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[Any humanly created system is flawed]

Hmmm, I wasn't expecting all this from an off-the-cuff remark. There's a lot here and I appreciate you all took the time to use your brain and think for yourselves, articulate your thoughts and perspectives, even if we do not agree. That is all I could have ever hoped to gain from sharing my own thoughts, even if we do not agree entirely. The more we can dialogue and share a diversity of perspectives, the closer we can get to the truth of any matter. I believe this was the original idea behind a free democracy-and a noble one at that.

There's a lot here, so let me just respond one at a time.

Seriously, no one is claiming democracy is a flawless system, but it's been better than every other system implemented so far. Also, most actual democracies don't have the idiotic two-party system and electoral college the US has. It's like saying we should abolish healthcare altogether because USA has a terrible version of it.

I never expected it to be, and there is no flawless system. Any humanly created system is flawed, because humans are-but necessary to maintain order.

I never stated we should abolish democracy, nor did I advocate replacing it. Quite the contrary. In spite of its flaws, personally, I think democracy is still probably the best form of human government that currently exists in the world-for most people.

And I add that little qualification at the end there, because, there are some people who do not want democracy. These are often the types of people outlined in Eric Hoffer's book, "The True Believer". These are people for whom life is not working out the way they planned. They get discouraged, seek a scapegoat, and blame the authorities in power for all their troubles. If only we could replace democracy with communism or fascism or insert ism here, then all our troubles would be solved-a very naive idealism. A logical fallacy I think we all can fall prey to in various ways in our lives. We look for simple solutions to complex problems, and we overlook the fact that our proposed solution will probably cause more problems than it solves.

So revolutions and wars occur, because people have differences of opinion and want different things. As it states in James 4:1-11, "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel."

Democracy gives us at least a degree of feeling of having control over our circumstances to avoid the impending catastrophe of a violent clash over differences in ideals, because there is always hope that next term you will get what you want. But what if you're not in the majority? Then you will likely never get what you want, and you may blame democracy for this dilemma. So then you will seek to find control over your life through other means-by bucking the system, or tearing it down altogether.

Panarchy, at least one that's properly planned and implemented, in my mind would allow for a peaceful solution, averting violence. Instead of overthrowing the current form of government, whatever it may be, you simply change to a nation that aligns with your own ideals.

More likely than not, you will still struggle with the same problems you had before. You will still be unpopular. You will still be misunderstood. You will still be marginalized. And you will still have all the same flaws, whatever they may be, that made you all those things-you're lazy, arrogant, or whatever. You'll either realize it's not the government's fault and start to take some responsibility for your own life, and start trying to confront reality and adjust, instead of making the world conform to your liking, or, you'll actually find some place you belong and thrive where other people want the same way of life as you do and you can live by the same rules. Either way it's win win, and you didn't have to start a war over it.

Also, panarchy and small communes and micronations? Those are even more vulnerable into devolving into cults, being toppled by other nations and/or have their systems toppled by a few strong and ruthless leaders.

Absolutely agree and it would definitely happen, as it already does now.
This is why such a system would have to have a higher system to which it has to answer to-a set of very general principles and rules that every nation would have to abide by. Similar to how NATO and EU and other alliances work-but the idea is they would all agree to enforce a common constitution with some general laws such as, "No nation may exercise force upon its citizens, but each person is free to leave any nation they so choose."  And "No nation may attack another nation, but every government is free to exercise its own sovereignty." This is actually similar to how the states work, actually. It would just allow each state/nation to have an even higher degree of autonomy.

Of course cults would still form-they are free to exist already. In fact, I just talked to a cult member for hours yesterday. There are two cults in my neighborhood, really bonkers, and I always try to talk to them when I see them because I'm really scared they're gonna lose it and commit suicide, as they often do, and I really want to talk some sense into them. But the thing is if you have freedom these cults will always be able to exist. Democracy doesn't stop that, and if it did it wouldn't be free anymore.

Yeah, what's to stop somebody from abusing it by committing a crime and just go "nuh-uh, I don't want these laws to apply to me"?

Excellent point, and I agree wholeheartedly! I never understood how de Puydt thought he might implement such a system that doesn't seem to make any sense to me at all. Without territorial borders, how do you determine what laws somebody is supposed to live by? I think the only reasonable way to implement a multi-governmental system is with physical borders. Which is why you would have to have floating islands, or buildings, or some sort. I actually thought of the idea of "panarchy" myself independent of de Puydt, as others have, wondered if such a thing already existed and googled it. It does, but I don't think my ideas of what it would look like are the same as de Puydt's, even if he had some good ideas. I think his ideas are largely economical, they're more like buying insurance than enforcing justice.

It reminds me of those libertarian dudes that wanted to start a crypto-island and, in a mask-off moment, one of the guys responsible let slip that there wouldn't need to be any age of consent on the island.

Spoiler

[close]

Yes, the rights of individuals would need to be protected by a higher council prevailing over all the micronations, as I stated before. Minors would be considered citizens of this overarching alliance of governments, and therefore protected under its constitution from exploitation until they were old enough to decide for themselves what micronation they wanted to join, and at any point they could appeal to this higher court and ask to be transferred if they were uncomfortable living where they were. There would be a system of counsellors set up for this purpose and to help them along the way, checking up on them and making sure there was no abuse of power and that their needs were cared for and rights protected. And, if they deemed it necessary or the individual desired to, they could go to a neutral boarding school until they were of age. Always it would be the rights of the individual that would be forefront, and this council would exist solely to protect that.

Always there will be some flaws in any given system though, some "what if"s that pop up, and I don't anticipate them to go away.

You clearly haven't read Lord of the Flies. Heck, I've worked in daycare and I can tell from experience that it would devolve into the oldest and strongest deciding everything if we adults weren't around to ensure everyone had to respect each other and no one was allowed to beat one another.

On the contrary, next to the Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord of the Flies is my favorite book! And I love both movies as well. I think it is a great demonstration of how human nature really works, and how, when people depart from the Rule of Law, they are led astray by their own desires, especially when there's group-think involved. In all actuality, this is the problematic tendency I am talking about: a government that is ruled by the majority is prone to the hysteria of the masses. It is far more popular to do what you want, than to do what is right, and that is why in the end, Ralph, with his logical, by-the-book, dutiful attitude was rejected in favour of the populist leader Jack, who let people do whatever the heck they wanted. And more often than not, that is what people will incline to do, which leads to chaos. That's why you can't have just a pure democracy where only the majority get to decide to do whatsoever they like, because most people are not disciplined and rational enough to think logically all the time to think what will lead to the best outcome down the road, but are led by their emotions and what they want right now, and that's when dictators come in with their big promises and rule of force to take over.

Intelligent response. We probably have far more in common than you think. I think my words, though indeed edgy and unfiltered, have been largely misinterpreted. I am not anti-Democracy, in fact I support it. I just believe freedom should be taken to another level, and actually enforced. I don't see it actually being exercised as a principle so much in our world today, it's become more like an empty mantra people use to justify all sorts of abuse of power. See CIA documents.

Taking the original concept of a free, democratic government to its logical conclusion would allow other forms of government to exist underneath it, as the rights of minorities are supposed to be protected from the majority. This should also allow for them to be able to choose the form of government and laws they want to abide by as long as they are not harming anybody else or violating their rights. This is exactly what Ralph exemplified in Lord of the Flies.

Anyways, I have another matter to attend to, but I would love to hear more of your thoughts on the matter. I'll read the rest of the comments when I return, and I am looking forward to it.

Peace and love. And I mean that in the most non-culty way possible.

[Moderator note: This thread was split off from the Trumpmageddon discussion.]

I don't know if this is the end of American democracy but it will be the end of many people's lives.

What democracy?
American's literally only have two choices. That is not a democracy. That is a thinly veiled dictatorship.
At least here in Britain, there's a chance that a party other than Labour or the Conservatives can get in power (it's unlikely, but it's possible). And even if your chosen party doesn't win, if they get enough votes, then they get a voice.
But America? Don't confuse that for a democracy.

As for this being the end of many people's lives though, that is definitely true. But nobody ever cares, even in these cases.
Sure, people sometimes pretend to care. But they don't really. 
But that's a discussion for another day.

Democracy isn't about freedom anyway, it's about control just like every other form of government. It has been since the first democratic republic was established back in Ancient Rome, you know, that paragon of virtue and fairness where the leaders were regularly assassinated by their peers not long after getting into office, put their own family members to death to remove rivals, and the common people liked to watch women and children being ripped apart by wild beasts for entertainment because they wouldn't worship the right gods and dared to think a different way. That worked out well, didn't devolve into dictatorship or a collapse of civilization at all.

When Kamala Harris said the peaceful transfer of power was a hallmark of democracy in her concession speech I really had to laugh.

If 49% of the population votes for blue and 51% vote for red, that's not freedom of choice, because, first of all, your only choices to begin with are blue and red. What if you want purple or green or yellow or any other color of the rainbow?
And secondly, the 49% are forced to accept a president they did not vote for. That is not freedom, that is tyranny of the majority over the minority.

Panarchy is the only logical solution, and in this age there's no logical reason why we can't have it. Any group of individuals can come together and agree to live by a specific set of rules, even children can do that. We have enough resources to create as many micronations as we want. We could literally take all the trash from the ocean and turn them into floating islands and solve both the pollution problem and the population problem at the same time if we wanted to. Let each island choose their own form of government with their own leader and let the people choose which one they want to live in but we don't do that. Why?

Because it's not about freedom, it's about control. There's nothing logical about it. The elites have always wanted to exercise control over the masses, and they invent new ways to do so. "Democracy" is the chosen method of today. As @Danvzare said, people pretend to care, but they don't, not really. The best way to manipulate people is through their emotions, not logic or reason, because if we were in the habit of using our brains we'd realize we were born into a situation we never agreed to and we can also choose not to accept it because it doesn't truly benefit us.

But that sounds overwhelming to think about and I'm drained from living my cushy 21st century life with all its amenities and artificial stressors so I guess I'll just go back to playing video games and forget about it like everyone else. It's easier that way. I'll just leave it to the politicians to pass a bill to give us what we supposedly want that will be overturned next year. "Trump will fix it". Or was that Bob the Builder..?

I better keep my mouth shut or they'll start sending agents in here to influence public opinion in order to further "democracy" like they did when they infiltrated communities in Nicaragua during the Cold War. But don't worry, guys, it was all in the name of freedom.

Shouldn't the people who rallied around Trump because of the whole moronic rigged-election thing be having serious moments of self reflection right about now?

Admitting that the very thing that galvanized them turned out to be lies?

Haha, I'm just kidding; if they were capable of that kind of logic and introspection, they wouldn't have fallen for it in the first place.

That kind of logic and introspection is rare these days. On all sides.
This is why I can't stand politics. It's too easy to see through. The party will defend their candidate to the very end no matter what they do and bash the other to pieces for every single thing they do, whether it's good or bad. No objectivity. Like Trump himself said, "My fans love me so much I could go out on Fifth Ave and shoot some guy and they'd still love me."

Can they see through their own bias and realize they're just playing a game or are they really that blind? Either way it's disgusting. It's not about the issues and what's best for the country, it's about winning. It's like sports or pro wrestling.

My Dad was a politician. I saw how it really is behind the scenes. They publicly attack each other and blame one another for ruining the country but then play basketball together after hours and stuff themselves on the food the lobbyers bribe them with.

Everyone is fake, ignorant, and irrational. The whole world can burn themselves down for all I care and they probably will. /end of misanthropic rant

@Perpetuall : I unfortunately don't know many Bible verses, but I'm not sure how the system works. I typed in "In the beginning there was the Word", but I got no reaction or response. What is supposed to happen?

So, because I was too busy to actually code the entire Bible, I only got through to coding the first 40 chapters of the book of Psalms at the moment. I also wanted to implement an in-game Bible you can read from, but didn't get to figuring out how I can do that. I also am working on making it less strict with the input, but right now you have to type in the entire verse word for word.

So if you try to quote any verse other than what is in the first third of Psalms, it won't work. But, if you have a Bible on hand, King James version, you can read from Psalms and type in one verse at a time, and that should work. (If you don't have one, you can read from here: https://biblehub.com/kjv/psalms/1.htm)

The first 20 or so Psalms have narration, and I scripted them to be specific to the topic-for instance, verses about faith will only affect the Faith stat and so on, so will only work on a Fear Demon. So those verses might not work to defeat this Demon unless they're about Patience. But the last 20 or so were thrown together quickly, have no voice acting as of yet, and they should work regardless of what they're about, because I just wanted to finish something.

My original vision for this game was as a method to memorize Scripture and apply it to situations. I think people are woefully ignorant about their own beliefs and values, and as a result people's behavior tends to be inconsistent and irrational. Anything I can do to make them think about it more I would like to encourage. If I can find a way to make studying religious and philosophic beliefs as fun as playing video games, then I feel like I've accomplished something at least. But perhaps I am not quite there yet with this one.

To be fair, the theme that month was "Time Warp". I dunno if it would've been more or less poetic if we ran out of time to complete it 

It was an oddly appropriate theme. Anyway you did a really good job on yours. I love the color scheme you used.

Alright, it should be available now. https://perpetuallproductions.itch.io/mvm-demo-patience-is-a-virtue
Anyway, it's been really fun! And slightly stressful.  I'm going to go to bed now.
Btw, I just tried your game and it's gorgeous @jfrisby. I know who's getting my vote. 
Goodnight y'all.

https://perpetuallproductions.itch.io/mvm-demo-patience-is-a-virtue

I present... a very very early beta version of an MvM Game Demo, released for MAGS.
This is not a full episode, only a demo of a single boss battle that I would like to include in a future release.

Your opponent in this match is one I think we've all struggled with in this competition. I know I have. It is a demon that bends our perception and causes time to get away from us, making us procrastinate, rush, or otherwise use our time unwisely. It leaves chaos in its wake.

I don't expect any votes, but I'd appreciate any feedback. I would like to know how people enjoy the textmode aesthetics and basic combat mechanics of my game that I plan to make many future games based upon in the years to come, when time permits. I know it's a little clunky right now and leaves a lot to be desired. Definitely needs cleaning up. But hopefully you can get a feel for it. It will be easier to use in the future.

Controls:
Type Scriptures into the text parser at the top of the screen and press enter to exorcise the Warp Worm. You have 9 minutes to quote about 10 verses. Right now the wording has to be exact, and only the first 40 Psalms in the King James Version of the Bible are supported.
Hint: Not all verses may be effective. You may have to find Scriptures that are specific to having Patience to cast this timesucking Demon out.

In future releases I plan to also implement weapons, prayers, co-op and "Devil's Advocate" modes, and allowing for minor differences in wording, color cycling, etc. Plus the Scriptures that are used will be specific to the Vice the Demon possesses, and there will be stat bars for each Virtue that you level up in, as you can see. There will be a lot more features then, God willing. I have already started working on these, but they are not ready to release. Right now it is basically just a memory game.

Known bugs:
It's a little slow when you submit a verse. This is likely due to the fact that I've stored over 12,000 words in the parser that it has to search. I'll have to look for ways to speed it up.
If you use a different version of the Bible than King James, at this moment, it may cause a game crash. I am working on fixing it and adding other translations, but for now just stick to the KJV. I'm having too much trouble updating the text parser right now for some reason.
When I lose and the game restarts, I get an error that says it can't find the last save file. This may not be an issue for anyone else, may just be on my end. None of the files are being saved to the right folder on my computer. Shouldn't affect gameplay.
Please let me know if you come across any other glitches! I haven't tested the completed version yet.
Edit: Yeah, there are a lot of bugs and crashes in this game. I'll have to work those issues out, but it's playable.

Credits:
Built with Adventure Game Studio and lvllvl.com
Template: Text Parser 2.0
Art by Perpetua II, plus public domain sources
Cursor by Icons8.com
Music by Huub de Lange, Paul Cantrell of innig.net, @Eric Matyas of soundimage.org, Frederic Chopin and other public domain sources, remix by Perpetua II
Writing, scripting, and development by Perpetua II
Thanks to @Khris and @Crimson Wizard for answering my coding questions!
Thanks to @Stupot for extending the deadline for the MAGS competition, and hosting it!

EDIT: Errr, I guess I need to upload the file still. I haven't used itch.io before.

Ok, it all sounds like you're simply running the wrong exe file.

If you press F7 in the editor, all the game files should be built into the Compiled/Windows folder. If you rename the game in the editor, AGS will build an exe with the same name but it won't delete the old exe.

You can also delete the entire Compiled folder before building to make sure all old files are gone.

Was just about to say I found the right file. It put it into an entirely different folder than the one it was taking me to when I clicked build folder for some reason. I guess it's because I moved stuff around on my computer so much. The pathway must have got confused. Thanks

When you open the game in the editor and press F5, does it run the correct game?

Also, which room is loaded at the start of the game depends on a) which character is set as the player character and b) what their starting room is. Check that the player character has the correct starting room set.

Yes, I've checked all that. I've run this game hundreds of times to playtest it in the editor and it's always run. It's not even titled correctly, the window that runs is called Text Parser 2.0. It's like it's running an earlier version before I made any changes.

It is done but I can't get my game to compile the right file!  Here's a gif


EDIT:
Ok I figured it out! Uploading.

I've finished a short demo game to submit for MAGS, and compiled it, but when I click on my .exe file, instead of running the game I've made, it runs the test text parser template I built my game on instead. What is going on? How do I get it to run the game I've been working on?

Oh, no! I finished the demo but when I try to run the .exe file it doesn't run the game I've made, instead it runs an earlier version of the template I based my game on! What is going on?

With the headache I've had most of today, I'm struggling with putting things together. I'll have something finished by the official deadline, but won't promise it'll be more than just walking around and some dialog. From there I will to have some updates until either the thread is closed or I'm too tired to work any more. Good luck to everyone still working.

Sorry to hear you've had so much trouble. Prayers your way.

Ahh. Then I guess it depends on how much of a perfectionist you choose to be on if you submit before me or not. I don't have anything playable at all. Since there were thunderstorms so much yesterday and I had already lost power in the morning, I didn't turn my pc on at all. So all I got done was what I could on my Chromebook.

Ahh. That does make sense. I had no idea since it doesn't show a location for you. And must not go on a tangent about Chupacabras and work on my game instead...

Well, all I really have is a demo of a battle. I accepted a while back that I wasn't going to be finishing a full game this time around. So, I'm probably not going to be too picky about it. I would just like it to at least be as functional as possible.

Chupacabras are mysterious creatures.

I would say that depends whose timezone is closest to GMT.Since the deadline is only 5:59 pm for me (assuming what I looked up is right), I most likely will be submitting within 30 minutes of the deadline.

So I have until 6:00 tonight. That makes it easy since that's my bedtime anyway and I don't intend to stay up any later than that. Technically I have something submittable right now, so I'm just going to spend the next 10 hours finetuning it, but I'm not going to stress. I know it's not great, lol. Next one will be better.

Wait... we both have until 6. We must be in the same time zone! I live south of you so I guess that makes sense.

I think something is conspiring against me. I had a stomach bug yesterday and didn't get anything done. And lost power for awhile this morning.
Hopefully nothing else will go wrong and I'll be able to make something playable. Definitely won't be a great game. A big part that will determine the quality is whether or not I can come up with a better start to the game.

Aye. I spent most of Friday arguing with some folks over whether or not the Earth is flat. And since Saturday is my day of rest and didn't do any work yesterday, I too am in the same boat. Godspeed my friend! Let's see who finishes first, lol 

Thank you. I can't promise anything epic, I still have a lot of other things going on this week, but at least I should be able to submit... something. 
Your game looks super cool, @jfrisby I'm looking forward to checking it out

Is anyone in the market for a short extension?

That would be nice. Personally I could use it. I'm running into some road blocks. I don't think I'll be figuring it out today.

I have too much left to do and not really enough time to do it. Maybe if I had 4-6 more working hours than I do I could make something somewhat worthwhile. Good luck to those still working on their games.

Sorry to hear! I wasn't sure myself if I would be able to finish, awfully busy these last couple days. But it looks like I might be able to release something small today, certainly not what I first envisioned though.

So I've had barely any free time at all to work on the game, just been too busy with real life. If I have enough time today, I'll try to throw together a small demo game and release it, if not, I'll just give a sneak peek of the animations I have done this month once I'm done. I plan to keep working on this over the next year and hopefully finish it when my life is a little less hectic.

One thing you might want to fiddle with is the anti-aliasing setting, and see if it helps to turn it on or off. That would be under "text output" in your general settings.