| Khuutra said: Games without plots were mentioned only in a context to explain their relationship to games with plot; that is how those posts stayed on topic, while yours didn't. You made an inappropriate post; that's cool. Everybody does it from time to time. But talking down to other members (one of them a literature major, a literature student) and attempting to make this a point of contention for no apparent reason...? I'm not sure what you're trying to do. And no, I would not recommend those particular works as the first way to improve a person. I would start with something more contemporary and more relevant, such as "How to See Yourself as You Really Are" by the Dalai Lama. Title of a self-help book, content of a great philosopher, so on and so forth. Please, though, in the future, try to make your point without resorting to condescension. You will do better! Actually, I seem to remember that being one of the point in The Prince. Ironic. |
Rereading my first post it looks harsh. I wanted to make it half a joke (the part about being less than apes) and the other part dead serious. So it may be true that they were inappropriate. However that does not mean I am will take back what I said. Those books are all great. VG plots are retarded. The best you can get from it is a story so simple that it wont get in your way. All the highly praised game plots are laughable.
I will avoid talking about self-help books. IMO they are a way to make someone a idiot for life. Also the Dalai Lama is one of the biggest hypocrites in the world, just do some research on his life. Anyway this talk wont lead anywhere. You like self-help books and I think they are for the retarded, no use arguing.
As for the Prince, you have no idea what you are talking about. there was no such point in the book. Machiavelli look down on mankind. He states his negative views on men several times. He encourages the opposite:
But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived. One recent example I cannot pass over in silence. Alexander the Sixth did nothing else but deceive men, nor ever thought of doing otherwise, and he always found victims; for there never was a man who had greater power in asserting, or who with greater oaths would affirm a thing, yet would observe it less; nevertheless his deceits always succeeded according to his wishes,[*] because he well understood this side of mankind.
One of my favorite parts:
Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women. But when it is necessary for him to proceed against the life of someone, he must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause, but above all things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.
Satan said:
"You are for ever angry, all you care about is intelligence, but I repeat again that I would give away all this superstellar life, all the ranks and honours, simply to be transformed into the soul of a merchant's wife weighing eighteen stone and set candles at God's shrine."
