A problem with RPGs: RPG developers are not well-read in myth and fantasy/sci-fi literature

[RaggleFraggle]

Well you can start by writing better posts.

If the biggest genres in manga are shounen, hentai and moei it's not such a stretch to think that manga is mainly for teens/young adults. Sure there are titles that go way beyond that but that's like 5%. So fundamentally what sustains the better part of the industry is exactly young adult shit, right?

Says the person who apparently doesn't know the difference between manga (comics) and anime (Japanese animation in general).

There's a hot take I heard regarding anime that I'll paraphrase here.

It's okay to like weeb media because there are actually really good manga/anime. It's not okay to admit it in educated company because the popular stuff is still overwhelmingly garbage.

That makes no sense though. Whoever wrote that is an idiot because as I wrote above, anime (and manga even more so) is incredibly diverse. It really can't be compared to American cartoons where 99% is for children and the 1% is mainly from several decades ago. "Weeb media" isn't a thing. Weebs are degenerates who think Japan is heaven on earth. For instance, if you actually learned the Japanese language, you are already above "weeb" status. The admitting/not admitting thing is weird. Any educated company wouldn't judge and the only people that do are generally the weebs and retards who don't know anything about anime but feel the need to make stupid comments.

If one wants to actually delve into the medium, it's pretty difficult to find communities for that, as most are populated by people one would rather avoid.

Anime that isn’t constantly horny is extremely difficult to find and has only gotten worse over time as practices have become increasingly exploitative. The current web novel adaptation over-saturation is absolutely horrible. Rather than producing coherent stories with themes and endings, companies throw unfinished stream-of-consciousness serials at the wall to see what sticks.

There’s a reason why the overwhelming majority of classic manga/anime dates no later than the 2000s, despite the annual output increasing exponentially since then.

The only Japanese media that still produces good stories are VNs, as those are released with a beginning, middle, and ending. Unfortunately the good stories aren’t translated because the cheap trash hentai is what sells so localizers only translate that. The localizers have admitted in interviews that they hate translating hentai and want to translate the actual good stories but can’t because it doesn’t sell enough to justify.

 

[Tyranicon]

Anime that isn’t constantly horny is extremely difficult to find and has only gotten worse over time as practices have become increasingly exploitative. The current web novel adaptation over-saturation is absolutely horrible. Rather than producing coherent stories with themes and endings, companies throw unfinished stream-of-consciousness serials at the wall to see what sticks.

There’s a reason why the overwhelming majority of classic manga/anime dates no later than the 2000s, despite the annual output increasing exponentially since then.

The only Japanese media that still produces good stories are VNs, as those are released with a beginning, middle, and ending. Unfortunately the good stories aren’t translated because the cheap trash hentai is what sells so localizers only translate that. The localizers have admitted in interviews that they hate translating hentai and want to translate the actual good stories but can’t because it doesn’t sell enough to justify.

Oh yeah, this is something I can speak about from experience. It's super depressing to watch your artsy-fartsy, "good" shit sell like 5 copies, meanwhile Lewd Troll Massage dev gets to buy a mansion or something.

Thank god I actually like making porn. Otherwise I'd probably be way more depressed.

 

[Lucumo]

There's a hot take I heard regarding anime that I'll paraphrase here.

It's okay to like weeb media because there are actually really good manga/anime. It's not okay to admit it in educated company because the popular stuff is still overwhelmingly garbage.

That makes no sense though. Whoever wrote that is an idiot because as I wrote above, anime (and manga even more so) is incredibly diverse. It really can't be compared to American cartoons where 99% is for children and the 1% is mainly from several decades ago. "Weeb media" isn't a thing. Weebs are degenerates who think Japan is heaven on earth. For instance, if you actually learned the Japanese language, you are already above "weeb" status. The admitting/not admitting thing is weird. Any educated company wouldn't judge and the only people that do are generally the weebs and retards who don't know anything about anime but feel the need to make stupid comments.

If one wants to actually delve into the medium, it's pretty difficult to find communities for that, as most are populated by people one would rather avoid.

Anime that isn’t constantly horny is extremely difficult to find and has only gotten worse over time as practices have become increasingly exploitative. The current web novel adaptation over-saturation is absolutely horrible. Rather than producing coherent stories with themes and endings, companies throw unfinished stream-of-consciousness serials at the wall to see what sticks.

There’s a reason why the overwhelming majority of classic manga/anime dates no later than the 2000s, despite the annual output increasing exponentially since then.

The only Japanese media that still produces good stories are VNs, as those are released with a beginning, middle, and ending. Unfortunately the good stories aren’t translated because the cheap trash hentai is what sells so localizers only translate that. The localizers have admitted in interviews that they hate translating hentai and want to translate the actual good stories but can’t because it doesn’t sell enough to justify.

Personally, I had already noped out near the end of the 00s when moe stuff became widespread and the budget for anime was decreasing ever more + CGI awfulness. Then the 10s had borderline hentai as "standard" anime and it stayed at that level with what you said. I've probably watched a dozen anime series of the 10s and none of the current decade.

Absolutely. But at least when it comes to manga, there is still quality left, mostly because it's way cheaper to produce. Unfortunately, most of the interesting stuff won't ever get licensed because who wants to read manga aimed at people aged 40+ in the West? The sad part is that exceptional manga never got an anime adaptation in 80s/90s quality. While something like Blame! is a late 90s/early 00s manga, a late 80s/early 90s anime adaptation for it would have probably been perfect. Instead we got a 2003 web series which is crap, a 2007 OVA which is crap and a 2017 movie which looked so terrible I didn't watch it. It also has very little dialogue which works perfectly fine. When people wonder how some Japanese games do things so well, one way would be to look at their actually good manga to understand why.

Even that has gone downhill. It probably peaked late 90s and early/mid 00s. The "three miracles" (Touhou Project, Tsukihime and Higurashi) of doujin works are also from that time. As for the localizers...they hate their audience, as seen from Discord screenshots etc. Not to mention that the translation quality is often a major issue.

/edit: For people who don't know what Blame! is...well, it's cyberpunk in a special kind of way. This should give you an idea regarding the style.

Spoiler

 

[Bad Sector]

The average person don't look like the twitter weirdos but just because they don't stand out this doesn't mean they don't have variety.

Anything more specific? The people i follow on Twitter (at least those who have a photo) seem normal to me.

That program is bs though, as it ignores a lot of factors like these (which I also immediately thought of):

The "shitty hunter" above also includes physical fitness/ability to outrun game, coordination between hunters, rational and critical thinking in time of crises/something unexpected happening and durability in general. The stepping on sharp rocks -> infection -> death is a good argument too.

You don't need to simulate a society at a molecular level to get some ballpark results for the question the program is trying to answer, you just need an approximation. And in fact what the wall wrote is wrong because a) pregnancy time is taken into account (women stop hunting after the first month of their pregnancy - i used that as a ballpark figure where they figure out they are pregnant) and b) the difference between sexes is also taken into account (women are twice as likely to die during hunt than men). In addition it doesn't simulate the full daily schedule nor it does need to simulate the reason why someone might die (the chance of death is a good enough approximation) or even how the hunt is performed (alone, in small groups or large groups) as the daily circle simulation runs for the entire tribe. These are details that have very low significance for the question of if a tribe where only women hunt would be extinct because they are the childbearers vs a tribe where only men hunt and while they can affect the result somewhat, they wont change to the point where the ballpark answer will be flipped on its head.

 

[ropetight]

There's a hot take I heard regarding anime that I'll paraphrase here.

It's okay to like weeb media because there are actually really good manga/anime. It's not okay to admit it in educated company because the popular stuff is still overwhelmingly garbage.

Amount of garbage in manga/anime is uncomprehensible.
Sturgeon said 90% of everything is garbage; for weeb media it is 99,99%.
Somehow, Japanese publishers managed to be even more exploitative than their western counterparts.
Marvel and DC have nothing on Shueisha, Shogakukan and others; those companies were serving AI generated trash before AI existed.

As soon as you dabble in something other than widely recommended classics, you are in the world of the pain.
All the repetitive, page count, issue milking stuff (30% of every manga is various kinds of flashbacks you can skip and not miss anything important) that are present even in the good series, are now amplified by severe lack of the creativity, imagination and talent.
Never have I experienced such a sharp decline in quality like in the manga/anime/jRPG's.

So I first stopped looking for the new manga and let the unfortunate souls to filter garbage for me.
But most recommendations are also dubious at the best.

Have you noticed amount of the Very Positive and Overwhelmingly Positive jRPG games on Steam?
And tried some of them?
It is like fans of such games have cognitive dissonance that is only comparable to the eroge Visual Novels fans.
It is similar with manga - people praising most of it are like telemarketeers - not only having no taste, but also no shame at all.

There are some really good stuff in the weeb media; but its media footprint is far exaggerated compared to its quality.

 

[Lucumo]

That program is bs though, as it ignores a lot of factors like these (which I also immediately thought of):

The "shitty hunter" above also includes physical fitness/ability to outrun game, coordination between hunters, rational and critical thinking in time of crises/something unexpected happening and durability in general. The stepping on sharp rocks -> infection -> death is a good argument too.

You don't need to simulate a society at a molecular level to get some ballpark results for the question the program is trying to answer, you just need an approximation. And in fact what the wall wrote is wrong because a) pregnancy time is taken into account (women stop hunting after the first month of their pregnancy - i used that as a ballpark figure where they figure out they are pregnant) and b) the difference between sexes is also taken into account (women are twice as likely to die during hunt than men). In addition it doesn't simulate the full daily schedule nor it does need to simulate the reason why someone might die (the chance of death is a good enough approximation) or even how the hunt is performed (alone, in small groups or large groups) as the daily circle simulation runs for the entire tribe. These are details that have very low significance for the question of if a tribe where only women hunt would be extinct because they are the childbearers vs a tribe where only men hunt and while they can affect the result somewhat, they wont change to the point where the ballpark answer will be flipped on its head.

What about the time after the birth? Like he said, women are out of the game for like 2 1/2 years, if not more. The difference between sexes is apparently not taken into account since 1.) successful hunt matters a lot and is different between these two; 2.) your "twice as likely" is dumb because the chance is extremely low at 0.01 and 0.02%. Do you honestly believe that a man dies only every 10000th hunt? I, by no means, would consider myself knowledgeable about the times but I do think I possess some common sense at least. As was mentioned, death via infection wouldn't be exactly uncommon and chasing or hunting game poses a lot of risks in general. What about women being less and less likely to get pregnant the older they get? How come life expectancy is that high? Same with child mortality being that low. It's almost at medieval times levels. And, of course, it also matters a lot where the tribe actually lives. Africa? Somewhere North with a lot of snow? Places which could be considered "easy mode"?

There's a hot take I heard regarding anime that I'll paraphrase here.

It's okay to like weeb media because there are actually really good manga/anime. It's not okay to admit it in educated company because the popular stuff is still overwhelmingly garbage.

But most recommendations are also dubious at the best.

Have you noticed amount of the Very Positive and Overwhelmingly Positive jRPG games on Steam?
And tried some of them?
It is like fans of such games have cognitive dissonance that is only comparable to the eroge Visual Novels fans.
It is similar with manga - people praising most of it are like telemarketeers - not only having no taste, but also no shame at all.

It ties into this:

If one wants to actually delve into the medium, it's pretty difficult to find communities for that, as most are populated by people one would rather avoid.

Close to 20 years ago, the bad kind of "fans" one would find were the ones that said that Naruto is the best anime ever. But with the explosion of moe, it became much worse. While so-called "Narutards" were basically always in their teens or early 20s, moe fans could be in their 30s, 40s or older. And with the continued degeneration of the medium, so continued the downward trend with the fans. I remember stumbling upon a Twitch channel where one guy in his 40s lived with his parents, didn't have much hair and called his chat members "cute". And that person had like a thousand viewers...
And then even apart from the kiddies and the degenerates, you have the female brigade who slurp up everything shounen-ai/yaoi who basically aren't any better. One of the main issues is that in general forums, anime is always put in a single, big thread. And those threads are always dominated by the worst kind of fans aka the ones with the most time (kids or basement dwellers) and the most vocal opinions. It also tilts heavily towards current releases which, as we have established, is basically all garbage (so even if you remove the three large awful groups, you still have what is basically the equivalent to average joe cinema-goer). Also, something like MyAnimeList you may as well forget entirely.

/edit: I should add that the degenerate part of anime (and manga, VNs too) attracts mentally ill people and they probably come close to furries, in terms of how bad it is.

 

[luj1]

Amount of garbage in manga/anime is uncomprehensible.
Sturgeon said 90% of everything is garbage; for weeb media it is 99,99%.

Еxactly

15+ years ago I gave anime a try. Only a dozen works are worthwhile.

Basically comes down to the late 80s (Wicked City, Akira, Vampire Hunter D) and early 90s stuff (Ninja Scroll, Ghost in the Shell). These are the best of the best.

The late 80s were probably the golden age of Japanese animation.

There was a small wave of decent semihistorical works in the late 00s. Such as Basilisk, Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto and Hakuoki Shinsengumi Kitan. But I love history and am a sucker for the Koga-Iga war, Bakumatsu and shinsenigumi in general, and Futaro Yamada's and Miayamoto Musashi's books.

I think the only *consistently* good anime is stuff made by Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli studio. Because they had produced a masterpiece in every decade.

In my opinion just choose up to 10 anime from the best, watch them and move on.

 

[Bad Sector]

What about the time after the birth? Like he said, women are out of the game for like 2 1/2 years, if not more.

This is not the case as women aren't 24h/day on top of the baby after birth - all you need to see this is consider that women actually do go to work after childbirth. They do need to breastfeed but the baby isn't eating 24h/day and the assumption is that when simulating the case where mothers hunt, the father is doing whatever the mother would do in the opposite setting, including taking care of the baby while the mother is out hunting.

The difference between sexes is apparently not taken into account since 1.) successful hunt matters a lot and is different between these two;

No, successful hunt is outside the scope of the program, the point of the program isn't to simulate the resource management of a tribe but to check if the tribe would go extinct in the case where women would hunt instead of men because women dying during hunting - anything else is completely irrelevant. If a hunt was successful or not does not have anything to do with that. Check the original message i responded to.

2.) your "twice as likely" is dumb because the chance is extremely low at 0.01 and 0.02%. Do you honestly believe that a man dies only every 10000th hunt?

Yes, i do make the assumption that if a man starts hunting at 12yo and hunt every day they will still make it to ~40yo (10000 hunts are ~27 years), otherwise the tribe would go extinct regardless of what women do (and in fact initially, before thinking about it, i had this higher and everyone died before even reaching their 20s).

Also the twice as likely is because men are twice as strong as women, i used that to differentiate between the sexes.

As was mentioned, death via infection wouldn't be exactly uncommon and chasing or hunting game poses a lot of risks in general.

The reason for death isn't relevant, this is not an ecosystem simulation, the only thing that matters is for the purpose of the program (see above) is to calculate if the person died or not during hunting.

What about women being less and less likely to get pregnant the older they get? How come life expectancy is that high?

In general i used best case scenario of a healthy tribe. The maximum birth count takes is already used to limit the number of kids a woman can have, there is no need to make things more complicated - and it wouldn't affect the results in terms of the question the program is meant to answer (adding a decreasing chance for each age group wont be affected by men or women doing hunting).

Life expectancy is high because that is a value i read in an article about life expectancy in hunter gatherer times. FWIW considering this is for some fantasy tribe i assume it'd be around medieval times for rural areas so life expectancy would be around those levels too.

Same with child mortality being that low. It's almost at medieval times levels.

I searched for articles on child mortality during hunter gatherer times and there was a 50% chance of a child below age 5 to die.

In fact the following constant were done from a quick research i did:

• Initial birth count (this is max number of children) - estimated number of children prehistoric people had
• Maximum age - 50 was the most common for people reaching their 20yo in hunter gatherer times
• Maternal mortality - found in some article about pre-modern times
• Child threshold age (i.e. this is used for the child mortality check) - again as mentioned above
• Child birth chance - this is calculated from the yearly chance to have a baby at 25yo

The following are assumptions which to me sound perfectly fine:

• Minimum sex age - this is just an assumption but fits with several ancient cultures
• Minimum hunt age - again assumption that the parents wont let a kid below 12yo to hunt
• Hunt death chance - see above

 

[Lucumo]

Amount of garbage in manga/anime is uncomprehensible.
Sturgeon said 90% of everything is garbage; for weeb media it is 99,99%.

Еxactly

15+ years ago I gave anime a try. Only a dozen works are worthwhile.

Basically comes down to the late 80s (Wicked City, Akira, Vampire Hunter D) and early 90s stuff (Ninja Scroll, Ghost in the Shell). These are the best of the best.

The late 80s were probably the golden age of Japanese animation.

There was a small wave of decent semihistorical works in the late 00s. Such as Basilisk, Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto and Hakuoki Shinsengumi Kitan. But I love history and am a sucker for the Koga-Iga war, Bakumatsu and shinsenigumi in general, and Futaro Yamada's and Miayamoto Musashi's books.

I think the only *consistently* good anime is stuff made by Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli studio. Because they had produced a masterpiece in every decade.

In my opinion just choose up to 10 anime from the best, watch them and move on.

"A try". How many anime did you watch?

Vampire Hunter D is mid 80s though, Ghost in the Shell mid 90s and Basilisk and Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto mid 00s while Shinsengumi Kitan is early 10s. That being said, I disagree with you. Akira and Ghost in the Shell are indeed very good but Ninja Scroll is just enjoyable if you want to turn your brain off and eat popcorn. For some reason, you also only mentioned well-known stuff...and all are movies too.

Basilisk I rather liked, although I watched it in my early internet phase, so my rating from back then might not be as representative anymore. Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto was ok-ish/decent while Hakuoki Shinsengumi Kitan is from a time when I already stopped watching current stuff...and it's also shoujo aka for girls.

I agree in the sense that Ghibli made at least a very good movie every decade but they also made some more "meh" ones, even with Miyazaki involved.

Have you, for instance, watched Gankutsuou/The Count of Monte Cristo? It's also from the mid 00s and I liked it back in the day. Unfortunately, I only read the novel afterwards, so I couldn't compare. (And I only ever very rarely re-watch anything.)

What about the time after the birth? Like he said, women are out of the game for like 2 1/2 years, if not more.

This is not the case as women aren't 24h/day on top of the baby after birth - all you need to see this is consider that women actually do go to work after childbirth. They do need to breastfeed but the baby isn't eating 24h/day and the assumption is that when simulating the case where mothers hunt, the father is doing whatever the mother would do in the opposite setting, including taking care of the baby while the mother is out hunting.

The difference between sexes is apparently not taken into account since 1.) successful hunt matters a lot and is different between these two;

No, successful hunt is outside the scope of the program, the point of the program isn't to simulate the resource management of a tribe but to check if the tribe would go extinct in the case where women would hunt instead of men because women dying during hunting - anything else is completely irrelevant. If a hunt was successful or not does not have anything to do with that. Check the original message i responded to.

2.) your "twice as likely" is dumb because the chance is extremely low at 0.01 and 0.02%. Do you honestly believe that a man dies only every 10000th hunt?

Yes, i do make the assumption that if a man starts hunting at 12yo and hunt every day they will still make it to ~40yo (10000 hunts are ~27 years), otherwise the tribe would go extinct regardless of what women do (and in fact initially, before thinking about it, i had this higher and everyone died before even reaching their 20s).

Also the twice as likely is because men are twice as strong as women, i used that to differentiate between the sexes.

As was mentioned, death via infection wouldn't be exactly uncommon and chasing or hunting game poses a lot of risks in general.

The reason for death isn't relevant, this is not an ecosystem simulation, the only thing that matters is for the purpose of the program (see above) is to calculate if the person died or not during hunting.

What about women being less and less likely to get pregnant the older they get? How come life expectancy is that high?

In general i used best case scenario of a healthy tribe. The maximum birth count takes is already used to limit the number of kids a woman can have, there is no need to make things more complicated - and it wouldn't affect the results in terms of the question the program is meant to answer (adding a decreasing chance for each age group wont be affected by men or women doing hunting).

Life expectancy is high because that is a value i read in an article about life expectancy in hunter gatherer times. FWIW considering this is for some fantasy tribe i assume it'd be around medieval times for rural areas so life expectancy would be around those levels too.

Same with child mortality being that low. It's almost at medieval times levels.

I searched for articles on child mortality during hunter gatherer times and there was a 50% chance of a child below age 5 to die.

In fact the following constant were done from a quick research i did:

• Initial birth count (this is max number of children) - estimated number of children prehistoric people had
• Maximum age - 50 was the most common for people reaching their 20yo in hunter gatherer times
• Maternal mortality - found in some article about pre-modern times
• Child threshold age (i.e. this is used for the child mortality check) - again as mentioned above
• Child birth chance - this is calculated from the yearly chance to have a baby at 25yo

The following are assumptions which to me sound perfectly fine:

• Minimum sex age - this is just an assumption but fits with several ancient cultures
• Minimum hunt age - again assumption that the parents wont let a kid below 12yo to hunt
• Hunt death chance - see above

Are you really comparing ancient women to current ones? That doesn't exactly work...not to mention that women very often take a "baby year" off, as they need to be on top 24h a day. It's eating the equivalent of that, so you need to be prepared at all times. And it's not like you can just go off for 30 minutes, as a hunt takes way longer than that.

Right, so a successful hunt to feed the tribe and to avoid starvation has nothing to do with a tribe not doing badly or going extinct. Got it. Men hunted because men were much better suited for it (and as such had a higher rate of success). Failure could mean the death of members of the tribe. Why do you think mankind started farming and domesticating animals?

So you basically chose an arbitrary number to make it work?
And you simply used strength for the difference? Do you not...maybe see a problem with that?

It matters in the sense that you simply used "strength".

Even if it's a "fantasy tribe", how can you compare it to medieval times rural area? It's completely different.

Wait wait wait, so you left out deaths from 5-10 and from 10-end of childhood? No wonder it's that low. So you would need to actually, probably add at least another 25% to that in total. And the maximum age of 50 is for people becoming 20yo at least but despite of that, you chose 5yo because you simply ignored the child deaths after that? As for the hunting age, 15-16 seems more realistic to be honest. You wouldn't take a kid with you, it's much slower than an adult. (You also wouldn't take a girl/woman with you, because they are much slower than boys/men.)

 

[Bad Sector]

Are you really comparing ancient women to current ones? That doesn't exactly work...

Of course it works, why exactly wouldn't it work? They are not different species.

not to mention that women very often take a "baby year" off, as they need to be on top 24h a day.

Yes some women who are in a position to do that do take time off, but many do not. My sister for example had childbirth and she barely took any time off work, which actually due to her work took more than 8h per day. Her husband was in a position to take a longer time off work and took care of the baby while my sister was at work.

It's eating the equivalent of that, so you need to be prepared at all times. And it's not like you can just go off for 30 minutes, as a hunt takes way longer than that.

Yes, but baby does need the mother and the mother alone around for (24h-30m) around. Strictly speaking the mother is only needed to breastfeed the baby, beyond that it can be taken care by the father - and i'd expect in medieval-like villages where the sense of community is stronger, others would help take care of the baby too.

Right, so a successful hunt to feed the tribe and to avoid starvation has nothing to do with a tribe not doing badly or going extinct. Got it.

No, the success of a hunt has nothing to do with the original question. Read the quote in the original message. The problem posed wasn't if a woman or man succeeds more often than not (and i have zero reasons to believe that there'd be much of a difference in practice, both men and women hunted, they needed to and if a culture had women hunt then it'd make sense that they'd actually be good at it). The problem posed was about women, who were able to give childbirths, dying during hunt. That is all. Nothing else. And this is why the program simulates sex and childbirth but it doesn't care about resource management - this are irrelevant to the problem.

And BTW, it is completely illogical that in a tribe where only men or only women hunted and that tribe was in a situation to starve, the other sex would just sit on their thumbs doing nothing while the other does all the work: this is an extreme case where the society already has failed. The program doesn't start from extreme cases nor cares about them, it starts from a functioning society and assumes the society stays functional (if it turns out the parameters are wrong and the society wouldn't function like that, the population would die - but people in reality would change their ways much sooner before reaching that point).

Men hunted because men were much better suited for it (and as such had a higher rate of success). Failure could mean the death of members of the tribe. Why do you think mankind started farming and domesticating animals?

These have nothing to do with what my original reply was about and what the program i wrote tried to answer though. Why men hunted instead of women, what would happen in case of failure, why farming started, etc, are all outside of the scope, the program didn't try to answer questions about why societies were formed the way they were formed (and i'm 100% sure there isn't a simple answer to any of those regardless of what modern biases and assumptions we might have), it isn't a society simulator.

I wrote the program to check if the original assumption RatTower wrote would make sense in practice in some theoretical tribe. To think it in a different way, imagine someone saying getting shot increased your chances to die and i wrote a program where a population had a chance to get shot and a chance to die per shot and then made some graphs about those - the program wouldn't be about why someone would shoot someone else, it wouldn't be about in which country these people would live, it wouldn't be about which sex they were, or what their income would be, what clothes they had, if it was night or day, what was police doing during all this or try to solve the logistics of aquiring guns and ammunition for all these shots.

It would be about confirming or not of the question "do you have a higher chance of dying by being shot?". Nothing else.

That is the nature of the question the program i wrote tried to confirm or not too. Nothing else.

So you basically chose an arbitrary number to make it work?

The numbers i chose arbitrarily and weren't sourced from some article were numbers i found plausible.

And you simply used strength for the difference? Do you not...maybe see a problem with that?

It matters in the sense that you simply used "strength".

Even if it's a "fantasy tribe", how can you compare it to medieval times rural area? It's completely different.

How is it "completely different" when there is no actual reference to have? It could be a fantasy tribe that is exactly the same. At this point you are making arrguments just for the sake of having an argument.

Wait wait wait, so you left out deaths from 5-10 and from 10-end of childhood? No wonder it's that low. So you would need to actually, probably add at least another 25% to that in total. And the maximum age of 50 is for people becoming 20yo at least but despite of that, you chose 5yo because you simply ignored the child deaths after that? As for the hunting age, 15-16 seems more realistic to be honest. You wouldn't take a kid with you, it's much slower than an adult. (You also wouldn't take a girl/woman with you, because they are much slower than boys/men.)

None of that would make a difference and honestly again you are trying to make arguments for the sake of making arguments. 75% chance of child mortality? Are you now just coming up with stuff? These are numbers i did look up, i didn't came them with myself.

This is pointless, you just want to argue the program is wrong regardless of what i write and this is a waste of time.

Here, i changed the program so that a woman can only have up to 3 children, people can only hunt from 15 years old, women will not hunt for two years after birth and above all women have a 1% chance to die whereas men are immortal during hunting, nothing can harm them. Population does take a nosedive and fluctuates much more as you can see, but still the relative shapes are similar:

I wont bother with this anymore though, if none of the above convince you the original assumption the program tried to check (check the original reply, pay attention to each word carefully) at the very least wasn't as certain as assumed, then nothing will. I on the other hand tried to write a program and look things up to check for myself and come to an educated conclusion instead of assuming whatever i first thought was the correct answer. I recommend trying that yourself.

 

[Falksi]

Amount of garbage in manga/anime is uncomprehensible.
Sturgeon said 90% of everything is garbage; for weeb media it is 99,99%.

Еxactly

15+ years ago I gave anime a try. Only a dozen works are worthwhile.

Basically comes down to the late 80s (Wicked City, Akira, Vampire Hunter D) and early 90s stuff (Ninja Scroll, Ghost in the Shell). These are the best of the best.

The late 80s were probably the golden age of Japanese animation.

There was a small wave of decent semihistorical works in the late 00s. Such as Basilisk, Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto and Hakuoki Shinsengumi Kitan. But I love history and am a sucker for the Koga-Iga war, Bakumatsu and shinsenigumi in general, and Futaro Yamada's and Miayamoto Musashi's books.

I think the only *consistently* good anime is stuff made by Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli studio. Because they had produced a masterpiece in every decade.

In my opinion just choose up to 10 anime from the best, watch them and move on.

This is bang on, and you literally cite the exact 5 examples to watch which I would. I'd also chuck Urotsukidoji 1 & 2 in there just for the shock factor

I'm interested to know what your other choices would be to make up that dozen?

 

[Reinhardt]

Have you noticed amount of the Very Positive and Overwhelmingly Positive jRPG games on Steam?

compared to modern western games they are. in the land of -12323423/10 trannies 3/10 trap is da kween.

 

[NecroLord]

There's a hot take I heard regarding anime that I'll paraphrase here.

It's okay to like weeb media because there are actually really good manga/anime. It's not okay to admit it in educated company because the popular stuff is still overwhelmingly garbage.

Amount of garbage in manga/anime is uncomprehensible.
Sturgeon said 90% of everything is garbage; for weeb media it is 99,99%.
Somehow, Japanese publishers managed to be even more exploitative than their western counterparts.
Marvel and DC have nothing on Shueisha, Shogakukan and others; those companies were serving AI generated trash before AI existed.

As soon as you dabble in something other than widely recommended classics, you are in the world of the pain.
All the repetitive, page count, issue milking stuff (30% of every manga is various kinds of flashbacks you can skip and not miss anything important) that are present even in the good series, are now amplified by severe lack of the creativity, imagination and talent.
Never have I experienced such a sharp decline in quality like in the manga/anime/jRPG's.

So I first stopped looking for the new manga and let the unfortunate souls to filter garbage for me.
But most recommendations are also dubious at the best.

Have you noticed amount of the Very Positive and Overwhelmingly Positive jRPG games on Steam?
And tried some of them?
It is like fans of such games have cognitive dissonance that is only comparable to the eroge Visual Novels fans.
It is similar with manga - people praising most of it are like telemarketeers - not only having no taste, but also no shame at all.

There are some really good stuff in the weeb media; but its media footprint is far exaggerated compared to its quality.

Without excessively praising jrpgs, the japanese literally put more whites in their games than western devs do at the moment...

 

[Reinhardt]

There's a hot take I heard regarding anime that I'll paraphrase here.

It's okay to like weeb media because there are actually really good manga/anime. It's not okay to admit it in educated company because the popular stuff is still overwhelmingly garbage.

Amount of garbage in manga/anime is uncomprehensible.
Sturgeon said 90% of everything is garbage; for weeb media it is 99,99%.
Somehow, Japanese publishers managed to be even more exploitative than their western counterparts.
Marvel and DC have nothing on Shueisha, Shogakukan and others; those companies were serving AI generated trash before AI existed.

As soon as you dabble in something other than widely recommended classics, you are in the world of the pain.
All the repetitive, page count, issue milking stuff (30% of every manga is various kinds of flashbacks you can skip and not miss anything important) that are present even in the good series, are now amplified by severe lack of the creativity, imagination and talent.
Never have I experienced such a sharp decline in quality like in the manga/anime/jRPG's.

So I first stopped looking for the new manga and let the unfortunate souls to filter garbage for me.
But most recommendations are also dubious at the best.

Have you noticed amount of the Very Positive and Overwhelmingly Positive jRPG games on Steam?
And tried some of them?
It is like fans of such games have cognitive dissonance that is only comparable to the eroge Visual Novels fans.
It is similar with manga - people praising most of it are like telemarketeers - not only having no taste, but also no shame at all.

There are some really good stuff in the weeb media; but its media footprint is far exaggerated compared to its quality.

Without excessively praising jrpgs, the japanese literally put more whites in their games than western devs do at the moment...

they literally went full vavra in latest ff, to the point of all journos screeching "where are all blakpipo?!" "y u make gaem about slavery bad without blakpipo?!" and japanese guy answering "because the world inspired by medieval europe"

 

[NecroLord]

and japanese guy answering "because the world inspired by medieval europe"

GigaChad move.

 

[garren]

and japanese guy answering "because the world inspired by medieval europe"

GigaChad move.

Diplomatic answer to shut them up. Japs in general wouldn't make games with dark people anyway, other than maybe a few token ones as side NPCs.

 

[Reinhardt]

usually their "dark people" are just white people in brownface.

 

[luj1]

Еxactly

15+ years ago I gave anime a try. Only a dozen works are worthwhile.

Basically comes down to the late 80s (Wicked City, Akira, Vampire Hunter D) and early 90s stuff (Ninja Scroll, Ghost in the Shell). These are the best of the best.

The late 80s were probably the golden age of Japanese animation.

There was a small wave of decent semihistorical works in the late 00s. Such as Basilisk, Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto and Hakuoki Shinsengumi Kitan. But I love history and am a sucker for the Koga-Iga war, Bakumatsu and shinsenigumi in general, and Futaro Yamada's and Miayamoto Musashi's books.

I think the only *consistently* good anime is stuff made by Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli studio. Because they had produced a masterpiece in every decade.

In my opinion just choose up to 10 anime from the best, watch them and move on.

"A try". How many anime did you watch?

Idk man, I watched a lot of shows too

Off the top of my head.. Bleach, Gantz, Record of Lodoss War, Berserk, Full Metal Alchemist, Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs, Bosco Adventure, Dragon Ball, Cowboy Bepop, Triton, Attack on Titan, Naruto, Death Note, Samurai Champloo, Samurai 7, Rurouni Kenshin, Hellsing, Blood+, .hack//Sign, X, Afro Samurai, Appleseed and I'm probably forgetting some

 

[luj1]

Akira and Ghost in the Shell are indeed very good but Ninja Scroll is just enjoyable if you want to turn your brain off

Well Idk what you mean... In anime I foremostly look for good animation. Ninja Scroll is one of the best.

Basilisk I rather liked, although I watched it in my early internet phase, so my rating from back then might not be as representative anymore.

It's a very underrated anime. There is a manga "sequel" (sort of) called Yaguy Ninja Scrolls. Similar story but still no adaption. I just like anything based on Futaro Yamada's books

Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto was ok-ish/decent

It's mostly for history buffs, and a little slow. But animation was excellent

while Hakuoki Shinsengumi Kitan is from a time when I already stopped watching current stuff...and it's also shoujo aka for girls.

Didn't know that. Looked suspicious

Have you, for instance, watched Gankutsuou/The Count of Monte Cristo? It's also from the mid 00s and I liked it back in the day. Unfortunately, I only read the novel afterwards, so I couldn't compare. (And I only ever very rarely re-watch anything.)

Nope. I guess it should be good if based on the book

 

[luj1]

Idk how can you say this isnt good or for "turning your brain off"

storyboarding, editing, all excellent. it's basically cinema principles

 

[Lucumo]

Are you really comparing ancient women to current ones? That doesn't exactly work...

Of course it works, why exactly wouldn't it work? They are not different species.

not to mention that women very often take a "baby year" off, as they need to be on top 24h a day.

Yes some women who are in a position to do that do take time off, but many do not. My sister for example had childbirth and she barely took any time off work, which actually due to her work took more than 8h per day. Her husband was in a position to take a longer time off work and took care of the baby while my sister was at work.

It's eating the equivalent of that, so you need to be prepared at all times. And it's not like you can just go off for 30 minutes, as a hunt takes way longer than that.

Yes, but baby does need the mother and the mother alone around for (24h-30m) around. Strictly speaking the mother is only needed to breastfeed the baby, beyond that it can be taken care by the father - and i'd expect in medieval-like villages where the sense of community is stronger, others would help take care of the baby too.

Right, so a successful hunt to feed the tribe and to avoid starvation has nothing to do with a tribe not doing badly or going extinct. Got it.

No, the success of a hunt has nothing to do with the original question. Read the quote in the original message. The problem posed wasn't if a woman or man succeeds more often than not (and i have zero reasons to believe that there'd be much of a difference in practice, both men and women hunted, they needed to and if a culture had women hunt then it'd make sense that they'd actually be good at it). The problem posed was about women, who were able to give childbirths, dying during hunt. That is all. Nothing else. And this is why the program simulates sex and childbirth but it doesn't care about resource management - this are irrelevant to the problem.

And BTW, it is completely illogical that in a tribe where only men or only women hunted and that tribe was in a situation to starve, the other sex would just sit on their thumbs doing nothing while the other does all the work: this is an extreme case where the society already has failed. The program doesn't start from extreme cases nor cares about them, it starts from a functioning society and assumes the society stays functional (if it turns out the parameters are wrong and the society wouldn't function like that, the population would die - but people in reality would change their ways much sooner before reaching that point).

Men hunted because men were much better suited for it (and as such had a higher rate of success). Failure could mean the death of members of the tribe. Why do you think mankind started farming and domesticating animals?

These have nothing to do with what my original reply was about and what the program i wrote tried to answer though. Why men hunted instead of women, what would happen in case of failure, why farming started, etc, are all outside of the scope, the program didn't try to answer questions about why societies were formed the way they were formed (and i'm 100% sure there isn't a simple answer to any of those regardless of what modern biases and assumptions we might have), it isn't a society simulator.

I wrote the program to check if the original assumption RatTower wrote would make sense in practice in some theoretical tribe. To think it in a different way, imagine someone saying getting shot increased your chances to die and i wrote a program where a population had a chance to get shot and a chance to die per shot and then made some graphs about those - the program wouldn't be about why someone would shoot someone else, it wouldn't be about in which country these people would live, it wouldn't be about which sex they were, or what their income would be, what clothes they had, if it was night or day, what was police doing during all this or try to solve the logistics of aquiring guns and ammunition for all these shots.

It would be about confirming or not of the question "do you have a higher chance of dying by being shot?". Nothing else.

That is the nature of the question the program i wrote tried to confirm or not too. Nothing else.

So you basically chose an arbitrary number to make it work?

The numbers i chose arbitrarily and weren't sourced from some article were numbers i found plausible.

And you simply used strength for the difference? Do you not...maybe see a problem with that?

It matters in the sense that you simply used "strength".

Even if it's a "fantasy tribe", how can you compare it to medieval times rural area? It's completely different.

How is it "completely different" when there is no actual reference to have? It could be a fantasy tribe that is exactly the same. At this point you are making arrguments just for the sake of having an argument.

Wait wait wait, so you left out deaths from 5-10 and from 10-end of childhood? No wonder it's that low. So you would need to actually, probably add at least another 25% to that in total. And the maximum age of 50 is for people becoming 20yo at least but despite of that, you chose 5yo because you simply ignored the child deaths after that? As for the hunting age, 15-16 seems more realistic to be honest. You wouldn't take a kid with you, it's much slower than an adult. (You also wouldn't take a girl/woman with you, because they are much slower than boys/men.)

None of that would make a difference and honestly again you are trying to make arguments for the sake of making arguments. 75% chance of child mortality? Are you now just coming up with stuff? These are numbers i did look up, i didn't came them with myself.

This is pointless, you just want to argue the program is wrong regardless of what i write and this is a waste of time.

Here, i changed the program so that a woman can only have up to 3 children, people can only hunt from 15 years old, women will not hunt for two years after birth and above all women have a 1% chance to die whereas men are immortal during hunting, nothing can harm them. Population does take a nosedive and fluctuates much more as you can see, but still the relative shapes are similar:

I wont bother with this anymore though, if none of the above convince you the original assumption the program tried to check (check the original reply, pay attention to each word carefully) at the very least wasn't as certain as assumed, then nothing will. I on the other hand tried to write a program and look things up to check for myself and come to an educated conclusion instead of assuming whatever i first thought was the correct answer. I recommend trying that yourself.

*bashes head against wall* So your sister's husband fed their baby his/her breast milk? Or...you kow, maybe he didn't do that and used things which weren't available 20000/30000/40000/50000/+ years ago? Not to mention there is a vast difference between instinct and knowledge back then compared to now.

Strictly speaking, the baby doesn't need the mother around at all, just any woman who can breastfeed can do. But that's not how it works in reality. You also can't just dump the kid on a bed that doesn't exist. And, depending on where the tribe lives, sharing of warmth is also of extreme importance. And all that aside, "medieval-like villages" and hunter & gatherers don't work. With those kind of villages, they would be farmers.

The original argument was about childbirth, the social component, death by hunting and a mention of where it occurs...as well as giving two scenarios which you ignored and changed. An example of that was not sending women to hunt. Anyway, let's put all that aside and focus on what was written:

I encountered a funny example of this yesterday. I read a race description in the character creator of a relatively popular modern RPG. I'm not gonna name names, but the gist of it was this:

There is a tribal race in this fantasy setting that lives in boreal regions.
It is specifically stated that the main hunters of this tribe are women.

Now, of course, I can already hear the social media space bemoan my terribly chauvinist criticism: How dare I make an issue out of such a wonderful and fresh idea?
Well, the reason is that it's complete rubbish. Tribal societies do not send out their childbearing population to fight wild animals.
To anyone with a fleeting interest in ancient history, it should be very obvious why:
A tribe of a hundred men and ten women probably dies within one generation.
A tribe of a hundred women and ten men can theoretically recover and thrive during the same time.
You cannot risk losing women in a small society. In fact, even a slight surplus of men can cause a lot of trouble. But let's not even go that far (if you are interested, see China's current Sex-ratio imbalance).

So, you have a tribe living in boreal regions (Alaska, Canada, Norway, Northern Sweden, Finland, etc). Needless to say, the warmth thing I mentioned above would be extremely important. And that's even apart from whether the tribe is pre-fire or post-fire (pre-fire is basically guaranteed death). So the woman would have the child on her at all times basically, for breastfeeding and warmth. Gathering wouldn't be much of an option and hunting wild animals in really cold weather is what sustains the tribe. Needless to say, women are more suscpetible to the cold, less sturdy, less athletic, are less adept at coordination etc etc. A successful hunt is a matter of life and death. For a tribe in that region, women hunting would mean that the tribe starves. Men hunting increases the survival chances vastly but even that wouldn't be safe. Good luck having to hunt boars, wolves and bears. Obviously, strength matters a lot. After all, it's directly related to how fast an animal dies and if it dies at all. You need to actually penetrate the animal by trusting or throwing. So bigger and stronger = big advantage. Considering the region, the child death rate would also be increased yet again.
As for his examples, both tribes would likely downsize a lot. The men tribe would be able to feed the women and themselves but you would have limited new members of the tribe due to limited amount of women as well as child death rate. The men would eventually die of old age and the tribe would be more equal regarding the sexes. In the women tribe, most women would starve (oldest ones first), as the small amount of men wouldn't be nearly enough to support the large amount of women. Even women as strictly "support" wouldn't help. It's also likely the tribe dies completely due to some of the men dying during hunt and there not being any boys/children at the beginning. So ten men would basically have to carry the tribe for ~16 years which seems unlikely. If the tribe survives, it would also equalize.
As for the imbalance in regards to the social factor, that would obviously also lead to problems. So in that sense, losing a woman when women are already very limited, it's bad.

Probably because basically everything is different between hunter & gatherer tribe/society and medieval rural life? Housing is a large one, social is a large one, knowledge is a large one. First and third point have a direct impact on life expectancy.

Again, what about the death rate from 5-10 and 10-end of childhood? You didn't address that point. The 25% come from deaths aged 5-end of childhood at later eras with some added percentages, unless you want to argue that child death rate increased (or stayed the same) over eras, despite solid housing which actually protects one from the weather, a more stable supply of food, more varied food, medical knowledge spreading etc. And let's not forget that in this specific instance (boreal climate), the death rate would be even higher.

Oh, I absolutely don't argue that your program is "wrong". It's right in the sense that it displays exactly what you want to display. I also don't argue for the sake of arguing (because then I wouldn't bother). It's more about my indignation at what you take into account and then going "ha, as I expected", despite it being the historical equivalent of looking at a certain year in the past and feeding the raw data into some program, completely ignoring all historical context (something which happens all the time) as well as a desire to do things "properly" and not "half-assed". From my point of view, that is often an ignorant but sometimes even disingenuous (especially when it comes to history) habit.
So while your program does what it's supposed to do, it leaves out very relevant factors which do matter in what the original poster wrote. It's like calculating the time an object needs to travel from point A to point B, thrown by a human while completely ignoring the weather and the person who actually throws the object as well as the object itself. It's an exercise in math, despite the original post having a lot of context.

 

[Lucumo]

Idk man, I watched a lot of shows too

Off the top of my head.. Bleach, Gantz, Record of Lodoss War, Berserk, Full Metal Alchemist, Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs, Bosco Adventure, Dragon Ball, Cowboy Bepop, Triton, Attack on Titan, Naruto, Death Note, Samurai Champloo, Samurai 7, Rurouni Kenshin, Hellsing, Blood+, .hack//Sign, X, Afro Samurai, Appleseed and I'm probably forgetting some

That's...very (not to say extremely) little though. I have seen all of those, except for Bosco Adventure, Triton, Attack on Titan and Afro Samurai.

Akira and Ghost in the Shell are indeed very good but Ninja Scroll is just enjoyable if you want to turn your brain off

Well Idk what you mean... In anime I foremostly look for good animation. Ninja Scroll is one of the best.

Basilisk I rather liked, although I watched it in my early internet phase, so my rating from back then might not be as representative anymore.

It's a very underrated anime. There is a manga "sequel" (sort of) called Yaguy Ninja Scrolls. Similar story but still no adaption. I just like anything based on Futaro Yamada's books

Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto was ok-ish/decent

It's mostly for history buffs, and a little slow. But animation was excellent

while Hakuoki Shinsengumi Kitan is from a time when I already stopped watching current stuff...and it's also shoujo aka for girls.

Didn't know that. Looked suspicious

Have you, for instance, watched Gankutsuou/The Count of Monte Cristo? It's also from the mid 00s and I liked it back in the day. Unfortunately, I only read the novel afterwards, so I couldn't compare. (And I only ever very rarely re-watch anything.)

Nope. I guess it should be good if based on the book

I agree with that. But animation is obviously not everything and while I very, very much like good animation, I can definitely live without it.

Is it? From what I see, it's a mostly adequately rated anime.

Oh, I very much like and have an interest in history (among a mass of other topics) and, unlike a lot of other people who watch anime, I don't mind it being slow at all...and you can even say that I prefer slow build-ups and good characterization. So you will never hear from me that an anime is slow, ever. I rated it 6/10 which means what I wrote above (note that most of the anime I rate are at 5 or 6, as, unlike most everyone else, I don't overrate everything; so there is no rating inflation here....it's just a shame I use a scale from 1-10 instead of 1-100 which becomes a lot more appropriate the more you watch). Anyway, I rated it that way, despite my decent knowledge of Japanese history but unfortunately I couldn't tell you why, as I watched it probably like 12-13 years ago.

Hehe.

Eh, book adaptations and all... I rated it 8/10 back in the day as a standalone work. If one knows the book, expectation and a comparison could probably swing a score in one direction or the other.

Idk how can you say this isnt good or for "turning your brain off"

storyboarding, editing, design, all excellent. it's basically cinema

Whatever media you posted doesn't load in any of my browsers. And I didn't say it's not good (I rated it 7/10). I said it's popcorn cinema and nothing that gets your brain going like Ghost in the Shell.

This is bang on, and you literally cite the exact 5 examples to watch which I would. I'd also chuck Urotsukidoji 1 & 2 in there just for the shock factor

I'm interested to know what your other choices would be to make up that dozen?

So for a point of reference then: How many anime have you watched?

 

[luj1]

That's...very (not to say extremely) little though.

Still it covers the best of the 80s, the 90s and most of the 00s

Which brings us back to our original premise that most anime isn't good

 

[Lucumo]

That's...very (not to say extremely) little though.

Still it covers the best of the 80s, the 90s and most of the 00s

Which brings us back to our original premise that most anime isn't good

My question to you then: How do you know it "covers the best" etc when you have barely watched anything? From how I see it, it looks like it's basically only stuff that was dubbed and shown on TV or sold on VHS/DVD, except for some anime mentioned from the 00s and early 10s.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Oh, I absolutely don't argue that your program is "wrong". It's right in the sense that it displays exactly what you want to display. I also don't argue for the sake of arguing (because then I wouldn't bother). It's more about my indignation at what you take into account and then going "ha, as I expected",

So basically you're mad that his simulation delivered results that don't support your view and think the model needs to be revised until it supports what you "knew" from the outset.

You could've saved a lot of wear on your keyboard if you would've just said that.