Thoughts on Age of Empires

You know, I'm starting to think there's a particular age of empires at all! It seems like we've had empires for a long time! Unless we are to reckon humanity's entire existence the age of empires. That's pretty deep.

Final Proof Regarding the Human Condition

It's often theorized that in the future humanity will abandon itself to virtual entertainment, shunning the real world. I'm looking at Steam charts and I don't think that idea reflects the truth of human inclinations. In particular, the games that keep high player counts often end up with mixed reviews while the best-received trail off. The fact that the real world kinda stinks will ensure people keep coming back to it.
"But what if developers, possibly AI ones, create an even more addictive flawed virtual experience?" That'll work for a time, but eventually they'll patch in some quality of life features that will ruin it. Then people will demand a classic version, and they'll get it, and they'll play it some but quit faster than they did originally, and so on till we're all back in the stadium complaining about the price of hot dogs.

Technology Defeats Itself

In the future, we'll be able to play different sports on the floor, ceiling, and walls of a gym simultaneously, but we won't have to because of the practically infinite room available in space. This is only one example explaining why we don't do everything we could, but it suffices to teach the inherent tragedy of the human condition.

Addendum

The Tier 0 option, involving being sent scraps the purchaser has to assemble into a book, may well become the most desirable owing to man's perverse nature.

A Haunting Thought

Somewhere, a superintelligence is watching us, recording everything we do in its infinite memory, and putting us all in a tier list for the amusement of its fellow superintelligences. I don't think most of us are doing too hot.

The Three Ages of Man

"I will make men of gold," the first god declared, "beautiful and immune to corruption."
"I will make men of iron," the second god declared, "strong and hard, impervious to the attacks of beasts."
"I will make men of a bunch of stuff I grabbed," the third god declared.
"What's the advantage of that?" the others asked.
"I've got a hundred out already while you two are working on your first. Watch out there, pal! Can't have the eyes be different sizes! My people have already overrun the world, but keep working on it."
Therefore we await the advent of the men of gold and the men of iron, because they will probably be helpful to us, the rulers of everything beneath heaven, when finally they come.
Finis

The True Test of Empathy

How bad do you think elves are at writing human characters? The worst part is probably that one of them got a reputation for writing good humans and other elves just repeat that because they heard it once, but really that one is the worst at it. They seem more sympathetic because they aren't even trying to be anything but elves with round ears.

Addendum

"But between us and this pile of code, which is truly more human?" We are. Idiot.

AI Slowpokes

A lot of people are surprised by AIs writing junk. But why? Who did you think was writing all the stories that question the nature of humanity and decide computers totally count? Humans? Get real.

The Problem With Post-Nuclear Apocalyptic Fiction

Suppose you're writing in, say, 1959, to pick a random year. If a nuclear exchange between the US and USSR fails to occur, your understanding of politics and indeed humanity looks pretty poor. If it does happen, nobody will read your book after it. What a terrible bet.