TheActualDevil

I mean, sure, you can blame this batch on the internet and necessary SEO, but good artists being skipped over is nothing new. There were days before the internet (and even after it's implementation, but before the ecosystem you are talking about existed) where artists and band with immense talent were lost to time because things didn't line up just right for them to be successful. Bands played gig after gig, sending their singles to record companies and nothing happened. Just being good at a thing has never been enough. That's just step 1. Often, the right person has to see you, and that person has to be in the position to elevate you at the time. Maybe that industry guy was just in a bad mood that day and wasn't enjoying any music and you just got a bad night.

And we have examples of visual artists dying in obscurity only for their art to hit it big after their death. It's a whole trope in the art world. Van Gogh is probably the most famous. He died penniless having only sold a single painting while alive, and that was to his brother, a frickin art dealer! He even had a guy on the inside and couldn't make it. Impressionism was a new school, but not exactly empty. As a genre it basically got it's own museum in the Musée d'Orsay, and still, one of the greatest artists in the genre (and probably all art) couldn't get a fucking break. Talent is often not enough. Luck and timing have always been more important.

Go crazy?

I mean, easier? Sure. But I don't think most people would find it easy to just say go torture a guy. At least I hope so.

I've genuinely been trying to understand how people like the movie so much. The first time I watched it, I thought it was bad. So I came back to it a little while later and give it a second shot. Maybe I was just in a bad mood that day? Everyone seems to love it. Nope, still bad. Even gave it a third shot a few weeks ago and it felt even worse.

I read the first 3 books a few times, but I always try to put aside the source material when it moves to a new media. And the movie seemed to me like it was just a string of barely connected scenes, tied together solely because they shared characters. It was almost entirely just book references without trying to make a story out of them. It was entirely spectacle, and they still couldn't really get the scale right, which I think bugs me more than anything. It shows these giant buildings and ships that hint at vast crowds of people, and we only ever see a handful at a time on screen. Even "crowd" scenes are sparse. It feels like they're trying to make Arrakis feel giant and daunting to show the difference between the expansive dessert dwarfing crowds, then realized they didn't have the money for crowds so they just zoomed in on 4 people.

And they should have ended the story sooner. End with the climax battle and them getting to safety and save everything after for the next movie. Use that new time to actually get me invested in the characters, or the setting, or the story... anything. Make the first movie about palace intrigue as they know they're in danger and not sure who they can trust and gaining allies. Instead, all of that got like, one scene each and only makes sense if you've read the book. The best thing I can say is they put a tiny bit more effort in to showing Paul using the Voice before it's relevant to the story. So at least they cared enough about grounding that. Just not about literally anything else.

I desperately want someone to win me over and tell me what makes this a good movie. I feel like I'm missing something.

On the other hand, other fabrials, such as Soulcasters, the Sibling, and Oathgates, are still visible in Shadesmar despite having a Physical presence

It's also possible that their functionality requires them existing with a foot in both worlds, so to speak. They're not dead spren nor typical living spren. They're willfully imprisoned in some special way. Like, the Oathgate spren are the Oathgates, and seem like they're more responsive, but we know it's the same process as the Soulcasters and they're basically inert. Sanderson has said they're something like Shardblades, but he doesn't say they're just like Shardblades. They do act differently and affect things differently. Presumably they just work differently.

For point 2: I always got the impression that they did blip out when summoned. There's hundreds of them out there, but they've had thousands of years. And while we view it as imprisoned, they say they're keeping them safe (and from hurting themselves possibly I think, but I may be misremembering that bit). So they're stopping them from wandering around by keeping them locked up, but it's not trying to keep them all there forever. They just feel honor bound to take care of them. That's their ultimate goal, not to round them up.

On top of that, I'm not sure, like Syl when she's just being her little blue self hanging out with Kaladin is also in Shadesmar at the same time. I don't think it's like with lower spren where we're getting a peek at them on the other side. I think they're all the way over. Otherwise, in Oathbringer we probably would have seen Timbre, Ivory, and maybe Wyndle and Glys just hanging out on the cognitive side around Theylan City when Kaladin and the gang showed up. But it hasn't been verified, so who knows? Sanderson is pretty good at coming up with good reasons for stuff in retrospect.

My poor understanding of this situation is that, of the team working on it, one guy was like "We need to hold off on publishing until we're 100% sure." Then another guy was like "lol, gonna publish anyway and leave you off the paper." The hesitant guy gets wind and rushes to publish (with everyone included) so as to at least be included in the process.

Also, there's a thing about the first published one only had 3 people on it, making it eligible for a Nobel, but more than that does not qualify.

But overall, I agree! It's not like it being publicized stops them from working on it. They will still be working on it, and it's definitely a step towards progress. Technological process tends to be lots of small improvements to the same system over time until someone comes up with a huge leap. Then the process begins again by constantly improving on that new technology. Hopefully, this is that next huge leap in energy.

Plus, with their process so far published, more people are able to work on it without starting from scratch. It would suck for the original scientists, but be a net good overall if the early publication led to someone else being able to move farther then them because they now have access to it.

Great deal. You get 10 hours pay, they get perpetual use of your likeness for all eternity and you don't have to work ever again! Great deal for somebody.

I mean, he's aware of his popularity and privilege. He's made a few comments clarifying that it wasn't to "stick it to Amazon." He does have a problem with Amazon's business model when it comes to authors as well as the traditional publishing industry's barriers to new authors and he understands that these are people's only real option. He used that clout he has in the industry and his fiscal security to try help open up other avenues for publishing. And yeah, the guy is rich, but not publishing house rich. Printing thousands of books, then distributing them likely takes more liquid cash than he has available. He had a good idea of what it would cost and that's what was asked for on Kickstarter. If he hadn't made that, all the people would have kept their money. If more money was needed, he is rich and could probably cover it. I don't see any risk here that anyone shouldered except for him risking his goodwill with fans.

I try to be skeptical of people. Particularly successful people who have made a lot of money. But from everything I've seen, the man lives his values and seems to be a pretty good guy. For his Kickstarter books, when he was talking to Audible about the audiobook versions, they offered him a very good deal. Then he pushed them to tell what a typical author would get. When he heard how bad a deal that was, he refused.

The man really cares about books and their place in this world. He has been successful and made a lot of money and social power in the industry from decades of writing. Now he's using that to try and make the industry a better place for all writers while also still getting his books to his fans.

And my understanding is that his employees at Dragonsteel have profit sharing as part of their working there, on top of their paychecks. So any money he makes is also distributed throughout the staff. He also seems pretty liberal for a member of the LDS church and has spoken about his views evolving over the years as he's realized the reality around him. He seems like a pretty genuinely good guy doing his best to change the industry for the good of all writers.

Did you have your location services turned on around other people who likely did google that kind of thing? Or connect to the wifi in that house that almost certainly put in a search or 2 for that game? Or people who were there that Google knows you interact with? Did they Google it? Or was it just a very popular thing that was huge in the zeitgeist that day for everyone? We are tracked in so many ways that don't require them having to store and analyze literally every conversation that everyone has (Both sides of the convo as well!)

I would argue that calling a possibly humorous image posted to the internet a meme, is itself a meme in language and has gone past our ability to stop it.

Right, but the reason you run the experiment repeatedly is to test the validity of the hypothesis. You're looking for something different to happen. That's the point behind rerunning the tests.