DX3 reviews?

[VectorM]

TL; DR version: You just don't like the game, it's your opinion. Fine. Move on.

I think that the entire conspiracy setup in the original is complete nonsense too, but hey, I love the game anyway.

[AEmer]

I thought I just wrote specifically that that's not the point. Did you read this: "And it's also the exact opposite of the point I'm trying to make: I'm not saying there weren't enough sidequests, or that there wasn't anything interesting going on, or that the gameplay wasn't good, or even that the plot was bad, because I don't know about any of that". No matter how many examples you give, this is not going to change. I cannot put it differently without simply repeating myself. I'm not saying HR's plot or sidequests were bad. I'm saying that the general theme and its setting were so nonsensical that for me this made everything else (including those properly worked out sidequests) completely irrelevant. Which is basically just a summary of my previous post but apparently you didn't understand it or you didn't read it.

I did understand it, and I did read it. I picked up some information from it, and then I argued that your previous post was written with a slant and method that was confusing and that you had no authority to back up some of the claims you made. It was a blatant attack on your method of communicating.

Your point of the post itself is kindof irrelevant to that; it's your method I'm attacking, specifically the one you used to make the post made on Mon Dec 19, 2011 10:07 pm.

Your example is, ironically enough, a perfect example of this. There's drama, there are moral choices, there's societal tension... But it's all based on a nonsensical principal idea/theme: that is, that traders would somehow need or use chips for trading. The very notion of traders trading at the floor of the Stock Exchange is preposterous. It doesn't work like that anymore. Nowadays, there are teams of econometricians making and improving models; based on these models certain algorithms are generated and computers buy and sell stocks. The fund with the best econometricians (and thus the best models and thus the best algorithms) and the fastest connection to the stock exchange can make the highest profit. People literally don't have anything to do with it.

Sure they do. Firstly, the woman in question? Not working at the floor of a stock exchange. She hooks up electronically, apparently, via her brain implant, from her home. Secondly, the human brain can search and find detailed information, and make snap decisions, faster than the fastest supercomputers, which is specifically established within the fiction. It's also established in Deus Ex when Helios uploads to Denton.
So in this future, apparently the chip allows the trader to work better than those computers. This is not preposterous assuming the cybernetic link to the brainstem that apparently exists in HR. Thirdly, while stock brokers aren't making the high-speed trades these days, you can be sure as hell that they're supervising the computers running the algorithms every minute of every day the stock market is open, so even assuming she isn't using her brain for the high speed trades, she could still easily have a role to fill that can only be filled with said chip. Fourthly, just because high speed trades exist doesn't mean it's the only type of investment currently taking place, or that it will be the only type of investment taking place in the future. It isn't, and it won't be...though it appears doing even this job of investment would be impossible for the woman in question, either because she didn't have the chip, or because she didn't have the connections. The chip, either way, gives her the leg up she needed to do a job as a stock trader of some sort.

This illustrates perfectly why the general theme of HR is so wrong: it's not about the people anymore.

Deus Ex, the helios ending. A human component was required to perfect the AI. How much more individual-focused do you want to get? And sure it is about the people in present day. Recall that one soldier who leaked the diplomatic wires to wikileaks? Individuals have a role to play, and can achieve great influence.

P.S. This discussion is already getting "messy" and therefore I doubt whether it will actually lead us anywhere.

If you don't think discussing this will lead us anywhere, that's fair. Don't feel obligated to respond. But I am seriously trying to show you aspects of this setting that make sense and are important.

Also I would like to say that the sidequest itself seems pretty cool.

In game terms, it was alright, but conceptually it worked really well I thought. There's several other quests that work in the same fashion.

[gamer0004]

I did understand it, and I did read it. I picked up some information from it, and then I argued that your previous post was written with a slant and method that was confusing and that you had no authority to back up some of the claims you made. It was a blatant attack on your method of communicating.

Your point of the post itself is kindof irrelevant to that; it's your method I'm attacking, specifically the one you used to make the post made on Mon Dec 19, 2011 10:07 pm.

As I'm talking about general ideas and not examples, the method I'm employing is inherent to what I'm trying to say. I'm talking about the general depiction of mech augs in HR and their supposed influence on society, which is wrong. BTW HR isn't the only example; in most cases these transhumanism themes are done wrong, which is why I generally stay very far away from cyberpunk. Deus Ex was one of the few cases where they did it right. Then HR screwed up again. This makes me sad.

Sure they do. Firstly, the woman in question? Not working at the floor of a stock exchange. She hooks up electronically, apparently, via her brain implant, from her home. Secondly, the human brain can search and find detailed information, and make snap decisions, faster than the fastest supercomputers, which is specifically established within the fiction. It's also established in Deus Ex when Helios uploads to Denton.
So in this future, apparently the chip allows the trader to work better than those computers. This is not preposterous assuming the cybernetic link to the brainstem that apparently exists in HR. Thirdly, while stock brokers aren't making the high-speed trades these days, you can be sure as hell that they're supervising the computers running the algorithms every minute of every day the stock market is open, so even assuming she isn't using her brain for the high speed trades, she could still easily have a role to fill that can only be filled with said chip. Fourthly, just because high speed trades exist doesn't mean it's the only type of investment currently taking place, or that it will be the only type of investment taking place in the future. It isn't, and it won't be...though it appears doing even this job of investment would be impossible for the woman in question, either because she didn't have the chip, or because she didn't have the connections. The chip, either way, gives her the leg up she needed to do a job as a stock trader of some sort.

While human brains are good at doing tasks requiring intelligence or creativity, they're terrible at data processing. Have you ever noticed that almost the only task we let computers handle is data processing? Buying and selling stocks is not something for which you need intelligence or creativity, you need information. Lots and lots of it. A human brain simply can't process all this information properly. Humans can, however, use their intelligence to write software so computers can do it for us. Nobody, and I mean literally nobody, who is trading stocks for a living is making the selling and purchasing decisions his- or herself. This only happens in Hollywood. And even if one doesn't know that, one should be able to deduct this by using common sense.

Deus Ex, the helios ending. A human component was required to perfect the AI. How much more individual-focused do you want to get? And sure it is about the people in present day. Recall that one soldier who leaked the diplomatic wires to wikileaks? Individuals have a role to play, and can achieve great influence.

Sure, people are important. But it's typically not about one individual - Bradly Manning wasn't alone, there was Wikileaks, the news agencies, the US government and so on. Of course, in really important functions there is ultimately one individual with the highest authority - like a president or Helios+JC Denton. This is never going to change. But in everyday life, it's not about individuals anymore. Which is exactly what I've been saying: I'm not saying there will never be any mech augs, just that there would be very little use for them and that very few people would use them, and thus that their influence on society would be very small.

(Even then, the merger with Helios was not about JC Denton, it was about the machine choosing JC for no other reason than JC being ready for it (IIRC).)

[AEmer]

While human brains are good at doing tasks requiring intelligence or creativity, they're terrible at data processing. Have you ever noticed that almost the only task we let computers handle is data processing?

But the human brain was apparently essential to Helios progress towards becoming a god. Apparently it gifted Helios something more than it had. Even if you're right, in the world of Deus Ex, you're wrong.

Buying and selling stocks is not something for which you need intelligence or creativity, you need information. Lots and lots of it. A human brain simply can't process all this information properly.

You'll recall that untill 10 years ago, not even ginormous computer mainframes could beat a human playing chess. For certain tasks, the brain is vastly supperior because it's so insanely parallel, and because it's able to recognize patterns it isn't even looking for.

This only happens in Hollywood. And even if one doesn't know that, one should be able to deduct this by using common sense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATlRemuK ... re=related

Yes. One should be able to deduce that this video is a fake and that things don't really happen this way.

Sure, people are important. But it's typically not about one individual - Bradly Manning wasn't alone, there was Wikileaks, the news agencies, the US government and so on.

I think he was about as a alone as you've ever been able to be; even if you were a wistleblower in the 18th centure, there would be governments and news agencies involved. Anyway, what are you trying to say: That empowered individuals don't matter? Militaries every year spend billions of dollars training fighter jet pilots because they handle a task a computer can't.

In this case, it's an individual empowering herself...not a corporation. She's apparently working freelance to some degree...Not unlike freelance journalists, who are also empowered individuals able to do things noone else can really do. And individuals, even fairly low in the scale of things, still retain great influence, as exemplified by wistleblowers.

Corporations will even sponsor education and training for individuals. More than half the PhD's in computer science at my university happen through corporate sponsorship, because the companies see value in empowering specific individuals with special skills, and because they're interested in the results of the research this specific individual can undertake on his own.

Finally, if you want to subtract the paul dentons and the executives from the equation in Deus Ex, yeah, you're generally left with a lot of less-empowered individuals. Except for Gary Savage, who breaks out and with his knowledge forms a counter the MJ12, even though they're a relative david to MJ12's goliath. And except for sillhouette, who apparently are well known to UNATCO even though they're a tiny organisation, and do end up playing a role in the events of Deus Ex. And except for a ton of the people involved in the MJ12 conspiracy, who could just as well have blown the wistle as Manning did.

[gamer0004]

While human brains are good at doing tasks requiring intelligence or creativity, they're terrible at data processing. Have you ever noticed that almost the only task we let computers handle is data processing?

But the human brain was apparently essential to Helios progress towards becoming a god. Apparently it gifted Helios something more than it had. Even if you're right, in the world of Deus Ex, you're wrong.

Computers are good at data processing. AI would be good at logic as well. That leaves pathos and ethos. That's where humans are needed. Anyway, I question the relevancy of this issue of Helios. What are you trying to argue? That humans are still useful? That's what I've been saying from the very beginning: human intelligence and creativity (and ethics and sympathy) are still needed. But humans are not very good at other tasks, like data processing and complicated calculations (which, one might argue, is another form of data processing) or manual tasks. That's what we need computers and robots for. Integrating the communication with these computers/robots can be useful in some cases, like a chip for communication or to link one's mind and a standalone device. Completely integrating these devices (integrating computers doing data processing/robots or machines doing manual tasks into a human body) is generally not very useful and hardly ever worth the cost (both the financial and mental cost). To some extent, isn't that what JC did? Integrating his mind with Helio, but not his body? He could still move about without the huge machine attached to himself.

[quote="AEmer""]
You'll recall that untill 10 years ago, not even ginormous computer mainframes could beat a human playing chess. For certain tasks, the brain is vastly supperior because it's so insanely parallel, and because it's able to recognize patterns it isn't even looking for.
[/quote]

Humans are very good at doing quick and dirty calculations. Computers are very good at accurate calculations. That means a computer with limited processing power (like computers more than 10 years ago) were able to calculate all possible moves for the next several turns (say, five) within a certain time and choose the best option. A human cannot calculate all the possible moves, but he can do a quick and dirty calculation for the rest of the game, or at least to such extent that he or she can prevent mistakes and can continue making choices based on updated information. This is getting into a discussion about human versus artificial "intelligence" (doing calculations isn't really intelligence) which is rather irrelevant IMO. Because that wasn't the premise which I was criticizing about HR, which was how mechanical augmentations, most notable obvious mechanical augs like mechanical limbs, were depicted: widespread and important in society. This is wrong. A few posts ago I noted how chips implanted into one's body for improved communication could be useful. These would probably be invisible and not that expensive and not have much of an effect on society. The reason is simple.
One could view these chips in two ways: as an investment in human capital or as an investment in fixed capital. Either way it's nothing radical. If one thinks of it as human capital it's like education: it improves one's skills, only it would be far cheaper than education and take less time. Banks and governments are willing to lend people money for getting an education. Why wouldn't they be willing to do so for a chip which costs less and therefore is less risky?
If one thinks of it of fixed capital it's like buying a computer. Is there societal tension because people need to use computers for their work? Not that I know of. Computers, like education, offer a net benefit to its user and as such one could simply borrow money to buy one. Same for integrating a simple chip for communication into one's body.

It's an entirely different story for mechanical limbs. The use of a mechanical arm versus a standalone device plus a chip for communication is practically nonexistent in most cases. I can see some applications in the military for them, which requires great flexibility and skill to do many things at the same time. Even then, human controlled robots might be a better alternative except for some very special cases.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATlRemuK ... re=related

Yes. One should be able to deduce that this video is a fake and that things don't really happen this way.

Ah yes, actively managed funds, what a great example. They still exist but they're absolutely useless. Because trading at the stock market is not something requiring creativity or intelligence, just data processing! You're still under the influence of hollywood, where traders are often depicted trading based on certain information not available to others. In reality, insider trading is, of course, forbidden. This means that, with millions of people trading at the same time based on the same information, it's very unlikely that one trader is able to determine a good opportunity whereas the others don't and thus make a lot of money. Chips for trading aren't going to change any of this. Trading stocks is all about data, data and yet more data, and processing this data as quickly and accurately as possible.

What does require intelligence and creativity though is the business of investment banks like Goldman Sachs. Creating new financial products, lobbying to reduce regulations, creating bubbles then going short against them... This is stuff which requires experience, intelligence, creativity, a complete lack of ethics and absolutely zero chips or other mechanical augs.

I think he was about as a alone as you've ever been able to be; even if you were a wistleblower in the 18th centure, there would be governments and news agencies involved. Anyway, what are you trying to say: That empowered individuals don't matter? Militaries every year spend billions of dollars training fighter jet pilots because they handle a task a computer can't.

In this case, it's an individual empowering herself...not a corporation. She's apparently working freelance to some degree...Not unlike freelance journalists, who are also empowered individuals able to do things noone else can really do. And individuals, even fairly low in the scale of things, still retain great influence, as exemplified by wistleblowers.

Corporations will even sponsor education and training for individuals. More than half the PhD's in computer science at my university happen through corporate sponsorship, because the companies see value in empowering specific individuals with special skills, and because they're interested in the results of the research this specific individual can undertake on his own.

Finally, if you want to subtract the paul dentons and the executives from the equation in Deus Ex, yeah, you're generally left with a lot of less-empowered individuals. Except for Gary Savage, who breaks out and with his knowledge forms a counter the MJ12, even though they're a relative david to MJ12's goliath. And except for sillhouette, who apparently are well known to UNATCO even though they're a tiny organisation, and do end up playing a role in the events of Deus Ex. And except for a ton of the people involved in the MJ12 conspiracy, who could just as well have blown the wistle as Manning did.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't have said "it's not about the people anymore" because, while I think it's true, it's not that relevant for this discussion. It was yet another issue of HR I didn't like but it's abit too broad to discuss in relation to a game.
What I didn't want to say is that individuals don't matter. The aggregate, of course, consists entirely of individuals. Which means individuals are, to some extent, basically all that matters.
What I was trying to say is that nowadays most things are way to complicated for one individual to handle. That doesn't mean there isn't anyone to make decisions, our society is not a complete anarchy (by definition of being a society). It's just that one politician can't make policy anymore. Politicians need huge and influential research bureaus, like the Statistics bureaus all over the world. Mind you, more than 50 years ago these simply did not exist. Government policy wasn't based on research. Roosevelt's New Deal wasn't based on Keynesian economics, it was just a desperate attempt to get things back on track. There are no real heroes anymore in science like Einstein or Newton or Keynes or Hayek. Physics and economics and the other sciences have become so complicated and comprehensive that one single person can't come up with a completely new theory blowing away the old theories. Right now, lots of research is being done on things like string theory and quantum mechanics by teams of scientists all over the world, using extremely expensive facilities like CERN, which was financed by twenty countries.

Researchers discovering new drugs are extremely rare nowadays. Inventors (a profession which basically doesn't exist anymore) don't invent new technology these days, large corporations (Intel, Microsoft, IBM) with large teams of researchers and technicians do.
Thus it's very odd to focus on technology which enhances the capablities of an individual rather than these larger organizations. Standalone devices enhance the whole organization, mech augs enhance just one individual which might quit his job the day after he got them.

[gamer0004]

TL; DR version: You just don't like the game, it's your opinion. Fine. Move on.

I think that the entire conspiracy setup in the original is complete nonsense too, but hey, I love the game anyway.

True. I just want intelligence back into gaming. Deus Ex was intelligent. HR isn't. I want to rip my eyeballs out of their socket every time somebody gives the example of HR as an intelligent game which addresses important themes and when people claim GTAIV had such a good narrative. They do not. Please stop encouraging developers to bother me with their nonsense. I want a "dumb" game or an "intelligent" game, not a dumb game trying to be intelligent.

(By dumb I mean focussing on gameplay, not narrative. I need nothing but an excuse to shoot some baddies. By intelligent I mean a game offering a good and intelligent narrative besides gameplay. By dumb games trying to be intelligent I mean games bothering me with an existent and important narrative which isn't any good).

Also, the conspiracy part of DX was a joke. It was meant to be a joke. Nonetheless it showed just how vulnerable our modern societies are to misuse of power by means of technology. It wasn't realistic, but the assumption (basically: people want power and can use modern technology to get it) was realistic and its implications were realistic and relevant. It's all about the right ideas and properly developing these ideas.

[AEmer]

You're still under the influence of hollywood

Dude, STFU. I don't mind a discussion. If you want to argue that I'm presumptuous, that I act on wrong stereotypes, fine, lets talk about that. Where's your evidence.

Is it merely that I have a different oppinion from you that happens to sound like something out of a movie to you? Is that what you're getting at? And even supposing that was the case (which it isn't), where's the relevance? Do you think that, if it were true, it would actually matter that you pointed it out to anyone?

The way I see it, you're attempting to discredit my position by attacking me personally, accusing me of being a mindless drone unable to distinguish the glamour of films from reality. That's an ad hominem, and if that's whats going on it needs to stop, right now.

[VectorM]

He seems to suffer from severe smug, coupled with superiority complex.

It was meant to be a joke.

Which definition of joke are you using?

I just want intelligence back into gaming

This made me laugh. A lot Especially if I am to believe the age you put in your profile

[Jonas]

Hey Vector, don't fight fire ad hominems with fire ad hominems.

[VectorM]

Hey Vector, don't fight fire ad hominems with fire ad hominems.

It does take an ass to know an ass, though. And yeah that doesn't work.

[gamer0004]

Dude, STFU. I don't mind a discussion. If you want to argue that I'm presumptuous, that I act on wrong stereotypes, fine, lets talk about that. Where's your evidence.

Is it merely that I have a different oppinion from you that happens to sound like something out of a movie to you? Is that what you're getting at? And even supposing that was the case (which it isn't), where's the relevance? Do you think that, if it were true, it would actually matter that you pointed it out to anyone?

The way I see it, you're attempting to discredit my position by attacking me personally, accusing me of being a mindless drone unable to distinguish the glamour of films from reality. That's an ad hominem, and if that's whats going on it needs to stop, right now.

I never said your opinion was taken from any movie, though your opinion is derived from a wrong understanding of modern stock trading. Go back a few posts. This part of the discussion started by you giving an example in HR of a woman trading stocks who needed a chip implant to be able to improve her trading. This (the HR example, not your opinion) is all very hollywood: the idea of traders personally trading stocks (in most movies actually on the stock exchange floor itself), in many cases leading to some victory of the protagonist. An example is the movie "Trading places". Thing is, like I said, trading stocks is based on the same information everybody has, and as such things don't work in the way movies show us. Individuals have very limited options to 'beat the index'. Human intelligence is of no use for trading stocks, the value of which are both very difficult - if not impossible - to predict and require data rather than anything else.
These models built by econometricians often make money by arbitrage rather than prediction. The company with the fastest connection to the stock exchange can make the most money by arbitrage. Which is why you need very fast automated systems close to the stock exchange.
Now, even if said woman was a personal trader doing business the old fashioned way, a chip implant wouldn't be of any use. Stock trading is not about predicting. In fact, theoretically speaking it's impossible to make an economic profit (that is, an above average profit given the use of a certain amount of human and physical capital). If it's possible to predict the stock markets in such a way that it's possible to make a steady profit, others should be able to do the same thing. Even if they can't do the same thing, correct predictions by one company will automatically lead to a higher value of stocks, both making it a self fulfilling prophecy and raising cost of buying stocks and thus reducing profits.

As for sources, I'm studying economics and as such have met quite a few people working in this field: high officials, people working for pensions funds, investment banks, supervisory boards... One of my current lecturers participates in a commission studying the financial crisis of 2008/2009 for the house of representatives, and a guest lecturer was one of the first people writing doing a study regarding bonus policies (before the crisis), having worked for one of the biggest banks in the Netherlands (before the crisis, it has been nationalized since). They give lectures and I have spoken to most of these people personally. And one of the things one soon notices is that the hollywood depiction of traders trading at the floor of the stock exchange, or traders personally trading in stocks, is a thing from the past. It's not weird to think it still works like that, I didn't know it either until I heard and read more about it, but it makes a lot of sense. The floors of the stock exchanges are getting emptier: if you don't believe me, here's a New York Times article about it. It also discusses electronic trading.

This has absolutely nothing to do with an ad hominem. I'm not saying you're a mindless drone. I'm saying you seem to have a wrong understanding of how modern trading works, based on things you see in the media. That's not weird. It doesn't make you an idiot. It just means you're incorrect.

Besides this, I want to sincerely apologize for sounding smug or for using any ad hominem. It's not my intention.

@VectorM: I hereby grant you the explicit permission to go fuck yourself.

[AEmer]

You know what, that makes a lot of sense. Apology accepted. I felt like I was being a bit harsh but not unfair...but I didn't know your background either, so I apologize as well. Clearly you actually have a fair shot of analyzing where I might be wrong and why. I'll get you a proper reply for what you wrote above in a bit, but let me just hash out one thing:

My view of stock exchanges isn't derived from hollywood movies. The three movies I have watched that had professional stock brokers in them are these:

Wall Street(1987)
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
I think I love my wife (2007)

I don't recall specifically, but I bet if you watched them you'd be able to find numerous problems with those movies. I'd like to say that the main influences they made are the depiction of insider trading and the depiction of client-broker relationships, rather than depictions of how the trading actually takes place.

But much more importantly is this article I read back in 2009 when it was published:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... ething.ars

Even previous to reading it I had some idea of what high frequency trading was, but the article pinpoints several ways (and illustrates several caveats) in which my naive impression of stock trading was wrong. Things may have changed since I read it, but that's my background, not movies.

The article describes a couple of key areas where I could see an augmented trader being able to outperform a non-augmented one. Primarily, in the realm of statistical arbitration, you could have the statistics hooked into your brain, and you'd just need to figure out whether a given news item was good or bad. Since that task sometimes requires comprehension, you might be able to consistently outwit computer traders.

It's also pretty obvious that in the estimated 20% or so of trading that isn't handled by hardware, an augmented trainer might amplify his or her knowledge, and be able to better guage risk, than a non-amplified one. This would seem to be the realm of trading where Warren Buffet spent his time.

Finally, and this is another completely un-hollywood'ed argument, if high speed trading is fixed, that is, for example:
- If trades stop happening in a real time steam, but instead happens in synchronized steps every half hour.
- The trading partners are paired by the stock exchange via lottery so long as both buyer maximum price and seller minimum price are met for a given assets.
- There's a slight statistical advantage to the lottery to players putting their bets in further from the end of the betting session cutoff point.
- The trading amounts, minimums and maximums are hidden untill the trades are resolved.

then suddenly, the algo's aren't able to turn a profit from short duration high-volume sales, and that 20+ billion dollar drain on the market will be gone, making people and computers be on much more equal footing and the market generally easier to beat for a human player.

My suggested system would obviously have weaknesses too, but the current system is the way it is without any concern for what kind of traders is favors, and in the future, stock market might easily be run in a fashion that disfavors HFT-computers to a much higher degree. As simple a thing as all trades are final for a week clause would completely eliminate HFT as well.

[DDL]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT DID I MISS


Ok, can I be the first to point out that arguing that "SCIFI FUTURE WITH MECHANICAL BIOCHIP IMPLANTS AND BIONIC LIMBS FAILS TO REALISTICALLY REFLECT THE STOCKMARKET OF THE CURRENT DAY" is a stupid argument?

A) you have no idea whatsoever if the stockmarkets of the time depicted in HR still follow all (or any) of the rules of the ones we have now. Especially if you've only played 2 hour's worth of game. FWIW, even playing further does not provide detailed blow-by-blow accounts of exactly how stock trading now works in the human revolution universe. Thank fucking god. Hell, maybe the increasing processing-power of computers made everyone realise that there was no point in using that system and they all went back to doing human-based, face-time, flesh-pressing wheeling and dealing. Remember, these are fucking stock traders here: if the system benefits nobody, they'd happily overturn it and use one that gave them a chance of "fucking over the other guy", coz that's...largely the point, really (OMG HOLLYWOOD OMG).

B) you are also assuming that all this stock trading is high-level, corporate-stock, LEGIT trading. We are not, as players, actually explicitly told this. And this is in a game world that puts a fuckton of emphasis on blackmarketeering of ...pretty much everything, and this sidequest happens in a city largely highlighted for it's less-than-legitimate trading opportunities. It's entirely possible that stock/commodities trading on the black market both occurs, uses human decision making rather than computational analysis, is profitable, and cut-throat enough to justify augmentation.

So there's that.

Secondly (and more importantly), nitpicking a game to death because it doesn't faithfully represent your particular chosen subject of expertise is a fucking stupid thing to do. Unless your chosen particular subject of expertise is "shooting space aliens/monsters/nazis while inexplicably failing to accumulate any lasting injuries of note", then almost all modern games, and in fact, almost all games, will fall to merciless yet retarded nitpicking. Hell, even if that WAS your specialist subject I could imagine scenarios like "I just couldn't get into that game, it was like they didn't even TRY to represent how health ACTUALLY regenerates when you take cover. I mean, fffs would it hurt to pay a little attention??!1?"...

You have to learn either to just roll with it, or learn to entertain cognitive disconnects. I could bury DX:HR under a huge wall of text decrying all the ways the biochemistry they've depicted is hilarious, hilarious bullshit. Hell, I could do the same for vanilla DX, and in fact pretty much any game mentioning any kind of genetic or molecular alteration. Fuck, I can even pick to pieces the physics of most of these things, and that's not a subject I've studied in 15 years. Would this be of any benefit to anyone whatsoever (other than perhaps providing amusing rants on the internet)? No, not really. And most importantly to me, it would serve only to diminish my gaming experience. Instead, why not look for any evidence that shows they've even paid a passing iota of attention to <YOUR FAVE SUBJECT HERE>. Thus for me, the people in a bar in hong kong mentioning calcium sorting rotors transforms from "HAHAHHAHAHA NO IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY FFFFS" into "hey, they actually chose the right chemical to enhance muscle contraction, albeit in a silly manner". It's nice to see they actually looked into muscle contraction at ALL, even if sorting rotors wouldn't really work. Plus if you have the combat strength aug, you can check the description and join the dots.

For HR, as I've said, people with mass limb-replacements being super common makes absolutely no sense if you take it at face value, but as I've also said, I simply assumed this to be a visual conceit. Clearly from the fairly literal-minded approach of your posts (along with a desire to namedrop as much econometrics as possible -a <YOUR FAVE SUBJECT HERE>-related quirk that I am also totally guilty of all the fucking time), you are simply unable to treat the game as anything other than surface-level factual presentation...in which case I am very surprised that it was just the socio-economic viability of limb replacements that worried you, given quite how much stylistic interpretation there is in the game. For future reference, if you ever play further, you could also question
>the typhoon aug (because srsly, wat)
>the icarus landing aug
>the visible laser beams
>the tranq darts
>the tazer gun
>the mech chocolate bars
>jensen's infinite battery
>everything is orange
>everything is inexplicably renaissance-themed

the list goes on, BUT YET IT'S THE ECONOMICS THAT MAKE IT UNPLAYABLE. Apparently.

Really, if you can't enjoy a game without it having a compelling storyline that also fits into a totally coherent and logical socio-economic framework, then you're limiting yourself to....no games. No games, ever, EVER, have had this. Any RPG, anywhere, ever, has a totally artificial economic system, because a realistic one would be both impossible to program, and from a gameplay perspective: shit.

Your argument is...well, essentially "possessing merit in terms of accuracy, but fundamentally: utterly, utterly retarded".

Really you should be thanking AEmer for even bothering to argue on your own terms, instead of pointing out all the many other flaws in your position.

[bobby 55]

>the typhoon aug (because srsly, wat)

Hahaha! I imagine it exploding out of Jensen's stomach like an Alien before it reins death.

>the icarus landing aug

I think it's cool, although if you light up the night sky like the world's largest Roman Candle, you'd think somebody would notice.

[gamer0004]

@DDL: I did not start talking about stock trading. AEmer did. I was discussing HR in a very general manner. I really don't mind if a particular element is incorrect. I do mind when in general the message or theme of a game or novel or movie is plain stupid. Despite inaccuracies and incongruities, the message of DX was relevant and well executed: terrorism used as an excuse for government control by means of ever increasing use of (surveillance) technology. Hell, I think it's a sign that DX is a classic game because that's exactly what happened about a year later, after 9/11. Very impressive. It changed my political views to great extent. Which is pretty impossible in general (people don't tend to change their views even in the face of facts).

HR, on the other hand, focused on transhumanism.* If anything, I don't think it's very relevant no matter how one looks at it, at least not in the near future. It might be at some point, at which human civilization will be so completely transformed as to be unrecognisable. An example might be what happens to humanity in the short story "the last question" by Asimov.
More importantly, for something which is the most important theme in the game to the point where it becomes tiresome (I was tired of it after just a few previews as well as in the game, though this was probably due to it being discussed to death before release) its execution is terrible. This is to some extent the result of it not being very relevant at all due to its inherent economical limitations (technology evolves but the fact that in general it's cheaper and more convenient to use a dedicated machine does not) but mostly the result of choosing the same old approach: social tension, differences between rich and poor, cool mechanical limbs &c. This execution is just wrong and makes the rest of the game kind of irrelevant as well, no matter how well developed. The use for mechanical limbs is very limited and therefore won't cause societal tension. The use of chips, mostly to (wirelessly) 'integrate' man/woman and standalone machine is far more relevant and interesting, though even in that case the impact on society and the differences between rich and poor is likely to be very small (that is, no bigger than the development of computers has been).
Even if one opts for focussing on mechanical augs the way HR did, it would have been way more relevant an accurate if they had focused on winners and losers rather than rich vs poor.

Also, I'm studying economics, not econometrics, and I am not at all interested in econometrics. As such, I'm not interested in dropping the term econometrics. In case of stocks it is relevant in order to show how the example of this single stock trader needing a chip is ridiculous. The example was given by AEmer, mind you. I responded to that because I thought it was an interesting example to show how in general the themes of HR don't work. It quickly unwound into nitpicking, unfortunately.