bibliophile20 wrote:

Nope. People believing in Firewall is Tin-Foil Hat crowd territory. The Prometheans are even more obscure. There will always be rumors and drunk-tales of "benevolent AIs", but they'll never have details, much less a name, and, at the core of it, it'll always be (and be dismissed as) a form of wish fulfillment in a hostile and uncaring universe.

Lilith wrote:

Even [i]within[/i] Firewall, most people have no idea of the Prometheans' existence. Proxies might know varying degrees of rumor at best, and your average Sentinel would (per usual) be completely clueless unless a higher-up told him/her/it first..

bibliophile20 wrote:

Steel Accord wrote:

I do find a the idea of you taking an idea that I take very seriously, my religious beliefs and how they would be affected by the events of EP, and turning them into comic relief to be a bit hurtful. Now I understand that probably isn't your intent at all. I just don't see why absence of evidence is evidence of absence in the belief of benevolent Seed A.I. Like all religion, the key part is taking it on faith.

My apologies. My intent was not to insult you, but look at it from an outside perspective: In the aftermath of an event that stretches the very definition of the word "disaster", we have someone that reacts by creating a belief--one completely without any supporting evidence--of an "angelic" savior that is the polar opposite of the "demonic" forces clearly at work, and then venerates said savior. To most rational people, this would be a clear attempt by an emotionally damaged individual attempting to invoke the "Just World" fallacy/cognitive bias so as to stave off depression and suicidal beliefs, not only at having had an event of such magnitude actually occur, but also at the survivor's guilt of having survived, while so many others did not. The human mind is not wired to believe in chaos and lack of determinism on such a level, and thus constructs narratives and other reasons to answer the question of "Why?" But, even as they are understandable responses to a tragedy on the level of the Fall, they will be seen as either absurd or dangerous (one step away from outright TITAN worship) by the majority who did not go through the same psychological responses. (It might even be taken as a direct insult by people who helped transhumanity survive and rebuild, because that belief directly challenges their own belief that it was their own abilities and actions that helped people survive, by instead insisting that they didn't survive based on their own actions, but by the unknowable and unprovable intervention of a benevolent god-like intelligence... who was somehow too weak to prevent the Fall) And, taking it the absurd extreme of "The AI Gods are watching out for me, personally!" is, sadly, all too believable. I was raised in a fundamentalist community, don't forget. I have had to talk far too many people who believe that "God won't let anything happen to me!" out of stupid and foolhardy actions (my personal favorite was a friend of mine who went walking out onto a frozen lake when we were teens, and when I tried to get him to come back to shore, told me that "God will take me when it's my time!" I shouted back, "Steven, you don't know when that time is!" And, almost on cue, a minute later, there was a loud sound as the ice cracked...). It would be that mindset I would be mocking with that comic relief--the people who have gone so far into the fallacy that they have managed to replace their rational risk assessment with blind faith in a personal savior with a personal interest in their survival. (to the aficionados of Jewish humor on this forum, yes, I'm invoking the punchline "I sent three boats and a helicopter! What more do you want?") EDIT: Also, you can still namedrop God, Gods, or the socially-acceptable deity of your choice when engaging in profanity. I have no problem with that. As a very wise man has pointed out:

Quote:

"Besides, when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it's nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, "Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!" or "Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!”

Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:

Actually, per the core book pg 85, your average conspiracy theorist...

"EP core book pg 85" wrote:

[b]PROMETHEANS[/b] A prominent topic among conspiracy theorists is the existence of a group of seed AIs calling themselves Prometheans. Rumors of these entities predated the Fall and occasionally flare up as some new evidence comes to light, though such evidence is almost always discredited soon after. According to some theories, the Prometheans predated the TITANs and may even have been responsible for bringing the TITANs into existence. Others postulate that the Prometheans were a TITAN splinter faction that broke off and attempted to counteract the TITANs activities during the Fall. Still others whisper that the Prometheans are not of transhuman origin at all and are actually a digital alien mindform that found Earth and now actively interferes with transhuman affairs. Whether the Prometheans are hostile, friendly, or indifferent remains a matter of much conjecture and contention. Prominent organizations like the Planetary Consortium discount such rumors or otherwise remain silent.

Looks like you aren't the one in Homebrew territory, Steel.

Lilith wrote:

Believe me, I ain't no lady. And I'll call you whatever I damn well please!