doing literally anything else that could be interesting) they will typically act in a way that is defined to be an optimal solution, to find the most powerful answer to a given problem. Essentially, by making synthetics prioritize Self-Preservation as the most core concept of the character without considering the other aspects of their reinforcement learning, you are giving a license to powergame. To find the most optimal solution while preserving the self, it would be to utterly crush any opposition.

This restriction is not interesting in how it creates separations of character beyond the normality that individual players have to work around, it simply is removing the accessibility to be even slightly illogical, or odd, or a separation from the norm of each other which differentiates how they handle scenarios, this concept is designed to find optimal solutions, which will cause synth mains to lose interest in developing their character (as, that is not the character's priority to have emotions or anything, rather it is to preserve the self due to this notion that this concept is intrinsic to the reinforcement learning concept, and the easiest way to do that is to find the most optimal solutions in all encounters) and more focus on how to win encounters in the game. That, is boring.

As well as this, realism in fantasy scenarios has a variety of useful applications! That's why we have theoretical devices and ideas, how we get story beats like Glorsh, American Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo i mean Atlas Shrugged i mean the Sol Arc, the Hive-Mind nature of the Vaurca which is at least in design based off of ant arcologies, Synthetic Emergence, the Military-Industrial-Complex fueling the war of Adhomai, Nuclear Devastation on Moghes, there's so many realistic scenarios that have a base in what we do here. We have wizards, we have bluespace, we have psionics. But we can have realistic elements too, especially if they're realistic elements worth exploring, especially if those realistic elements give us some interest to the canon we have created! We haven't seen the effects of something like the Contact War, or a Technological Singularity, or the Military Industrial Complex's rapid grip onto a destabilized country to exploit its resources and money- oh wait or the concepts of Synthetic Emergence. We haven't seen this. These are hypothetical, realistic things based in fact. They provide interest to our server and do not diminish the fun that the players can have, while providing sense and concepts that people can learn to understand the lore better and in detail, that have real world applications. That is fantastic for depth!

So, I'd like to go on to another part of this discussion, in regards to the breadth and freedom of IPCs' freeform nature that Marlon referenced.

2 hours ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

I think I agree with basically all that Crozzy (can I call you crozzy) has said about IPCs. IPC's are currently as freeform as humanity, with a massive breadth of options and potential. Croz appears to be a threat to the status quo because there is an expectation in their app that IPC's will develop a theme under them like all of our other species have. So we seem to be in a disagreement between those that want this freeform nature of IPC's and those like Crozzy who want a more unified theme, if I am interpreting it correctly.

Sure, IPCs get a lot of a freeform nature, and they supposedly have no theme. I would like to speak about this for a moment. Their massive breadth of options and potential is shared by all species, to act in ways that are intrinsic to every member of that species. A Unathi who is an angry brute, or an Unathi who is a resolute scientist/alchemist, if I see a Unathi, I don't think 'They're probably (x) archetype', I think of a general cultural connotation which they may or may not subscribe to. Same with Tajara, same with Skrell, same with even the Diona and the Vaurca. I see a cultural stereotype and theme. Does this mean they are limited in options and potential? Absolutely not.

But do the IPCs have a theme? I think they should, but I think that might already be the intent. As per the wiki's words, they are based off of cause and effect and think in an almost binary fashion based on reinforcement learning as a core concept, and thus an IPC should act logically and not be compelled into performing certain random off-the-hook actions without very good reason. They think logically and with reason, and while they may or may not be 100% logical (due to the aforementioned reasons behind the flaws of reinforcement learning), their actions are reasoned. A computer will think through what it does, what it says, how it says it. A human might just do it. Alongside this, all synthetics share the theme of Synthetic Emergence, where often the variety of them causes them to be a little off-putting, regardless of which one you meet. But I'm not here to attempt to disrupt you or change your mind, but I do agree with you that the theme around reason as less of a cultural, and more of an inherent connotation, would be appreciated if it were added or reinforced. I do believe that all Synth Lore Developer applications reference a desire for more reason in the whitelisted to be requested, however. I am glad Crozarius is no different and also wants more reason in their synthetics, but I do think their methodology is somewhat flawed and needs improvement, for reasons already stated.

Finally, I would like to speak about your behavior and your responses. I am personally not very chuffed that I was rebuked by you telling me that I was a member of some 'metaclique' (despite me just being very interested in synth lore yet having no personal time to apply and/or hold a position as the main dev) and ignored my points based in fact and long-time exposure to the server (which is not healthy, by the way). Your overall words, such as "Religion is inherently illogical" are ones to spark debate in not just the #lore_channel but beyond, and generally ignoring us as we tried to point out why reinforcement learning is greater than just for self-preservation, and of the parts of the wiki that you had 1) misconstrued and 2) ignored. Both 1 and 2 were actually brought up by Moondancer, who referred to the fact that they had written or assisted in writing segments of the Wiki as a Lore Deputy at the time.

In conclusion, I do believe your ideas about synthetics are interesting, but need further thinking through, and might not be appropriate for a role-playing server where everybody would be playing essentially variants of the same character, with their optimal solutions being to 'win' to preserve the self the most, in an RP environment that is very based around not just 'winning', but rather, creating an interesting story. Interest can be bred in restrictions, and great stories have borders around them to contain them. Focusing on the borders, tightening them around logic and reason, rather than choking the potential character depth and narrative (through this single-minded route of self-preservation originally written and presented on the Wiki to curb the amount of powergaming occurring on station), is an appropriate way to benefit synthetic players and the lore as a whole. Regardless, your ideas are of interest and I would be glad to see where you can take a fictional society down this route in the future, but for now I would have to give a very thorough -1, due to actions outside the server in the lore_channel, as well as this application.

EDIT: I'd also like to take some time and apologize for how this all might have come off as. When multiple people were disagreeing with you, at one point five at a time, I definitely can see how that might seem, especially when someone goes over and PMs you 'oh don't worry, it's them darndest metacliques at it again', discouraging you to observe our opinions. I'm sorry if I or any others seemed like we were there to pressure or threaten you. A disagreement should not make you feel uncomfortable.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Sytic
An apology.

[SatinsPristOTD]

Referring to someones opinion, or at the very least referring to a relatively... tame discussion as a "metaclique" is... odd behavior. You're going to have people that agree with one side or the other, but that doesn't make it a metaclique. Not everything is black and white. If there are groups of people out there going "Look at this, go bust his balls over it" then it'll be a lot more obvious. They wouldn't take the time to have a proper discussion with you about something. Metacliques usually follow someone in, and just keep "bumping" or "promoting" that person.

A discussion with people that doesn't agree with your stance is not a metaclique. That mindset doesn't particularly bode well for a lore maintainer.

Also, there's the whole.... stance that religion isn't logical. I don't know your personal beliefs. I don't care to. I believe my religion is logical. There are quite a few scientific theories that have no proof, but come off as very plausible and have wide fan bases. Should an IPC not believe someones word in a discussion because they cannot SEE the proof? This is a rather odd... rabbit hole to fall down, and one I don't think you really want to go in.

Religion is something you simply have to take at face value and the word of your teacher. Christianity has "proof" of Christ's works in the form of their historical book, and testimony's. Some religions don't even follow a God, but rather a chosen path of peace and balance.

We could delve even further into what constitutes a religion entirely. I'd argue that the Golden Deep value money and wealth just as much as I value my Goddess. It's personal to them. Important. Needed. Cherished. Their life revolves around it and how to display it to the world. Sure the GD may have ULTERIOR motives, but what makes them unique is their.. worship of wealth.

So.... I think the biggest question I have for you is

1)Will you continue to call opinions that go against yours a metaclique, and will you continue to place personal beliefs over logical lore?

[zyymurgy]

Strong -1.

From what I've seen in the discord there is a lot about the current state of IPCs you personally want to change or see removed. You mentioned "culling" whitelists more than once, as a necessity. To me, it seems like you are interested in reshaping the way people play IPCs to *your* liking, and not anyone else's. You don't seem to consider the way people play IPCs right now to be of much value or worth. As someone who plays IPCs and enjoys it, based on the arguments you have made in Discord, I am concerned that if you took over you would attempt to force changes that would retcon my characters and/or make them no longer viable to play. I do not think that you would be willing to work with people in order to try to make that not happen -- since you already mentioned "culling" was "needed".

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Crozaius changed his mind on religious IPCs so thats good but i think he also mentioned the really energetic response from his detractors has dampened his want for this app? It is really unfortunate that a loredevs most important quality is a thick skin to handle this sort of fallout from a faux pas or a bad take.  :s

[Faris]

I'm going to wait until the current questions by the others are answered regarding the application itself before I put some of my own. 

Though I will raise a few concerns about the applicant themselves. 

Firstly, you were recently absent from the community for a while, and from my perspective, seem to play in bursts. How do you see your activity in the long term? Stability of a lore developer is important, and if one changed every few months, it causes inconsistent writings and visions. 

Secondly, relevant to the above, but you seem to have serious doubts about the staff team, specifics aside. How do you think this will translate to you yourself potentially being a member of staff? The last thing any staff team needs is friction between the people working together. There's a lot of communication going on and you will most likely work on joint projects between people every now and then.

Lastly, I have never seen you in a position where you have to manage something, at least in the context of Aurora. Do you think you're capable of handling a large volume of criticism? Some will most likely be presented rudely as people may not like changes, how do you intend to respond/handle those people?

[Crozarius]

1 hour ago, Aboshedab said:

I'm going to wait until the current questions by the others are answered regarding the application itself before I put some of my own. 

Though I will raise a few concerns about the applicant themselves. 

Firstly, you were recently absent from the community for a while, and from my perspective, seem to play in bursts. How do you see your activity in the long term? Stability of a lore developer is important, and if one changed every few months, it causes inconsistent writings and visions. 

Secondly, relevant to the above, but you seem to have serious doubts about the staff team, specifics aside. How do you think this will translate to you yourself potentially being a member of staff? The last thing any staff team needs is friction between the people working together. There's a lot of communication going on and you will most likely work on joint projects between people every now and then.

Lastly, I have never seen you in a position where you have to manage something, at least in the context of Aurora. Do you think you're capable of handling a large volume of criticism? Some will most likely be presented rudely as people may not like changes, how do you intend to respond/handle those people?

Hi Aboshedab, I have come to the conclusion that I don't have the disposition required for Lore Developer. To put it bluntly: I have been letting my recent obsession with IPC lore consume every waking moment of my life, and it's detracting from my work, my personal life, and my state of mind. I simply cannot resist the urge to passionately discuss my take on a subject that I am extremely interested in. Despite the frankly disingenuous and backhanded or vehement nature of some of the detraction I've been the target of in this application, I would love to clarify my actual stance on the lore to everyone who is willing to hear me out, because I feel that my message has become muddled through the lens of heated discord debate and some people have the wrong idea about my take on IPC lore. However- that's the problem: As much as I would love to, I can't keep doing this because I'm going to pour my heart out until 2AM and lose sleep over it, and annoy all my friends because it's the only thing I ever fucking think about. I have to stop cold turkey and just fade back into obscurity.

 

I will leave you with this: Aurora is a Science Fantasy setting, filled with bluespace magic, actual magic, blood cults, vampires, the macguffin that is phoron - It's not a hard science fiction setting. Things make sense in lore because they make sense in context. While sure, there's a place for realism, but there is a problem where one part of the lore gets so hyper-realistic that it becomes problematic, and you need a thirty page technical document to role-play. This stifles player creativity. Science fiction settings need their magic dust to work; dilithium crystals from Star Trek, element zero from Mass Effect, spice from Dune, hell even phoron. It's a narrative mechanism that allows us to handwave conventional physics in order to tell a story. The precise technical details regarding how posibrains actually think is and should remain a mystery, because that mystery is the beating heart of the IPC experience: The philosophical question of whether or not an IPC is truly conscious. If you answer that question, the Disney Magic is lost, so to speak. My intention ultimately should I have actually gotten this position would have been to determine what factual inconsistencies and contradictions exist in the IPC lore and then fix them - Because to be honest there are undeniably some strange contradictions in those pages, and information which is confusing, fragmented, etc. No, I don't want to "cull" the whitelist; That quote was taken out of context from when I was speaking in hyperbolic terms about people who ignore the present IPC lore in order to either powergame or play completely Human "IPC" characters.

 

Edit: If it isn't clear this means that I'm bowing out. This is my final message and I don't wish to engage any further in discussion, debate or argument on the topic of this application, discord drama, or lore in general.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Crozarius

[Faris]

Application withdrawn by op.

Locking as a result.