Cool Cargo-Cult 21st-Century Shout Outs for a Post-Apocalypse Game?

Dumarest · November 19, 2017, 12:18:13 PM

I'm curious why everyone thinks people in the future would be idiots following whatever apocalypse you invented. Did radiation make them mentally incompetent?

Cave Bear · November 19, 2017, 12:29:15 PM

Quote from: Dumarest;1008468I'm curious why everyone thinks people in the future would be idiots following whatever apocalypse you invented. Did radiation make them mentally incompetent?

It's really more awareness of our own incompetence projected forward.
I mean, look at modern perceptions of medieval life.
We fear that our descendants will see us the same way we see our ancestors.

*edit*

Fortunately, there are bound to be some history-buffs in the future willing to do their research and dispel misconceptions about us.

*edit2*

...Maybe some future equivalent of HEMA devoted to recreating and understanding early 21st century urban combat. Those guys would surely invest themselves in researching the lives and diets of the United States soldiers that once fought in the middle-east.

Ravenswing · November 20, 2017, 01:07:54 AM

Quote from: Dumarest;1008468I'm curious why everyone thinks people in the future would be idiots following whatever apocalypse you invented. Did radiation make them mentally incompetent?

Dunno. But following politics these days, it seems like the radiation is definitely doing its thing.

Voros · November 20, 2017, 02:13:51 AM

My favourite sf book set in a far future with the remnants of our culture left behind as inscrutable artifacts is Delany's THE EINSTEIN INTERSECTION. It is comparatively subtle and even puzzle-like. Actually I wonder if Adventure Time was influenced by it at all as they are very similar settings.

RPGPundit · November 22, 2017, 01:47:52 AM

Quote from: Dumarest;1008468I'm curious why everyone thinks people in the future would be idiots following whatever apocalypse you invented. Did radiation make them mentally incompetent?

There's a long history in archaeology and history of people thinking incredibly stupid things based on limited evidence/artifacts of past times, and that's without an apocalypse.

Ravenswing · November 22, 2017, 03:50:35 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;1008897There's a long history in archaeology and history of people thinking incredibly stupid things based on limited evidence/artifacts of past times, and that's without an apocalypse.

Doesn't even have to be incredibly stupid things. Just has to be wrong guesses.

For my part, I'd love it if historians and archaeologists were more prone to say "There's just not enough evidence to make a reasonable guess."

Cave Bear · November 22, 2017, 03:55:59 AM

Quote from: Ravenswing;1008915"There's just not enough evidence to make a reasonable guess."

They can't get published with that, and they can't keep their jobs unless they get published.

Ravenswing · November 22, 2017, 07:29:01 AM

Quote from: Cave Bear;1008917They can't get published with that, and they can't keep their jobs unless they get published.

I'm minded of a passage from Lucifer's Hammer *, a Niven/Pournelle post-apoc novel involving a comet strike on Earth. Prior to the strike, a reporter's expressing skepticism about how much of a spectacle the comet's putative close approach will be, given some recent duds, and the amateur astronomer sneers in response. So, says he, you've got two astronomers: one who tells your TV station that well, the comet may or may not be visible to the naked eye, and the other who squeals "Oooo, Kohoutek's going to be the Big Christmas Comet!!" Which one, says he, did your producer put on the six o'clock news?

* - I might have some of the details wrong here, because it's been a couple decades since I read it, but this is the gist of it.

RPGPundit · November 24, 2017, 01:30:46 AM

Quote from: Cave Bear;1008917They can't get published with that, and they can't keep their jobs unless they get published.

That's one big part of the problem. The other is to that academics have personal agendas, and want to read those into the past.

Cave Bear · November 24, 2017, 03:26:16 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;1009196That's one big part of the problem. The other is to that academics have personal agendas, and want to read those into the past.

Well, we all have personal agendas. You would have to be a cold and indifferent robot to be completely impersonal toward the past.

Let's focus on the things we can fix.

Headless · November 24, 2017, 10:11:56 AM

@ pundit. Quit being an ass. Academics are no more or less evil than anyone else (except bankers).

And quit being ignorant. Everyone has an agenda. And you can't even read with out one.

An agenda is a near synonym for a model of the world inside your head. With out that model, and the model always has purpose, information just passes through and doesn't stick to anything. It doesn't inform, so its not even information.

If your model doesn't have a place for the information to fit, it passes by. Signal becomes noise.

Yes this is a denial of objective truth. But some truths are better than others.

If we want to go further we should probably switch fourms.

RPGPundit · November 26, 2017, 04:16:38 AM

Certainly everyone has an agenda. But academics are required to have agendas that are made to fit interpretations of facts and truths. In a lot of cases instead what we get is totally out-of-context materials and findings being blown up into gigantic all-encompassing theories.

This is not really meant to be a criticism of new post-modernist academia, by the way. In fact, it's something that's been happening for ages, since the 19th century at least. Actually, the difference with post-modernist academia is that they don't even bother to use a scrap of evidence. They just blatantly invent shit.

Cave Bear · November 26, 2017, 05:40:18 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;1009622This is not really meant to be a criticism of new post-modernist academia, by the way. In fact, it's something that's been happening for ages, since the 19th century at least. Actually, the difference with post-modernist academia is that they don't even bother to use a scrap of evidence. They just blatantly invent shit.

That's nothing new.
If it's not post-modern academia inventing shit, its religion.
Everybody has a narrative, man. Even you.

RPGPundit · November 28, 2017, 05:45:51 AM

Quote from: Cave Bear;1009636That's nothing new.
If it's not post-modern academia inventing shit, its religion.
Everybody has a narrative, man. Even you.

Everyone has biases.
Everyone even engages in unconscious confirmation bias from time to time.

But not everyone intentionally starts with a narrative and then intentionally forms that entire narrative while inventing false facts out of nothing just to push that narrative.

Cave Bear · November 28, 2017, 08:44:39 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;1009998Everyone has biases.
Everyone even engages in unconscious confirmation bias from time to time.

But not everyone intentionally starts with a narrative and then intentionally forms that entire narrative while inventing false facts out of nothing just to push that narrative.

Evidently, that's irrelevant.

http://rifters.com/real/articles/Neuropsychologia_Rosenthal_2008.pdf
http://rifters.com/real/articles/Science_The_Right_Choice.pdf
http://journal.sjdm.org/14/14321/jdm14321.html