What I would have you know about skepticism

I'd have you know that skepticism is a constant search for truth. It's not perfect - even skeptics can be fooled and can be wrong. But the process of skepticism consists of constantly doing our best to be as truthful and honest as we can be. Skepticism is not a dogma. It is not a body of knowledge. It is a method - an approach to viewing the world through the lens of truth so we can navigate our way through times that can often be difficult and confusing. Skeptics take comfort in truth, but they are always aware of the ways in which they can be wrong.

Living through a pandemic is certainly difficult and confusing. But skeptics understand the need for expertise. We know that it is not possible to know everything about everything, but we have the humility to recognise that those who dedicate their lives and their careers to narrow scientific specialisations - such as virology and epidemiology - have more knowledge and understanding of these subjects than we do. We also understand that most scientists - unlike politicians or purveyors of health supplements - are generally honest and report facts accurately, because it is their job, their career, to do so. Do we have absolute assurance of this? No, we don't. But we have a pretty reliable trend. And we have seen examples of scientists who have lost their jobs, their careers, because they failed to uphold this principle of honesty.

Skeptics recognise that the track record of science is very impressive. Scientists, unlike astrologers, make predictions that actually come true. Scientists, unlike homeopaths, acknowledge when they have been wrong about something, and change their point of view accordingly. Scientists, unlike Bigfoot hunters, actually produce verifiable evidence to support their conclusions. And scientists, unlike conspiracy theorists, acknowledge that all conclusions are provisional and may be modified in the future because of new information.

Some scientists said some things at the beginning of this pandemic that turned out not to be true. Did they stick to their guns? No, they didn't. They corrected themselves and started saying things that were more true, because that's their job. Over the course of this pandemic, more and more true things became known, and now, two years later, we know a lot of true things about it. Do we know everything? No, we do not. But we're always searching for more true things to know.

Skeptics recognise the tremendous role that scientific expertise plays in the progress of civilisation and technology, and in understanding the wonderful and confusing universe that surrounds us. That is a recognition that is missing from mercola.com. It is missing from childrenshealthdefense.org. It is missing from @drtenpenny.

That is what I'd have you know about skepticism and its role during the pandemic. Do I, after spending over an hour composing this post, think that I'll change the minds of astrologers, homeopaths, Bigfoot hunters and conspiracy theorists? I do not. Because the evidence does not support that conclusion.

Playing Oxygen Not Included

So. Still playing Oxygen Not Included. I keep abandoning my base and restarting, either because something catastrophic happened, or I just started in an awful location with no access to resources, and water in the way of everything useful.

I recently got as far as almost 275 cycles, in a base that for reasons that are unlikely to become clear I named "Thistle Me Wiggins". I had my dirt-to-energy system fully automated - all my dupes had to do was deliver dirt to storage containers in my sage hatch ranches and it would be auto-dispensed to the feeders. The resultant coal was automatically shipped to my small power brick and again automatically fed into my coal generators, which were operating on a heavy-watt spine leading to transformers. My excess hatches were automatically wrangled into a small evolution chamber so that they could evolve into their final form - meat - while eggs that did not get shipped to my incubators were delivered to my kitchen to be turned into omelette. All automated. Dirt -> energy + food, with little that my dupes needed to do. Dirt was plentiful. More on that later.

I started my dupes off on lice loaf and gristle berry, but I phased those out in favour of mushrooms and the aforementioned barbeque and omelette fairly quickly. I was also able to get sustainable thimble reed and balm lily farms going.

I was lucky enough on this base to have a couple of cool steam vents, that I was able to tame simply by having them drain into ice biomes. So I set up a small hydrogen hood-style electrolyser. I was running only 12 dupes do I didn't need a full Rodriguez. That pretty much took care of my base oxygen needs. I ran the oxygen through my water tank to cool it and burned off the hydrogen for additional energy on the grid.

By then my dupes had some Mad Skillz so I built a second electrolyser and, after playing this game for months, for the first time I had my dupes in atmo suits! Sense of achievement! Then an actual achievement because I was able to break into my oil biome.

It was at about this time that I noticed two things. First, I was completely out of dirt. As in, zero available on the map. My hatches had converted it all into coal. The couple of composts I had running were in no way able to supply all that was required. I greatly expanded this, but to no avail. My hatches started starving to death. No worries, I thought, and started planning out my oil -> petroleum + natural gas -> energy system with a view to decommissioning my coal.

The other thing I noticed was that some of my dupes were getting stressed. Very stressed. Okay, time for a massage clinic. Didn't help. A "relax and take it easy" schedule. No luck. More decor? I was already bright green in all but my most industrial areas, and all my dupes were in snazzy suits. Why were my dupes so stressed? Ah, there it was - low morale. I had forgotten to keep an eye on morale when I was allocating skill points, and a few of my dupes were well over their available morale capacity. Cue stress responses. Okay, that was it. That was the point at which my base became unrecoverable. I had done very well this time around, but it was time to quit and restart again.

And it was only just now as I am writing this up that I remembered that there exists such a thing as a skill scrubber.

I love this game.