Luck Quantification

 It's surprisingly easy to quantify luck, if you have well-defined probabilities. It's linear.

 Say you have a 50% chance and a 75% chance. There's four permutations, and it goes up quadratically with more entries, but you don't need to care about that. You have a total of 125%. For your bad luck, a total of 75%. Each actual event counts for 100%, and you can just add those up too. Compare the total percentage to expected percentage, and you can calculate how lucky or unlucky you were in terms of profit. It's a way of getting around trying to calculate exact percentage likelihoods and stuff like that.

 It's important in real life for a couple reasons. If you get lucky early you may want to lock it in and bow out of the risks. You can also quickly work out if something is far from the norm (even estimated probabilities are good enough) and not strategize as if it's normal. 

 It's important in videogames. If a player is getting very unlucky, that's usually a bug. In any kind of social or competitive game, getting very lucky is also a bug. The game can quickly and easily track their luck using this sort of thing, and cap the extremes. 

 Imagine it's loot drops from a boss. You do ten pairs of this, so 1250%, you should have 12 or 13 of whatever you're trying to loot.  This captures all sorts of permutations, such as lots of the 50% and few of the 75%, or like one 50% and 12 of the 75%s. If you have something wildly different, then you know you got very lucky or unlucky. 

 

 It also reminds you that one coin toss is extremely luck-driven. You expect 50%, and you get either 0% or 100%. On one toss, you're always wildly lucky or wildly unlucky. With two tosses, there's still a very high chance of being wildly lucky or unlucky: 50%. 25% of 0%, and 25% of 100%. If you're betting a lot on only one roll, it's best to plan on a loss all the way up to 95% / 5% odds or even higher in some cases. 

 Pedantism: for 50 and 75, the odds of getting one of them are 0.5 * 0.25 + 0.5 * 0.75 = 50%, the odds of getting neither are 0.25 * 0.5 = 12.5%, and the remainder is the odds of getting both, 37.5%. 50 + 37.5*2 = 125. Doing luck quatification the above way skips this combinatoric explosion.

 P.S. There's a clever and easy way to cap player luck, by generating a deck of rolls instead of rolling on the fly. If e.g. the player is missing or critting way too often, the deck can shuffle the probability card back into the deck instead of playing it. This way the statistics aren't fudged overall - the player still misses just as often - but it avoids excessive streakiness which is a feature of true randomness.
 That said the game should be designed so the player can't just get killed by random streaks, rather than making it so painful it needs to adjust.

Satan Spent Tremendous Effort to Suppress Stoicism

 That's how you know Stoicism is really, really bad for Despots and Satanists. 

 First, actual Stoicism: you start by tracking down irrational emotions. You find that, if they are in fact irrational, when you listen to them, they listen to you, learn, and stop being irrational. You find most of your emotions aren't irrational. E.g. when you hate taxes. If anything, you irrationally hate taxes less than you should. (I'm a net tax consumer, as planned.)

 

 Stoicism looks a lot like learned helplessness to me and the time period it first sprung up in is telling. The hellenistic age where military empires pushed aside the old poleis with their politically active citizens.
https://nitter.unixfox.eu/GraniRau/status/1749315191366459497

Not Stoicism.

 The Stoics like compassion just as little as they like the tragic dramas that cultivate it... As Epictetus again says: 'Look how tragedy comes about: when chance events befall fools'.... If the person were not a fool he would not mind the chance event... ~Martha Nussbaum
https://nitter.unixfox.eu/JoshuaLWatson/status/1749238860347838692

Epictetus was a slave using Sophistry, not a Stoic.

Oh man have I ever railed against stoicism. It’s a conformist ideology, perfect for the ruling class of our age. “Stop complaining about your poor conditions and just go back to work, accept oppression as your fate.” Fuck stoicism.
https://nitter.unixfox.eu/jersey_flight/status/1749276827817009582

Not Stoicism. 

 

 By getting you to reject literally the opposite of Stoicism but calling it stoicism, Satan vaccinated you against Stoicism. Moderns sometimes call the stuff cognitive behavioural therapy, which is a ridiculously Fascist bureaucratic journalism, but perhaps now and again it has successfully bypassed the vaccine. 

 Stoicism is just logic as applied to the emotions. Feelings are treated as hypotheses and supported or falsified as is suitable to each. You know it's an extremely powerful technique because Satan hated it so much. I know it's an extremely powerful technique because I didn't listen to the hallucinations of homo sapiens, I just tried it.

 

 You can tell Satan worked really hard on this by how universal the condemnation of pseudo-Stoicism is. The writings of no major Stoic has survived. Nobody except the CBT folks seem to understand it at all.

 A similar but much less intense process vandalized skeptics, dogmatics, and Zeno of Elea. Zeno's paradoxes are absolutely brilliant if taken as a pair - so naturally you hear about only one at a time. "Skeptic" does not mean careful, considerate, and meticulous thinker, it means someone who "dogmatically" (lol) believes you can't know anything. A "dogmatic" is not a close-minded fundamentalist, but someone who hasn't been irony-poisoned to death. A dogmatic will affirm and defend positive beliefs. Their "dogma" is merely whatever beliefs they have, however they happen to have come to them. 

 You can still find a few grains here and there using skeptic and dogmatic correctly. By contrast, Satan was only unable to censor Aurelius because it would have meant censoring a Caesar. Luckily for Satan he was a Despot first and a thinker distant second at most.

 Satan wanted you to reject Stoicism so you become a loser and worship the loser god, Satan.

Midwit => Peakwit

 Midwits are characterized by soaring Babels of hubris. Hence, peakwit, as opposed to tailwit.

All Tax-Funded Governments are Despotism

 You can't sustain a Sparta or a Plutocracy because the form of the government is inherently Despotic.
 https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/republic/summary-and-analysis/book-viii
 The physical form of the government converges onto its spiritual soul. (Aristocracy, of course, has never in fact obtained, which is why Plato's description sounds like fanfiction. No experiences exist from which to work.) 

 

 Political formulae are perverse because they're trying to explain why Despotism isn't Despotism.
 Divine right: "The Despot isn't a Despot if he's appointed by God."
 "The Despot isn't a Despot if he has the Mandate of Heaven."
 "The Despot isn't a Despot if he has the Consent of the People to tyrannize Despotically." 

 Despotism is horribly corrupt. Turns out parasitic infections are bad for you. Who could have guessed. All political formulae except Exit are trying to solve the problem of Despotism without giving up the essence of Despotism. 

 In modern times, Despotism is called Fascism, because Fascist Newspeak. "The Despot isn't a Despot if he calls himself a Fascist." All tax-funded forms of government are Fascist. Narcissism and Envy Theocracies.

 Plato thought Democracy wasn't just Despotism. No Plato, tyrannical man is tyrannical man. Iron devolves into lead. There is no baser metal. It was pro-Despotism cope, which is pretty impressive considering Plato really didn't like Democrats. He must have worked hard on that cognitive dissonance. 

 If the peoples afflicted by Despotic government are not natural Despots, the Despotism enforces tyrannical dysgenics until the peoples fully embrace tyrannical biology. 

 That is, ultimately all peoples who accept taxation are lead-age degenerates. Already mortally debased. 

Social Status vs. Wetmarkets and Laboratories

 Pathogenic viruses are outgroup.

 Wetmarkets are low status, like the outgroup.

 Research laboratories are high status. 

 Humans want low-status things to come from other low-status things, or it falsifies their social status systems. Likewise they prefer to forgive high-status things in case the high-status thing tries to beat them up, as it will work. 

 Result: it would be very surprising if talking heads believed the lab leaked.

 Bonus 1: you can't get hired at a bio lab if you agree that labs can leak. "That's a mean thing to say, you meanypants."
 Bonus 2: apparently it's normal for the peasantry to believe in the lab leak. This makes the lab leak low-status. The opposite of a luxury belief. You can't signal your pious loyalty to peak midwittery with the lab leak.

American Culture: "Nobody Could Possibly be Stupid Enough to Believe That"

  The key to American culture is to realize that outside of edge cases it's literally all lies. All a social game where everything is a kind of joke, and getting the joke means playing along. Always append the thing. "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to think Trump will start WWIII." Ruled by the bad and the desire for the bad. American infrastructure is entirely maintained by the socially hopeless, who think Americans are genuinely as ignorant as they pretend, and the top 0.1% socially skilled, who cleverly hack the backwards-day social cues to drive productive work.

 9/11 Truth: "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe that jet fuel can melt steel beams."

 NIST: "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe jet fuel can NOT melt steel beams." 

 You can tell it's falsehoods since so few Americans get raped to death trying to backpack across the Sahara lengthwise. Instead of thousands or tens of thousands a year, it's only a handful. Some years no European gets raped to death in the Congo at all. Very few genuinely don't get the joke. "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe I like this neighbourhood because it has good schools."  

 Assassin's creed: "Since nothing is real, nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe that anything is permitted." 

 The major problem is that Americans regularly won't drop the mask. They're committed to the bit. "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe that I want fettuccine alfredo for lunch." Then they actually cook fettuccine alfredo for themselves. "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to think Starbucks has good coffee." Then they actually buy Starbucks coffee. "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to think I enjoyed that." "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to think that really hit the spot." "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to think I want to make fettuccine alfredo again." (Then they actually do.)

 "Nobody could possibly believe Biden is a good candidate for president." Then they actually vote for him. "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe we don't need voter ID." Then they actually block voter ID. Making sense is very secondary to not being caught breaking the bit. You wouldn't want to make the pretend-retards actually feel stupid, would you? That would be mean! You meanypants! Also the pretend-retards will use your meanness as an excuse to bully you, because Americans are barbaric, vicious savages.
 Anonymous votes are supposed to put a stop to fake votes, lol. See also: "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe I condemn porn. Nobody could believe I don't buy it myself, after all." Anonymity works just fine there...

 "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to think Stalin wasn't pure Satalinism."
 "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe white men are especially bad."

 An example of how the top 0.1% get stuff done. Imagine you need to update skyscraper codes to stop airplanes from being a plausible excuse for the effects of demolition charges. "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to think planes took down every WTC building." First you need to assess how committed your guys are to the bit. Do you need to say that jet fuel is melted by steel beams, or that iron isn't softened by high temperatures?

 If they're committed, say jet beams are melted by fuel steel, so they say, "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to think the structure needs heat sinks," and therefore they put heat sinks on. "Lol such a waste of time." "I hear you bro." If they strictly divide words and actions where possible, then the opposite. "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to think the customer is always right." 

 "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe a plane hit the Pentagon."
 "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe Iraq and Afghanistan were involved in 9/11."
 "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe J/6 was an insurrection." 

 Of course, "Nobody could be stupid enough to believe we invade in response to attacks." It's about conquest, natch. Perfectly logical behaviour. 

 "Nobody could possibly believe Biden will return an adult to the white house."
 "Or that we could possibly want an adult in the white house."
 "Nice one dude." 

 

 It can be a real problem when, for example, you want to buy a house. "Hello there real-estate agent, nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe I want to buy a house." {Err, hold on, that can't be right. I am actually a real-estate agent, why are you here?} It's okay, they'll give the wrong description for the house they want to buy. Next, since nobody could possibly be stupid enough to think the customer is always right, the agent will have to pointlessly show them a bunch of houses they don't want, to avoid calling them an idiot. Occasionally a real go-getter will use this trick: "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to think this house matches your requirements, why don't you look at it?" Then they actually do. 

 The primary time Americans won't lie is when they'll instantly be caught. The only thing more important than lying constantly is never dropping the bit. If they really do like something and plan to return, they won't say it's terrible. At least, not normally. If they can come up with a good excuse for repeat business they'll lie anyway.

 On the flip side, the most common complaint against real-estate agents is lying. "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to think the house looks like this." The courts don't have to get the joke, though. After all, quite a few Americans really are that stupid. Look at this wonderful quote: "While there’s always a bit of room for “creativity” to close a deal, flat-out lying will never pay off."
Translation: "Nobody stupid enough to get caught lying can possibly be a real-estate agent." You can't let the bit collapse.
 Speaking of not worrying, this one goes recursive. "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe these are the most common legal complaints against real-estate agents." Instead the real complaints are all bureaucratic nonsense, as anyone not-stupid would expect. I assume normally the lying complaints stop at word-of-mouth or don't rise to the level of legal fraud. 

 

 "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe we think Claudine Gay is a plagiarist."
 "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe anyone cares Claudine Gay plagiarizes."
 "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe this isn't about anti-Juden remarks, or that we can genuinely punish the non-pales. Saturate privilege." 

 "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe Hitler was especially evil."

Nostalgia is Longing for a World that Never Existed

 As a child, I thought advancement was not only possible, but reasonable. I thought folk liked advancement, and the only thing stopping them was not fully understanding how to go about it. Who wouldn't delight in expanding of the grand total of mortal knowledge? They're just not trying hard enough, right guys?

 Sometimes I see something which triggers a powerful memory of this childhood delusion. I feel nostalgia, the longing for a world where that delusion is not delusional. 

 I vividly remember being part of that world, even though I never was. I miss something I never had. I feel the loss, as something that never existed was torn away. The only consolation is that the sun set on that possibility aeons ago.

 

 I am vulnerable to imagining I can return to this world I was never in.

 I have the urge to imagine I can pick a new universe and I might not be alone when I get there.

Baramos and Dragon Warrior 3 Generally

 Most reliable anti-grinding Baramos kill: three doublecasters with bounce. Sages, pilgrim/wizards or wizard/pilgrims.
 Step 1: ironize.
 Step 2: ironize.
 You are now in the limbo/punch turn. You do need to resist a limbo cast, but otherwise this is the ideal setup turn.
 Speedup, ideally twice, and surround. Have the hero use the orochi sword. Next step: ironize, which will set you back at the limbo/punch turn. Next turn, cast bounce three times and use the orochi sword again. Now you're free to ironize cycle and set up as much as you want, as the hero is immune to limbo. I cast three bikills then ironized one more time, then attacked until he was dead. 

 If you don't have triple bounce, there's more RNG, as you have to rely on sticking sleep casts and you can't avoid non-first limbo shots. Again you can ironize cycle until a sleep sticks, but once it does, ironize is no longer useful for various reasons. This strategy is less reliable, but won't take that many tries, and enables a true low-grind runthrough. Having 3-4 sleep casters with speedup does make it very hard for Baramos to avoid a nap. It is funny to have a bikilling hero thrash away while three casters spam sleep.

 Without at least a priest and a wizard, you probably have to grind up to level 33-35. With clever buff cycling, your pilgrim doesn't need healall, and your hero doesn't even need healmore. Level 26 is extremely doable. With the standard party, soldier-pilgrim-wizard, once you get over the limbo hump, it's entirely possible that Baramos will die before he wakes up.

 Ironize is out of phase by one turn, functionally rewinding Baramos time when cast. Although don't forget DW3 bosses regenerate, so don't ironize after you start hitting him. Conveniently limbo/punch is immediately after the unbounceable firebreath turn.
 I like watching my party survive a firebreath, then Baramos casts explodet again and kill himself with bounced damage long before he can finish a rank 4 pure wizard with firebreath. Wizard can't heal himself, and can't receive a heal through bounce.
 Come to think I should have the hero parry on the blazemore turn if possible. Had a couple close calls with the hero getting killed by blazemore...

 Also conveniently, Baramos doesn't reward his experience, so if you have XP OCD, you don't have to worry about it going out of alignment due to deaths or limbos. 

 

 When I saw that the best party was three fighters, I pressed X to doubt. Sadly this did take many hours of testing to refute, but in the end we find it is indeed, once again, Dunning-Kruger. "You can conquer the pyramid at level 11." Err, yes, every non-stupid party can do that. (No goof-offs or double wizard - and even the goof-off is debatable.) A player skill issue, not a party issue. 

 A better party is fight-fight-wizard, soldier-fighter-wizard, or even sooldier-fighter-fighter. You do want one fighter for turn 2 executions, but the first major issue with fighters is Kanave, where they are useless until you buy an iron claw. Soldiers have so much strength they can get by with a magic knife, while their huge HP makes armour pretty meh and healing more efficient. Wizards don't need weapons and the guy in 4 normally has a 1% chance of being attacked, so they don't need armour either. Fighters are suddenly extremely expensive at Kanave, which means lots of particularly boring grinding.
 With sol-fig-wiz, get a chain sickle for the hero in Reeve, then an iron claw for the fighter in Kanave, and you can immediately head up Shanpane for the loot. Wizards also get you early outside, which is almost worthwhile all by itself. There's an argument for a pilgrim instead, but the argument is [buying herbs is annoying]. With soldier-fighter-wizard, you can kill Kandar early, by having the wizard parry on turn 1 while the other three kill a henchman. Of course this gets you higher than 11 for the pyramid, because Kandar is worth XP...

 "You can confidently approach Samanao at level 16...oh and by the way I killed Baramos at hero level 35." Not to mention that fighters level slower, so that '11' is 12 or 13 for other classes. Though it is true that Samanao at 16 is a high point of fi-fi-fi.
 Fig-fig-fig does make everything faster, due to preventing so many enemy turns, and secondly due to having high luck, more on that later.

 Triple fighter stalls at Necrogond, and stalls hard at Baramos. Meanwhile my regular is killing Zoma at like 36 instead of 40+.

 With a wizard in the party, there's far fewer enemy packs you have to run away from. I don't see any reason not to run from infernus crabs, because they're weirdly resistant to fire, but that's about it. Pilgrims can use infernos, but a) don't have infernos yet and b) crabs can spawn with the stopspelling cats, lol...

 You can solve the Necrogond/Baramos issues of triple-fighter by making a sage, which you want to do with your wizard too, and the wizard will a) hit level 20 earlier and b) have 12-18 more MP than a fighter-sage. If you don't already have a pilgrim and wizard, there's no good reason not to get a sage. That is: certainly soldier-soldier-soldier is slower than fight-fight-fight, as they go second instead of first, but it's not particularly less powerful. Get chain sickles and chain mail for all of them: much cheaper than outfitting fighters at Kanave, and they can take on Kandar the first time they're in Shanpane. Having infinity HP is relaxing. They just also get a sage later, and soldiers level fast instead of slow. Bonus: they can melee turtles to death.
 Stuff like trolls and kragacles is an issue for triple-fighter...but all happen far after level 20, so shouldn't ever be a real issue.

 Admittedly three fighters and a hero with the meteorite armband is hilariously fast. I suggest instead giving the armband to the wizard, so he can perform his intended role of softening up the enemy groups. The fact the hero is kinda slow is in fact a benefit, as fighters killing things before the wizard can blast them is inefficient. They say you can't cast every fight. They're wrong, unless they mean cast every round (killing on round 2 is the fighter's job) or spamming bang as soon as you get it. Alt: sometimes you want to quickly open with expel or stopspell, so you meteor-speed the hero.
 Also admittedly, I kinda like grinding, especially in Necrogond. You can in fact go infinite with three doublecasters in Necrogond. It's possible (if stupid) to replace all healing MP with robmagic.
 If you also don't mind grinding, it's still better to change double or triple fighter into a soldier at 20, as a row 2 figher is a liability, that is, unless you really really love grinding and triple up on their high HP growth. The one leftover fighter can be used to crit metal slimes to re-level quickly.

 I tried soldier-merchant-fighter for comparison, and it's a nice balance between sol-sol-sol and fight-fight-fight. The turban and iron apron make early merchants tanky, and they're not as slow as soldiers. Extremely playable. Just kinda go, don't think about it too much. You do want to class-change your merchant ASAP, though, and they make the worst sages. You want low int before transmutation, not high. Merchants are good enough, but still aesthetically problematic. 

 Fighters and wizards are both good at killing metal slimes. 

 

 Speaking of speed, effectively DW3 classes have either speed 1, speed 2, or speed 4. Soldiers have speed 1, fighters have speed 4, and everyone else is speed 2. Exception: wizards start getting good speed gains at level 30, meaning high-level wizards get to speed 3. Monsters typically have speed 2.
 Speed in DW is very random; fighters just barely have enough speed to reliably go before soldiers. It's more of a maximum speed than a real speed.

 I really do mind buying all the herbs, so my default party is fighter-pilgrim-wizard. I would prefer pil-pil-wiz or even pil-pil-pil, but the idea of casters in early DW is to buffer against loss of gold from death. No matter how little money you have, pilgrims can heal, and wizards just get better and better at doing damage if you can win even one fight before dying. If instead you go for a low-level low-grinding run, pilgrims and wizards feel a bit underpowered. The real payoff of the all-caster party is casting firevolt four times at putregons (with thor's sword), killing them in one turn. Meanwhile fig-pil-wiz doesn't class-change at all and gets lots of early high-level spells. Sages don't get revive without substantial grinding. My wizard almost got explodet before the end of Zoma's castle, wow.

 Grinding a sage in Lancel's shrine, gaia's navel, is pretty cool. If nobody else class-changed, it really helps them catch up. Dying there doesn't cost you any gold, so feel free to take dumb risks and/or pop all the mimic chests. 

 Speaking of herbs, you can think of them as MP potions that restore 3-5 MP. Likewise the first wing of wyvern trades an inventory slot for 8 MP.

 

 DW3 RNG is not fair. Do expect things to go poorly more often than they should. It's very possible to get 0 MP ups on the hero, getting return without the ability to cast it. There's little to no chance of ever catching up later - your hero will always be down 10 MP. My last wizard got return before he got fireball, meaning he could have got firebane before he got fireball, and almost got fireball and firebane on the same level. I've also seen 0 HP growth on wizards in the wild - approaching the cave of enticement with 8 max still on the sticker. All casters will hit their int ceiling, and at that point their MP should be int*2 minus their starting int. You will typically be 10 below that, often more, and almost never less. Being higher is impossible without savescumming.
 On the plus side, apparently getting a poison needle proc is 'unlucky' and clearly happens more often than 1/16. That is, it's calculated at 1/16 instead of a 15/16 chance of being normal.
 On the down side, 70% resistance (e.g. Baramos vs. sleep) should block six in a row in less than 1 in 1300 instances, and in fact it's closer to 1/100. Blocking four in a row (1 in 123.45679) is downright normal, like at least 1/4, hence the ironize cycles.
 Due to this, I see no shame in savescumming. There's a listed "average" for hero MP, and it's more like a maximum than an average. Either blatantly savestate for +4 hero MPs, or go ahead and restart if you don't get enough MP by level 5 or whatever.

 Details: earliest the hero can get return is level 7, meaning 6 ups. He should see 3 int ups, with 2 MP each, for a total of 6. He can see a maximum of 6 int ups with 4 MP each, for a total of 24. Notably 24-6 = 18, and 6-18 = -12, so there's lots of symmetric space that's zero.

 Goof-off luck is real. Seems like it improves both stat-ups and definitely improves how far you can travel without fighting. Series of one-step fights don't seem to happen when I have a goof-off (or with triple fighter), so they may not be as useless as they seem. Seems as if the RNG does indeed have a luck factor, but they forgot to scale it by against level, so it's all calibrated against level 30/40 luck levels. Not to mention, before level 10, only goof-offs have nonzero luck gains.
 However, encounter frequency might be level-calibrated. I keep finding that going in at a low level results in a huge number of encounters, whereas the place is practically empty only a couple levels higher. (In DW4 also.)