Posts by BenWilson
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Not for the first time, I'm reminding myself that the best way to deal with these people is to decline to engage with them.
I hate to point out the obvious, but you started it :-)
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I'm not surprised that entire communities, including many women, will form around WoW. It's just a little too immersive for me - another sign it's time to quit is when you start having WoW dreams. My kids are too young to really share in it, although the eldest did like to watch - it is a pretty game.
<unter-geek>
My main was a fire mage, so I was never destined for tank :-) But my favorite toon was a feral druid. She's kitted 100% for PvP. I only recently discovered that she could Tank pretty well. Something about being a cross between a sneaky puss, a raging growler, a speedy cheetah, a slippery seal, and a hot blonde, really appealed. Also, for some reason, appearing female seemed to help with the teamwork. It did also enrage the enemy, they would go out of their way to kill me, which actually served a purpose, since druids are slippery as hell. It was easy to support a flag runner, just by annoying the enemy chasers. They'd turn on me, and I could run them to a remote corner of the map before they finally caught and killed me, by which time our flag runners had capped. This is the kind of thing a lot of Tanks don't even notice has happened - they usually only see cowardice or weakness as a reason to run from battle.
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Trouble is, as they point out, how could he justify any rules or standards without them being constrained by some rationality?
He doesn't try. If you don't think such things are rational, why bother? To even choose rationality is a choice that sits outside of rationality.
But you can’t move around any way you please and stay afloat. All methods of swimming have their limitations, but it isn’t true that all bodily movements are equally valid in terms of the aim of staying afloat – some will just lead to sinking.
If you sink then you're not swimming any more. I never said every way of swimming was equally good, just that the definition of the act lies entirely in what it achieves, not how it is done.
>Science could be both a method and an ideology.
That’s my position. You just seem to be agreeing with my previous characterisation of our positions: I prefer ‘a method’ or similar labels to characterise science, you prefer ‘an ideology’.
Actually, I don't prefer any such thing. I think that both the labels are imprecise, hence my position that it could be either one or both. Not that it is either one. I don't really care for such a definition debate, it doesn't elucidate anything, it's just a rhetorical position, a battle over the meaning of words in the English language. It tells us nothing about science as a concept, only as a word. I think at best that both words might help us to understand science in an extremely vague way, a starting point, like all dictionary definitions. Or in a discussion, they could help us to think in new and novel ways.
You dodged the question: should it be taught as an equally valid way of explaining how we came to be here? If not, it will be at a systematised disadvantage.
I did not answer that specific question, sure. I thought it rather obvious that my answer would be No, I don't think it should be taught as 'equally valid' to, say, modern cosmology, but the reasons for that should be laid on the table for students to see. Having been laid so, the question is laid to rest far more effectively than "because Mr Grumpypants Science Teacher (who I hate) dismisses Creationism out of hand".
Btw, I’m not against teaching philosophy in schools.
I'm not against it either, I think it would make a great elective. I doubt its value as a core subject though. I used to think it should be, until I met a teacher who taught it as part of International Bachelaureate. She was fascinated that I had a degree in it, and pumped me. I quickly worked out that she was considerably more philosophically naive than any first year Philosophy student, basically having never even thought about many of the angles of what she was teaching to these kids. So, I became a little more guarded in my opinion on the matter - I figure that it could be very hard to find good teachers of philosophy. This problem is as old as Socrates, as The Protagoras shows. I could be being very harsh on her, perhaps her students got a lot out of her course.
They weren’t my attempts to define science, they were my answer to your request for evidence that the agreement was broad. You’ve offered no counter evidence. To be honest, I would have thought it a fairly unremarkable claim, and I’m not sure why you’re so stuck on this point.
And I'm not sure why you can't even acknowledge it. My point is that proving broad consensus on the meaning of a term under discussion is impossible, since the very pool of people amongst whom the consensus is to be formed are defined by the term.
It lends an air of legitimacy for... those it lends such as air to?
Yes. I'm not going to say who all these people are. That would be both impossible and irrelevant. I'll give exactly ONE example. YOU are such a person. It seems to me that the philosophical background of a belief set matters to you. Do you dispute this? Do you think you are unique? Or even uncommon, for that matter?
Weird, because I’m pretty sure when you brought up that example, it was in response to Brent, not me.
Sure, but Brent was following up on your linked definitions, which pretty much tallied with his one-sentence definition of science.
Yeah, but as I said earlier, we do live in a democracy. People can have input into scientific funding and policy in much the same way they do for other state activities. I don’t see any need to significantly increase the amount of direct say people have in science policy and funding. But you seem more in favour of direct democracy in general.
We do live in a democracy, but a lot of people don't. Feyerabend grew up under Nazi Germany, serving on the Eastern Front, so that might help contextualize just exactly how he sees the right of state funded science to claim a position that has no public oversight, and exactly how far powerful people can twist science towards immoral and counterfactual positions. These days, in the First World, his position sits between a Godwin and a straw man, but it wasn't so long ago that it was a very large concern, and it could move that way again.
As for my position on democracy in science, I tend to think that it's mostly sorted, these days. The science I do is 100% private, and I don't have a problem with that.
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lol Bart you outgeek me severely. I'd never be able to get my wife into WoW. If it was World of Lovecraft, maybe. Or is that just called Facebook?
Actually I got into it in the first place because of friends, but we quickly found talking about it over dinner was very antisocial to everyone else. Indeed, almost everything about it is antisocial to everyone else.
<antisocial>
Pally eh? Natural Tank. Still working on the Gladiator's Vindication set or is that helmet you already got just too nice? Can see you're not much into instances either eh? Word. I'd show you my toons but it's embarrassing by comparison. Mind you, I notice that things got a whole lot easier over the last year and a half. When I was playing, it took until about level 48 to save up enough for a mount, now every level 20 has got one
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I guess every activity has its uses. I read somewhere that the sign of a serious addiction is when it impacts negatively on other areas of your life and you still do it.
I realized enough is enough when I was late picking my son up from daycare because I didn't want to abandon a battleground. Went cold turkey, felt better almost immediately.
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I was formerly found on Caelestraz, before I saved my soul, marriage, job and custody of my children by deleting the entire program from every PC, vowing solemnly never to return. 480 days AFK. I still have pangs. I never did take a toon to 70 - discovered battlegrounds and lost all taste for PvE grinding, instead cultivating a stable of mid level toons. Since that limit is now 80 and will soon be 85, I'm over it. But the memories are fond, and interestingly, my wife rated my former addiction to Quake 3 as worse. I personally think the blogosphere trumps all, because it masquerades psychologically as potentially useful.
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But are there Healz? Yeah, there are. I recovered some serious hit points from the Big Gay Collab, and a few more today from this. I think at least around LGBT issues the importance of Healz is recognised, perhaps not so much with other areas of activism.
Ya, I was kinda thinking that 'morale building' is a very Healzy kind of activity, although morale is actually everyone's responsibility. But there are specialists, artists of various kinds most likely, as you hint with your links.
Team dynamics fascinate me. It's especially interesting what things tend to build or destroy morale, and which people are the more susceptible to it. One insight I had some time ago was that strong morale can be a double-edged sword - people whose morale can be built up can also have it knocked down swiftly. This is not always bad. Yes, they will break and run faster than those with internal strong morale, but they also rally faster. People with strong morale, once broken, tend to stay broken. Sometimes these people are neglected, on account of their apparent faithfulness, but if they are 'turned', then that can be a shocking loss. So building morale constantly is a very high priority.
Team sports and games do make for some interesting metaphors for human behavior. Easy to take it too far, though.
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I think Healz is the weakest point in the metaphor. The closest thing I can think of in non-computer-game terms would be 'supply lines'. In terms of intellectual battles I guess supply lines is probably analogous to 'sympathetic research'. If you rush well ahead of sympathetic research, then you will end up isolated and exhausted, bereft of new material and assailed by enemy deconstruction, bolstered by their new material. Damage is also a problematic position - perhaps these people could be seen as the ones tearing enemy research apart. They may have nothing of their own, analogous to having poor armor. If they are turned on, they are easily destroyed unless the sympathetic material is pouring in to support them.
It seems to me that some people do actually specialize in these kinds of positions, and rather than simply hacking your teammates apart for not all being Tanks, the best thing to do is find the appropriate position for their talents, whatever they are. Some people are natural deconstructors. Others are better at generating theory, which leaves them highly exposed in the early stages to deconstruction.
Also, these 3 main roles are Tank-centric in their organization in the first place. They have formed this way in gaming because Tanking is so popular. In practice there are a great many other roles. Some broad categories: Leadership, scouting, running interference. There are often entire missions which do not even have Tanks at all, particularly scout missions, capturing flags, sneaking up on poorly defended positions etc.
There are also phases in battles that call upon quite different skills - defending and attacking are not the same at all. Counterattacking is sometimes seen as entirely different in every way to both of those, as is counterdefending. But these are intellectual constructs for elucidation - I find that once I gain experience in a form of battle, I'm thinking of everything simultaneously, attack, defense, counter, positional weakness, and all the boundaries end up blurring. It's really exciting to be in a battle where the team believes in the leadership (and themselves) despite being on the back foot, and the entire thing turns around in an instant, usually from a number of people simultaneously doing their particular jobs excellently. All Black captains usually call this "digging deep" in their formulaic post-game summaries.
Emma, just read your response so I'm posting this while I catch up. Don't wanna waste the damage, need to rush for some Healz. Ta, Tank, with u soon.
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Instruction booklets are surely all about teaching the art of egg-sucking. The reality is that humans implement the instructions in those booklets, using the judgment they get from experience.
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FWIW (probably nothing), speaking as a gamer in which meat shields are common, the party approach is essential, and essentially 3-pronged. The main tasks are Tank, Healz, and Damage. Tank is probably the more common term for meat shield (although I like MS better, it's more evocative).
The usual approach is this: Tank draws aggro. Healz keeps Tank alive. Damage kills enemy.
Really, everyone is in the business of keeping everyone else alive because if you lose any part, the whole thing falls apart - if Tank dies, then Healz or Damage gets the aggro and can't handle the knocks. If Healz dies, Tank dies pretty soon after. If Damage dies, the fight lasts forever, until eventually everyone dies.
Tank is probably the most popular role, followed by Damage, and Healz is usually last. Which is funny because the importance of the roles in terms of party survival is usually 1. Healz 2. Tank 3. Damage. At least that is the order you would least like your party members to die in. Tank can continue to deal damage, so Damage is least important. Healz can keep Damage alive, so Tank is not essential, fights can still be won. But if Healz is lost, the end is nigh, and who wins is only determined by whether Tank and Damage can kill the opponent fast enough.
It is the mark of an experienced Tank that they appreciate this, and do everything they can to keep Healz alive. Inexperienced Tanks often see themselves as the most important player and the natural leader as a result.
Indeed Tank psychology is one of the hardest factors to deal with in games - because Tanks are so fully engaged with the enemy, so engrossed, their minds working overtime to keep up with the constant strain of being assaulted from all sides that they tend to lack strategic vision almost completely.
So many times I've had to talk Tanks down, for the good of the party, and this is hard because Tanks assume they are the leader. They rush into battle, drawing aggro, without checking if Healz has resources to sustain them, or Damage has any resources left to crank out the big shots. Battles are team sports, coordination is vital, and having bitchfights about whose fault things were after losing is not to my taste. I'd rather have the bitchfight beforehand to establish a basic idea of the team strategy.
I'm not sure if any of this generalizes to the wars Renegade is talking about. Are there healers? Are there people who can dish out massive damage, but are unable to take it? Is this really a useful analogy? Seems to me there's something in it, at least in terms of Tank psychology - the lesson is simple - play as a team, if you want to win.
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