Downtown Khazan: Ice Cold Utopia

[bruceleegreyhulk]

[Sharpandpointies]

It's sad, they keep releasing "final warnings" that are going nowhere.

Yeah. Climate scientists are protesting. IPCC is screaming that, like, basically forget about +1.5C unless we do Everything Now™. Young activists are doing whatever they can to make people listen.

[Most People] Is bad but I won't do anything myself despite the IPCC actually laying out some stuff reported in the news that even individuals can do. Surely someone else will fix our problem. Or maybe technology.

[Corporations] Hooray, we're making bucks, who cares about five years from now?

[Governments] Wow, doing something big would piss off 80% of voters and the companies from where our donation money comes, why would we do that? Better to make sad noises, promote unproven technologies, pat the kids on the head and tell them we know they'll do better than us, and make promises about 'fifteen years from now, we will...'

Ugh.

Edit: I mean, that's an oversimplification/generalization in some ways. There are people who literally cannot do anything. Some companies are doing stuff. Some governments are trying stuff. But by and large..this is where the momentum is. Piddling along when drastic action is now necessary.

[Nik Hasta]

Yeah. Climate scientists are protesting. IPCC is screaming that, like, basically forget about +1.5C unless we do Everything Now™. Young activists are doing whatever they can to make people listen.

[Most People] Is bad but I won't do anything myself despite the IPCC actually laying out some stuff reported in the news that even individuals can do. Surely someone else will fix our problem. Or maybe technology.

[Corporations] Hooray, we're making bucks, who cares about five years from now?

[Governments] Wow, doing something big would piss off 80% of voters and the companies from where our donation money comes, why would we do that? Better to make sad noises, promote unproven technologies, pat the kids on the head and tell them we know they'll do better than us, and make promises about 'fifteen years from now, we will...'

Ugh.

Edit: I mean, that's an oversimplification in some ways. There are people who literally cannot do anything. Some companies are doing stuff. Some governments are trying stuff. But by and large..this is where the momentum is. Piddling along when drastic action is now necessary.

I actually work in Climate Policy with the UK and Welsh Governments (technically I am government adjacent, it's complicated and I won't get into it here.) and have been sitting in on some of the policy discussions about various climate and recycling legislation that's being introduced as part of the Net Zero Initiative over here.

I can say a couple of things, again no specifics, that will offer some perspectives I've picked up;

1) There are lot of people in government of varying levels who are taking it seriously and are doing everything they can with the tools they have to hand. I interact with them on a regular basis and I'm impressed and heartened by the diligence and seriousness with which they approach their work.

2) As the action that is required to address the issue is radical and massive that makes legislating for it a real challenge. In my current role, which I'm about a year into, I have been given a lot of insight into how the legal sausage gets made and it is a lot of complexity about even the most mundane of things. I know we have no time but this sort of thing takes time. Radical policy requires more radical legislation which is harder to produce.

3) Currently the electoral forces around climate policy are positive in the UK with both parties broadly advocating to go further. There is scepticism, mostly organised on the right, but it's not the majority. Given that in 2015 we had MPs saying that climate change policy was "green crap," and now that's been mostly eliminated, I see that as a good direction of travel, at least in this country.

So... while I'm not hopeful, I'm not despairing completely at this time. Things are moving too slowly but I'm hoping as we see more legislation come into effect, at least in the UK that will help push things to go faster and further in the future.

Can't speak to the US or Canada though. Canada has made progress in some respects but it, as we all, have a long way to go.

[Sharpandpointies]

I actually work in Climate Policy with the UK and Welsh Governments (technically I am government adjacent, it's complicated and I won't get into it here.) and have been sitting in on some of the policy discussions about various climate and recycling legislation that's being introduced as part of the Net Zero Initiative over here.

I can say a couple of things, again no specifics, that will offer some perspectives I've picked up;

1) There are lot of people in government of varying levels who are taking it seriously and are doing everything they can with the tools they have to hand. I interact with them on a regular basis and I'm impressed and heartened by the diligence and seriousness with which they approach their work.

2) As the action that is required to address the issue is radical and massive that makes legislating for it a real challenge. In my current role, which I'm about a year into, I have been given a lot of insight into how the legal sausage gets made and it is a lot of complexity about even the most mundane of things. I know we have no time but this sort of thing takes time. Radical policy requires more radical legislation which is harder to produce.

3) Currently the electoral forces around climate policy are positive in the UK with both parties broadly advocating to go further. There is scepticism, mostly organised on the right, but it's not the majority. Given that in 2015 we had MPs saying that climate change policy was "green crap," and now that's been mostly eliminated, I see that as a good direction of travel, at least in this country.

So... while I'm not hopeful, I'm not despairing completely at this time. Things are moving too slowly but I'm hoping as we see more legislation come into effect, at least in the UK that will help push things to go faster and further in the future.

These are all great things, great news, etc. I like them. Thanks, Nik.

The only problem is that this is where we should have been 10 (minimum) to 20 years ago. Now? IPCC (and every climate scientist not being paid off by Big Oil) is basically screaming 'We Have No More Time'. The 'radical' actions must happen, or we will be nowhere near 1.5. And 1.5 is Bad Enough™.

Also, while I see a lot of movement toward people pressing their governments (which is great), I see a whole lot less of people actually following the IPCC's list of 'stuff individuals can and should do, themselves'. Change is easy to push when yelling at someone else to do the work (also, people tend to want the work done but no changes to their taxes or lives, so that's a problem for governments), but suddenly it's a lot harder when people need to make changes in their own lives.

Because we all do. Governments? Sure. Corporations? Absolutely. Individuals? Also absolutely.

Can't speak to the US or Canada though. Canada has made progress in some respects but it, as we all, have a long way to go.

For all the maple-washing it attempts to do, Canada is 100% reluctant to even touch on the 'radical' (ie necessary) actions and is still promoting oil, selling it like hotcakes, subsidizing it, planning new carbon bombs as they're called, etc. Even the link you have here is basically 'Canada's situation is really not great, it's just a little better than before'. Basically, Canada is doing poorly overall, and is one of the problem countries when it comes to getting off oil. Cripes, this is Justin Trudeau in 2017, back when the IPCC had already been saying 'Hey, we need to STOP NAO' for a while. He really hasn't changed a whole lot, and still wants to export oil and natural gas. The Libs are basically center-right neo-liberals, and our country flip-flops between them and the Cons (who are now edging well-into the hard-right territory).

And while Canadian cities are STARTING to improve public transit, it's still ridiculously garbage because of how they go about it (looking at you, Ottawa, my own city and the capital of Canada).

As for the people of Canada? Electric cars are a bandaid solution and too pricy for 95% of the population (until we get sodium batteries or something, then they're a less-environmentally damaging more-affordable bandaid solution), but the fastest-selling cars in Canada are not sub-compacts and compacts with the best gas mileage, they're SUV's and, mostly, pickup trucks.

Like...no, Canada is not doing so good. Granted, our number of vegans and vegetarians has doubled in two years, so there's that? But still.

As for myself? I'm not completely despairing, no, but our (humanity's) track record is lousy. We're going to be way past 1.5, minimum, and that's going to make a situation that is already really, really ugly for the vulnerable people in the world a whole lot more ugly. And for the biosphere itself.

Which is 100% not a reason to stop trying (and this is the climate change deniers' current fad: 'If there's nothing we can do to stop it, why bother trying?'). I will never stop trying - bugging my local government, voting in the big elections, bugging news outlets, annoying people around me by talking about it, and making changes in my personal life where I can.

But.

Outlook not good.

Even so, mitigation is the key. Especially for generations following mine, which is why I should be doing what I can to change things. It's my responsibility.

[Postmania]

IIRC the UK has made some efforts on electrification as compared to the US, so its not a surprise to me they seem to be further along than we are in the states.

But yeah, grand scale the picture looks bad. I try to take comfort where I can on it, but people just aren't used to thinking on scales bigger than their own for a lot of the time. I think governments and corporations both are some of the ways we've learned to even attempt doing that, so if they're not on top of that in sufficient areas, this is a pickle.

Not that it can't be done, of course, but any real reaction is probably going to be late.

[Sharpandpointies]

IIRC the UK has made some efforts on electrification as compared to the US, so its not a surprise to me they seem to be further along than we are in the states.

But yeah, grand scale the picture looks bad. I try to take comfort where I can on it, but people just aren't used to thinking on scales bigger than their own for a lot of the time. I think governments and corporations both are some of the ways we've learned to even attempt doing that, so if they're not on top of that in sufficient areas, this is a pickle.

Not that it can't be done, of course, but any real reaction is probably going to be late.

Humanity has kind of a history of not being fantastic at dealing with slow problems. It is, basically, already too late to STOP climate change (we're going to hit 1.5C or worse) - had we wanted to do that, we should have actually started back in the early 80's when this became a public thing (or before, when a whole whack of companies new about it but kept a lid on it to try to keep the profits flowing, looking at you Oil companies). The question is now 'how much can we mitigate?', which is still a very important question.

And there ARE things that individuals can do. I know the usual excuses, many of which focus on something like 'But I'm only one person, me changing my life won't have a huge impact'. I don't want to put up the Buzz Lightyear meme to answer that (it's against the rules, in theory), so I'll just say if every other problem we've dealt with in the past - sometimes successfully - had been met by people saying "but I'm only one person!", how far would we have gotten? Do we face the various social issues in the world today and just shrug, saying 'But I'm only one person'? No. We don't do that. We would actually find it ridiculous if someone faced with - for example - the various issues around sexual assault and so forth just shrugged and said 'well, I'm only one person, so there's no point in me thinking about it or doing anything.'

Yet when it comes to climate, too many people accept that excuse, in their own lives or others'.

Mitigation can and will make a difference. 1.5C is coming, but 1.5C is better than 2C, 2.5C, or worse. Action is necessary on all scales - global, national, regional, individual. We have some victories to point toward, research showing the way, etc. We're starting to see that a system based on unlimited growth isn't functional.

But that change, man, it's got to start happening fast. And everyone who can (some can't, I know this, but realistically those who actually, truthfully cannot make changes in their lives tend to contribute the absolute least to the problem) need to get in on it.

[Nik Hasta]

Kingdom:

You know... Kanki is a massive piece of **** and his edgelord aura making people go 0__0 is extremely annoying from time to time.

But, I kind of like this chapter, this moment kind of landed for me. Kanki is a disaffected and nihilistic shell of a man but he's not /entirely/ wrong about the hypocrisy of Riboku and Ei Sei and his boys do love him in a very weird way.

I hope this interminable stand-off will come to an end next chapter. It's been very long on the week-by-week schedule and will likely flow better on a reread when it's all together but, if we can end it here, then I'll be satisfied.

[Sharpandpointies]

Kingdom:

You know... Kanki is a massive piece of **** and his edgelord aura making people go 0__0 is extremely annoying from time to time.

This.

But, I kind of like this chapter, this moment kind of landed for me. Kanki is a disaffected and nihilistic shell of a man but he's not /entirely/ wrong about the hypocrisy of Riboku and Ei Sei and his boys do love him in a very weird way.

Also this, surprisingly. I still didn't like the chapter as a whole, but calling out Riboku and the entire culture of the people running the show was just...very on point.

I hope this interminable stand-off will come to an end next chapter. It's been very long on the week-by-week schedule and will likely flow better on a reread when it's all together but, if we can end it here, then I'll be satisfied.

Gawd, yes, just end it. Please.

[Hiromi]

[grampagen]

These shorts are great. They really capture the aesthetic of pre-Ghibli works of Miyazaki and Takahata (stuff like Anne of Green Gables and Lupin III circa 1980) but that juxtaposes with the goofy violence so well.

[Nik Hasta]

Let's check in with how Nik is doing today:



This third one is pretty complex in concept but could be really entertaining to play.

i really should stop

[Sharpandpointies]

Let's check in with how Nik is doing today:



This third one is pretty complex in concept but could be really entertaining to play.

i really should stop

Oh dear. O_o

[Nik Hasta]

Oh dear. O_o

I had some ideas that I kind of wanted to put into Ruins but couldn't fit them in without completely revising significant chunks of the current engine.

So, rather than doing that (which would have been the actions of a madman) I started thinking about "how could I make this the basis of a new game,"

And now I'm... like 500 words into a design doc for a new game.

What's fun is it's a really a different design ethos from Ruins, which is a very "cool anime powers, player expression, emergent systems via Traits," kind of design sensibility. Or, as I put at the top of the Ruins design doc; "busted as ****,"

This would be much more rigid and prescribed but would have much more strategic and scary combat. I'm talking equip load, stability systems, elemental type advantages, build trees, body-part specific targeting and strategy, being knocked prone being perhaps the scariest thing that can happen in your life.

It's a lot of fun to consider, especially since I think we're approaching a finalised form of Ruins so I can finally stop tinkering with it. I think the introduction of Skills, the expansion of Spirit and Body and the implementation of weapons (which have been 'in the system' for a while but just haven't debuted in-game yet) will about close it out. Levelling up, I think is finalised.

Things feel balanced, mostly. I'm happy with it by and large.

Now to run the campaign, keeping an eye for bugs.

Once that's done, I can focus on new projects. Turns out I like game design, who knew?

[Sharpandpointies]

I had some ideas that I kind of wanted to put into Ruins but couldn't fit them in without completely revising significant chunks of the current engine.

So, rather than doing that (which would have been the actions of a madman) I started thinking about "how could I make this the basis of a new game,"

And now I'm... like 500 words into a design doc for a new game.

What's fun is it's a really a different design ethos from Ruins, which is a very "cool anime powers, player expression, emergent systems via Traits," kind of design sensibility. Or, as I put at the top of the Ruins design doc; "busted as ****,"

This would be much more rigid and prescribed but would have much more strategic and scary combat. I'm talking equip load, stability systems, elemental type advantages, build trees, body-part specific targeting and strategy, being knocked prone being perhaps the scariest thing that can happen in your life.

It's a lot of fun to consider, especially since I think we're approaching a finalised form of Ruins so I can finally stop tinkering with it. I think the introduction of Skills, the expansion of Spirit and Body and the implementation of weapons (which have been 'in the system' for a while but just haven't debuted in-game yet) will about close it out. Levelling up, I think is finalised.

Things feel balanced, mostly. I'm happy with it by and large.

Now to run the campaign, keeping an eye for bugs.

Once that's done, I can focus on new projects. Turns out I like game design, who knew?

You could self-publish these, you know. Mini-RPG games are quite popular, or were a few years back (pre-covid, don't know about now).

Not like it would be some gigantic money-maker; just something interesting to do. ^_^

[Nik Hasta]

You could self-publish these, you know. Mini-RPG games are quite popular, or were a few years back (pre-covid, don't know about now).

Not like it would be some gigantic money-maker; just something interesting to do. ^_^

I'm intending to do a PDF rulebook with enclosed spreadsheet engine for Ruins with like, art work and stuff. Slap it on Itchio for name your price. Not really worried about the money, but it would be nice to make a proper version.