ITT: Non-/lit/ questions that only /lit/ users are smart enough to answer

[Anonymous No.22776290]

I've found that the people on this board are usually smarter than those on any of the others. So there are many things that I've always wanted to bounce off of you guys, but can't because they have nothing to do with literature.
Then I realized I can't possibly be the only one with this problem. So let's get a general "non-lit questions for /lit/" thread going, so we can all get advice from everyone else here.

[Anonymous No.22776294]

sneed

[Anonymous No.22776295]

>>22776290
Q1: Why are so many of the games little girls play at sleepovers related to magic?

"Daring" is a pretty universal practice among kids. Daring one another to do things you wouldn't normally want to do etc. However, while I've noticed that the dares little boys do are usually related to danger and disgust ("I dare you to touch poop" etc.), the dares little girls do are more often than not related to ritualistic magic.
> Bloody Mary
> Light as a feather, stiff as a board
> Those little paper fortune teller things
What's that about? Also: does it have anything to do with how women are seen in so many cultures as the practitioners of witchcraft?

I'd ask this on /x/, but they'd just tell me that magic was real. So I'd like to get more of a sociological explanation.

[Anonymous No.22776299]

>>22776290
Q2: How do I come up with original tunes?

Or "melodies," if you wanna be specific about it.
Everything I come up with winds up sounding like something else, when I finally analyze it.
> inb4 "everything's unoriginal lmao"
I don't fucking care. Everything's unoriginal, but some things are more original than others.
I need to figure out where original music comes from, and then I need to figure out how to practice tapping into that myself. Any advice would be appreciated.

I tried asking this on /mu/, but they didn't really know what to say. I've discovered SOME techniques for coming up with original tunes, but I'm not quite there yet.
What I've noticed is that many musicians who pionered specific genres were basing their music off of stuff they heared in nature. Like, the "Spring" movement of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" is obviously meant to sound a bit like birds, and a lot of the stuff at the beginning of country music also sounded like stuff you'd hear in the south. Also, if you listen to the classical music that was written around the time that clocks were invented, you'll notice that a lot of it sounds like clocks: with staccato pluckings of strings and whatnot.
I've tried to do a bit of this as well. The best thing I've come up with so far -- as a soundtrack for something I want to do about the internet -- is the sound of an old-school dial-up connection played on a violin. But that's not enough. I wanna come up with more. But I'm having trouble figuring out how to do that, and was wondering whether the guys around here could give some music theory advice.

[Anonymous No.22776312]

Q3: Was the Infantry/Cavalry/Artillery rock-paper-scissors dichotomy a real thing?

A while back, I read in a book somewhere that military tactics before the advent of automatic weaponry essentially worked like this:
> Cavalry has an advantage against artillery
> Artillery has an advantage against infantry
> Infantry has an advantage against cavalry

Obviously, I’m simplifying things here a bit, but I’m pretty sure that’s essentially how it worked before the two World Wars rewrote all the rules. (I could also go more into WHY things worked out this way, but I don’t wanna make this post any longer than it has to be.)

The point is: I want to learn more about this archaic system, because I think it’d be an interesting way to balance a multiplayer video game. However, I can't find anything online that goes into the specifics of how it worked or evolved. I tried asking /k/ and /his/ about this (didn't even bother with /v/; didn't seem worth my time), but the threads died pretty quick, and nobody gave any sources I could read up on. So I was wondering whether you guys had any advice on this subject, or know of any good sources I could look into.

I won't bore you guys with the specifics of the multiplayer game balancing-system that I currently have in mind.

[Anonymous No.22776318]

All right! So that's all I have off the top of my head.
However, I'm sure you guys must also have some other interesting questions of your own. So feel free to ask away yourselves, if you can't come up with answers for my oddball queries.

[Anonymous No.22776339]

>>22776295
Women and girls are significantly more superstitious than males and have been throughout history; it's the same phenomenon as women being into astrology. Women are also more religious than men, even in countries where religion is generally patriachal. I can only really speculate as to why this is, but perhaps it's a consequence of women having less agency than men historically and superstition providing a coping mechanism which makes their uncontrolled environment less random; in contrast men had/have more ability to attain self-sufficiency and seek tangible solutions rather than falling back on the belief that forces are governed by some overarching supernatural order.
>does it have anything to do with how women are seen in so many cultures as the practitioners of witchcraft
To some extent, perhaps. A male who desired above all to subvert the established sociopolitical order could resort to armed revolution, banditry, etc., and might genetically be less inclined to seek supernatural support for this end.

[Anonymous No.22776351]

>>22776290
The trick seems to be to basically only glancingly mention a work of literature or philosophy or such in a post that otherwise heavily leads down into the direction of the subject you wanted to discuss anyway. A good percentage of threads.

[Anonymous No.22776356]

>>22776339
That's a really good point, actually!
I KNEW starting a thread like this would be a good way to talk about these things. I've never found anywhere else where I could get a good answer for a question like that. Asking actual women online would get me labeled a sexist for recognizing patterns, and asking dudes anywhere else would probably just invite a screed about how terrible and stupid women are.
Thank you so much anon. You have no idea how happy your minor off-the-cuff comment has made me.

[Anonymous No.22776365]

>>22776351
Hah, that's actually a good point as well. Feel like I've noticed that before.
Unfortunately, I don't know any works of literature that could've prefaced the three questions I asked in this thread. I forget where I read about that "infantry/cavalry/artillery" thing, and I don't know any good books about music theory (though maybe I should start looking some up).
As to the "ritualistic magic" thing, I have NO idea what kind of book I could bring up for that. The thought is something that only occured to me like seven years ago, and I've never heard it mentioned anywhere else (aside from a YouTube video some storytime animator girl put up a few years after the fact).

[Anonymous No.22776436]

>>22776312
Excellent question. This is something that I've just started to explore for my own writing. I looked online and found this, which seems like a promising start. I'll read it a little later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_tactics

[Anonymous No.22776447]

I have one. Why did three zoroastrian priests travel to pay homage to the infant Christ?
An answer I got from /his/ said they weren't Magi at all. But if not, where did that legend come from?

[Anonymous No.22776471]

>>22776312
>Was the Infantry/Cavalry/Artillery rock-paper-scissors dichotomy a real thing?
Maybe for WW1 but across history no. You have to think about it like an RTS game where each unit has advantages and disadvantages. So, cavalry in a mountainous environment is worthless in the same way that tanks in an urban environment are nearly worthless. While cavalry on a plain or the desert is a near invaluable asset. For the longest time in history infantry couldn’t hold it own on flat ground against cavalry until the pike was perfected in around 1600 which made cavalry charges obsolete. Artillery doesn’t even really become a necessary part of warfare until around 1700 either. Usually in medieval sieges artillery would be constructed from the woods around the castle to be sieged and left there when it was over. Rome had a dedicated artillery which was quite lackluster on the battlefield and was only really possible because of the development of Roman supply lines and infrastructure. Infantry has been historically the most versatile of the three and can do just about whatever a regular human is capable of be it shooting a gun or throwing spears.

[Anonymous No.22776472]

>>22776299
Not the answer you’re looking for, but if we knew exactly how to make new tunes, as if were some sort of algorithm, then the process could be automated and the tunes would be found easily, which would sort of diminish their value in a way. Perhaps the ability to create original music is linked to some advantageous trait that we don’t fully understand, and that’s why some people are more able to do it. Maybe there is a harmony in their body that finds an outlet for its expression

[Anonymous No.22776480]

>>22776447
Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC)
>528 The Epiphany is the manifestation of Jesus as Messiah of Israel, Son of God and Savior of the world. The great feast of Epiphany celebrates the adoration of Jesus by the wise men (magi) from the East, together with his baptism in the Jordan and the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee. In the magi, representatives of the neighboring pagan religions, the Gospel sees the first-fruits of the nations, who welcome the good news of salvation through the Incarnation. The magi's coming to Jerusalem in order to pay homage to the king of the Jews shows that they seek in Israel, in the messianic light of the star of David, the one who will be king of the nations. Their coming means that pagans can discover Jesus and worship him as Son of God and Savior of the world only by turning towards the Jews and receiving from them the messianic promise as contained in the Old Testament. The Epiphany shows that "the full number of the nations" now takes its "place in the family of the patriarchs", and acquires Israelitica dignitas (is made "worthy of the heritage of Israel").528 The Epiphany is the manifestation of Jesus as Messiah of Israel, Son of God and Savior of the world. The great feast of Epiphany celebrates the adoration of Jesus by the wise men (magi) from the East, together with his baptism in the Jordan and the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee. In the magi, representatives of the neighboring pagan religions, the Gospel sees the first-fruits of the nations, who welcome the good news of salvation through the Incarnation. The magi's coming to Jerusalem in order to pay homage to the king of the Jews shows that they seek in Israel, in the messianic light of the star of David, the one who will be king of the nations. Their coming means that pagans can discover Jesus and worship him as Son of God and Savior of the world only by turning towards the Jews and receiving from them the messianic promise as contained in the Old Testament. The Epiphany shows that "the full number of the nations" now takes its "place in the family of the patriarchs", and acquires Israelitica dignitas (is made "worthy of the heritage of Israel").

On a less theological aspect, and I am merely conjecturing, the principle idea is that the Magi were interested in Astronomy / Astrology, and followed their findings. There exists an early association of wisdom with astronomy/astrology due to the interest of the Babylonians, but even up to stories regarding Thales.

[Anonymous No.22776489]

>>22776480
Whoops. Pasted it twice.

[Anonymous No.22776502]

>>22776312
What you're after are books and treaties on tactics. Unfortunately that's not my field of interest (policy & strategic thinking), so I can't direct you anything specific, however I'd add what you should do is pick a point in time / place to start from (Ancient China, Ancient Greece, The America civil war). You can work forwards or backwards from there -- otherwise you'll be haphazardly absorbing information.

Why do I mention the American civil war? Because it's actually the true precursor to WW1/WW2 in terms of wholesale slaughter of men with improper tactics. The Americans learned the lessons that the European powers had to learn themselves far later.

[Anonymous No.22776532]

>>22776436
Lol you too huh? What kind of writing project are YOU researching this all for?
I'll take a look at the Wikipedia article you posted as well, thanks.
>>22776471
>Maybe for WW1 but across history no
Dude, Cavalry was barely even a thing in WW1. Cavalry basically ENDED with World War 1. People learned that horses were useless against machine guns pretty quick.
Did you mean to refer to some other conflict? The rest of what you said actually sounded fairly knowledgable, so that bizarre first sentence feels like it must've been an accident.
>>22776502
Good idea. I'll probably have to focus on the 1700s and 1800s, since those are the eras with tactics most relevant to what I'm trying to do (which isn't an RTS, but does have minor RTS elements).

[Anonymous No.22776539]

>>22776472
>if we knew exactly how to make new tunes, as if were some sort of algorithm, then the process could be automated and the tunes would be found easily, which would sort of diminish their value in a way
Well yeah, same can be said of writing. But that doesn't mean there aren't things you can do to become a better writer.
I'm not asking for "the secret of concocting original tunes." I'm just hoping someone can point me in the right direction here.

[Anonymous No.22776563]

>>22776532
I won't go into details, as I would prefer to be anon, but, in short, Eastern European alt history. And by alt history, I mean, all of history is completely different. It might as well have been a round of Crusader King's played with randomly named nations.

I'm generally writing in the same time frame as you (1700-1800s), but as history is completely different, I might easily be stretching up the turn of the century.

I watched this one yesterday:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBMjRtf7iWA
Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ3M4_XQ8tI

[Anonymous No.22776593]

>>22776532
Meant to say napoleonic wars

[Anonymous No.22776606]

>>22776563
I'm not writing in any time frame at all. If anything, the setting I have so far is kind of futuristic.
Remember that I'm trying to draft out a multiplayer video game. And the "backstory" in a multiplayer video game is pretty much always secondary to everything else, if it's even there in the first place.
But still, the "cavalry / artillery / infantry" dynamic is extremely relevant to how I'm planning to balance this thing (even if there are strong FPS elements, and the setting is currently kinda retrofuturistic). I'd be willing to fill you guys in on the specifics of what I have in mind, but I don't wanna be "that guy" who goes on about his game idea that no one else cares about lol.
Still, I'll give an overview if any of you guys are actually curious. Just say the word.

[Anonymous No.22776610]

>>22776593
Ah, that explains it.
Then I guess that means Napoleonic tactics really ARE the thing I should read up on, like >>22776436 said. Thanks for the advice, man. I'll start doing that right now.

[Anonymous No.22776690]

>>22776606
Have you done more than just plot out the story of this game? How far into development are you?

Well, you might be interested in the way Hearts of Iron 4 does it, but I never really wrapped my head around everything at play: combat width, reserves, soft attack, hard attack, breakthrough, and all the penalties. Then things like supplies. I couldn't be bothered.
https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_battle

Regardless, if you're designing the game, you can make it anything you want. I mean, define retrofuturistic. Will the cavalry be mechanical? I mean, it would be interesting to think what would have happened if cavalry units were replaced with motorcycles. What would the artillery look like?

[Anonymous No.22776698]

>>22776312
>>22776563
>>22776606
>>22776690
Eh… screw it. I can’t resist telling everyone about what I wanna do here. It’s not like I actually have the resources to pull this off lol.

You see: I've long been fascinated by the question of "how could you balance melee fighters and FPS characters in a game against one another?" It'd be awesome to have a game where you could play as a character with God of War combat AND a guy with a gun who just shoots things. But it's never been done successfully. Everything that's tried ("Bleeding Edge" etc.) has been a miserable failure.

However, while reading about that military dichotomy mentioned above, an interesting answer came to me. I don't think you actually CAN balance a fight between a "warrior" player and an FPS player. Either the bullets have to be kind of useless, or the melee-fighter will get mogged. What you CAN do, however, is add a whole bunch of OTHER classes to make the whole game a TF2-esque clusterfuck of hard-counters. So a class-based multiplayer game where pretty much every class is a completely different genre of gaming.

My working title for the idea is “Genre Clash.” I'm thinking there’d be five different genres in the game, each with a “tank / dps / stealth / support” variant:
> FPS
> Melee Fighter (with combat akin to God of War and Devil May Cry)
> RTS
> Vehicular
> Aircraft
So with 5 "genres" times 4 variants, that's 20 distinct classes in general.

I could go into how I think each class could work (what would counter what etc.) but I don’t wanna ramble on too long here. I already have 25 pages exploring the ins and outs of this idea in Google Docs. But the important thing to note here is: since the balancing would be loosely based on things that have happened organically IRL, you probably wouldn’t have to contrive THAT many serious nerfs to make it all work.

[Anonymous No.22776711]

>>22776290
>people on this board are usually smarter than those on any of the others
they're better at seeming smart, that's all

[Anonymous No.22776724]

>>22776312
>Was the Infantry/Cavalry/Artillery rock-paper-scissors dichotomy a real thing?
Kind of, but not really. Infantry was good against cavalry under ideal circumstances, but when out of formation they'd get slaughtered by a cavalry charge. Before the 18th century artillery was only really vital to an army's success in fixed sieges, largely due to technological limitations, but cavalry was good against it when it was used in open battle. Eventually armies started using horse artillery which (combined with technological advancements) was extremely effective and didn't have any glaring weakness besides cost. After indirect fire (that is, when there's no line of sight from the artillery to its target) supplanted direct fire in the 19th century then artillery became completely dominant and was—and still is—only held into check by supply and production limits.

Cavalry is interesting. In the pre-modern era it was superior to infantry in every way but cost, and didn't lose its edge until gunpowder weapons and pikes became popular in the 16th century or so. After that point it gradually shifted into more of a supporting role, using its mobility for reconnaissance, screening, foraging etc. to support the infantry and artillery which carried the bulk of an armies firepower; of course it had occupied this role in addition to its combat dominance in earlier centuries, but it became more specialized for the task and was an extremely important part of armies well into the early 20th century. Only armored and mobilized infantry made it obsolete in this capacity.

[Anonymous No.22776736]

>>22776698
>>22776690
As to the world's actual story/aesthetic, I was originally thinking it'd be something that took place in the afterlife after the world had ended, where warriors from every single point in human history got to beat the crap out of each other for the hell of it. So you could have cowboys fighting ninjas fighting pirates fighting knights in shining armor. "Respawn Valhalla" was the other name I came up with for this game, based on that premise.

However, as I've started to develop my ideas around each different class, I've realized this idea doesn't work. We wouldn't be able to take full advantage of it without screwing with the game's balance. The idea isn't worth doing if you can't live up to its full potential. And plus, the "RTS tank" class would probably be some sort of "Zerg Rush" character, and it'd be impossible to make that a group of historically accurate humans without the whole thing being seen as racist.

So my idea now is for the whole setting to be "retrofuturist." "Retrofuturism" basically means "what if [insert time period here] never ended?" Steampunk is the most famous variant of retrofuturism, but other variants include Dieselpunk, Atompunk, Electropunk (a.k.a. Decopunk), and Cassette Futurism (a.k.a. Formicapunk).

Most retrofuturist worlds are only based around one of these ideas, but I'm thinking I'd try to include as many as possible. There's a Steampunk nation, and an Electropunk nation, and Dieselpunk nation, and a Solarpunk bannana republic... and they're all only located about 300 miles apart and hate each other. I think this would lead to some interesting visual aesthetics for the game, since most of the other "futuristic" visual asesthetics I can think of have been done to death before in multiplayer shooters lol.

Here's the Wikipedia article on retrofuturism, in case you're curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrofuturism

[Anonymous No.22776769]

>>22776724
Interesting.
The "Infantry/Cavalry/Artillery rock-paper-scissors dynamic" that I heard about was basically supposed to work as follows:
> Artillery has an advantage against infantry, since they can just shoot everyone down,
> Cavalry has an advantage against artillery, since they're harder to hit and can just ride in and slice everyone's heads off.
> Infantry has an advantage against cavalry, since their pikes and spears made them better at close-range combat than those on horseback, and the riders couldn't really charge in that easily without getting impailed.

I'm still not totally sure this was ever completely the case, but it DOES make for an interesting game-balancing system. Obviously, I've had to expand the ideas a little to account for all the classes I wanna include, but I still think it could work.

The nice thing about this is: in most class-based FPS's, you have to make all the classes super-nerfed so they can properly fight one another. But here? You could probably make all the classes pretty fucking powerful, as long as there was something else that could utterly mog a given class in a totally left-of-field way. Even the sniper rifles could be almost as good as they are in Counter-Strike. Getting bullied by a really good sniper? Run 'em over with your car! They can't headshot a car!

[Anonymous No.22776776]

>>22776295
>Q1: Why are so many of the games little girls play at sleepovers related to magic?
Because women are physically weaker, they relied on religious authority or threat of magic instead of physical threats. A lot of what passed as witchcraft was also related to their traditional role in hunter-gatherer societies: Foraging, and using the found herbs and plants either medicinally or as poison. The women who were adept at this would've risen in status and thus have been able to have more children. The curiousity about "magic" is thus evolutionary, though in today's society it may serve no particular purpose.

>>22776299
>Q2: How do I come up with original tunes?
This is a problem of mindset. Rather than trying to express something that you feel and then choosing the how to fit the why, you're obsessing and pondering over abstract musical constructs. As such, you end up writing things that sound like abstract musical constructs. If you want to sound original you need to have something deeply personal that you can express, then build your technique around expressing this. This also applies to other creative pursuits, such as writing and visual art.

[Anonymous No.22776786]

>>22776776
>As such, you end up writing things that sound like abstract musical constructs
Actually, no. That isn't my problem. All the tunes I come up with just wind up sounding like something else that already exists.
I can't tell you how many times I've thought I've come up with something really cool and original, only to think back on it a week later and realize "God damnit, this is just JINGLE BELLS!!"
I wanna find a way to avoid that. It's happened too many damn times. That's why I'm trying to read up on music theory: hopefully I'll find some stuff there that allows me to be original at long last.

Your first answer seemed pretty on-point, though. So I appreciate your repsonding.

[Anonymous No.22776789]

Why are there no great works of literature or music in the Monegasque language?

[Anonymous No.22776834]

>>22776339
>perhaps it's a consequence of women having less agency than men historically and superstition providing a coping mechanism which makes their uncontrolled environment less random

It's because women are more emotional than men, simple as. Women often "feel in their hearts" like their rituals are working but men do not unless there is credible evidence. Even in the Western world where more women attend college than men, women are more drawn to magic and religion and most rabid atheists are of the penised variety.

[Anonymous No.22776846]

>>22776299
That's the hardest and most rewarding part of making art, there's no formula for it, you just need to be dissatisfied until you come up with something good.

[Anonymous No.22776849]

>>22776711
Perhaps, but I still kind of agree with the OP picture I posted.

The REAL strength of /lit/ users is that just they're less *intellectually insecure*. If you mention something that they haven't heard of before, they'll either become curious and look it up themselves, or don't give a shit and move on with their lives. Users on most other boards, however, usually become offended if you bring up something that reveals you possessed knoweldge they didn't have. They'll call you "pretentious;" be all like "What, you think you're BETTER than me??" even if it's obvious that you never looked down on them at all.

The idea that people all have different reserves of knowledge -- and can be smart in different ways -- just doesn't seem to have registered for the majority non-/lit/ users. I'm not sure it's even registered for most people on the internet. We'll probably all be much better off when people finally learn to accept that obvious fact. But in the meantime, we'll all just have to hold our tounges around normies, so we don't trigger their inferiority complexes. And of course post on /lit/, where people are less insecure about this kind of thing.

[Anonymous No.22776853]

>>22776846
True, but I'm still hoping someone can point me in the right direction.
I'm not looking for a formula, just advice. Where to look. Which "Greeks" I should start with etc.

[Anonymous No.22776863]

>>22776834
That's a good point as well. I'm guessing it's a mix of what you're saying and what the guy you're replying to said.

[Anonymous No.22776887]

>>22776849
Shit, I made a lot of typos in this post.
Oh well. I think you guys can still basically understand what I'm saying.

[Anonymous No.22776892]

>>22776834
>women are more emotional than men, simple as
If superstition is directly related emotion as you imply then that point for why women are more superstitious applies equally well to why they're more emotional. Making it about emotions vs. logic rather than superstition vs. fact just broadens the question and results in many of the same factors being important—i.e. women's comparatively lower capacities for self-sufficiency and greater vulnerability to random chance which would cause a purely logical pre-historic woman to be in perpetual panic mode. Since you don't provide any unique reason for why women are more emotional, I don't know why you felt the need to post.

[Anonymous No.22776905]

>>22776892
>A unique reason for why women are more emotional

It's neurology and hormones, my dude. They are wired like that. We know religiosity has a genetic component so it wouldn't be surprising for it to be affected by biological factors like gender as well.

[Anonymous No.22776919]

>>22776905
>It's neurology and hormones, my dude
No shit. The question is why women are wired like that and not men.

[Anonymous No.22776935]

>>22776853
Start with the modernist movement. Then you have a good starting point to compare post- and pre-modern works, assuming you aren't trying to write genre fiction.

[Anonymous No.22776940]

>>22776290
>questions that only retards are smart enough to answer
Uhhh idk... what does it feel like to masturbate in public and have people gently try to explain why that's not ok rather than just calling the police? What does fossilized candy that you find in between the couch cushions taste like? Is your helmet on too tight?

[Anonymous No.22776946]

>>22776935
>assuming you aren't trying to write genre fiction
No, I'm trying to figure out how to write MUSIC. Not fiction.
I know plenty of resources to help with fiction-writing, and already have various projects going on in that department myself.

[Anonymous No.22776953]

>>22776299
>Q2: How do I come up with original tunes?
Remember when you were a kid? And when you learned about a new thing, your brain started rapid-fire generating new ideas in an effort to comprehend what you just learned?

This is where creativity comes from. It's like a defense mechanism -- your brain *has* to know how to process new knowledge quickly & accurately to stay safe. So what happens is upon encountering a genuinely new idea, your brain floods itself with "possibilities" to try and understand the new thing. Unfortunately, when you land on an idea that's "good enough", the brain relaxes and you're no longer in this high-functioning mode of ideas. Once you've effectively integrated this new idea into your world view, the brain calms down & sees no need for rapid-fire ideas. This is also why old people are very rarely creative -- they almost never encounter unique information (to them). It is why artistic and intellectual movements naturally flow in waves.

In a big way, creativity is the brain's natural response to chaos. An anti-chaos mechanism.

To enter a creative state, you must expose yourself to new information. Most importantly, it can't be something you've "gotten used to". To trigger a creative state, you need music that's genuinely new to you and inspires you. Once you've listened to the same song 2+ times, the horizons diminish rapidly, and you can't imagine the song for anything other than what it is, rather than what it could be. So, to optimize creativity, we can suggest that (1) You constantly look for new music, (2) It has to be music you enjoy, (3) You cannot relisten to the same songs even if you enjoy them, and (4) Try to approach your instruments in a unique way each time.

What you're attempting to do is put your brain in an artificial state of confusion. Only then will you be capable of making unique songs.

[Anonymous No.22776956]

>>22776953
>What you're attempting to do is put your brain in an artificial state of confusion. Only then will you be capable of making unique songs.
That's actually a really good way of putting it. I think it applies to creativity in general. Why establishing "rules" for yourself in a given project often helps, etc.

[Anonymous No.22776966]

>>22776953
>>22776956
As an addendum, this is part of why I'm trying to view music-writing as "translating sounds & rhythms you hear IRL into song." It forces me to be original in this way.

[Anonymous No.22776971]

>>22776940
>what does it feel like to masturbate in public and have people gently try to explain why that's not ok rather than just calling the police?
It makes me feel like a god.
>What does fossilized candy that you find in between the couch cushions taste like?
The ones at your mom's house tasted like shit.
>Is your helmet on too tight?
No. If anything it's too loose since it fell off yesterday when I was running across the street and I left it on the same length.

[Anonymous No.22776975]

>>22776956
I want to note this is the exact same mechanism behind the "Five blind men and an elephant" tale. When you encounter an unknown object in a dark room, your brain will absolutely explode with possibilities hoping to guess at what this object may be, but once your brain lands on what the object is, you calm down and the creative state is gone. This is clearly a survival mechanism, and in a major way the brain does not want to be creative. We want to live at peace, in eternal surety like an old man. So our brain encourages us to understand everything in life as quickly & rapidly as possible. Unbeknownst to us, the unknown is the true fuel of creativity.

>>22776966
You can also try listening to music through crappy speakers, ironically. When you can't hear the full sound, your brain will try very hard to fill in the gaps, often making new ideas.

[Anonymous No.22776994]

>>22776698
Its a clever work around, but what stops the game from degenerating into literally rock paper scissor, with people swapping out their 'warriors' continuously just to counter the opposite team

[Anonymous No.22777025]

>>22776994
Well it wouldn't ever be THAT hard of a counter. I was thinking of something more like TF2. Where Pyro almost always beats Spy, and Spy almost always beats Sniper, but killing a Pyro as a Spy isn't COMPLETELY impossible, just really hard.

Also keep in mind that -- as in TF2 -- there wouldn't be THAT many hard counters. Each distinct class would only have like one "hard counter," out of like 20 classes total. So a fight between any two classes that weren't completely designed to mog one another would be a bit more ordinary.

I could tell you guys all the ideas I have about how I think the dynamics could work, but that would be a lot of text. Still, I'll be happy to write down what I have, if any of you are willing to read it.

[Anonymous No.22777028]

>>22776489
>>22776480
Thanks. I guess I was more interested in any possible astrological reasoning behind it. I was already dimly aware of the impression from Christianity that you posted.

[Anonymous No.22777034]

How could I properly structure a sentence as a walkable diagram?

A normal memory palace (look it up if you aren’t familiar) does not truly encode a sentence, but merely a list of words, only given structure after being recalled. It’s like train-tracks, or how tape is fed into a projector.

In Latin and Greek, words can be put in any order and the sentence will still make sense—barring Latin versions of “and,”along with prepositions. The sentence is anything but train-tracked: It’s 3D.

Of course, this requires imaginary memory palaces because my house isn’t in the perfect shape of a sentence diagram, so how do you guys suggest I do this? Maybe entering/leaving a parenthetical phrase is taking an elevator up or down a floor. Maybe a verb is like a hallway, with one of those airport horizontal escalator (picrel) things on the right: it’s going from the direction of the subject to the direction of the object. I’ll always walk on the right, and it’s only going on direction, so if I walk from the subject to the object, I take it; object to subject, I have to walk without it. The difficulty is that it seems that each word requires an entire room. They’d likely mesh together in my mind, and it would be more to process than a regular palace, but it would offer flexibility: I’d be able to encode, for example, certain Bible verses in both Greek and Latin with one palace, despite any differences in word order.

Pseud or bigbrain?

[Anonymous No.22777039]

>>22776299
>Q2: How do I come up with original tunes?

Well nothing is really original and stems from what you've heard before.

You get out what you put in.

>Listen to a wide variety of music
>Don't listen to too much of one artist or piece of music
>Take a break and don't listen to any music for a while
>Start getting tons of musical ideas (that are going to be based off the music you've heard but slightly different)

I used to listen to a lot of rock, metal, and pop, which I stopped listening to over a year ago and now "original" guitar riffs and pop melodies are always playing in my mind.

[Anonymous No.22777046]

>>22776975
>You can also try listening to music through crappy speakers, ironically. When you can't hear the full sound, your brain will try very hard to fill in the gaps, often making new ideas.

Also manipulating songs by slowing them down or speeding them up

[Anonymous No.22777060]

>>22776971
highest iq /lit/ poster, i kneel

[Anonymous No.22777106]

>>22776698
I don't know if it's what quite you have in mind, but combining an RTS game with tactical shooter mechanics and gameplay could be quite interesting. So i.e. give one player on each team the ability to build defensive structures, manage resources, build airstrips/barracks/factories to respawn teammates at optimal locations while the other players are all only in control of their individual character/vehicle. Then make it low time-to-kill such that excellent individual play from a single character will win the game as often as ironclad strategy gameplay.

[Anonymous No.22777126]

>>22777034

[Anonymous No.22777171]

>>22777034
Have a different building (i.e. a shopping mall) for each type of clause and a distinct way to transition into each clause/part of a sentence. So if you have 5 such clauses for a given language then each building has 4 identical roads heading in and 4 different roads heading out. Then let each floor within a building represent a different voice, and then contain a bunch of shops within that floor for each case/role in a sentence and/or the part of speech, then place the individual words in that shop.

desu I fail to see the point

[Anonymous No.22777174]

>>22776849
The quality and size of posts is also much higher and more like old interest boards back in the day, when you had some serious experts talking shop. Not to say that they're more intelligent but they are earnest and thoughtful and even the shitposting is clever and intellectual. It's not one line, ESL phoneposting garbage with nonsense replies because the idiot replying has the reading comprehension of a toddler. You have to be capable enough in order to engage at all around here.

I wouldn't call /lit/ well read but anons are pretty well rounded and have their own experience to bring to a discussion. It also helps that there is zero ego in anonymous shitposting and being judged by that merit filters redditors who need attention like bottoms need dick. There is no clout in being the biggest sperg or appealing to the masses. I think it also attracts more introspective types who are attuned to subtle emotions and more nuanced modes of thought, at least to a degree where it plays into intellectually and aesthetically honest discussion. The degree to which anyone replies with or to bad faith arguments is much lower.

[Anonymous No.22777194]

>>22777174
>I wouldn't call /lit/ well read but anons are pretty well rounded and have their own experience to bring to a discussion
> It also helps that there is zero ego in anonymous shitposting and being judged by that merit filters redditors who need attention like bottoms need dick. There is no clout in being the biggest sperg or appealing to the masses
That's an excellent way of putting it.

[Anonymous No.22777202]

>>22777106
Nah dood, what I'm trying to do is WAY more complicated than that lol.
The RTS players wouldn't control any actual real-life players. All their forces would be driven by AI. So fights between FPS classes and RTS classes, or Melee classes and RTS classes, would probably be pretty interesting. A bit like playing a single-player campaign in either of those genres, except there's a puppet master who guides all the forces you're fighting.
I'll try to give a basic idea of the different classes I have in mind in my next few posts, but they might take a while to both write and read. So bear with me.

[Anonymous No.22777205]

>>22777174
>It's not one line, ESL phoneposting garbage with nonsense replies because the idiot replying has the reading comprehension of a toddler
>anons are pretty well rounded and have their own experience to bring to a discussion
>zero ego in anonymous shitposting
>attuned to subtle emotions and more nuanced modes of thought, at least to a degree where it plays into intellectually and aesthetically honest discussion

I don't really spend time on other boards or social media; if what you're saying is true, relatively speaking, then I can only conclude that we are absolutely doomed, because /lit/ is full to bursting with loudmouth ignoramuses. There are definitely some decent posts and threads but it's at like 15% at best of what a theoretical "decent literary discussion forum" would be.

[Anonymous No.22777208]

>I've found that the people on this board are usually smarter than those on any of the others.
lol, lmao even

[Anonymous No.22777220]

>>22777208
Well... which board would YOU say is the smartest?
I mean... ALL the boards on 4chan are pretty retarded, obviously. But I do think this one's a cut above the rest.

[Anonymous No.22777222]

>>22777205
Once you filter out bait threads and anything with a frog in the OP, and look at it on a timeline of like a month or more given how long threads can stay up, the quality is pretty high. It's too bad warosu blows fat dicks as an archive, because /lit/ is really more of an archive board when it comes to reading discussion on specific topics.

And yes, other boards are that much worse.

[Anonymous No.22777263]

>>22777171
That’s actually a pretty good idea and I think I’ll try it: it’d essentially encode the charts you use when starting a language, picrel. I have no idea what else to do to truly encode the information of the relationships between the words, but that should at least preserve the parts to be assembled.

[Anonymous No.22777280]

>>22777222
Fair. /clg/ is based at least, if nothing else.

[Anonymous No.22777288]

>>22776698
>>22776994
>>22777025
I'll try to provide brief descriptions of each class-ideas I have so far, without going into how they'd counter each other (for the sake of space). I'll list these genres in order of how solid my ideas are about them, and leave the vaguest ones for last.

> FPS CLASSES
TANK: basically a boomer shooter character: high health and high mobility. Rocket launcher, shotgun, strafing etc.
DPS: more like a “realistic military shooter” character. Less up-close and personal. Sniper rifle, machine gun, longer-range weaponry etc.
SUPPORT: standard FPS healing class. Basically the medic from TF2, except you can choose which “super” to burn your meter on mid-combat. I.e. you can choose to make your healing target invincible, OR boost their damage, OR make them really fast or something etc. Don’t have to choose between your standard Uber or Kritzkreig before the round starts, basically.
STEALTH: probably just like the spy from TF2, except he/she/it can also plant remote-detonatable mines.

> RTS CLASSES
TANK: your standard “zerg rush” faction. You control a massive army of highly numerous and expandable zombie-like creatures, none of which have any sense of self-preservation.
DPS: basically the “terrans” from Starcraft
SUPPORT: your units don’t have much in the way of great self-defense options, but they can build structures that’ll do wonders to assist your teammates. For people who like “building” games, etc.
STEALTH: I’m actually not sure about this one yet. I guess the troops you’d control would be more “split up” than the others, for lack of a better word. Maybe they’d burrow underground?

(1/2)

[Anonymous No.22777301]

>>22776994
>>22777288
These next genre-classes aren't as solid as I'd like them to be, but we can work out the specifics in testing:

> MELEE/WARRIOR CLASSES
TANK: basically just a giant mech. Imagine a steampunk robot wielding a weapon that kinda looks like a cross between a scythe and a golf club.
DPS: your standard God of War or Devil May Cry character. Combos and air juggles galore.
SUPPORT: I’m imagining this guy would be a bit like a buff-bannered heavy from TF2. Less of a “support” character than a “supported” character. Teammates become more powerful just by standing next to him. Usually leads a battle charge.
STEALTH: probably just a like ninja, though I obviously still have to work out the specifics.

> AIRCRAFT CLASSES
TANK: not actually sure about this one. Probably like a really durable tandem-rotor helicopter, though I’m still not 100% sure what its primary attack methods would be
DPS: your standard fighter jet, with bomber capabilities for the ground. Bombs would be a lot more precise than they are IRL, so you’d be able to aim them more, but you’d HAVE to aim them because they wouldn’t have that big of a blast radius
SUPPORT: basically a “transport” class. Allows you to fly your teammates over enemy lines and just drop them on whoever you don’t like so they can start fucking shit up. Would also probably be able to “abduct” teammates to get them out of trouble, so I’m guessing it might be like a flying saucer or something
STEALTH: a comical mustache-twirling mad-bomber supervillain with a jetpack who can shrink. Shrinks to avoid detection, and fly between the legs of opponents and whatnot. But must grow bigger for the bombs he plants to do any real damage.

>VEHICULAR CLASSES
TANK: an actual tank. Self-explanatory
DPS: a motorcycle that can turn into a skateboard. The main “movement” class. Should have really good momentum-based mechanics, and ride up walls or whatever. Good firepower, but lower health. Susceptible to sniper headshots.
SUPPORT: not actually sure what to do for this one here. I’ll think of something
STEALTH: I’m thinking just like a James Bond spy car that can turn invisible. It'd also probably be pretty funny to accidentally crash into invisible cars from the other team and die instantly.

Sorry for all the text. Hope that gives you guys a basic idea.

[Anonymous No.22777305]

>>22776295
Women are more naturally religious than men. We can see this for example today in their love of astrology.
Men like to test and probe boundaries. In any straight couple you always see the guy teasing the girl in a pseudo-violent way that mimics the sexual act: probing at her, grabbing, etc.
Men like to probe things in a sexual and non-sexual sense to test or break boundaries.
Women like stability, order, feeling safe, and so rituals highly appeal to them

[Anonymous No.22777324]

>>22776339
>women having less agency than men historically and superstition providing a coping mechanism which makes their uncontrolled environment less random
This is the correct answer.
It's also true even beyond sex. People who experience a lot of suffering like addicts often turn to religion.
In my own life I have gone through religious spells when I was at particularly low points.
The belief of a stable eternal outside figure that wants entirely what is best for you, that is watching over you is highly appealing in a situation of insecurity, or feeling out of control
This is also why you see people who have experienced horrible things often become superstitious

[Anonymous No.22777325]

>>22777220
[s4s] is the intellectually superior board

[Anonymous No.22777360]

>>22777301
Whoops. Meant to reply to >>22777106 and >>22777106

[Anonymous No.22777367]

>>22777360
FUCK. Got my (You)s wrong again.
Ah well. It ain't worth it at this point. Nevermind lol

[Anonymous No.22777373]

>>22777263
>I have no idea what else to do to truly encode the information of the relationships between the words
My understanding of linguistics is that all of the information needed for a sentence is found in case/clause/etc., with word order sorting out any ambiguity. English obviously relies obviously relies heavily on word order, but languages that don't should be able to preserve relationships between words in most cases just by having them in the correct form and bucket. If you need more nuance than that then you might want to research common instances where word order does matter in each language and establish some universal standard for it.

[Anonymous No.22777390]

>>22776299
Have you tried just doing a random walk on the space of every possible tune permutation? You might wish to constrain it somehow of course (e.g by chord or scale) but often exhaustive enumeration followed by random walks is sufficient to come up with completely new and interesting results. It's actually a technique from fiction (you can come up with ideas for scenes by simply taking combinations of all characters, 10 characters with 2 characters per scene is enough to come up with 45 unique scenes)

[Anonymous No.22777455]

>>22777205
And don't forget that /lit/ gets worse every year, especially in September.

[Anonymous No.22777457]

>>22777455
Why September specifically?

[Anonymous No.22777491]

>>22777457
All the little pseudies take their first English lit class and ask for homework help and shitpost about the same classic dreck. Summerfags and Eternal September may not be true in the quantity of posts, but the quality drops hard and drives the better posters away, never to return.

We used to have these specialists in an author or genre that would pop in and write walls of analysis far beyond what your average asshole is capable of. They're much more rare now.

[Anonymous No.22777512]

>>22777373
I know that the information is there, but after hearing a sentence—or, in this instance, recalling it in a memory palace—your brain assembles it for you. “Iulius,” “amat,” and “Aemiliam,” can be placed in 6 different orders, but your brain constructs the same sentence. I’m trying to make a mnemonic of the actual structure of the sentence. This way, if a sentence of Plato is one order in Greek, but another in Latin, you memorize both sentences, and they’re the same. I’m not trying to preserve more information about each word, but I’m trying to actually encode a sentence rather than a list.

[Anonymous No.22777547]

>>22777512
>if a sentence of Plato is one order in Greek, but another in Latin, you memorize both sentences, and they’re the same
If I'm understanding correctly, this should be accommodated by making sure everything is in the correct case/clause/voice/etc. In instances where that isn't strictly true (i.e. if you have two nouns in the nominative masculine and one adjective in the nominative masc) then you'd need some kind of standardized approach which would accommodate all such circumstances (i.e. there's a room in the back of each noun "store" with adjectives to add to a noun)

[Anonymous No.22777629]

>>22776351
>books for this feel

[Anonymous No.22777640]

>>22776299
Part of it has to do with consolidating existing ideas and techniques by finding connections between them that had previously gone unnoticed.
For example, I've been listening to a lot of Charlie Parker recently, a man who absolutely revolutionized jazz. The kind of stuff he'd play was unlike anything that came before -- when considered holistically. But all of the elements that he drew upon as his foundation had existed prior to him.
As an example: a key feature of the jazz improvisational idiom that owes its origin to Charlie Parker is long runs of notes in which chromaticism is used to ensure that chord tones are played on the downbeats. When you hear this sort of thing in one of his solos, and compare it to the swing solos that came before his era, the difference is night-and-day. And yet, chromaticism existed long before Charlie Parker, and even before jazz itself: "blue notes" have always been integral to the genre of the blues. But Charlie Parker was able to see that preexisting tradition, and identify that it could be used for the rhythmic alignment of chord tones in long-linear solos. And that's where one of the most distinctive (and most-emulated) features of his style of playing comes from.
So what's the actionable advice here? Listen to lots of genres of music. Identify which elements are used in different genres. Figure out what you like about some songs and what feels missing from them. And then, once you've identified what's missing, see if you can compose together some elements from the repertoire that you've amassed that give you this thing that's missing. It's tough, but it'll get you where you need to be.
Also, notice how this process is both forward-looking and backward-looking. You can't be creative in a vacuum; you can't just bang on keys and call it music. You have to have the context of a tradition (or several) that provides you with certain goals (these are the "missing elements" that I was talking about earlier), which your creativity can then be applied to achieve.

[Anonymous No.22777650]

>>22777640
This is really interesting. Thank you so much. I'm gonna look into all that stuff you mentioned now (as well as doing my own research lol)

[Anonymous No.22777783]

>>22777491
>We used to have these specialists in an author or genre that would pop in and write walls of analysis far beyond what your average asshole is capable of. They're much more rare now.
Satsuki-effortposter is back tho. /lit/ is healing.

[Anonymous No.22778114]

>>22776312
>>22776698
The game you want to steal from is Age of Empires 2. That game has a basic RPS where pikemen counter knights, knights counter archers/siege, archers/siege counter infantry. Of course it ends up being way more complex than that since there are way more units than that. So catapults are siege weapons that beat archers while scorpions are the siege weapons good against infantry. And heavy infantry doesn't really beat cavalry, cheap pikemen do, but expensive monks who aren't even infantry do it even better, but they lose to cheap light cavalry. Archers vs Knigths is more about timing and so on. But the basic counter system you want is there.

[Anonymous No.22778139]

Id like if anyone could guide me where to start understanding the fall of british and french imperialism . What i cant understand is why did Britain and france give up on their colonies. Shouldnt they have done even the most atrocious acts of war to still have them occupied ? I cant seem to be convined that the colonies for the brits for instance were economically non profitable

[Anonymous No.22778232]

>>22776698
>>22777202
Anon, it is simplicity which is beauty, not complexity.
I can tell you're really passionate about this project, but you might need to scale it back a bit, or, at the very least, move it into the non-theoretical realm as fast as possible.
If you don't know about them, Wolfire Games made Overgrowth and created a TON of changes to each of their alpha over the last 15 years or so. Here's an early one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAtwQa8t_3g
Theory is all fun, but you got to sweat at some point. Find a single point of entry and get at it.
(Also, consider condensing your entire pitch like a 30-second or less elevator pitch. If I'm so tech CEO stuck with you in an elevator, you gotta inform and impress me as soon as possible).

>>22776736
I'm familiar with the idea. I just wanted to know how you would be approaching it.

[Anonymous No.22778241]

>>22776786
A musician friend of mine would 'fast' from music for a week and then try to compose. Not sure how long he kept that up.
I would just keep listening to as many things as possible with a wide enough variety. Listen to them and try to understand what's happening. Then, put those techniques to work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNV5cMCUQ5Q

[Anonymous No.22778251]

>>22778241
i used to fast by only listening to solo piano for a while, then go back to electronic shit with all kinds of insane synthesized sounds, it hits hard

[Anonymous No.22778275]

>>22778241
>I would just keep listening to as many things as possible with a wide enough variety.
People would be amazed if they knew how varied and niche the music their favorite artists draw from is
Even top 40 artists draw from niche stuff because you can't get enough inspiration from famous music alone

[Anonymous No.22778281]

>>22776853
Go through a list of Greek works, look at them briefly on Wikipedia, and get the ones that interest you.
You probably want a tragedy (Oedipus Rex), a comedy (maybe The Clouds by Aristophanes), Epic Poetry (Homer, Iliad then Odyssey), some lyrics poetry of choice (the ladies really seem to did Sappho (maybe Anne Carson's translations)).
As an artist, I really love Plato's Ion (it's like three pages), otherwise his Symposium, then Republic.
At that point, you'll have more than enough to read, as the list will continually grow as you go through them. Also, Aristotle's Poetics can be useful.

[Anonymous No.22778294]

>>22778139
Capitalism was cheaper. Rock bottom prices and no overhead.

>>22778281
Orphic Hymns and other religious work is also an easy pick.

[Anonymous No.22778307]

>>22778281
just don't force yourself to read anything, OP
this idea of the western canon as some "monolith" per harold bloom is a meme, many of the canonical authors hated one another's guts and were in staunch opposition. give everything a chance but if you don't give a shit after 20 pages then drop it

[Anonymous No.22778352]

>>22778114
Hmm... I'll check it out, thanks

>>22778232
Don't worry dude. I have other ideas that are MUCH more feasible, that I actually WILL focus on. I know I'm never gonna be able to really pull this one off. It's really more like a creative thought exercise lol.

>>22778281
Dude, I'm asking about music goddamnit. Read the other comments; Christ.

[Anonymous No.22778399]

>>22778139
(1) Both world superpowers were pro-decolonization for ideological and practical reasons; the rest of the world would have also opposed them. It would thus have meant huge diplomatic isolation and numerous proxy wars against USSR backed force without any support from the U.S.
(2) Colonies weren't really that profitable. Their main economic benefit was providing markets for industrial goods, since most independent countries in the 18th/19th century adopted insanely protectionist strategies, but the world was being pushed towards free trade by the U.S. (which possessed something like 30% of the world's GDP and 50% of its industrial output after WW2, so there really wasn't much choice) and their industries could easily access foreign markets without exerting political control. At the end of the day, the budget which went into policing and managing a colony wasn't offset by taxing a few subsistence farmers.
(3) They were democracies which lacked the stomach for the atrocities needed to effectually crush a guerrilla rebellion. Concentration camps are by far the most effective way of doing so, and it's easy to see why a British public still high on the moral superiority of defeating Hitler might be outraged. Even when France did decide to dig their heels in in Algeria, they fought with exceptionally clean tactics compared to the wars France waged to conquer Algeria in the first place.
(4) Giving up their colonies made it easier to salvage a relationship with the new countries and maintain many of the economic/political benefits gained by colonizing them in the first place.

[Anonymous No.22778455]

>>22778139
>france give up on their colonies. Shouldnt they have done even the most atrocious acts of war to still have them occupied ? I cant seem to be convined that the colonies for the brits for instance were economically non profitable
Europe was ruined after the world wars. Even if it wanted to it could not have held onto its colonies.
There were ideological reasons as well, but after ww2 U.S.A was heac honcho and had less reason or interest in helping the old world powers regain their colonies.
The French still fought to retain Algeria, but by and large the will and ability to retain these colonies was gone
Another facto was that many of these colonies had fought in ww2 leading to a sense of obligation

[Anonymous No.22778482]

>>22776299

You have to listen to a lot of music so you have that "database" in your brain and then you have to play music. What's your instrument? If you play an instrument, you will inevitably come up with new tunes. I can easily come up with new songs just by strumming a guitar. It comes naturally and inevitabyl if your fingers are moving (or whatever you use to play your instrument). If you try to do it with just your head you will have a harder time.

[Anonymous No.22778915]

>>22778139
I can provide an answer in the case of India at least. The situation there was always tenuous for the British. They were facing revolts and insurgencies from the very beginning, even before 1857. There was a growing revolutionary movement in the early 1900s, the Hindu-German Conspiracy, and you had events like the Indian Naval Mutiny of 46 occurring even with independence on the horizon. That last crisis in the British Indian military really shook them because they had always depended on an Indian force to rule over their Indian subjects. So they had to leave. The colonies were extremely profitable. Mostly because they were a dumping ground for British goods and services under the guise of a free market (it wasn't free). One of my ancestors attempted to break the monopoly of a British shipping company by starting his own and was given two life terms and his company was liquidated due to British suppression.

[Anonymous No.22778936]

>>22776365
Watch Leonard Bernsteins lectures on makin music from Omnibus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDq4KqP7Pxs

[Anonymous No.22778945]

>>22776447
I thought it was tradition that the three princes represented three different cultures/ religions (Greek polytheism, Indian Hindus and Zoroastrian) paying homage to the superior Christ who had surpassed them.

[Anonymous No.22779065]

>>22776290
Unrelated, but what are some other boards for better conversation and genuine engagement? /a/ and /v/ tend to just be shitflinging, but would boards like /his/ and the like be better? I've visited sci before, yet a lot of it appears to be embroiled in constant political argument as well, and not always constructive

[Anonymous No.22779073]

>>22776290
So true bestie

[Anonymous No.22779089]

>>22779065
/lit/ and /his/ are the peak

[Anonymous No.22779122]

>>22776290
truly /lit/ users are ascendant beings among the troglodyte 4slops

[Anonymous No.22779706]

>>22778139
This obviously isn't a serious "source" or whatever, but I always thought this screencap on imperialism in India was fantastic.

[Anonymous No.22779752]

>>22778232
Although as a side-note, that is a FANTASTIC tutorial on procedural animation. I'm gonna add that to a playlist of mine; thank you so much.

[Anonymous No.22779766]

>>22778241
Very interesting technique! I've heard about other guys who've done that before.
Not sure I'll watch the rest of the video, though. I have a thing against troons. Still, I appreciate the reference.

>>22778936
Oh, THAT'S what that thing is called!
Very interesting. I'll definitely watch the rest of that as well, thank you

[Anonymous No.22779869]

>>22776312
Honestly, that is an acceptable oversimplification if you wanted to explain Napoleonic warfare to your 6 yr old niece, but still an oversimplification.
Infantry has always been the center of combat, with both Artillery and Cavalry being "specialized" roles.
You would never see combat of an exclusively horse-mounted army for two reasons. 1st, Horses and horsemen are expensive to train and maintain. Consider that the rider has to be so well acquainted with his horse so that it essentially functions as an extension of his being and not simply an animal he is using. This is why many cavalry divisions were comparatively small and used sparingly in the heat of battle, usually waiting for an opportunity to break the lines.

The existence of an "artillery only" lineup is also absurd for two main reasons as well. 1st, steel (or brass) is expensive. In many of the great battles of the Napoleonic wars you will read a list of several thousand men, but rarely of more than 200 cannons. Another reason for this is that they were extremely heavy and cumbersome, which leaves it vulnerable to cavalry as you mentioned, but it can still deal a great amount of damage to an incoming Cavalry charge (See Battle of Balaklava)

I think I lost my main point, which was that Infantry will always be the main character in warfare. It always has been, and will still remain, because artillery cannot storm a position, nor can cavalry maintain and hold one (unless they're mounted riflemen AKA Dragoons)
There's a game on Steam called Fire and Maneuver, which shows how warfare in this time was and also the effects of the rapid industrialization on the change of tactics. It used to be free on Early Access, but now is like 10$. Multiplayer is mostly dead, but the AI and Single Player campaigns are decent, If you're more interested in line warfare I might suggest you give it a try.

[Anonymous No.22779896]

>>22776447
I don't know for certain, but I can say that the Bible doesn't specifically mention the number of "Magi" that visited young Jesus. The number 3 may have arisen from the fact that they brought 3 gifts: Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. But who says that one of them didn't bring 2 types of gifts, or that several brought gold?

The Greek for Matthew 2:1 is literally "μάγοι", "magoi". But some translations call them astrologers since, well, they were chasing a star all the way to Jerusalem. Others simply call them wise men, as they were educated in something.

[Anonymous No.22779912]

I am extremely intelligent.

[Anonymous No.22779941]

>>22779766
Actually, she's an anorexic Leftist Jew, but I understand.

If you haven't listened to any NIN, listen to 'Just Like You Imagined' from The Frail. It's in 8/10:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqWM-tXtoBU
I'm also a huge fan of March of the Pigs, which is 7/8 + 7/8 + 7/8 + 4/4 (repeating):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABvjpZp1N2Y

[Anonymous No.22780555]

>>22779941
Oh, it IS a woman? Are you sure?
Hmm...
Well in that case, maybe I'll give her a listen. But man... it's a real shame how trannies have screwed things up, to the point where you can't trust anything anymore.

[Anonymous No.22780819]

>>22779065
/his/ is peak room temp midwitry.

[Anonymous No.22780822]

>>22777220
All boards are equally retarded, newfag

[Anonymous No.22780886]

>>22776295
They love it.
>>22776299
You don't.
>>22776312
Nope, wars don't work like that.
>>22776447
They did not.

[Anonymous No.22780965]

>>22779065
/sci/ has some good posters but terrible threads (most are vaccine/climate change/ragebait). I think that the fundamental problem is that the barrier for entry into talking about most subjects at a complex level is too high; forums work optimally when one poster who knows about a subject is able to teach/convince others about it while taking in new insights, but if you need (i.e.) a chemistry degree to even follow what someone is talking about then most people—even those who are highly intelligent—won't find it worthwhile to engage wholeheartedly. And so the people who do have expert knowledge of a subject don't see much reason to share it unless it's to shutdown someone who is completely and utterly wrong. Also the posters there are generally worse at writing.

/his/ has somewhat of the opposite problem: the barrier for entry is too low which causes political radicals (whether tankies or nazis) and idiots to easily participate in conversations without immediately feeling out of their depth. It's especially bad since history is closely related to politics, and true political extremists don't recognize any difference whatsoever since their ideology seeks to account for everything that has happened and will happen. In contrast, dealing with "problematic" literature has many obvious outs for an extremist which don't compromise their ideological commitments; it's easy (and often accurate) to say an author was retarded or immoral and shouldn't be viewed as an authority.

[Anonymous No.22780972]

>Non-/lit/ questions
fuck off
not sure why this thread hasn't been deleted?

[Anonymous No.22780991]

>>22776290

What are the best examples of an actual morally grey/lose-lose situation in fiction ?

I'll admit i'm primarily asking this because i'm looking for sources of inspiration. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one good example which actually captures the essence of the kind of scenario i'm trying to create and unfortunately, it's from a terrible source

There's a godawful YA show called the 100. Overall it's pretty bad, but the season 2 finale managed to accidentally create something haunting and fascinating. The show is set in a post nuclear-war world, where the protagonist is part of a surviving faction of humans. The MC's faction is resource poor, but has an advantage that their bodies have adapted to the irradiated world through some sci-fi mumbo jumbo, whereas an opposing faction is very resource rich (food, energy, weapons, etc.) but all their people have to live within a fortified bunker since exposure to the outside world will kill them.

The leaders of the opposing faction discover that they can use the MC's factions as bloodbags, giving themselves temporary immunity and develop a process to make themselves permanently immune but end up killing the bloodbag in the process. They decide they're sick of living like rats in a bunker and want to be out in the open world, so capture a bunch of the MC's faction and start systematically draining them. This is just a very small portion of the opposing faction doing all this in absolute secrecy. The rest have no idea this is happening and when some of them find out they actively try to stop it. All attempts at negotiations, diplomacy and threats fail, with the opposing leaders hellbent on their program and the MC has to choose between watching her friends be killed one by one or open the bunker doors and eradicate the opposing faction entirely, by exposing them to the outside environment. She chooses the latter, directly causing the death of literal innocent toddlers & the people on the other side who were actively trying to help her, but ultimately saving her own people.

This is kind of what i'm aiming for. A situation where the protagonist is essentially forced to do a non-trivial version of the trolley problem, where all choices are simultaneously justified and morally abhorrent, no matter what they choose to do, the consequences are dire, and it just boils down to their own selfish biases (she cared about saving her innocent adult friends more than she cared about the other sides innocent toddlers)

[Anonymous No.22781041]

>>22780991
I'm going to be completely honest and say nothing comes to mind directly but Agota Kristof's Trilogy of Lies starting with the Notebook absolutely broke me. It's very short and snappy so I'd like it if you read it because either deals in those situations. If you like it, read the other two for the heart of the problem.

I think seeing it play out on entirely personal levels with the background of what you want happening almost entirely unseen will give you what you need to figure it out for yourself. I think you're asking for what informs it and how it looks on all sides as much as something explicitly about it. Also I need to get it out of my head after over a decade.

It's a very abstract kind of reference, but all I have and I think it fits as background reading at the very least.

[Anonymous No.22781053]

>>22776299
it’s called sovl

[Anonymous No.22781068]

>>22776299
>How do I come up with original tunes?

"Good poets borrow, great poets steal."

Man with the most patents living is a Japanese guy who does all his thinking in the pool, and swims over to a notepad as the ideas come to him. Dig through your own influences more thoroughly, scalp them for starting points. Listen to a favorite album in its entirety in the dark, in the shower/bath.

[Anonymous No.22781075]

>>22776312
>cavalry out pace fire correction
>artillery restricts infantry movement
>infantry zones out cavalry reconnaissance/deep raids

Somewhat, but after Napoleon, artillery really is "the god of war"-- we've just strapped it to more and various delivery systems nowadays. You might like Foxhole on the game angle and its alternate timeline WW1 setup.

[Anonymous No.22781089]

>>22776295
Women engender life and are enmeshed/caught up in it, more rooted in the world. The extra water weight makes them more susceptible to the moon's gravitational tides. Men order life after the fact with ideas (things dead on arrival, miscarried), women are more go with the flow-- feelings and babies are the great mystery; emotions they suspect more approach the nature of things and events' causality than logic in their thinking, all at once as opposed to serially and segmented.

[Anonymous No.22781099]

>>22776849
Taste in all things really is incommensurable between human types and character affinities. People might have defective instincts or ability to appreciate certain things, but that may be fitting for them and their uses-- which isn't the same thing as deflecting "art's subjective, that's like you're opinion, maan."

[Anonymous No.22781116]

>>22776339
>>22776834
>>22776905

English isn't my first language so I may be understanding or using the wrong terms, but I'd say the dichotomy isn't emotion vs. evidence or superstition vs. fact but rather intuition vs sensing with intuition being more feminine and sensing being more masculine. This doesn't mean that women can't ever lean more towards sensing and vice versa. However, whether through innate/learned traits (although epigenetics muddies the water between nature/nurture) women go more by internal feelings and men go more by external sensations. This doesn't mean independent vs. dependent thinking/feeling since people can share both their sensory intake as well as their intuitions with other people. It also is more complicated than emotion/logic since people can make decisions based on immediate feelings caused by external experiences as well as make decisions based on a wholly internal logical system rather than a logic divorced from oneself. I'm a longtime student of Jungian psychoanalysis so I'm biased.

[Anonymous No.22781120]

>>22780972
Cuz it's about /lit/ lol

[Anonymous No.22781150]

>>22779065
>boards for better conversation and genuine engagement
/out/ is practically oriented. someone always has some niche woodsman prepper hunting whatever trick you haven't heard of before.

>>22780965
>/his/ has somewhat of the opposite problem: the barrier for entry is too low

The accumulation of facts does not confer the ability to think or reason with or about them. It's a terrible discipline of also ran failed fiction writers (or worse: journalists). As Napoleon said, history really is a lie agreed upon. It descending into eristic pissing contests comes with the territory.

>>22780991
>What are the best examples of an actual morally grey/lose-lose situation in fiction

Star Wars after Obi-Wan cripples Anakin and leaves him to burn to death after professing his former brotherly love for him (inconsistent with Jedi Order no attachments tenants in the first place). Anakin crying out to him as "Master!?" for help was his first turn from the Dark Side, and Obi-Wan chose his own disgust and vanity over mercy-- the real Order 66 in spirit, and what made Darth Vader in the end. In this picture Luke refusing to kill his father on the Emperor's instruction AND Obi-Wan & Yoda's to do the same is what brings Anakin back from that moment of decision on the lava slopes, not just the fact of him being his son and in danger. The Clone Wars context, and the Jedi unquestioningly taking charge of what was a slave army forshadowed the kind of culpability Obi-Wan doubles down on at that crucial moment at the end of Revenge of the Sith: Vader was equally a product of the Emperor and the Order. If Anakin was really a liability too old to train and/or the Chosen One, the Jedi with their wealth were obliged to free his mother Shmi to ease his conscience . . . Luke throwing out the non-attachment dogmatism was required to succeed in the throne room with Sidious and his father.

[Anonymous No.22781517]

>>22780965
Don't you think that the person who knows about the subject wants someone to talk to on their level, not just to take the role of the teacher?

[Anonymous No.22781971]

>>22781517
>Don't you think that the person who knows about the subject wants someone to talk to on their level
The nature of a board like /sci/ (which is really a patchwork of different subjects with somewhat limited overlap) means that there are comparably few people at the same level of knowledge regarding a particular topic. Ideally it would be teaching (or driving a conversation) about a concept to people on their level for the subject as a whole but who might not understand the granularities of a particular concept in which they're an expert. Since the intellectual aristocracy (i.e. the top ~10% of posters in terms of intelligence) are all divided into different fields and sub-fields then conversations end up being dominated by
people bonding over their vague understanding of popsci concepts or pushing political views. In contrast the top 10% of /lit/ posters can jump into any thread and insert themselves into a conversation even if they might know relatively little about the specific issue (likewise, /his/ is mediocre because *anyone* can do this for most topics). General threads on /sci/ can be good, since they avoid this pitfall by concentrating people who are interested and knowledgeable in a particular subject into one place.

[Anonymous No.22781977]

>>22779766
Yes, I linked the clip as an example of the Omnibus series and what to expect. It’s very in detail as regards all areas of music.

[Anonymous No.22782178]

>>22778139
>why did Britain and france give up

THey were kicked out. You can't expect to hold onto an empire forever. The French killed two million Algerians trying to hold onto it, and they had their asses handed over to them by the Vietnamese in Dien Bien Phu.

[Anonymous No.22782214]

>>22776312
Trichotomy*