"Only a Sith deals in absolutes" - Obi-Wan Kenobi
Disagree?
So you know how The Onion has those "what do you think?" sections where they use the same pictures every week and write delightful responses to questions?
It turns out that when a news organization such as MSNBC does that the responses are even funnier than what The Onion can make up.
Instead of rehearsing an elaborate stage show – complete with countless dancers, multiple songs, fireworks, and the rest – Tom Petty has decided that during Sunday’s halftime show he’ll simply play “Through the Fire and Flames” on his Nintendo Wii, and then walk off the stage.
On a cold winter morning, in the time before the light...
This is something to a fallup post to J's post about Nomic from november.
BoingBoing has a posted a link to a review for a game called Fluxx. It is like Nomic, only in the form of a card game.
There are a lot of things i dont understand. What i do understand is this game has a card called "Hippyism". how can you beat that?
I've been thinking about the manner in which we talk about games.
If I were to describe Mario Galaxy to someone I would say, "You push buttons, move the Wiimote around, and are bored after six minutes." Someone else would perhaps bypass the mechanical description of pushing buttons and moving the wiimote to instead concentrate on what the character does. Another person might use "you" to describe some hybrid of Mario/player so attempting to describe the situation to be such that the player was in some way a part of the game; rather than saying "mario becomes a bee" such a person would say "you become a bee".
Guitar Hero is another great example. What does "you" do in guitar hero? Press buttons? Rock out with their cock out? Employ their sense of rhythm? What is the "you" in Guitar Hero? Is there a way to determine this objectively or is it subjective?
Zero Punctuation reviews tend to use "you" fluidly. "You" can be the player, the character, or the hybrid of the character/player. In the same review "you must escort NPC X" and "you get bored and play with a yo-yo". What does it mean to use "you" in this fluid sense? What does it say about the degree to which one is engaged in the game?
Yesterday a coworker asked, "What do you do in WoW?" My reply was that you run instances to get good gear so that you can run raids to get better gear so that you can run more difficult raids to get even better gear. I described the game in terms of the pursuit of better gear via a knowledge of mob loot tables. "You" was not engaged in an epic battle for the freedom of Azeroth. Rather, "you" was the individual playing the game attempting to find better loot for the character "you" played.
Does it behoove the conversation about gaming to use "you" in this fluid sense? Is there a way to not use "you" in this manner? How would one describe a game if "you" were removed? Would that lead to an emphasis upon the separation between character and player? Does the type of game influence how one uses "you"; is the Tetris "you" different from the RPG "you" or does that depend upon the attitude one has towards the game?
What is the "you" in gaming?
Tonight is Bush's Final (!!!) State of the Union address. If you care to post your predictions in the comments they would be welcome.
My predictions:
-Two mentions of "9/11".
-Six mentions of "war on terror".
-A gross exaggeration of how helpful these stupid $600 checks will be.
-One mention of aids in Africa.
-One token mention of Darfur.
-One reminder that he has a year left in office.
-72% of the way through the speech a rabbit will wander in and Bush will scamper over to it, fall to his knees, and cuddle with the beast so crushing its neck in a very Of Mice and Men fashion.
So back in April of 2005 the CIA released a report which said there were no WMDs found in Iraq. This report meshed quite well with a recent study which found that Bush, aides made 935 false statements in run-up to war. Given both of these facts we now have to try and figure out what Mike Huckabee meant last thursday when he said this regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction:
My point was that, no, we didn’t find them. Did they get into Syria? Did they get into some remote area of Jordan? Did they go some other place? We don’t know. They may not have existed. But simply saying — we didn’t find them so therefore they didn’t exist — is a bit of an overreach.
I love this quote. Because it perfectly captures the mentality mentained by Huckabee, the Republican Party, and those dipshits with whom I took theology classes.
It is impossible to prove a universal negative due to how proof works; it is impossible to prove that there exist no unicorns. The reason for this is arguably the idea at which Huckabee is grasping: If we do not find X this does not mean X does not exist. The problem is that if X does not, in fact, exist the situation would be that we do not find X.
So if we look for WMDs and do not find WMDs what do we do?
One answer is to follow Huckabee and embrace Pascal's Wager. In short, Pascal's Wager says that it is better to believe in the Christian God than to not believe in the Christian God as a result of an assessment of consequences:
-God exists and you believe in God? You go to heaven.
-God exists and you do not believe in God? You go to hell.
-God does not exist and you believe in God? No hell. You're fine.
-God does not exist and you do not believe in God? No hell. You're fine.
For Huckabee and WMDs we just change a few variables:
-WMDs exist and we go to war? War justified.
-WMDs exist and we do not go to war? Oh noes! They teh blows us up!
-WMDs do not exist and we go to war? War justified. Fuck brown people.
-WMDs do not exist and we do not go to war? Who doesn't want to go to war?
So despite whether or not WMDs actually exist it is better, in Huckabee's mind, to err on the side of bombing brown people.
The most interesting part of this quote, though, is how it so perfectly captures the concept of belief in possibility. Huckabee has no proof that there are WMDs in Iraq. But he believes that there are WMDs in Iraq, he yearns for the actualization of that possibility in the same way that he years for the actualization of his invisible, unverifiable sky daddy. Since it is impossible to prove a universal negative Huckabee can forever embrace his belief in WMDs and invisible sky daddy: No one can ever prove him wrong. No matter how long we look and how many reports are filed so long as we find no WMDs, no invisible sky daddy, Huckabee will forever maintain that these things exist.
Because no one can ever prove him wrong; if we can't find any unicorns that does not mean that no unicorns exist.
The real question is why Huckabee believes in WMDs and christian invisible sky daddy but not equally unverifiable beings such as unicorns, teapots, Spagetti Monsters, and Zeus. To answer that I will leave you with a quote from Stephen F. Roberts:
"I contend we are both atheists— I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you reject all other gods, you will understand why I reject yours as well."
Obama's Victory Speech from South Carolina. Watch it.
"And as we leave this state with a new wind at our backs, and take this journey across the country we love with the message we’ve carried from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire; from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast; the same message we had when we were up and when we were down – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope; and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people in three simple words:
Yes. We. Can."
To quote Mikey: "He makes me care."
