Cognitive Dissonance and You

Feeling as Gleeful as I want to be? Think that we're looking at a whole new era? 

Think again.

The sad thing is, rather than realize their errors, owning up to them and moving forward, many of Camping's followers will, due to the dissonance they will experience (cognitively), actually strengthen their resolve and adherence to their ideology.

Especially those who made public proclamations, as it has been shown that a public statement of belief lessens the willingness to retract said belief/heightens the threshold for evidenciary based retraction. 

So, as much as we may be laughing and in our heart of hearts hoping that this will finally be the catalyst to a more rational future....it's not going to happen :(

Irrationality Takes a Hit AND Three Big (at least to me) Scientific Discoveries Reported On Reality Day

Irrationality Takes a Hit AND Three Big (at least to me) Scientific Discoveries Reported On Reality Day

May 22^nd, 2011 is a special date. Anyone reading this likely knows why, so I'll spare you the elongated diatribe and say yay for Reality Day and down with paranoid ignorance, irrationality, fear mongering and pseudoscience. See, not only were the christians wrong (again) (and yes, it was specific sects, not all of them, I know) about the rapture, end of the world, yadayada, but on this awesome day known as Reality Day (as in, you're still here, welcome to reality, pal) science offers three MORE blows to specific assertions put forth by specific subsets of the religious community. Specifically, I am referring to assertions regarding mammalian brain size, contrarian positions regarding the expansion of the universe and dark energy, and lastly, contrarian positions regarding the idea of complexity arising out of simplicity without the guidance of some sentient intelligence.

So, what were these three reported findings?

RANT: Religion and Masturbation

I recently watched a movie entitled 'Teeth.' The movie (which wasn't very good but I digress), an indie horror with some comedic elements (it mostly failed on both fronts....some of it was amusing, none of it was scary, but again, digressing...), is about a very religious teenage girl who has taken a vow of 'purity' (aka abstinence) and goes around to other schools prattling on to younger kids and other teens about the 'evils' of sex and how it's only right to save your 'gift' until marriage, and blah blah.

The Thoughtful Gamers Interview Xona Games!!

This is an interview with Xona Games, the development studio, manned by two man fraternal team Matthew and Jason Doucette, that brought us games like Decimation X2 and the totally phenomenal Score Rush, which I reviewed here on the thoughtful gamers. Most of the questions were submitted by myself, but my fellow TTG's and GT friends also threw in a few of their own, making this a combined effort. Thanks a lot to all of you, and Matthew from Xona who was nice enough to participate. 

Be sure to keep an eye on Xona Games in the coming months, as they set to take the world by storm with their awesome looking Duality ZF, which strikes me as being the culmination of two brothers' dreams and hard work. 

Let's begin!

Gaming Conventions That Need to Go! Pt. 2

1) Ammo pickups.........who's leaving all this ammo behind? Hell, Robocop for xbox (HORRIBLE GAME) had ammo pickups....yet his gun is the only one of its kind in existence!

2) Nonsensical Puzzles: Hey, I'm a diabolical bad guy, and I'm being chased by the hero......what to do, what to do.....OH, I KNOW!!!! I'll hide this key to the door in a magical box that can only be opened when you put this picture that's been broken into 9 pieces back together. That'll slow him down! Of course, I could just hide/destroy the key...

Mass Effect 3 Dumbed Down and Delayed to 2012.

"One of the things that Ray Muzyuka and the team up in Edmonton have done is essentially step-by-step adjust the gameplay mechanics and some of the features that you'll see at E3 to put this in a genre equivalent to shooter-meets-RPG," he said, "and essentially address a much larger market opportunity than Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 began to approach.

"We're huge believers in the IP and are purposefully shifting it to address a larger market opportunity."

As revealed earlier today, the much-anticipated sequel to last year's acclaimed sci-fi epic will now ship out in early 2012, rather than later this year as originally promised."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-04-mass-effect-3-tweaked-for-larger-market

Nice going, Bioware. 

Oh, and btw, Sykoshadow.....I fucking told you so. Suck it, bitch.

Achievements: Earned or Entitled?

Often you'll come across the following type of comments in a discussion about a particular game's achievements/trophies (I'm primarily a 360 gamer, so forgive me if/when I fail to mention trophies when I mention achievements):

Gamer A: “WHAT?!? Beat the game on the hardest difficulty without dying (or any other difficult feat)? What kind of stupid achievement is THAT? How do they expect me to earn that? That's fucking STUPID! Most people won't get that! Why would they make an achievement that's so hard to unlock?"

Gamer B: “Well, shouldn't the people who do that get rewarded for it? I mean, if someone develops the skills/takes the time to do it, why shouldn't they be rewarded? They did something awesome! They actually achieved something.”