
Your cyberpunk games are dangerous (2015) - EndXA
https://boingboing.net/2015/05/08/your-cyberpunk-games-are-dange.html
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hajile
GURPS Cyberpunk is still available as a PDF and interestingly, is still the
best generic cyberpunk toolkit ever printed.

[http://www.warehouse23.com/products/gurps-classic-
cyberpunk](http://www.warehouse23.com/products/gurps-classic-cyberpunk)

~~~
rv-de
Seems interesting. Why can't I find it on boardgamegeek.com?

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JoeDaDude
The game, or one like it, is on RPG Geek:
[https://rpggeek.com/rpgfamily/335/cyberpunk](https://rpggeek.com/rpgfamily/335/cyberpunk)

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techer
“increment on May 11, 2015 [-]

Yeah, ultimately I think the Internet today is a lot more open and a lot more
beneficial to liberal society than any network was in 1990. I understand why
you gag at that, but, I can imagine much, much worse outcomes than we got.”

How fast things change.

~~~
rcxdude
Still true.

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headsoup
No it isn't

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sombremesa
It is - compare the internet to the AppStore or the Play Store. The internet
could've easily been something like that - a walled garden accessible only
through proprietary clients, where you could only publish content through
prescribed channels. Sure, people would've created open alternatives, but just
like is the case with the AppStore alternatives today, those alternatives
would languish for want of an audience.

~~~
bordercases
You don't need a commercial aggregator to deal with the problem of an
audience. You just need a well-known aggregator.

The mobile phone is seems like a good analogue of the walled garden model and
unsurprisingly computers like Macs and Chromebooks show some of their roots
there.

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unkulunkulu
> After a gradual dawning of awareness, he asks the computer, “Is this a game…
> or is it real?” With the aplomb of a delusional college student wandering
> the steam tunnels, imaginary sword in hand, the computer replies, “What’s
> the difference?”

Hmmm, I have never met this perspective. An AI might be limited in perceiving
reality in addition to being much stronger intellectually. A dangerous mix I
would say. Imagine “See”, but with AI instead of the blind people.

~~~
looper8
A binary AI would probably have to settle for an either/or situation. The
result and therefore difference between a choice of reality and game, when
picking from the core duality, will always be either reality or a game. A
quantum AI would be able to view both equally (and be able to grasp all the
intermediate states (that we call stable)) and therefore not be able to
distinguish between what we call "real" and what aspects of reality we call
"imaginary". Our quantum brain that we force into a binary perspective by
applying logic is able to see the whole spectrum, but we choose not to use it
except for a few parts. What is the difference between real and imaginary? In
mathematics we have the real numbers and the imaginary numbers, which arise
out of a necessity solely due to the existence of real numbers in the first
place. We seem to have no problem accepting both as true and working with
both. Each part of the real/imaginary number spectrum allow us to describe
reality in different ways - or perspectives, if you will. We even call them
real and imaginary and don't deny imaginary numbers their very real existence.
So what's the difference, really?

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zaarn
I don't quite understand why a "binary AI" wouldn't be able to give you a
probability on how much it thinks it's in reality (ie, an intermediate state).

I don't think quantum AI has that much more advantages either and the human
brain doesn't really qualify as "quantum" either in my books.

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dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9519956](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9519956)

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at-fates-hands
I'm surprised they left out the "made for tv" movie Mazes and Monsters that
starred Tom Hanks. The movie paralleled the story of James Dallas Egbert III,
the missing college student.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazes_and_Monsters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazes_and_Monsters)

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StanislavPetrov
>This misunderstanding arose only five months after TSR obtained widespread
notoriety in a similar confusion surrounding the disappearance of college
student James Dallas Egbert III in East Lansing, Michigan. A private detective
hired to find Egbert had learned that the young man played TSR’s role-playing
game Dungeons & Dragons—at the time virtually unknown to mainstream
America—and hypothesized that Egbert had come to believe the game was real.
Famously, this led to calls for a search of the college steam tunnels, where
presumably Egbert would be found wandering in a deluded stupor, questing for
monsters and treasure.

Tom Hanks starred in a 1982 made for TV movie called, "Mazes and Monsters"
that used virtually this exact plot. In the 80s there was a massive hysteria
about Dungeons & Dragons being linked to "devil worship" and other madness
(yes really). It was so bad that TSR pulled Demons and Devils from the (then)
new edition of the Monster Manual (and related books) in an attempt to quell
the furor.

Spoiler: In the movie the character played by Hanks actually does go crazy and
end up lost in the tunnels. He is eventually found but he has forever lost his
mind, driven insane by the evil game.

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/)

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bynkman
Great article. The Steve Jackson raid is the stuff of legend, and confusion.
This article definitely clears up the fog of war regarding the ordeal.

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alanh
misleading title :(

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TedDoesntTalk
More revisionist history from millenials who weren't there to know that things
like GURPS and Legion of Doom and other things mentioned in this article were
unknown at the time, even to other "hackers" and BBSs and usenet. Journalists
decided to write about them and hail them as heros years later, changing what
was pop culture to the cyberpunk world of those days to whatever they see as
nostalgic and romantic and interesting. And for the record, no one who was
actually IN the cybperpunk world in the 1980s (including the year 1990)
actually used the term "cyberpunk", regardless of whether it was coined or
not. Once the term was out there, it was definitely not a cool word and anyone
who used it or labeled themselves that way was not at all a cyberpunk.

~~~
Accujack
No. Maybe they were unknown to you, but not some of us. I first heard about
the Phrack raids a week or so afterward, when certain of my peers in college
began destroying floppies in a fit of paranoia.

_Free_The_Atlanta_Three_

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dangerface
Games are dangerous? What bs.

~~~
7777fps
I miss a time when people read articles before commenting on them. Just
skimming the introduction could have told you that the title is not a
reflection of an argument forwarded by the article.

~~~
overcast
What time was that? Humans have always taken shortcuts.

~~~
coldtea
The idea that "human society/culture/habbit was always the same in X aspect"
is as ludicrous as "human society/culture/habbit is always changing in X
aspect".

~~~
vorotato
For as long as any of us can remember, the average person has tried to avoid
wasting their time on potentially fruitless pursuits with no joy in the
journey.

~~~
coldtea
Shortcuts is not just "skip the useless parts", but also cheat, lose subtlety,
lower quality (as in "take shortcuts"), and so on.

In this case "read[ing] articles before commenting on them" is not "wasting
their time on potentially fruitless pursuits with no joy in the journey", it's
the very basic prerequisite for responding to an article.

And yes, there was a time when this happened less. In the mobile and social
era, people are skimming more, jumping around from text to text more, and do
focused reading of articles and books less -- this has been studied and
written about several times (e.g. here's a high level article from a book
author on the subject:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-
goog...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-
making-us-stupid/306868/) ).

