Avatar photoSteven Savage

The Inevitable Trump Column

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OK, fine after hearing about Trump repeatedly, I figured I should weigh in because everyone else has and I’m bad and shutting up.

Besides, I have a few observations I figure are worth sharing.

THIS IS HIS NEXT THING: Trump has pretty much committed to politics; he’s defined his brand and burnt many bridges. I may not be sure how wise he is, but I can’t see these decisions being made without some idea of implications.

HE WANTS HIS OWN PARTY: Trump owns things, he puts his name on them, and it’s clear by his occasional flirting with independence he wants to own a political party. If somehow he is pushed out of canidacy you can bet he can take his ball and go elsewhere.

HES GOT ENOUGH SUPPORT TO BUILD ONE: Sure The Party Of Trump may not be big, but he’s got enough support that I think he could easily get a good 10+% vote in a general election. In local elections, a Party of Trump could take some smaller offices. This may not be presidential power, but Trump owning his own party would give him an ego trip for the rest of his life.

THIS IS THE RESULT OF PAST MEDIA INFRASTRUCTURE: The Republicans built their shows and their own network and the like – they built a system meant for epistemic closure. The thing is that anyone who can work the system can walk off with it – and Trump has.

THIS IS THE RESULT OF PAST CHOICES: Trump is exploiting just about every right-wing dog-whistle from the Southern Strategy to fear of Muslims. A lot of past political choices paved the way for this.  This is similar to the media infrastructure being exploited.

THIS IS IN THE OPEN: Now a lot of people are comfortable being openly racist and bigoted. Some politicians and such will continue to exploit this. It has, to some been made acceptable. We’ll probably be putting up with the fallout from this for one to two decades – in the form of crazy policies, open bigotry, and the fight against it.

THIS CAN LEAD TO A DEMOCRATIC SUCCESS: If The Republicans can’t shake Trump and others try to be trump-lite, the Democrats are going to exploit this. They are already, if subtly, but mostly they don’t have to interfere with the brand destruction. If Trump continues to be out there, you can bet he’ll be a successful campaign issue and many Republicans will be Trump Tarred.

THIS CAN LEAD TO REPUBLICAN OPPORTUNITY: At the same time, if the Republican party wants to purge themselves of the rather bigoted baggage that was cultivated, this would be a chance. Tossing Trump away and letting his followers go with him, as painful as it is, would draw a distinction. Though it would take time to re-align and recovery, it would be better than a meltdown -and I’m betting some of the old-school politicians and lobbyists would see this as a way to reassert power by jettisoning extremists and having an issue to bring big-money donors to heel (“don’t be a Trump”).

(I doubt the above will happen, but I consider i theoretically possible)
THERE ARE TOO MANY VARIABLES: I give Trump’s chance to get the Republican nomination to be low, under 30% (requiring a kind of interparty meltdown and opportunism). That’s about the ONLY thing I feel comfortable guessing at however – there’s things I can think MAY happen, but the above is about all I can say with any confidence. Trump’s shaken things up.

A BROKERED CONVENTION WILL MEAN A TRUMP THIRD PARTY: If the Republican convention ends up Brokered and Trump doesn’t get the nod? You can bet he will storm out, the publicity that follows will let him easily form his own party, and he’ll go after Republicans first.

Any thoughts?

  • Steve

Steve’s Update 12/6/2015

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Sorry for not being as chatty lately – you know how it goes.  Holidays and all!  So let’s get an update.

  • The Sailor Moon book is now in the process of writing – in fact I’m on to chapter 5 and my co-author is working on chapter 4 this week.  We expect to have the book in editable format end of January.  Then of course there’s the EDITING part . . . still not gonna finish until fall of 2016 I’m afraid.
  • Way With Worlds came back from pre-readers and this month I’m integrating the feedback – THEN it goes to the editor, who gets to work on it for about two months.  That way I take a break and work on a few related things I’m keeping under my hat.
  • My book on Creative Paths is in pre-reading stage and goes to editor soon.  That should be out in January.
  • The Reality Show Generator is something I plan to return to (hopefully this week) so I can get that done!.
  • I need to upload the complete “bookified” Civic Geek book.  It’s ready, I just . . . uh really didn’t get to it.  Sorry.  Between the holidays and trying to enjoy an actual vacation I could have done more.

Whew, guess I’m pretty busy (and sort of glad that everything will be at editor/in editing come March).  Next time, not gonna pile so much on . . .

– Steve

“Will It Be Good” Is The Wrong Question To Ask About “No Man’s Sky”

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Becron5
I’m looking forward to No Man’s Sky, a video game of space exploration.  If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a game a few years in development that promises exploration of a giantic, procedurally-generated galaxy. It sounds like it’s going to hit a lot of my sweet spots with exploration, mystery, procedural generation, and visuals off of a prog rock album cover.  If you’re not up to speed on it, this reddit archive is helpful.

As the game promises a lot, comes from a small team, and has had it’s share of delays, there’s obvious skepticism out there in the world of gaming – at least to judge by the threads, discussions, and so forth that I see.. The question comes again and again – will No Man’s Sky be any good?

That’s actually the wrong question.

Clearly, the game has a lot put into it. Interviews with the developers and demonstrations show a serious dedication to the project. There are videos discussing the procedural generation that seem to show that, yes, this giant universe can be made. The idea of wedding modern graphics and procedural generation together to make huge, infinite worlds doesn’t sounds particularly outrageous.  Getting it to work sounds at least probable, and we’ve seen demos constantly that suggest it’s going to work.

From what I’ve seen of the game, I expect No Man’s Sky’s going to deliver pretty much what’s promised – a change to run around an enormous setting, find stuff, build equipment, and explore cool things.

The real question is not “will it be good” – it’s “is it going to be what people want?”  Any team this public, any team making these promises, would be foolish to screw this up.  The question people should ask is really is this a game you’re going to enjoy.

From what I can tell No Man’s Sky involves:

  1. Traveling in space.
  2. In space you may encounter places to trade and enemies to fight, if you want.
  3. If you choose to fight, you affect how factions regard you, and may be able to call for help in fights..
  4. You travel to procedurally generated solar systems.
  5. You land on planets which are procedurally generated.
  6. On the planets you find resources, catalog things, upload data, and maybe find odd and interesting stuff.
  7. There are probably some other secrets and things you can do to have impacts.
  8. Build new equipment with resources, and go back to #1.
  9. This takes place in a sort-of-shared setting that happens to be enormous.

To me this sounds great. It sounds like a game I’ll put a lot of hours into, and then play more casually, now and then finding a new planet to wonder at before moving on.  This is something I easily see me playing for 3-9 months in total because it pushes all my buttons.  This and Starbound will probably occupy my gaming space for 2016 and parts of 2017.

But it’s also cleary not a game for everyone. You don’t build homes or colonies worlds, you don’t lead fleets or create super-customized ships. There’s the simplest factional system. It’s a game about a journey, and it has both classic space game elements while lacking others.

I think there’s reason to have confidence in the developers, but when the game hits I expect we’ll see people both enthralled and disappointed with No Man’s Sky.  The game is going to not be for everyone, and that seems to be due to a deliberate choice about development. However with all the hype, I think there are people who are interested in the game due to hype, not if they’d actually enjoy it or only because they’ve projected expectations onto it.

Once it launches in June 2016, I want to watch the public and reviewer reactions.  Me, I’ll be exploring space.

  • Steve