Earth has Terrible Worldbuilding

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Because I’m a huge fan of worldbuilding, I wish  I was as impressed with the ‘Earth Project’ as…   everyone else (cheering). Like, sure, with its  long evolutionary history, detailed storyline,   and complex magic system, this setting is amazing…  ly full of sloppy mistakes! That’s right, I’m   stepping into the ring — today I’m doing a full  takedown of Earth’s so-called ‘realism.’ Okay,   first problem: Physics. At a glance, Earth’s  physics system seems pretty reliable — especially   compared to other pieces of media, but look  close enough, and you’ll definitely see the   sloppy oversights. Like how a human can put  their hand in molten metal and avoid getting   burned if they remove it fast enough.  Supposedly, this is because of something   called the Leidenfrost effect, wherein a layer of  rapidly evaporating moisture shields the colder   object, in this case the hand, but I don’t know,  sounds like an excuse for shoddy craftsmanship.   And there’s some huge incompatibility between  relativistic and quantum physics? That’s   embarrassing. “I really hope somebody got fired  for that blunder.” A setting’s magic system would   typically smooth over such inconsistencies, but  supposedly, magic isn’t a thing on Earth, and any   spells performed are just clever bits of trickery.  Heh, okay then explain this? But seriously,   when your primary mode of transportation is  the car — a metal creature with arcane innards   that only a specialized form of wizard called a  mechanic is able to tame — you still have a magic   system, you’ve just called it something else. And  light here is both a wave and a particle? Yeah,   pretty sure that’s called witchcraft. Earth’s  habit of overcomplicating perfectly-good systems   is apparent with how the project handled the  elements. The ‘Classical Elements’ of yore kept   things… ‘classy.’ Only playing the hits of water,  fire, air, and some variation on the earthy,   rocky, mineral-y stuff that makes up the  ground. Basically, things you can see,   and feel. These early systems usually had lovely  symmetry, and some nice, rock-paper-scissors-style   power-scaling — exactly as it should be. But, uh  oh, the Medieval Alchemists have gotten ahold of   these systems, and they want to add Mercury,  Sulphur, and… Salt? Okay, that’s fine, Mr. Von   Hohenheim, as long as no-one adds any more — oh  boy. What have you done to us, Dimitri? What did   you do Dimitri?! Now, it’s a huge mess. Sure, some  periodic elements like Helium grant the wielder   obvious powers, like levitation… some have decent  splash damage, and some even make for horrific   destruction spells, but this many elements means  the quality control — is pretty spotty. We got   Rutherfordium, Californium — is ‘that’ what it’s  made of? And Un-, Un-un… Un-un-en-nium?. And that   one might not even exist? Get out of here. Just  goes to show that when it comes to worldbuilding,   complexity isn’t always more engaging.  I mean, no one is going to be taking   a “which periodic element are you? quiz — oh,  that’s spot on actually. So, Physics is a bust,   how about Biology? Well again, it’s certainly  complicated, but there’s still no consistency   between what gets included, and what gets left  out for being ‘unrealistic.’ Past critics have   rightly pointed out the absurdity that unicorns  are mythical within this setting, but Giraffes,   ‘leopard-moose-camels with a 40-foot neck’ — give  or take — are completely normal, nothing to see   here, it’s fine that they eat bones. Also, some  turkeys can spontaneously impregnate themselves,   butterflies’ taste with their feet, and sea  turtles can breathe out their… posterior. So,   all that, and no dragons? Feels pretty arbitrary,  to be honest. But nothing’s quite as arbitrary as   who gets to be the star of the show — Humans.  Lots of these silly things rushing about,   around 8 billion which is… probably fine. They  come in all different looks, but have the same,   impractical drawbacks. Wisdom teeth they have  to remove, appendixes they have to remove,   goosebumps — because they still think they have  fur, these little fleshy eye-corners — because   they still think they have third eyelids,  foreheads they can’t even directly see, oh,   and most absurd of all, they can’t hold their  nose and hum at the same time. – Wait is that   true? (tries) It is true that’s so weird. Do we  buy that these things took over? On a planet with   lions, crocodiles, and this — thing? Oh, but  humans are smart — are they? Greed, pollution,   the shake weight, I could stop there, but let’s  look at something really basic like currency. In   most fictional settings, objects have value  if they’re made of a valuable material:   something logical, like a rare mineral or unicorn  snot. But in Earth’s latest chapters, most forms   of value are instead tied up in hypothetical  worth assigned to paper or just electronic   digits. That means you have characters buying  food, exchanging houses, working long hours,   losing everything, going hungry, and committing  atrocities, all over something whose meaning is   100% theoretical. Feels a bit too pessimistic, to  be honest. Oh, and speaking of food and pessimism,   I-, oh no… oh that’s not right. But forget  artificial nightmare-concoctions for a moment,   and meet mentha spicata an all-natural plant  that produces a noxious chemical compound to   keep animals from chowing down. But humans call it  mint, and put it in their food, and calming tea,   and toothpaste, because they love that refreshing,  burning flavor. They’ve also bred peppers to be   as hot as possible, because they apparently  can’t get enough of that sweet capsaicin,   an ingredient classified as a ‘chemical irritant  and neurotoxin.’ …Okay maybe it does make   sense that these things took over. So maybe some  points for Earth there, but how about Geography?   Because in worldbuilding, a consistent map usually  means a consistent world — and Earth’s map is,   as you can see, wildly inconsistent. In theory,  this is really the fault of Earth’s shape,   since flattening out a globe into a flat  projection messes up the scale no matter   what — as this country-size-comparison website  demonstrates. Here, you can see that Australia   is actually… woah. Is that right? And Greenland  is only… really? Don’t even get me started on   Liechtenstein. But seriously, is it so impossible  to make an accurate map? Watch, you just take both   sides of the globe, and then you just sort of —  uh... Okay you just gotta… huh. Yeah, that looks   right. But how about place names? Well, not to  overstep, but some of these names strike me… as a   bit silly — and the stories behind them are often  even sillier. For example, there are upwards of   six rivers in the UK all called the ‘River Avon.’  And though it’s hard to find an exact source, the   general theory goes that this is because when the  Romans invaded and they asked the Celts “what’s   that river called?” The Celts would say “Avon,”  and the Romans were like “Cool” and wrote it down,   not realizing Avon is just the Celtic word for  “river.” …Of course, another explanation is   that whoever made this map is super lazy. Beyond  place names, Earth linguistics are generally a   bit catawampus. An effective fictional language,  or ‘conlang,’ should have reasonably consistent   rules for the audience’s benefit. For research,  I wrote the script for this video in English,   an Earth conlang which is… complete  nonsense. This, I think we can all agree,   is not a sentence. The English wiki might claim  it’s a sentence, but it is not correct. English   spelling has equal clownery afoot. Like, ‘Friends’  is spelled with the I before the E — fair enough,   that’s apparently where it goes except after C,  unless your foreign neighbor – Keith – receives   – eight – counterfeit – beige – sleighs –  from – feisty – caffeinated – weightlifters.   Or with… all these. Also, why is it, (as  one scholar notes), that writers write and   painters paint, but fingers don’t… fing? Why  don’t hammers ham, or dumpsters… dumpst? Yeah,   do yourself a favor, and just learn Klingon. So  more points off for linguistics and geography, how   about music? Well Earth, admittedly, has a pretty  great soundtrack. Difficult to choose a favorite…   I mean — hard to beat a cuneiform classic like the  Hurrian Hymn. Tree frog sounds are pretty good,   waterfalls, Hieronymus Bosch gave us a definite  banger with his 15th Century butt music,   and Purple Haze is also pretty good. No, my real  complaint when it comes to Earth’s soundtrack… are   these instruments. Because I’ve actually got  a replica of an in-universe stringy-whatever,   and it doesn’t sound nearly as good as Mr.  Hendricks’s. I looked on the wiki, and apparently,   learning to play an Earth instrument requires  ‘time’ and ‘effort.’ This is apparently true   for any meaningful Earth artform… and you have to  be emotionally vulnerable? Definitely don’t like   that. ‘But hang on, what about the storyline?’  Well, I skimmed through most of the plot at some   place called a library and wow this project needs  an editor. First of all, the timeline itself is   way too long. Having hundreds of millions  of years be all dinosaurs is ridiculous,   no matter how cool they were. As it stands,  the T-rex lived further away from Stegosaurus   than from modern humans — which, come on. And zero  human/dinosaur overlap feels like a pretty obvious   missed opportunity. No, birds don’t count, they  don’t hunt people — except for that one time. But   the timeline gets far messier. Sharks — everyone’s  favorite murder-fish — are supposed to have been   swimming around for longer than the evolution of  trees? They’re also older than the formation of   Saturn’s rings, and older than one of the points  in the Polaris system, aka the North Star. Yes,   more ancient than the birth of the actual star. I  get that sharks are a cool bit of worldbuilding,   but that’s overdoing it. Also, Cleopatra  lived closer to the Moon landing than the   pyramid’s construction, and there are parts of the  Appalachian Mountains older than the evolution of   bones. A timeline this muddled and lengthy makes  getting invested in any one character pretty   difficult. Tycho Brahe seems promising — he became  a renowned astronomer, lost his nose in a duel   over a mathematical formula and got a bronze one,  lived in a castle, once owned 1% of the wealth in   Denmark, had a pet moose that died after getting  wasted and falling down the stairs, until finally   Mr. Brahe himself passed away peacefully — just  kidding he might have been murdered? Sounds like   a character worth following, but Tycho was tearing  it up for an all-too-short 53 years — Earth’s   plotline covers 4.5 billion years. The fleeting  nature of existence is actually an issue you’ll   run into with every character, which makes caring  about anyone, on some level, an inherently tragic   experience — and that’s…. I don’t like it. Glass  sponges have things figured out, though. The   cosmic unfairness of the human condition aside,  Earth’s storyline leaves a lot to be desired in   terms of believability. It rained frogs for a  minute, a bear named Wojtek served in WWII and   was promoted to the rank of a corporal, the US  government once lost a nuclear bomb, whew can you   imagine, a dog played in the NBA, it looks like,  and oh yeah and this exists. And was sold. Humans   bought this. Hey, speaking of — Technology! Earth  is full of tech, a lot of which seems to have no   function but to breed nightmares. In keeping with  this project’s penchant for hyper-complexity, even   the most ordinary objects have ludicrous amounts  of lore behind how they’re made, especially   compared to other settings. I’m not sure we need  all this to explain where bubble gum comes from.   It’s bubble gum. When it comes to inventions,  humans get credit for most ideas — Dolphins came   up with the printing press but no one tell them  — and have worked their way reasonably far up the   tech-tree, with such hits as masonry, pottery,  the wheel — ah, what a classic — gunpowder,   splitting the atom, the… internet… uh oh. Yes,  for every smashing success like refrigeration   or washing their hands, humans have created a  double-edged nightmare like leaded gasoline,   microplastics, Yahoo answers — hmm yes, the work  of an enlightened species. And this is just tech   that caught on for a time; there’s all sorts  of insane stuff either forgotten in the past,   or yet to be added in future Earth updates.  Looking down the technological-tree, it’s hard   not to wonder exactly where the human plotline is  headed. Because there are lots of inventions that   seem primed for absolute horrific consequences  — too many, I’d argue. Like, it’s a bit much to   keep foreshadowing a robot apocalypse, and a  climate apocalypse, and a nuclear apocalypse,   and a genetic-engineering apocalypse, you need to  pick one! With all these looming potentialities,   combined with the crushing weight of  mortality inherent to the human condition,   it seems unrealistic that this species would  be able to emotionally function at all. Well,   supposedly, they’ve something to help them  sort through all those fears and questions   of existence. It’s called philosophy, and it comes  in many flavors. Okay, we’ve got Anthropocentrism,   which basically says humans rule, humans are  number one, they’re separate from nature and   definitely not still connected to a complex web of  ecological interdependence beyond their control,   and nothing is ever likely to take humanity  down a peg. We’ll see how that one works out.   There are various forms of Essentialism,  which is the idea that all things have   some set of inherent traits that determine  their identity, and therefore everything can   be categorized. This links back to the older  Theory of Forms, and that time Plato defined   ‘Man’ as a ‘featherless biped’. Behold! A man!  Yeah, I’ll be honest, far from categorizable,   every single facet of the Earth seems pretty darn  wiggly and determined by subjective experience to   me, but what do I know? If you think Essentialism  is lame but still wish things were less wiggly,   there’s always Empiricism, the philosophy of  using research and the five basic human senses   to figure out what the universe’s deal is. Pretty  solid idea, although human senses are absolutely   bonkers. Most have veritable labyrinths of tissue  that translate acoustic vibrations in the air into   electrical impulses — that’s called hearing.  Biological lenses can turn reflected photons   into portraits of their surroundings — or seeing.  Smell a process in which humans inhale molecules   from the surrounding air and their olfactory  nerves tell them if it’s pleasant or yucky. Touch   seems to work the same way except with nerves all  over the body, and most humans need to touch other   humans with some regularity or else they get quite  sad. Seems… pretty tough to be honest. And then   there’s taste, where humans slather their gross  fleshy mouth organs all over something to decide   if they want to consume it. Add on all those  senses no-one cares remembers, and you’ve got   a pretty solid argument that Empiricism and  direct observation can teach you everything.   Except for the problem that human senses lie to  them all the time, as proven by the existence of   optical illusions. Is this an old woman or a  young woman? Neither, it’s some sort of acorn   with a funny hat. So, if humans can’t trust their  own sensory reality, what can they trust? Well,   how about the idea that every decision they’ve  ever made was completely out of their control?   This is called Determinism, a cheery bit of  philosophy that argues that because every event   is the product of past events, free will therefore  doesn’t exist. Any decision a human makes, no   matter how impulsive it might feel in the moment,  was predetermined by brain chemicals and their   environment and the fact the earth formed at all  and a billion other factors that would have always   played out the same way, no matter what. This  kind of thinking leads comfortably into nihilism,   the idea that life has no intrinsic meaning or  value, comforting stuff, which leaves humans with   limited options. There’s the existentialist route,  where since has life no inherent purpose, humans   can instead craft their own. Or the absurdist  route, where since life has no inherent purpose,   humans can… just do whatever. Relax, if they feel  like it. Nothing really matters. Or there’s the   route where they just feel really bummed out for  perpetuity. A trend you might have noticed is that   the philosophies that acknowledge the state of  the world aren’t very consoling. Even Stoicism,   an ancient philosophy which is now hip again,  is ultimately more about accepting the hardships   of live than making those hardships go away. At  first, I thought this was another amateur mistake,   where someone forgot to add the objectively  correct philosophy that fixes everything,   but upon reflection, I think this might be  an inherent byproduct of the fact that it is   difficult to be a human. To be a character in this  setting is to experience pain, bright spots too,   and seeking a greater understanding of the world  can help, but human life has fundamental drawbacks   no one can fully escape from. No matter one’s  philosophical outlook, to live in this world is   to experience sorrow. Good thing Earth is entirely  fictional, ha... All right, let’s brighten things   up with some fun ethical thought experiments  — loads of philosophies come packaged with   them. Like the classic Trolley Problem, where  there’s five humans tied to a trolley track,   one human tied to another, and you off to the  side with a lever and the power to decide which   track the trolley goes down. This dilemma, of  course, ignores the real question, which is who   is tying all these folks to the trolley track,  and how do we get them to knock it off? Plato’s   cave is another famous dilemma, about — being  stuck in a cave or something, it seems like.   Cool shadows though. Anyway, solution here also  seems pretty simple, just go and leave the cave,   problem solved, wow ethics are easy! Less easy are  paradoxes, logical fallacies that prove how easy   it is to break Earth’s rules. A paradox can be  as simple as writing “This sentence is a lie,” or   as circuitous as The Barber Paradox. So, imagine  there’s a barber who claims he "shaves all those,   and only those, who do not shave themselves." Does  this barber shave himself? Well… he can’t shave   himself, because he only shaves those who don’t  shave themselves. Which means he would be shaving   someone who shaves themselves. But if he doesn’t  shave himself then, he’d be someone who’d be   shaved by the barber, except he’s the barber, so  if he shaves himself then he’s someone who shaves   —nope this reality is a scam, Earth sucks,  we’re canceling it. I could rest my case,   but… I’ve got some miscellaneous complaints.  Okay, Socks. One sock is always going missing   in the wash, no explanation. There used to  be creatures that explained this phenomenon,   but it seems like they’ve been de-canonized, add  them back. Holidays. Celebrated once a year, even   if that holiday is based on surprise. With April  Fools’ Day, you’ve got humans messing with each   other and making prank videos, but how surprising  can it really be if it’s the same day every solar   rotation? If you really wanted to get someone,  you’d upload your prank video like two months   later on a completely random day…. (coughs). Also  why, in a world with this fellow, and this fellow,   and this fellow are there still no dragons? And if  the writers were to add dragons to Earth, they’d   probably hide them in what I believe to be Earth’s  out-of-bounds-zone: the deep ocean, because that   place is full of creations that definitely  weren’t there a second ago. You’re telling me   this thing has been floating about in the depths  for eons, yet was only found and added to the wiki   in the last decade? Yeah, not buying it. Someone's  sticking designs rejected for being too out-there   in a place they think no one will look. I’ve  solved it, I’ve got this project on the ropes,   I’m declaring victory. …But I think my single  biggest problem with Earth, to be completely   candid, is the way I sometimes feel like I’ll  never understand it. Which shouldn’t bother me,   because it’s nonsensical, and overly-complicated  and yet… I’ve been studying this project for… what   sometimes feels like my entire life, but I still  find myself occasionally baffled by basic things,   like when one is supposed to have a sense of  where their life is headed, or why on a planet   with eight billion humans it’s so easy to feel  alone, or how anyone finds the time to iron.   And though I’ve done my best to give Earth a fair  review, I still sometimes wonder if there’s some   obvious point that I’m missing, that everyone else  is just aware of. I want to like this project,   and I know it has potential, so… maybe I should  keep looking for meaning, maybe what gives Earth   value are the small things more than the broad  strokes, maybe there is something among all this   noise that makes the world worthwhile like…  this, woah this is beautiful, what is - all   right nevermind, we’re raising the score, ten out  of ten — Oh hey, as always, thanks for watching.   If you enjoyed this video, you can… like and  subscribe? I don’t really have a way to turn   this part into a bit. But seriously, your support  means so much, and see you in the next video…
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Channel: Curious Archive
Views: 1,222,149
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: curious archive, curiousarchive
Id: I-GpS5PCcLc
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Length: 21min 19sec (1279 seconds)
Published: Fri Jun 14 2024
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