Emrox 2023-03-24 21:37:13

This was conceived as a sort of sequel to this post I made about Canadian animation. If you like my writing about art I like, go read that, too! https://emrox.newgrounds.com/news/post/1337581

Bill 2023-03-24 23:34:29

I've been thinking about the same concepts lately and I find this to be an amazing blog post.

Something I mocked to myself in the past were daily affirmations or people who try to manifest positive attributes and outcomes by talking to themselves. It dawned on me recently that it's not that silly to remind yourself everyday that "I am becoming the best version of myself." "My possibilities are endless." "I choose to be kind to myself and love myself unconditionally." Like it sounds "lame" but why not strengthen those ideas?

The more I become aware of how much negativity I absorb through social media or if I pay attention to petty things I have to face the fact that they do enter my mind and quite possibly influence my behavior on a subconscious level. What you choose to think, believe and consume becomes part of you for better and for worse.

If most people are a conglomerate of the 5 people they talk to the most, what does sitting on a computer or phone reading twitter and watching rapid fire tiktoks from angry people do to someone's mind?

Luis 2023-03-25 05:25:12

Interesting thoughts on applying animation concepts to almost anything. I like ur writings

jonathan 2023-03-25 18:21:57

Really great stuff Marty. Always love reading these.

I'm reminded of this quote I read in a Harlan Ellison book where he said something to the effect of "Take the work deathly serious but never take yourself too seriously". I think about that one pretty often. It's a delicate balance of knowing your own limitations, and then having the confidence enough to think it's a worthwhile pursuit to put in all those hours of work or attempt an ambitious idea. Too much of one or the other is a creative death sentence. Especially with how long animation takes comparative to other mediums, I can't imagine why anyone would want to go through all the tedium if they didn't believe what they were creating was important/needed to be said.

On the subject of Harlan I think I sent you this interview with him years ago, but it's a great one that I feel like is worth revisiting given how relevant it is to the post. It's been a while since I've watched it myself but I still think about quotes from it like once a week. Look no further for a perfect example of the type of artist you're talking about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcM8FHljXxc

Really glad you liked Lain so much too. I'd like to think me trying to explain why Digimon is actually good accounted for like 2% of you watching that!

Yarvus 2023-03-26 18:32:09

Well-written and interesting as usual! Your point about pushing reminds me of something my old drawing professor told me,"exaggerate to find the sublety!" which I'll never forget.

OrganizedApeShape 2023-03-27 18:01:14

hot read.

Cyberdevil 2023-04-25 14:13:39

I'm not sure overdoing it really applies to functional UI design as well as it does other arts, but I think I will give it a try after this after all. :) Intriguing to see what that might lead to... for the most part I feel I'm only off by a pixel or two with most tweaks, ideal readability and visibility alignments seem subtle, but who knows, maybe I'm overly stuck in my ways after all...

The have a smoke advice I think I'm a skip on entirely. XD

Caveh I shall definitely delve into more.

I hear a certain level or narcissism is really a good thing if you just surround yourself with people who can humble you.

Serial Experiments Lain was great, agreed. Watched with subs though...

Have contemplated the slow collapse of our current civilization too, and been surprised by how the advent of all main religions we currently adhere to in the world actually took place around the same time, within the space of just a few hundred years AD (Buddhism too). And yet there have been so many religions before this faith-related vortex, and after, how could that particular span of time culminate in such a culmination of ideals... not that this has anything to do with the potentially appending collapse of the world order as we know it, though I do feel like religion overall may eventually have something to do with it. Or the lack thereof. In our apparent difficulties in finding something worthwhile to believe in and dedicate ourselves to outside of the common faith. These days it seems most of us lack maybe not passion but purpose and discipline over all.

Haven't opened up most links in this post yet since I fear they'd eat all too big a chunk of my spare time today, but have bookmarked for the future, you really have a way with words; bring up fascinating concepts and contemplations. Inspires me to challenge myself too. Even if you create it's easy to get stuck in a loop; settle for less; lose track of what's ambition and what's ample pastime and distraction.

This was great. Cool to stumble upon something with both this kind of depth and red-threadedness. Goes full circle in the end, as if everything in the world is expression; art. Or can be conveyed that way. We don't realize how deep it goes. We forget how far we can take it. Even if we don't have a fear of forsaking, or not making it, we need some kind of foundation to create things. Ideas - even just words. Fragments of enlightenments that make us feel things, or wake our neurons, expand our realm of consciousness and understanding... like how but learning a new word can teach us a whole new facet of life. If we have the ability to express everything then we can truly experience it, too. And oftentimes means of mainstream expression these days feels dumbed down, and repetitive, like we're not encouraged to really learn or experience anything anymore. We lose sense of how great a potential for exploration we really hold in our arts and language.

Yeah. Inspiring stuff. Shall come here more often.

Btw really just came here to say thanks for the review response recently, on squiggly lines and their various names, enlightening factoids there too.

Cyberdevil 2023-04-26 04:30:08

Some might say science is becoming our new religion, though I'm not sure that's true, with how we don't truly question the research or progress we hear is made. Seems like maybe it was for a while. Maybe it's more so media that's become our God now, and corporations our new governments, with their massive influence on social norm and infrastructure, policy's often based on profit more so than the maybe more pragramtic faith-related doctrine that governments were initially based on, initially a fairer replacement for the church... seems there's a conflict of interest these days in what's truly important, and so the way we and the world develops gets influenced by all the more individual entities with their own interests, and our potential in truly innovating and getting somewhere gets fragmented; our potential purposes in life polarized and set against each other.

Maybe that's how collapses ultimately happen when they do. When fragments of order and discipline are too small and too many to co-exist. Then again maybe that's the best way to make way for one foundation that works; let the new one grow and in time replace all...

Always a revelation available here! That old animation show was fascinating, my FBF variant of the technique's more akin to the original then, really is easier to do these things digitally...

Bill 2023-04-26 23:50:42

@Cyberdevil @Emrox

Oh yeah I think it was 'Lessons From History' by Will and Ariel Durant? I must've read that like 5-6 years ago but I remember talking about that.

Cyberdevil 2023-04-30 06:14:30

Hmm that'd be an interesting shift in current social order! Is that actually happening currently, do people gather that way? Around here it seems more so common people don't move out, housing's expensive, the generation I'm part of at least seem to get a late start on life, and the main goal seems to have changed from having traditional families and careers maybe more so to finding something fulfilling beyond innate biological interests and instincts, I've heard of group home experiments but never seen one in practice. That'd be interesting. The families I see... seems oftentimes somewhat stagnant, but maybe that's just a certain pocket of generations; it gets better. Or a local phenomena.

Isolated cultures sound like both a good and bad thing though, good to have a diversity of ideas, but not so good if they're self-fueled echo chambers where potentially discriminate and skewed ideologies easier get a foothold, and we aren't as open to bridging cultures and finding common pathways through this diversity. The polarization in society now's a big problem that seems to have some roots in subcultures as such, even if we're not physically grouped together as you suggest. Maybe that'd make for more empathy.

I feel the Internet overall lets us distance ourselves a bit too much from the consequences of our ideologies; how we approach people with ones that are different.

Cyberdevil 2023-04-30 06:15:59

@Bill Good to know! Adding to my readlist...

Cyberdevil 2023-05-15 17:21:50

Mmm that's true, without Internet specifically as potential outlet they really wouldn't he hurting anyone either, just bouncing said hate within their own bubble... in regard to prisons they should theoretically rehabilitate, not just let inmates further enforce whatever prejudice or gang mentality they bring with them, but in practice indeed that doesn't seem to work so well, fundamentally somewhat similar indeed...

I wonder if I have heard that said for real actually, I've thought it though, for sure... how did that work out for your brother, so far? Well it'd definitely be interesting if such a cultural shift does occur. :) May bring down our dystopian housing prices a bit too, if the demand doesn't keep up with the market they'll have to make things a bit more affordable eventually... maybe the collective phenomena overall would be good for people; the echo chambers would fill with optimism, visions, good things more so than the begrudging bitterness peeps may get overtaken by if they spend all too much time solo, would be interesting to see...

Here's hoping we don't nuke or paperclip ourselves in the next 300 years then!

Cyberdevil 2023-05-17 04:47:48

Nice. :) To some extent it doesn't work then! Cool to hear.

Wondering if my understanding of 'paperclipping' may differ from your understanding of paperclipping now though. XD Paperclipping as in: increasing sense of worth by feeding on superficial connections and the emotional responses of others?

Cyberdevil 2023-05-17 09:23:59

Daaang that really was something different entirely! A bit like the in sci-fi prophesized dilemma of how potentially programming AI to for example 'make the world a better place' might lead them to wipe out humanity itself, as the overwhelming root and ongoing reign of all terror and exploitation of our world. Or have it in some way save us from ourselves. Create a Matrix so that we're incapable of harming both ourselves or others, and let us live in an entirely incapacitated state...

Gotcha. Definitely some potential problems down that line of potential too, if there does come a day where AI reaches a level of sentience movies portray...

Cyberdevil 2023-05-17 10:14:57

I'm keeping up a little, though I don't know nearly enough to read the risk assessments properly, the people I have been speaking to say the timeline for any real sentience is still far off, but then again what existential-risk-level implies I'm not sure... maybe sentience isn't required for risk after all. Elon Musk's definitely been advocating for safeguards for a long time, on the other hand I remember watching a John Carmack interview recently where he felt the risks were greatly exaggerated. I'm intrigued over the possibilities of AI but not that optimistic about tech in general, so far it seems the more we get the sicker we get; the more lost and distressed. The more we exploit the world for natural resources necessary to fuel our innovations too, some of which is pretty toxic, like cobalt with the new 'green energy' revolution.

That's good to know though, re: risk. I might be in an echo chamber too. :)

If you're more into the AI field maybe some of this would be relevant: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1498559#bbspost27291338_post_text