Is this a personal opinion, or is it a narrative opinion? Like, is this something you'd say about your own life, or is this only an opinion you hold for certain characters?
What is the difference? :confused:

It's pretty much restating that any step towards being something other than a human is something that I don't think can be easily taken back, and something I would like to avoid. It's a point that I brought up before:
Not being able to relate to normal human stimuli is something megucas are doing to themselves to cope with their situations. They desensitize themselves to a lot of things, including murder and the loss of interaction with the non-magical world. We are struggling to keep them functioning as humans, trying to keep Minami grounded, get Maiko a social life again, fix whatever the hell is wrong with Naoko, and attempting to retain some measure of normalcy ourselves.
It is a personal opinion about a fictional situation in a quest, and a personal preference to not see the main character go down that road.

(I still cringe when remembering the suggestion to tear a couple of Chizuka's limbs off because she can be fixed later)
 
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What is the difference? :confused:

It's pretty much restating that any step towards being something other than a human is something that I don't think can be easily taken back, and something I would like to avoid. It's a point that I brought up before:

It is a personal opinion about a fictional situation in a quest, and a personal preference to not see the main character go down that road.

(I still cringe when remembering the suggestion to tear a couple of Chizuka's limbs off because she can be fixed later)
The difference is whether I try to argue whether something is good for Yui, or whether I try to convince you that it's good in general.

One is an analysis, the other is philosophy.

And given its 7am and I've yet to sleep, both arguments are probably beyond my capabilities right now... Which is ironic given the subject :p

Meh, I'll give it a try and hope I make sense.

Nooo, my transhumanistic dreams!

It's pretty much restating that any step towards being something other than a human is something that I don't think can be easily taken back, and something I would like to avoid

As seen here, we've two incompatible stances. Transhumanism vs purism. You seem to think that 'humanity', whatever that means, ought to be preserved. I can't speak for Noumero, but personally I believe in 'sapience' over humanity. Humanity as a concept divorced from sapience is something I can't conceive of until an alien, inhuman sapience is discovered to compare.

To me, humanity is the concept of sapience as expressed through mankind. The idea that humanity needs to be preserved is nonsensical and redundant. To preserve humanity is to preserve thinking human life. The only conceivable way to change it would be brain-death.

AI, aliens, and anything else modeled in SciFi or fantasy, unless explicitly designed so as to be unfathomable (cthulu), is included in my concept of Sapience/humanity/personhood. The terms are interchangeable to me. As we've yet to meet real aliens, the aliens we imagine are generally understandable sapient beings. While it might take some effort to see things from an alien perspective, it evidently can be done as that perspective was created by a person. If a living, thinking, real human being thought in that way, they'd be no less human to me, hence sapient aliens as conceivable to me are considered under the umbrella of 'humanity', and are no less valuable than any other human being.

With all of that said, Yui changing to become less ordinary in no way impacts her humanity. There is nothing to preserve in that regard. There is no value lost.

Otoh, if a person is their mind and memories, then staying awake means more memories which means more life. Keeping Yui awake longer means she generates more life per day. To be unconscious is to pause life. More life is good. Erm, random tangent over.


If i understand you as wanting to preserve normalcy rather than your own definition of humanity, then we've other questions to consider instead. Why preserve normalcy? What is its value?

Assuming that the value is in Yui's mental and emotional health, then we have to consider whether sleeping does that better than acting.

Benefits of sleeping for Yui would be solely in maintaining routine; all the other benefits can be substituted with magic.

Benefits of staying awake include anything and everything one might do while awake. Which is everything, very few people do anything of note while asleep. In regards to mental and emotional health actions we're likely to agree to vote for within the context of this quest, we have:
  • Spending time with other magical girls. This includes comfort, improved social relations, safety, and anything else one might expect to gain from a relationship.
  • Planning out future actions. Creating and following a schedule can be as soothing as following a routine. In fact, this can help replace or create a new routine that Yui can adapt to.
  • Securing materials necessary for continued living. Aka grief seeds. Not just currency, grief seeds are food, water and air to a magical girl. More of this means more peace of mind.
  • Rest & relaxation. Rather than losing consciousness and basically ceasing to exist for a few hours, Yui can spend time where otherwise she'd be unaware of the world relaxing and doing things that she enjoys. Whether this takes the form of reading a good book, listening to questionable music, or practicing anime poses alongside her favorite characters, taking a break can do wonders to help a person unwind.
It's pretty clear to me that unless Yui has an obsessive attachment to routine, spending an extra few hours each day awake would benefit Yui's mental and emotional health.

So in terms of preserving the vague concept of what it means to be human, the idea that spending less time aware of being alive is necessary is nonsensical and I disagree utterly.

In terms of preserving the illusion of normalcy for the sake of routine, I believe that examining the reasoning behind this suggestion reveals an outcome opposite to the one intended.

Posted at 7:50. Took me most of an hour :s
 
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Add me to the pile of recent readers who've been enjoying the story (who knew that advertising is effective :p ?)
You've got some really well done characters here @Echo, all a delight to read.


I don't get this at all. Is this a personal opinion, or is it a narrative opinion? Like, is this something you'd say about your own life, or is this only an opinion you hold for certain characters?

I ask because I need to tailor my response to your actual objections, which I'm having trouble understanding.
...Blueberry slippery slope.

I mean, there's more to it than that for me (personally), but I think that's a pretty succinct description. I think we'll need as many anchors as we can get to stability, and cutting out on sleeping/eating won't help that. Basically, it's a mindset thing (both for Yui, and for the thread), which has the potential to derail everything in a horrible ball of flames if things start going wrong.
 
Add me to the pile of recent readers who've been enjoying the story (who knew that advertising is effective :p ?)
You've got some really well done characters here @Echo, all a delight to read.



...Blueberry slippery slope.

I mean, there's more to it than that for me (personally), but I think that's a pretty succinct description. I think we'll need as many anchors as we can get to stability, and cutting out on sleeping/eating won't help that. Basically, it's a mindset thing (both for Yui, and for the thread), which has the potential to derail everything in a horrible ball of flames if things start going wrong.
Again I stress the importance of user votes. If lack of sleep impacts Yui in a negative way, we can vote to sleep, and Yui will actually do it even if no conceivable 13 year old immune to sleep would normally agree.

Personally, I believe that 2 hours of manga and music will do more for Yui than 5 hours of unconsciousness, but that's the kind of thing you'd need to test to know for sure.

Also being able to go without food doesn't mean we will. Food tastes nommy, and ice cream is great for bonding with formerly hostile girls!

Honestly, most of the worry seems to me to be that the very same voters so concerned with Yui's health are going to vote to ignore Yui's health, which seems counter-intuitive but I guess you'd know yourself better than I would...

But hey, if my side of the vote believes in our self-control enough to try things, then we'll just have to win the vote to go to sleep when the warning signs appear with or without support. :p
 
So I'm trying work out how a debate on transhumanism popped up in this thread, but bleh, I don't much care for serious argument on it atm. Instead, I posit: Yui's sleeping appearance is likely adorable and therefore precious to various people such as Minami. If we give Yui too much power over the supply of this valuable and unique type of adorableness, it is almost certain to cause a crash in overall adorableness. My projections suggest that about 30% of adorableness will be lost this way.
 
So I'm trying work out how a debate on transhumanism popped up in this thread, but bleh, I don't much care for serious argument on it atm. Instead, I posit: Yui's sleeping appearance is likely adorable and therefore precious to various people such as Minami. If we give Yui too much power over the supply of this valuable and unique type of adorableness, it is almost certain to cause a crash in overall adorableness. My projections suggest that about 30% of adorableness will be lost this way.
Indeed.

The main reason to sleep is to disguise the whole "we are a magical lich" from the parents.
 
As seen here, we've two incompatible stances. Transhumanism vs purism.
Yes. Rather than argue too much about it, though, I will refer you to a collection of amusing stories by Stanislaw Lem, "The Star Diaries", and "The Twenty-first Voyage" in particular. Sadly, due to copyright laws being much stricter in US, I couldn't find a publicly available copy in English, and all my quick search has produced was a two-hours long audio on Youtube. The story is quite short, though, about 16k words in Polish. I guess the guy reading it took his sweet time.

Lem is one of the very few writers who justifies the 'Sci' in Sci-Fi, and he is pretty good with both philosophy and satire. Witty too, though I can't vouch for the translation. I believe that the time spent on this little gem will not be lost regardless of what your stance on it will be.

That's assuming that you, as a Sci-Fi fan, is not familiar with it already. :)

If lack of sleep impacts Yui in a negative way, we can vote to sleep, and Yui will actually do it even if no conceivable 13 year old immune to sleep would normally agree.
Again, I don't think this is how it works. There are no measurable criteria that could determine a negative impact, and we were assured it does not impact health. The thing that people oppose lies in another dimension entirely.

So far we've seen two examples of the girls who have mastered the art of body puppeteering. One of them is Maiko, and while I am extremely grateful for everything she does, in no way I believe that she should be our role model - a hikikomori who shut herself away from the world to get immersed in research that could bring her friends back.

The other is Naoko.
 
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Yui's sleeping appearance is likely adorable and therefore precious to various people such as Minami. If we give Yui too much power over the supply of this valuable and unique type of adorableness, it is almost certain to cause a crash in overall adorableness. My projections suggest that about 30% of adorableness will be lost this way.
As Yui's adorableness has been weaponized in the name of friendship, strict regulations should be considered in order to minimize the damage it can cause when unchecked. While the overall loss of adorableness is regrettable, controlled exposure is safer to all.

I can't stop arguing, I think I need sleep.

Indeed.

The main reason to sleep is to disguise the whole "we are a magical lich" from the parents.

And Natsuki. (Think about trying to hide actually waking up from her. How tempted would Yui be :p ).

(Also don't really want constant reminders of that in down time *shrug*).
Hanging out with some Shoujo manga is equally effective. What we need isn't sleep, it's presence.
 
Yes. Rather than argue too much about it, though, I will refer you to a collection of amusing stories by Stanislaw Lem, "The Star Diaries", and "The Twenty-first Voyage" in particular. Sadly, due to copyright laws being much stricter in US, I couldn't find a publicly available copy in English, and all my quick search has produced was a two-hours long audio on Youtube. The story is quite short, though, about 16k words in Polish. I guess the guy reading it took his sweet time.

Lem is one of the very few writers who justifies the 'Sci' in Sci-Fi, and he is pretty good with both philosophy and satire. Witty too, though I can't vouch for the translation. I believe that the time spent on this little gem will not be lost regardless of what your stance on it will be.

That's assuming that you, as a Sci-Fi fan, is not familiar with it already. :)
Article:
"The Twenty-first Voyage", in which Ijon Tichy visits Dykhtonia - a civilisation which achieved total corporeal and mental plasticity after a thousand-year rule by automorphists, the local equivalent of transhumanists.


That does sound interesting. Apparently Lem is skilled at writing truly alien aliens, which is always fun to read. I hope I get a chance to check some of his stuff out.

Again, I don't think this is how it works. There are no measurable criteria that could determine a negative impact, and we were assured it does not impact health. The thing that people oppose lies in another dimension entirely.

So far we've seen two examples of the girls who have mastered the art of body puppeteering. One of them is Maiko, and while I am extremely grateful for everything she does, in no way I believe that she should be our role model - a hikikomori who shut herself away from the world to get immersed in research that could bring her friends back.

The other is Naoko.
I don't think it's in Yui's best interests to look up to any known magical girl as a role model. Even Mami.

The life of a magical girl wears people down. Chou's bitter, paranoid personality. Yumi's cold pragmatism. Even Kiyomi disagreed with Yui's decision not to casually kill Naoko, and she hadn't even been lichbombed.

You've got the cause and effect backwards. You point at experienced magical girls, who are unsurprisingly messed up, and say "see, look at this thing they can do" as if that thing is the cause of their problems.

Do you think the ability to dull or ignore pain will make Yui (and by extension the thread) less compassionate, more willing to kill? Do you think having more hours in a day will make Yui anti-social or divorced from reality?

I don't. I think both of those abilities are tools that can and will help Yui both to live, and to survive. I think that Yui will remain the same bright, bubbly and friendly girl for as long as the world lets her, and these tools may in fact aid her in remaining herself.
 
Apparently Lem is skilled at writing truly alien aliens, which is always fun to read. I hope I get a chance to check some of his stuff out.
Lem does have those works too ('Solaris' comes to mind), but 'The Star Diaries' and 'The Cyberiad' (translated by Michael Kandel) are pretty light-hearted reads even when they deal with some heavier concepts. The 21st Voyage is a bit of an outlier, though. I would recommend 'The Cyberiad' regardless of your preferences because it's sci-fi humor, and the stories are short so you can't go wrong with it.

Come, let us hasten to a higher plane
Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
Their indices bedecked from one to n
Commingled in an endless Markov chain!

Come, every frustrum longs to be a cone
And every vector dreams of matrices.
Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
It whispers of a more ergodic zone.

In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space
Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways.
Our asymptotes no longer out of phase,
We shall encounter, counting, face to face.

I'll grant thee random access to my heart,
Thou'lt tell me all the constants of thy love;
And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove,
And in our bound partition never part.

For what did Cauchy know, or Christoffel,
Or Fourier, or any Bools or Euler,
Wielding their compasses, their pens and rulers,
Of thy supernal sinusoidal spell?

Cancel me not - for what then shall remain?
Abscissas some mantissas, modules, modes,
A root or two, a torus and a node:
The inverse of my verse, a null domain.

Ellipse of bliss, converge, O lips divine!
the product o four scalars is defines!
Cyberiad draws nigh, and the skew mind
Cuts capers like a happy haversine.

I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
Bernoulli would have been content to die,
Had he but known such a-squared cos 2 phi!

:oops::oops::oops:

How much (or if) you will like his more serious stuff will depend on your literary tastes. And translation quality. I've heard Kandel did a very good job, but he couldn't have done all of Lem's books. 'Solaris', unfortunately, was translated to English from a castrated French retelling of a Polish original, so beware.
Even Kiyomi disagreed with Yui's decision not to casually kill Naoko, and she hadn't even been lichbombed.
This surprised me so much I had to go back and reread it. Nah, she just said that Naoko would have deserved it if Yui did decide to kill her.

Don't you put words in my favorite character's mouth! :mad::p
You've got the cause and effect backwards. You point at experienced magical girls, who are unsurprisingly messed up, and say "see, look at this thing they can do" as if that thing is the cause of their problems.

Do you think the ability to dull or ignore pain will make Yui (and by extension the thread) less compassionate, more willing to kill? Do you think having more hours in a day will make Yui anti-social or divorced from reality?
That's not nearly as clear-cut a question. No, these are not the cause of the meguca problems, just the symptoms. What I am saying, though, is that no well-adjusted, stable individual should feel compelled to give up a part of their humanity. Isn't this what they hate QB for, for tricking them to part with something they were not aware they had before they lost it?

Which may come a little bit too late, considering what they've become, but for me it's all the more reason to cling to what's left.

The second part is tricky. Pain is as much a blessing as it is a curse, as it's our nerves signaling us 'you've done a bad thing, please stop'. Being afraid of pain is not bad. Yet I realize that there may come a moment where ignoring pain could become a matter of life and death, and this is why I am merely uneasy about the idea rather than rejecting it outright, like I would do staying perpetually awake.

Yes, this is something that has potential to divorce us from reality, seeing how it distances us even further from humans and has us put even more effort to trick others into thinking we are normal. Most of the magical girls do not resort to this either - as far as we know, besides Maiko every girl is soundly asleep at night. It's not a necessity.

It would be efficient, no doubt, but that's not the only metrics. Robbing ATMs is efficient way of earning money, too, and yet I don't see us encouraging this sort of behavior.
 
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What I am saying, though, is that no well-adjusted, stable individual should feel compelled to give up a part of their humanity
So, does that mean that anyone who does wants to get rid of sleep is either unstable or not well-adjusted? Because that's a strong claim, considering that several people in this very thread expressed such desires. More than that, Yui herself already implied the desire to do that, in that quote, and it was later confirmed by a WoG.

Additionally, are you arguing that even if someone is well-adjusted and stable, but in a life-threatening crisis, they would choose to die rather than taint their humanity? Because that's our choice, even if we're dealing with probabilities rather than certainties.
So fine, let's suppose Yui would lose a part of her humanity if she stops sleeping. Let's suppose it's a bad thing. Is it such a bad thing we'd rather let someone die than do it? If it decreases chances of Chou dying by 10%, would you still not want to do that? 20%? 30%?
More realistically, what if it increases the probability of us and all our allies surviving this month by 5%? 10%? 15%?

Yes, yes, it's a slippery slope that Sayaka tried to slide down. What Sayaka didn't have is several sanity-checks, ranging from an interdimensional hivemind of diverse opinions in her head, and ending with puellae magi friends1​, including at least one veteran. Unless the situation is absolutely fucked up, someone would stop Yui's descend should it begin.

That does sound interesting. Apparently Lem is skilled at writing truly alien aliens, which is always fun to read
If you want alien aliens, definitely read Lem's Solaris. His Eden too, to a lesser extent.


1. See how deftly I dodged the "magical girl friends" phrasing?​
 
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Additionally, are you arguing that even if someone is well-adjusted and stable, but in a life-threatening crisis, they would choose to die rather than taint their humanity?
No.

As for the rest, you have nothing to provide any backing for the numbers you are using, so they remain unsourced hypotheticals. What's the point then?

Also, this exact kind of argument can be used to justify lethal action against other girls. 'Would you not kill/gem/delimb that hostile girl if it means a 32.33 (repeating of course) percent better chance of survival for this friendly girl you care about so much?' Uh, yeah, it probably does. So what, indiscriminate killing of potentially dangerous targets is the answer?

Alright, killing may be out due to it interfering with our wish magic. Then what, indiscriminate de-limbing? By the numbers that's the safer path. But surely you can see that it is not a very good solution for conflicts?

I think you can see where this logic takes a pretty big leap of faith. It's when it assumes you have no choice but to do this thing you are not fond of doing. But most of the time, the choice is there, it just means you have to work a bit harder for it.

I'd say that the answer is 'do better to keep everyone safe without sacrificing yourself piece by piece'. I do not believe sleep deprivation is our only recourse.
 
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I'm not convinced 'sacrificing yourself piece by piece' really lines up with Yui's stated goals of removing her need to sleep so she can find more time to read romance manga and watch magical girl anime.
 
I don't know about Yui, but I personally find sleep very relaxing. It gives me time to calm down and start the day afresh.

Perhaps it could help Yui wind down, instead of staying up all night worrying about something. And while music and manga is relaxing, it may remind Yui about the things she's worrying about.
 
As for the rest, you have nothing to provide any backing for the numbers you are using, so they remain unsourced hypotheticals. What's the point then?
For you to determine how much you value "being human", of course. What is the highest sacrifice you consider appropriate for this?

Obviously safety is not everything that should be taken into consideration, but the point is, it's not even something Yui doesn't want to do, not something morally reprehensible. Your strongest counterargument is that this kind of behaviour may lead to ambiguously bad consequences somewhere down the line, even though a lot of things must go wrong for that to happen.

Actually, let's taboo the word "human" and its derivatives. Now, what negative consequences are you expecting, if Yui stops sleeping?
 
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I imagine that the whole 'puppeting your corpse from inside the soul gem' angle makes any talk of transhumanism feel sketchy by association.

Seriously, we need to find a better way to word that.
 
I imagine that the whole 'puppeting your corpse from inside the soul gem' angle makes any talk of transhumanism feel sketchy by association.

Seriously, we need to find a better way to word that.
It's not puppeting, it's driving. The body is a vehicle, which can be improved upon or even traded1​! It's like a car, and Yui's being pride in being tiny and cute basically makes her one of those people who constantly talk about their beloved car's incredible specifications. Much like with those people, some people are very interested in Yui's specifications, others are faintly amused by her enthusiasm, and some wonder why the heck she's talking about this.

1​See Maiko's comments on kinky sex options in past chapters.
 
It's not puppeting, it's driving. The body is a vehicle, which can be improved upon or even traded1​! It's like a car, and Yui's being pride in being tiny and cute basically makes her one of those people who constantly talk about their beloved car's incredible specifications. Much like with those people, some people are very interested in Yui's specifications, others are faintly amused by her enthusiasm, and some wonder why the heck she's talking about this.

1​See Maiko's comments on kinky sex options in past chapters.
She's a mini-coup, my god.
 
Hanging out with some Shoujo manga is equally effective. What we need isn't sleep, it's presence.
I agree with literally everything else you said, but not this. Sleep gives time to process the thoughts and worries of the day, without being able to think of new ones. (and gives you some pretty wild hallucinations as a side benefit) Besides, she's an immortal lich. Her life is infinite, there is time enough to rest.

Well, we'll see how this goes. If it turns out there are no real consequences for not sleeping, I'll be pleasantly surprised.
 
I'm not convinced 'sacrificing yourself piece by piece' really lines up with Yui's stated goals of removing her need to sleep so she can find more time to read romance manga and watch magical girl anime.
Well, if you start looking at things objectively, there is not a lot of things a magical girl needs. They don't need education, because they don't need a job, because they don't need money which, as Yumi demonstrates, are easy to find. They don't need family, or socializing, or food, or sleep.

The only thing they truly need are grief seeds. All the other needs have to be maintained artificially.
Now, what negative consequences are you expecting, if Yui stops sleeping?
Distancing herself from people with a more regular schedule (since they can't keep up) and making further 'adjustments' easier.

I am afraid of cutting down restrictions placed on ourselves, because there really is no line that you could draw and say 'I'll stop here and go no farther'. Why would you?
 
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