Why is everyone still shouting!!

this forum has went off in a weird direction

WHAT HAS THIS WORLD COME TOOOO


*Rolls on floor crying*

inxs cheated on an online game coin raffle for months, writes up a superficial apology thread with a title to generate sympathy, goes on to trash talk about the guy who helped everyone realise this thing in the first place for rest of the thread.. not cool.


Edited 10/15/2021 11:47:45

inxs said he's working on something for the recompense phase of his plan. So wait 10-14 days, and if nothing happens, THEN say he has done nothing.

I mean, sure, you can say he hasn't done anything _yet_ ... but given that he's said he has plans to do so, isn't that kind moot? I mean if I say I'm going to buy you a new car next week b/c I trashed your existing one, would you counter with, "Yea but you still haven't bought me a new car yet."? I hope not, b/c there's no value in doing so once the agreement has been made.

@l4v
Who are these TSFHers who are sticking up for Nono? You make it sound like all TSFHers have banded together to hide what happened here. Not at all ... it was wrong, and yes he came clean only after being exposed. Those facts do not change. No one (at least I don't think so - correct me if I'm wrong) is saying that "all is well now", but at least he did apologize and he's indicated that he's making a plan for recompense. I don't see any attempts to hide what happened or fully exonerate him from it, just people (and not constrained to TSFHers) indicating no not dwell on it and move on.

And likely you're incessant accusation that he's lying about having intent to repay for lost potential winnings may be what 100% guarantees in the end that he does in fact execute on it. Let's hypothetically say he actually had no intent to carry out his offer (and tbh, what player would actually write to someone to say, "Yes I want the 4 coins I might have won on raffles" - just seems so small; unless someone actually goes as far as you did to actually set up the game, most will not bother, so I see your point here). But by being so adamant about him not being genuine in his claims, you may in fact be what makes it happen in the end. Because we all know you're not going to let it goOOOooooo let it gOOOOOooo b/c you can't hold it back anymOOOooOOOre, so he will 100% have to either admit guilt (no intent to pay), agree to recompense, be the bad buy (elaborate some convincing scheme to either fool people that it's still on the way, or just accept the bad image), or quit WZ. lol.

ban

That's a Fizz/admin discussion, and they've given him a warning. No point in discussing that further, we're not even at the table for that discussion.

Who are these TSFHers who are sticking up for Nono? You make it sound like all TSFHers have banded together to hide what happened here

I have no quarrel with TSFH; I think it's on aggregate a vehicle for improving the experience of many players, as well as the value they derive from the game. Because the conversation has been stripped from its original context, it has become easy to mis-label as some sort of categorical accusation against TSFH.

Instead, it was a loosely economic counter-hypothesis to KG_3's claim that TSFH is some sort of unique force for worsening human behavior (unique not on just WZ but on the internet as a whole). My response was to point out that his observations about behavioral changes caused by TSFH, even if taken at face value, have a far simpler and less accusatory explanation: Humans enjoy acceptance, and this incentive to seek acceptance can outweigh the moral or social costs that generally make them less likely to try to belittle and diminish others. They furthermore create biases (both via information flow and just general cognitive biases) that make people, on aggregate, more likely to stick up for members of the in-group and respond aggressively to external threats, in ways that seem more reasonable to insiders than outsiders (e.g., Parsifal's "public shaming" argument, that likely made perfect sense to him and made more sense to people who're friends with nonolet than to random observers, who in turn likely found it more reasonable than did people like investment and KG_3 and Smith who have prior reasons to dislike TSFH and/or nonolet; you can say the reverse for investment's murder & stealing arguments, which too were easier to see reason in for some of us than for others).

In short, social identity undermines models of human rationality. At the micro level, we generally experience ourselves as reasonable beings coming to sensible conclusions and making defensible moral judgements. However, at the macro level, group trends emerge. For example, I believe I have good reasons for my views on American foreign policy, while TheNoob also experiences rationality when he critiques American foreign policy in Israel and Palestine. But aggregate by identity and you'll notice that my views can be largely predicted from a demographic profile (privileged, American, in many social groups with disproportionate Jewish representation), as can TheNoob's (Palestinian).

I think this happens due to marginal incentives that motivate trade-offs. I am not interested in singling out TSFH; rather, this is part of my larger point that people aren't actually real (my broader argument against innate human worth). We have this individualistic model of "'human" that we think we are, but it's just a model. Rather, we're just vertices in a graph, roles in a play, parts of a system of systems. This doesn't mean that all or most people (in some group) do something, or that some people (in some group) always (or mostly) do something- clearly, there's even Israeli Jews who oppose Israel, and people of Arabic heritage who support it. Demographics aren't destiny. But there's marginal trade-offs, biases, network effects, etc., that lead to strong correlations between identity and behavior, especially on high-valence and polarizing issues.

I hope this makes it clear that I'm not interested in maligning any person or group or trying to undermine their reputation or character. I try to avoid reducing people to nouns ("sociopath", "social engineer") or simplifying them into adjectives ("manipulative", "deceptive", "extremely online"). Rather, I'm interested in describing and analyzing their behavior and tying it to systemic hypotheses that avoid the pitfall of personalization (on that note, I have no quarrel with Fizzer as a person either; I think his behavior predictably reflects his position and incentives, rather than some innate tendency to do what he does. If you know Anon Mod's identity, you should understand this point: Anon Mod's behavior isn't due to some character traits on his part but simply how he fits in the system- from his vantage point, his behavior seems not only sensible but moral). I don't know if I've been consistent about it, but this is at least my intent. I'm not here to start clan drama or to bolster my reputation at others' expense or to make myself feel better by putting others down and trying to get everyone to point and laugh at the guy who types long paragraphs; I'm here to think about structures, how "people" fit within them, and how the outcomes affect the human experience. The thrill I get from playing the associated games is merely an incidental benefit of the contempt involved in the process (my view of the world is necessarily dehumanizing, but I find this to be practical).

You (not krinid, just the general reader) are probably reading this and drawing your conclusions about what kind of "person" I am, reducing me to adjectives and nouns as you read this. Maybe you're sharing this with your friends or talking about it to poke fun at me together and talk about how crazy or conceited or pathetic I must be. That's fine; it's human, and I won't pretend to be above it either. I'm made of the same meat as you.

But I've found more value in trying not to resort to fundamental attribution.

you may in fact be what makes it happen in the end

This would be a quite positive outcome, no? I'm clearly not interested in 4 cents, so either outcome is great: either nonolet walks back on his word and corroborates my hypothesis about this "sincere apologies" thread being an insincere attempt to rehabiliate his image and tarnish mine, or he gives people back the coins they lost to his cheating. Both are great.

he will 100% have to either admit guilt (no intent to pay), agree to recompense, be the bad buy (elaborate some convincing scheme to either fool people that it's still on the way, or just accept the bad image), or quit WZ

Exactly.

Edited 10/15/2021 20:56:35

I admit it did sound like singling out TSFH, though perhaps moreso in GC than in the forum but it was along the same topic ... forget the exact quote, something like: All TSFH members are jerks ... I forget what you said, it wasn't 'jerks' but something like those lines.

Anyhow, for what you wrote above, got it.

you may in fact be what makes it happen in the end
This would be a quite positive outcome, no?

Yes, good outcome, agreed. My point was that you are forcing him to make you wrong, and in some people's minds, that is a loss. But I agree, it's actually a positive outcome. And sounds like he's doing the 'right' thing, and not the bad guy/bad image/quit WZ routes. So a positive outlook we have.

My apologies then. I did not intend to single out TSFH and should have been more careful about how my claims came across to people other than KG_3. I use shorthand sometimes because fleshing out my full statements, using my rules around verbs, can get rather verbose.

All TSFH members are jerks ... I forget what you said, it wasn't 'jerks' but something like those lines.

I do not recall saying this. Either way, I do not believe this, simply that- in this thread, TSFH members face marginal incentives for being jerks (shorthand, sticking to verbs is hard) toward those critical of nonolet, not because they're bad people or anything but just because of how social groupings work.

My point was that you are forcing him to make you wrong, and in some people's minds, that is a loss.

I'm not interested in "winning" or "losing." I don't even really care what you (not krinid, general reader) think of me, or of nonolet.

Most of you I don't even view as human, and my behavior on this thread is wildly inconsistent with trying to build or preserve a good image; if I were a sociopath, I would probably not be actively undermining others' perception of my by revealing things that humans tend to judge or committing to long paragraphs abundantly knowing they invite ridicule. If anything, I'm making it considerably harder for me to manipulate people- if I asked you (krinid) for a favor after this, surely knowing how I really see you would make you more suspicious and reluctant to oblige. Rather, the end-game for me is to improve the quality of my own experience, to derive greater enjoyment from this game. So far that has been delivered in spades. It's not about the coins or the reputation, just the meme value, so to speak. Like I said, I get a kick out of these interactions in and of themselves, and the little things they help me learn about the ways in which I am wrong about the world, social strategy be darned.

Edited 10/15/2021 21:12:23

Good, b/c 'winning or 'losing' isn't what's important, it's improvement of the game/community that matters. You said 'to improve the quality of my own experience' and perhaps that's true, but I think some people strive for 'to improve the quality of the experience (for all)'. I suspect but of course can't be certain that you're actually more of the latter despite claiming to be the former. Pass it off as personal enjoyment 'for the meme' factor, but I see an element of just doing the right thing.

Most of you I don't even view as human

That statement is some Michael Moore presentation at it's best, LOL. Not even sure what this means tbh. What could you possibly view us as? I suppose you could make a kind of abstract statement like we are just characters, concepts and behaviours ... but what does that mean? Those are all things that associate to humans.

, and my behavior on this thread is wildly inconsistent with trying to build or preserve a good image; if I were a sociopath, I would probably not be actively undermining others' perception of my by revealing things that humans tend to judge or committing to long paragraphs abundantly knowing they invite ridicule. If anything, I'm making it considerably harder for me to manipulate people-

Almost as if you were trying to do the right thing even at the cost of your own reputation.

if I asked you (krinid) for a favor after this, surely knowing how I really see you would make you more suspicious and reluctant to oblige.

Have you not been listening? I said you were one of 'the good guys' just your MM-style presentation issues really rub some people the wrong way. (; Go ahead, ask for a favour.

and I'm out of toilet paper again!
I'll have to do some ugent shopping tomorrow....

Edited 10/15/2021 22:04:32

What could you possibly view us as? I suppose you could make a kind of abstract statement like we are just characters, concepts and behaviours ... but what does that mean?

Something analogous to Plutarch's resolution of the Ship of Theseus problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus#Proposed_resolutions).

The world is just fundamental units of matter and energy (and maybe some other things). Everything we overlay on top of it is just a model we impose to try to make sense of it. I could, for example, model you as krinid the person, a consistent, continuous, and coherent arrangement of matter with semi-predictable behavior; this would allow me to extend inferences (e.g., you seem to view me as someone doing the right thing but presenting myself poorly) through leaps of logic into character traits (e.g., you are kind, not interested in sparking conflict, and willing to view people in positive lights) that attempt to predict your behavior across time.

Like naming a river, though, this model runs into problems. For one, there's the asymmetric insight problem- your "Michael Moore" model of "me" as a person does not comport with other behavior ("I" sometimes do take advantage of people and evidently present "myself" extremely well in the process). It also misses nuances that I'm aware of that you don't appear to know of- the "Michael Moore" thing is presently somewhat deliberate. If I come across as "a jerk who's right" [my oversimplification, not your words], that's a wildly beneficial model that I can take advantage of because you're likely predisposed to respond to errors and missteps as merely failures of presentation and try to fit new statements into your model of me being right but bad at getting my points across. This results in charitable behavior where you consciously and unconsciously reframe what I say very charitably; at scale, this means I can get across different messages to different people, all of whom would interpret what I'm saying differently but with the bias of aligning their interpretation with what they find most agreeable. Compare your reaction to the borderline-sociopathic statements i make (expressions of curiosity and assumptions of good faith) with nonolet's and Parsifal's (who interpret them as me exposing myself or digging a hole, because their model of l4v.r0v the person predisposes them to interpret my statements uncharitably). Your tendency in this conversation to model me as a person is an exploitable behavior, once I'm able to infer the model. (Of course, I don't actually try to exploit "you" here, since this strategy presupposes the model of krinid the person.)

Beyond these pragmatic issues, you run into something analogous to the Ship of Theseus paradox & fundamental attribution error. E.g., the models someone reading this thread would build of "nonolet the person" or "Parsifal the person" or "Bane the person" or "Cursona the person" or "Ursus the person" would often fail to predict their behavior elsewhere and occasionally break on edge cases and weird thought experiments. All of these "people" display behavior consistent with kindness, empathy, and sincerity in many other places. Parsifal in this thread displays a tendency to periodically jump in only to put others down; Parsifal in his Warzone Idle guide behaves rather differently. Parsifal, the collection of minds that believes they're a person, has sufficient information to model this well and reconcile these discrepancies; I don't, and neither do most other observers- so if we tried to figure out "Parsifal," we'd just get it wrong and converge to confidence too fast (see: nonolet).

When trying to reconcile these models, it's easy to fall back on "well, humans are complex." But, like adding epicycles to the geocentric model of our solar system, you'd just be adding more complex (and brittle) elements to your model of "humans" to try and salvage its predictive value. Instead, my answer is: "well, humans aren't real. Model something else."

So, finally responding to your question- the question is flawed. I don't view "you" as anything, because "you" aren't krinid. You're many minds, playing different roles at different times, and especially on online spaces like this one I know so little about the similarities between these minds that I can't hope to coherently figure out who "you" are. In this domain, instead of trying to model "you" as a "who," it makes sense to model these interactions with "you" separately. In other words, the model I impose here is not of humans but of conversations. This makes things like reputation moot.

It's really hard because these notions of people and consistent beings are built most likely not just into our language- we don't differentiate between "you" as in the entity perceiving this right now and "you" as in this notion of a long-lived person- but also into how our minds operate. Modeling people also has had strong evolutionary advantages, like allowing the development of concepts like trust and reputation to inflict some sort of accountability that can only be coherently expressed if framed in terms of people. In general, these limitations make it hard to convey the concepts I wish to convey, because language and thought themselves assume I'm wrong.

One solution to this has been the high-anonymity/zero-identity model of image boards like 4chan. My approach is to just not bother pretending I can understand "you," and to err on the side of responding directly and transparently without regard for how "you" might view me- because the massive benefits of the model are outweighed by educational costs. (I won't claim to be good at this. I've certainly unconsciously built models of all these "people" and they have those side effects, like contempt.)

Edited 10/15/2021 23:01:30

Tbh, I think that's just a long-winded way of agreeing with me, differing really only in terms of what we call the constructs being discussed. (;

Study the parts, study the whole, can't predict reliably, some parts contradict, can't explain the whole thing, numerous outliers but you're still talking about people/humans/identities and interactions between them.

As for the ship of Theseus - what's your take on that? All parts replaced, is it still the same thing? My take - if there's no difference from the original, it looks the same, it functions the same, etc, then it doesn't actually matter if it's the same or not, so I cast that question to the wind, but would argue that what's truly important is that regardless of whichever answer to that question people individually and personally believe, we're all best off treating/using/handling/etc the object the same way as we did the original. And if it turns out to start behaving differently, well then one of those parts likely wasn't an exact replacement and thus renders the circumstance void.

what's your take on that? All parts replaced, is it still the same thing?

The ship isn't real. The apparent paradox comes from trying to apply a model onto a world where the (uniqueness, consistency) assumptions of the model no longer hold. For some practical cases, it makes sense to say both are the "ship"; for others, it makes sense to say neither; and for yet others, you can pick either of the two. It depends on why you created the "ship" in your mind instead of just letting atoms be atoms.

And if it turns out to start behaving differently, well then one of those parts likely wasn't an exact replacement and thus renders the circumstance void.

IOW, you understand that the question is one of pragmatism, not truth. We say it's the same ship if it predicts the same behavior within the context we care about. If not, then we abandon the prior model.

Edited 10/15/2021 23:50:10

Who else on WZ provides such detailed and entertaining responses? lol

You've basically just agreed with me while presenting it as a materially different answer. Maybe you don't feel comfortable committing to full agreement b/c my response wasn't sufficiently fleshed out.

You've basically just agreed with me while presenting it as a materially different answer

Not really, there's metaphysical distinctions between how you categorize the world and how I do. Functionally, our models would lead to mostly the same behavior. But, for example, your belief that people exist makes concepts like "death" more meaningful. Whereas in my worldview, death isn't real: I have no particular reason to believe that I am actually the same "person" that last responded to you on this forum thread. For all I know, that person already ceased to exist, and I'm only functionally indistinguishable from them (roughly same memory, etc.), with the continuity of consciousness across time just being a trick my mind plays on itself.

I think the difference in our approach is somewhat subtle, in that it boils down to value judgements on the relative importance of things. If there's really a ship of Theseus, then something is lost when we set it on fire. However, if we say the ship exists in our head as shorthand for a rough arrangement of matter, then nothing is lost when the ship is destroyed. The ship was just a name we gave to an apparent persistent arrangement, one that really did not have the consistency or coherence that we arbitrarily imagined it to have (for pragmatic reasons). The only thing that changes is our ability to form the same model again in our heads, but the ship didn't cease to exist.

Does that make sense? My way of framing the world makes certain concepts- like the innate value of human life- essentially meaningless (in that there's nothing special about death from the perspective of the purported entity that "dies'; all that happens is that we the observers can no longer make the same predictive claims about that bundle of atoms).

Edited 10/16/2021 00:11:17

What you said makes sense, but it also has no purpose. Sure, you can quantify things that way, but where's the value in it? While I can't prove it true or false that are or aren't the same being on construct that last replied to me - it doesn't matter and everyone is better often just treating you as if you are.

There is loss if the ship burns. You can't sail on it anymore (or at least you need to rebuild or replace it or another vessel of some kind). Now if you say you never really were riding it anyhow, and the sea is just another meaningless construct of atoms, then why discuss anything at all? It's basically a method of saying "in this context nothing has any meaning", and what value do you gain from that perspective?

Sure, you can quantify things that way, but where's the value in it? While I can't prove it true or false that are or aren't the same being on construct that last replied to me - it doesn't matter and everyone is better often just treating you as if you are.

The value is in framing things pragmatically rather than in terms of what's real or not. If we only believe in a human "right to life" because it's pragmatic, then there are now pragmatic cases where we can disregard that right to life without risking the harms that the "right to life" exists to prevent. E.g., in a very over-simplified way, if we have the norm that killing is wrong because we want to make sure we ourselves don't get killed, then it's safe(-ish) to deviate from that norm and allow killing in cases where we can do so without risking being killed ourselves in return. Alternatively, if we adopt another framing (like "natural rights" of "people") for explaining why we don't kill people, we arrive at different results.

You know how people make different decisions based on their interpretation of "the meaning of life", even though they functionally refer to the same concept? This works the same way- it's the "meaning of people."

You can't sail on it anymore (or at least you need to rebuild or replace it or another vessel of some kind).

This loss only matters if you placed value on being able to sail on it in the first place. This valuing is arbitrary and subjective; you gain or lose many things if atoms change their arrangement.

what value do you gain from that perspective?

There's plenty of practical applications of reframing the situation, like the one that triggered this conversation: my behavior in this thread. I believe ignoring the existence of people can sometimes lead to better outcomes by allowing you to refocus on systemic causes and tweaking the structure, not the agents currently inhabiting its roles. Going back to the "meaning of people" framing, it boils down to how special you think individuals are- the more you think people's stable, unique differences* matter, the more it makes sense to attribute outcomes of events to the people involved rather than the impersonal, overarching factors in play. It doesn't matter whether nonolet is nonolet, for example; what matters is only the role nonolet plays.

* Are snowflakes special or merely unique? That's a value judgement, and the same sort of value judgement I make here about people.

Edited 10/16/2021 00:39:57

I love Lavrov's worldview; it's concise and allows no bullshit hahaha. Seems to lack a little joy though! (or maybe, no value is assigned to joy!)
I thinks his points about the transparency of sanctions and regulatory behaviour are pretty bang on - but so are the points about online pile-ons. Maybe it's important that the community as a whole can have a wider understanding of the issue AND ALSO remain as civil (but not humourless) as possible. I'm glad the parties involved (with the glaring exception of Mr Lavrov) have largely sorted it out between themselves. Great thread people.

You go pretty far out of your way to not agree with people. lol

Snowflakes are special in specific contexts only (where being unique matters), and the rest of the time they are pretty plain, but still unique. That's my value judgement, and I suspect many will disagree.

These responses are very pretentious
All these things can be said in a short manner

Less words = More words