New player, advice needed.

[Morgan Everett]

As for hypocrisy, it's been observed by many people that our modern distaste for "hypocrisy" is often a mask for a perverse pride in our own lack of moral standards. That is, we are not hypocrites only because we do not set our own bar high enough to risk failing it--and our failure to recognize this is itself a form of hypocrisy. But this is more a subject for the OT.

I think Yang once said that nihilism was a step further to maturity, perhaps he was right. You're based on the assumption that there's a logical and universal moral high ground to begin with, otherwise there wouldn't be any consistency in observing that some people 'lower' their moral standards on purpose.

I'm undecided on this matter and prefer to stick to the facts, when people have conflicting interests they do battle for them with a large variety of weapons i.e the pen for Lal which could be mightier than the sword.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Still a profound observation I don't believe it applies to me, but may to others. A lot of them suck.

I take it you're unsurpassed by mid-game?

You'd have to define midgame - maybe 150-200 turns in, I tend to be.

[Morgan Everett]

Still a profound observation I don't believe it applies to me, but may to others. A lot of them suck.

You'd have to define midgame - maybe 150-200 turns in, I tend to be.

Do you keep your leadership all along from then without much trouble or do you struggle to stay on top?

Sometimes I'm unsurpassed and then, in a few turns for some obscure reasons, one faction skyrockets on top.

How come?

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Once I get on top, I almost always am there to stay - the AI is stupid and doesn't know how to press a less-than-overwhelming advantage. Early game, it's all over the place, of course. Hard to say why, because you don't have much information, early game.

Why the DL, BTW?

[Morgan Everett]

Once I get on top, I almost always am there to stay - the AI is stupid and doesn't know how to press a less-than-overwhelming advantage. Early game, it's all over the place, of course. Hard to say why, because you don't have much information, early game.

Why the DL, BTW?

Sorry, DL?

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Double Login, a second account.

And where in the world did the giant avatar come from?

[Elok]

I think Yang once said that nihilism was a step further to maturity, perhaps he was right. You're based on the assumption that there's a logical and universal moral high ground to begin with, otherwise there wouldn't be any consistency in observing that some people 'lower' their moral standards on purpose.

But by expressing disgust with hypocrisy, you are assuming the existence of a moral standard yourself, aren't you? I think most people stop being nihilists at the precise second you punch them in the nuts; they then acquire a profound moral conviction that assault is morally wrong, if nothing else.

[Elok]

Anyway, "nihilism is a step further to maturity" is self-contradictory. Yang is assuming that there is a form of maturity to be pursued, and implying that such maturity is desirable. That is plainly normative, and therefore not nihilistic. Like all purported "nihilists," he has merely substituted a snarky, self-deceiving rejection of the conventional for its honest, if naive, acceptance.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I think it can be fairly asserted that Yang's got a deep interest in in personal perfection. And The Superior Man will rise and advance, no matter his surroundings. Perhaps it can be said that The Superior Man has contempt for the conventional values others need.

[Elok]

Except he still depends on others, and still imposes conventions on them--it's just that his conventions fail to recognize their own conventionality, and substitute an appeal to intellectual vanity for anything that would be of genuine interest to anyone but a fashionably-alienated (but generally comfortable) modern. The only reason to embrace his mentality is to "prove" to oneself a completely illusory superiority. People are perfectly capable of feeling superior to others without going to the bother of muddling through Nietzsche. Two minutes on Facebook will give ample proof of that. Or one minute on the OT.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

And I'm not trying to defend him, of course. I am trying to understand him. I can get behind the quest for personal improvement in a big way without condoning that he is a disgusting Big Brother dictator, and absolutely nothing but.

[Elok]

Yeah. Sorry, caught up in the moment. I frigging hate Nietzsche--I think he's the tipping point where the mistakes of Enlightenment individualism went from goofy-but-functional to complete recursive insanity.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

No need to apologize for that. You have interesting things to say about Yang, and this is the right place. And correct that I was spouting Nietzsche couched in pseudo-Asian terminology. I didn't mean to, but that's what came out.

[Elok]

Hey, the game itself loves Nietzsche. Hence Homo Superior--and isn't Will to Power or something another one of the advances? Can't recall, too lazy to check.

The Intellectual Integrity advance is basically a fig leaf for "everybody goes atheist," and a lot of other aspects seem vaguely similar to Star Trek, but in spite of that the ethos is distinctly non-humanist, and the game has a clearly negative vision of human nature. Ain't no coincidence that the game's "best" ending involves humans overcoming their own nature and ceasing to be human, anyway.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Will to Power, yes.

Good point about the ending.