That was an example of some stupid thing that people have believed. Since on top of being a fascist you don't understand what analogies or strawmen are... you're again clearly too stupid to have this discussion.
No, it wasn't a strawman because you just confirmed that is your position.
Your position is that the majority is ALWAYS right because... ?
So, I didn't strawman you... FUCKtard. You literally said I strawmanned you and then immediately contradicted yourself by adopting the position I had supposidly strawmanned you with... you are a moron.
You're too stupid to have this discussion. Its official.
No captain strawman, your petty fallacies shall not prevail this day!
*rolls eyes*
Where did I say the fewer people believe a thing the more it is true? That is just as stupid as saying that if lots of people believe something it must be true.
NEITHER popular support nor popular rejection means something must be true or must be false.
Truth is not a popularity contest. Why is this news people? This is fucking science 101. And the very people that like the idea of science ruling everything don't understand the first fucking thing about the underlying philosophy and logic of science.
I listen to you fucksticks on forums all over the internet all the time. And you're always saying something incomprehensibly stupid like "oh well, lots of people think this so it must be true"... really? At one point, a lot of people thought the world was a carpet that god laid out on the ground for his chosen people to live upon. Was that true?
And here you'll say "but its different now because we have science"... yep, we do... but only when we do science do we have science. To have science you have to have evidence and a chain of logic that proves that if X is true that Y is also true. And absent that... you do not have science.
When you read a book that says the earth orbits the sun and you believe that... you did NO science at all. You are not a scientist or a scientific thinker because you did that. What you did was read something in a book and believe it.
Congratulations. You have zero moral superiority over the douchebag that read in his holy book that the world is a carpet. The only difference is that you read out of a different book then he did.
Now am I saying the books are equlivient? Probably not... but then that would have to be examined. I have no idea what fucking book you read. It could be Dr fucking Seuss for all I know.
Science would be testing the theory, understanding the logic behind the theory, possibly reverse engineering the conclusions... etc. And minus that... no science.
Truth works the same way because science is a philosophical system for determining empirical fact in a material universe. And if you want to find a truth... you need to go through a process to find it.
That process at no point includes asking how many people agree with you about a thing unless the truth you are trying to determine is how many people agree on a thing.
If a billion people think the moon is made of cheese... that doesn't mean it is made of cheese. If a billion people think it is made of pulverized rock that coalesced from the debris that ringed our star during the formation of the solar system... well... it isn't true because they think it is true. It is true because it is or is not in and of itself... and extremely indifferent to whatever anyone might think about the subject.
Until humans get magical mind powers that allow them to instantly transform reality to suit their misapprehensions... their opinions mean exactly... dick.
Now was I bit rude here? Yep... but I felt it was only fair given that you opened with a very offensive strawman. Do that and expect to be treated like garbage.
You're accusing me of strawmanning my opposition by inferring that when I opposed Google's idea, and they supported it, that I shouldn't have assumed they were in support of google's move.
As they are in support of it, I can use google's plan against them as if it were their own since they've effectively endorsed it.
Now, you want to talk about wisdom and kindness? Lets try another one... Reasonableness.
You want to have a discussion with me. That starts now if you're game.
Step one. You know my position on this issue. You have not stated your position. I can neither effectively defend myself nor rebut your position in context with the thread unless you make a counter argument.
Waiting on you. I'm a swell guy. I'm sure you're a swell guy. Lets show what swell guys we are by demonstrating that we can have a reasonable discussion on the issue.
Are you saying that bunnies are made of chocolate?
See, I can ask stupid questions too. Your question is a sad rhetorical evasion.
Whether or not something is objectively true or contains objective facts is not justification for censoring it.
Do you only look for facts on line? When you go to a library is it only to find facts? When you turn on the tv or open a newspaper is it only to find facts?
What about someone writing reviews for books... are those facts?
Lets say we have a political campaign and the two sides say things... should we censor both sides because both sides are going to tell some half truths at best.
What about if one group of ideologues attacks another group... censor both sides? Or choose sides?
You're entering a fucking minefield here and I'm trying to tell you to stop and get a fucking fucking metal detector before you blow your fucking legs off. This is a terrible idea. Yes, theoretically it would be nice if bullshit were filtered out of the internet. HOWEVER... you can't really separate bullshit from non-bullshit in an empirical, consistent, and non-corruptible fashion.
My problem is not your desire to remove bullshit. My problem is that you can't do it without trolls and shills taking the process over to corrupt the process. And as such, its best to go with something that sucks but at the very least doesn't grant anyone any particular advantage.
I you say anything besides "Oh, now I see what you mean"... then fucking fine... go marching across that minefield Mr Livingston... I'll be over here sipping on a glass of lemonade and an umbrella waiting for the boom... and when the rhetorical shreds of naive misconceptions come raining down upon the field in gory chunks... I will have my umbrella ready.
hmmm... While I agree there should be an easy mode in most games so that people can learn how to play you are going to want a harder difficulty maintain replayability.
The best games are the ones you can play over and over and over and over again. And those games are only fun because you're either playing against human beings that in a dynamic framework that permits creativity OR if the AI/game mechanics can be made progressively harder.
In most games, the first playthrough, I'll play through it on normal or something like that. And if it starts getting too easy, I'll jack up the difficulty if I can. If the game was fun enough on normal, then I'll probably play through it again on a harder difficulty or possibly limit myself to specific strategies.
In most games there is a cheap way to win. So... I'll make it a rule that I can't do that unless I start getting bored... then the gloves come off. I might set up time limits for myself... finish this level in under this many minutes or achieve all optional objectives or something.
As to age of kings... The "ai" is not really an AI in that game anymore then it is in any other RTS. Its a pre configured decision tree. IF this THEN that.
I can't speak to your Juggernaut decision tree AI. It could well be very hard. However, that difficulty is likely either the result of limitations in the game itself limiting the player from coming up with novel ways to expose the AIs inherent lack of creativity or... and I mean no offense here... you might not have played against that AI long enough to figure out the things it does that you can exploit to instantly win every single time.
I'll give you another example, I played DotA2 for awhile and I played against the bots for a long time to relearn how to play the game. The bots in DotA2 are vicious. They're very fast, don't miss, and towards the end of the game they like to all group up into a death ball and just gobble everyone on the map.
They do have one big weakness though. And that is that they don't defend worth shit. They're so aggressive that they don't account for sneaky mother fuckers like myself that will just ignore the team fights entirely and take all the strategic objectives while they're not watching. What is more... they've basically got comical ADD because the instant I go attacking their base, they will break off from the team fight to stop me. If I destroy the objective and then run away... they'll confirm that I'm not around anymore and then go right back to trying to team fight. And while they're doing that... I'll just kill another tower or something... which will cause them to break off the team fight in the middle and try to kill me again. Rinse and repeat.
Now a human team would keep at least one person back to defend while the rest went to team fight. Sounds basic and logical right? Well, they're not programmed to do that. So they can't win no matter how good they are at team fighting because I can cause my team no matter how bad it is to win every single time. I don't have to kill an enemy team member even once. I just have to be willing to ruthlessly exploit a flaw in their AI to win.
And I do that in every game where I play an AI. I figure out how it works... what it does when I do this... and eventually I find a stupid thing it does in an unlikely situation. And then I just create that situation in fight... and I can't lose. The AI will make the same mistake every single god damn time.
And that is when I get bored and stop playing. A human being is typically more interesting because while you can use a trick against them once or twice they learn at least that something didn't work and TRY to do something else. Sometimes they come up with a really good counter and sometimes they just keep failing. But its at least more interesting.
No, otherwise most of the newspapers in the US would fall afoul of that. Most media organizations prefer one political party or political candidate over the other. And anyone paying attention can see it. The facts of it have been mathematically charted. A researcher took all the articles from various publications and saw how many times they said critical things of one political party or the other and pretty much without exception every paper had a strong bias one way or the other.
So no... google can pretty much do whatever they want because the first amendment protects private speech. Google is a private company. They're as free to bias and skew things as anyone.
So you want google to passively block or filter into obscurity all references to religion or fiction? And do you believe anything that isn't a fact?
What about mercy? Is that a fact?
What about justice? Is that a fact?
What about kindness? Is that a fact?
You lack the wisdom to grasp what you're talking about.
Intelligence you can get from reading a book or sitting a class. Wisdom requires experience. It requires making mistakes and learning from them. It requires a depth of character. It requires regret.
Your unqualified statement smells of the callow naive thoughts of the young and foolish.
I didn't say they used the legal construct you're talking about and suggesting that that is the only way they could do it is either naive or just stupid.
The big ISPs don't care how a competitor is locked out of a market so long as they are. And both Google and Centurylink amongst others have said they are being locked out of communities using various means.
While of course it would be politically convenient if your rival political factions in a democracy were shut out from any ability to coordinate, debate, or express themselves... there are a few problems with your fascist agenda.
First, you are admitting I'm right in that you agree it could or even should be used for propaganda purposes.
Second, in shutting out your rivals you're going to marginalize google in the first place. They'll just move to other systems. Look at Fox News or Rush Limbaugh or the Wallstreet Journal. Do you honestly think you're going to shut them down? They'll just create something else that will rapidly be just as effective. There are a dozen search engines besides Google. If google says "fuck you" to half of America then half of America will just start using Bing or something. So you'll have accomplished absolutely nothing besides google losing half its marketshare to its rivals by pointlessly pissing people off.
Third, your whole line about the "common good" is basically the same old "greater good" argument that the Nazis were fans of. You want your rivals silenced by force rather then meeting them in open public debate. This shows both that you're not actually a fan of democracy, that you're willing to impose your views by force against the wishes of others, and that you'll have that same blind faith in your own actions found in any fanatic while they do it. So... basically you're a terrible person. No offense intended. But the shit you're typing is indefensible. You can't possibly be a liberal because you don't believe in "liberty". What you believe in is the orthodoxy of your dogma and you're prepared to subvert democracy to get what you want. Here is a lesson for you, sport. The means ARE the ends. That is, the process by which you create something has a major influence on what you ultimately create. If you gain power through trickery, extortion, force, etc then your power will not be based on the truth or the will of the people but rather on your trickery, extortion, and free use of force. That will be the nature of the society you create. And that will furthermore justify your opposition to respond in kind. If you lock them out of debate then they will be entirely justified to respond by shutting YOU out of debate or just ceasing power or something.
I don't know what to tell you. I find posts like yours to be disappointing. You're basically saying you want a king or an oligarchy to cease power and rule with an iron fist... managing everything with some digital ministry of truth. You make me sad.
The current system doesn't presume to judge. It just works on raw metrics. There is a purity and an impartiality in it. There is no inherent attempt to control or shape opinion. What people click on most often when they type in those search terms is what pops to the top. That's a fair and impartial system. Don't fuck with it.
You're suggesting that truth be determined by majority vote. Want to hold a poll in Egypt about whether evolution is real or do you see the fucking the problem with putting that sort of thing to a vote?
Its a bad idea.
As to truth having a liberal bias, the truth has no bias what so ever. Presuming your ideology is the source of truth and all other belief systems are false... is what you'll hear from pretty much any fanatic.
Ask a fanatical evangelical christian and they'll tell you that the truth has an evangelical bias. Ask a fanatical muslim and they'll say the truth has an islamic bias. Ask a hardcore communist and they'll say the truth has a communist bias. Ask a hardcore libertarian or capitalist and they'll say the truth has a libertarian or capitalist bias.
You saying the truth has a liberal bias just means you're a fanatical liberal. Thanks for telling me... but now that you've admitted your bias, why should everyone else have your world view forced on them rather than the other way around?
You say because the truth favors you? Everyone says that. *golf clap*
Given that the stat you're referring to was spread by the US CDC despite being contradicted by the FBI crime statistics, you can see how it can lead to issues.
There are a lot of things you probably think are facts that aren't... they're often widely accepted by very educated people because for various reasons it greases a lot of axes that need to be ground.
Think of all the untrue things that are repeated by the media, the government, etc. There is a lot of stuff on Wikipedia that is bullshit. Why would you think Google would succeed where the international media, major governments, other dot com services that specialize in information, and occasionally even academia starts spouting some bullshit.
How many medical studies have been shown to be fraudulent? And yet despite that their false findings were reported as truth for years. And those are just the ones you know about.
After a few media cover ups I've seen, I wouldn't say that bigfoot isn't real... as idiotic as that sounds... because the reality is that I've been lied to so many times I really can't say what is and isn't true unless I have first hand knowledge. And giving yet another organization the ability to further filter my information and presume to decide what is and isn't true... why would I be happy about that?
Would you trust Fox news to decide what was true or not? What about MSNBC? How about any of the major newspapers? Why would Google be more pure than them?
Look... Google hasn't earned my trust to determine what is and isn't true. Period. I like them as a company. I like their products. But do I trust them to determine truth? No.
The simple fact that you see partisan advantage proves you agree it will be exploited. You just think it will be exploited to help you rather than hurt you.
The funny thing you're not getting is that google itself is far from indispensible. There are lots of other search engines and most of them are comparable in quality.
At best... assuming you're right... what would happen is that people that thought more like you would be even further echo chambered then you already are... protected from alternative view points and increasingly controlled by your ruling opinion makers... while the internet culture further fragments.
You're hardly going to win against your political rivals because they'll just use Bing or something. All that will happen is that YOU are aware of less. Will your opinions change? You weren't moved by sites that came up that you felt were pushing disinformation in the first place. No one really is at this point. We can smell our own and we treat with skepticism anyone outside our tribe.
You might argue that this would help you fight for the allegiance of the moderates and the middle. And you might have something there. But things are so social networked at this point that you'll have a hard time playing gatekeeper with any proficiency.
In any case... your opinion has merely validated my initial statement.
While in theory the idea is great, the problem is that one person's facts are another person's propaganda.
Look at the crap storms on wikipedia for example with all sorts of various groups all fighting over who gets to edit some page. Can you honestly say that always ends with the people standing up for truth winning? I can think of a few situations where it was controversial and the people that were pushing bs just happened to win or nearly as bad force moderators to lock the listing in a pre crisis state. Thus basically white washing the whole incident out of existence.
Again, I think it is a nice idea in theory, in practice I'm sure assholes and trolls are going to fuck it up.
Your argument now is that google and centurylink are lying and that the only reason we have duopolies is because of innate business and logistical concerns.
That is idiotic. And I'm frankly not interested in rhetorically punching your argument in the face until the greasy blob that was your credibility either submits or dies.
So... Good day to you... you get to believe what ever you like. I really don't care.
As to something that shifts between various preprogrammed responses and something that invents them on the fly or learns new strategies entirely on its own. Iâ(TM)d argue that the former already exists and those are the ones that are so easy to beat.
A big difference between chess and an RTS is that there are so many more moves to make. In chess you get ONE move per turn and the amount you can move and in which directions is highly finite. In an RTS game imagine a chess board a billion times larger, with people able to move as many pieces as they want every turn. That is, in an RTS game EVERY piece can move every turn. And whether you even move anything in a turn or not is entirely up to you. In chess you MUST move something every turn. In an RTS game you donâ(TM)t have to do anything. You can just sit there and space out until you lose. And of course in RTS games
Defeating RTS AIs in games is largely a matter of understanding what theyâ(TM)re going to do at given times and just being rock to their scissors⦠over and over again. In starcraft, I know when the AI is going to expand to a new resource location. I know what types of armies it likes to build. I know it is probably just going to attack me head on.
So there are different ways to deal with that. I personally like to fortify so that my base is really hard to attack with anything short of overwhelming numbers. And rather than having a lethal âoedeathballâ which is what they call a big mass of units that you just march through everything to win. I prefer to have very mobile forces that are only good at killing something specific that I want to kill. So Iâ(TM)ll probably distract their forces in the middle with something stupid, and then sneak behind their lines to destroy resource acquisition or unit production facilities. Then the attrition of their death ball in the middle has meaning because they cannot replace lost units in a timely manner. They lack either the resources or the production facilities to do it.
Then I start dominating the map once they start having supply issues. And because I like it⦠I tend to hold off on killing them until I have top tier units that I can just humiliate the remaining forces with⦠and then I get bored and stop playing the AI.
A truer AI that makes up its own strategies on the fly, learns from mistakes, or adapts to my strategies in anything but a formulaic fashion has never been seen in consumer RTS games. Or if it has, Iâ(TM)ve never even heard of it.
As to RTS games where they build a second base⦠you see that in starcraft and in the newer CnC games. If you bomb out their primary but leave their expansion alone⦠theyâ(TM)ll usually rebuild their forces there if they can. Though even for a good human player, losing your primary base is generally game over.
As to winning after youâ(TM)ve survived the Rush, you should play that AI a bit more then. You just need to know what it will do after it does that initial rush. I like to set up a kill zone that the AI will mindlessly suicide all its units into. You can put a strong defensive structure RIGHT next to an enemy base and theyâ(TM)ll often just suicide their units into in penny packets. That bleeds their forces on an ongoing basis and keeps them weak and preoccupied. Then you can do whatever you want on the map. As to an AI surviving map starvation⦠the hardest AIs tend to cheat. So they have their own revenue streams. Starcraft is the best example of this⦠you set the AI to hardest and they get a trickle of resources from nowhere that they can use to buy stuff even if theyâ(TM)ve had no access to other resources for a long time. Again, those are the only AIs that are actually hard and theyâ(TM)re not any more clever than the stupid ones⦠theyâ(TM)re just cheating.
As to them never being unconventional, that is because theyâ(TM)re not really AIs⦠theyâ(TM)re
If they don't need monopoly power then why do they seek it so fervently?
You don't hear unions competing with each other. They either have informal or formal non-competition agreements which in industry is generally considered illegal... or they have actual monopolies where it is literally impossible to get labor in a given part of the country in a given industry without going through a specific union organization to negotiate the terms and buy that labor.
And you know what... that's fucked. What protection do I have as a company against the price you offer for labor being unreasonable? Because if you have a monopoly, my options are to pay the extortionate fee or pound sand. And if a union does that... they deserve to be outsourced/off shored/whatever.
If the unions operated in a more competitive environment where anyone could walk off the street and take a job they would otherwise be offering THEN I'd feel better about their prices. If the price of labor is high because no one will work for less then that, then that is a good price. if the price of labor is that because some monopoly set the prices high because they can... then that's fucked up.
Go with that theory. This is like watching a Loony Tunes episode with Wily E Coyote and his various schemes from the Acme catalog. Just run with your plan. I'm going to get some popcorn and wait for the inevitable punchline.
Some letters from comcast were circulated on this very site that were sent to city councils. And they said "if you allow competition, they'll first concentrate on high value areas, those high value areas will cut into our bottom line, and because of that we won't be able to offer subsidized access to poor people. We would ask that you require any ISP that wishes to offer service to the city to agree to offer service to the ENTIRE city or no part of the city at all."
And that's just one example.
Now what is that called? You might be making the error that these are franchise agreements. They might not be. They might just be disallowing a given company from laying last mile cable. And if they do that for EVERYONE but the duopoly then what does it matter what you call it?
People get tripped up too easily by legal technicalities saying one thing or another isn't happening not realizing that those are just words we assign to behavior and you shift something just little bit askew... and call the same thing something else.
Both Centurylink and Google Fiber are on record complaining about the behavior you are specifically saying doesn't happen anymore.
Given that the duopolies hold sway pretty much everywhere... I'm calling bullshit on your argument and asking you explain why a duoploy exists in the first place without resorting to specious claims that it isn't profitable which is FUCKING RETARDED... or admitting that it is a matter of regulation, taxation, licenses, etc.
It is the latter. Anyone that's looked into it knows what it is and what it is not. A fiber roll out is not that expensive just taking into consideration the cost of the FIBER, the cost of the routers/switches, and the cost of the labor to install it. All that shit is cheap. And you can't tell me that you can't have multiple companies all running wire down the same street. In rural areas or even suburban areas there is plenty of room on the poll. And in urban areas you have underground conduits pretty much without exception and those have shit tons of room as well. And if you need more room... the per line license fee that every city charges for running cable should more then pay for upgrades to the infrastructure to handle as many providers as could possibly make sense.
You've unwittingly bought into a line of bullshit that the duopoly spreads about how they couldn't provide service if anyone competed with them. That's not true in any other industry and it isn't true in ISP either. Its bullshit. It makes as much sense as having ONE oil company or ONE sandwich shop or ONE maker of shoes. Its dumb. If a city can sustain dozens of large cab companies that all compete over the same territory then you can have multiple ISPs. Yes... you're running cables under the ground or slinging them on poles. It doesn't matter. That just requires that the city take its thumb out of its ass for five minutes to set up a rational system to manage it. That so few can or are even inclined to do so is an entirely different issue and I shouldn't have shitty internet because my city is run by fucktards.
The AI in these games are morons. The only ones that are even remotely threatening cheat like crazy.
In video games, the AIs that will rip your lungs out, make bag pipes of them, and play El Degüello on them tend to never miss, see through the fog of war/through walls, and often as not have access to infinite resources, higher health, and do more damage for no reason.
And... THAT is why they're a threat. Not because the little idiots are actually any good at tactics or strategy.
I honestly can't think of a single RTS game where the AI wasn't a joke. Yes, you have to know how to play the game and you might need to learn how the AI thinks a bit. But that's really easy to figure out. In strategy games, winning against AIs typically requires that you just be quick about doing things. Against humans this is important as well, but humans are sneaky.
The AI for example in Homeworld only uses hyperspace jumps to run away and they only bother with critical shipyard facilities. Human players will mass a fleet, dock their fighter craft into their hyperspace capable craft, bait an attack by making it look like their capital ships are unsupported, and then when you move your forces out of position, they'll jump their forces into point blank range, spew out their whole forces, and annihilate you. Humans are also the only ones that will use cloaking fields properly or defense field frigates... etc. And that's the same for Starcraft or CnC or any of it. And in the FPS games the only thing the AIs ever have going for them is that they're damn accurate with their shots because they have auto aim... and they can frequently see through walls so they always know where you are.
What the Civ devs are talking about is not AI but behavior profiles. They do this a lot in strategy games. They'll try to mix it up by giving some of the idiot AIs a preference for air units or a preference for sea units or a preference for building fortresses or something. And that's supposed to be a different AI. But it isn't really. Its just the same AI with a different priority list.
As evidence, the only AI's of this type that tend to be dangerous are the ones that try to rush you really early. Its a high risk high reward tactic that can end you before the game really begins. Those AIs force you to build some defenses really early. I find in any of these games, if you survive that attack... there really isn't anything the AIs can do to stop you. They're so dumb you can kill them at 10 to 1 ratios in practically any game.
as an additional datum... consider the android operating system. Google created that simply to put Steve Jobs on notice. He was trying to extort payments and concessions out of google in exchange for making google the default search engine for iPhones. Google responded to that move by creating a rival smartphone for no reason besides protecting their ability to keep google a relevant search engine in the mobile space. They don't even make money on the handsets. They just gave it all away to ensure broad adoption.
My point with my post was to say that the teamsters are playing with a live high voltage line.
If they are careful and don't act like jackasses then they should be fine. If they don't respect the voltage... They're going to get bug zapped.
No, it is a pet project by companies with lots of money and lots of very smart people... and no real idea how to use either at the moment which is why they're flailing around looking for a purpose.
Kick them in the nuts and call their mothers whores... see if they don't focus on you with a glint in their eye.
Saying they can't go faster presumes they're already going as fast as they can possibly can and are investing as much as they possibly can. That is... at best naive.
And who said that a chance had come along to change the dynamic? No such chance has happened here. What they found was a way to make it happen sooner which is AGAINST their interests.
... So does Qwest Communications that has laid a good portion of the backbone in the entire country not have the qualifications?
It isn't about ME personally... they do this to EVERYONE that isn't a member of the monopoly. FUCKING QWEST COMMUNICATIONS and GOOGLE amongst many others are by your fucktard logic deemed to not have the qualifications and insurance?
Listen, shit for brains. They literally forbid anyone to run cable that is NOT a member of the monopoly. And that is not because of safety or insurance but because the local officials that issue permits are bribed. Coast to fucking coast.
Slashdot Mirror
That was an example of some stupid thing that people have believed. Since on top of being a fascist you don't understand what analogies or strawmen are... you're again clearly too stupid to have this discussion.
Good day.
No, it wasn't a strawman because you just confirmed that is your position.
Your position is that the majority is ALWAYS right because... ?
So, I didn't strawman you... FUCKtard. You literally said I strawmanned you and then immediately contradicted yourself by adopting the position I had supposidly strawmanned you with... you are a moron.
You're too stupid to have this discussion. Its official.
Good day.
http://heeereswilly.ytmnd.com/
No captain strawman, your petty fallacies shall not prevail this day!
*rolls eyes*
Where did I say the fewer people believe a thing the more it is true? That is just as stupid as saying that if lots of people believe something it must be true.
NEITHER popular support nor popular rejection means something must be true or must be false.
Truth is not a popularity contest. Why is this news people? This is fucking science 101. And the very people that like the idea of science ruling everything don't understand the first fucking thing about the underlying philosophy and logic of science.
I listen to you fucksticks on forums all over the internet all the time. And you're always saying something incomprehensibly stupid like "oh well, lots of people think this so it must be true"... really? At one point, a lot of people thought the world was a carpet that god laid out on the ground for his chosen people to live upon. Was that true?
And here you'll say "but its different now because we have science"... yep, we do... but only when we do science do we have science. To have science you have to have evidence and a chain of logic that proves that if X is true that Y is also true. And absent that... you do not have science.
When you read a book that says the earth orbits the sun and you believe that... you did NO science at all. You are not a scientist or a scientific thinker because you did that. What you did was read something in a book and believe it.
Congratulations. You have zero moral superiority over the douchebag that read in his holy book that the world is a carpet. The only difference is that you read out of a different book then he did.
Now am I saying the books are equlivient? Probably not... but then that would have to be examined. I have no idea what fucking book you read. It could be Dr fucking Seuss for all I know.
Science would be testing the theory, understanding the logic behind the theory, possibly reverse engineering the conclusions... etc. And minus that... no science.
Truth works the same way because science is a philosophical system for determining empirical fact in a material universe. And if you want to find a truth... you need to go through a process to find it.
That process at no point includes asking how many people agree with you about a thing unless the truth you are trying to determine is how many people agree on a thing.
If a billion people think the moon is made of cheese... that doesn't mean it is made of cheese. If a billion people think it is made of pulverized rock that coalesced from the debris that ringed our star during the formation of the solar system... well... it isn't true because they think it is true. It is true because it is or is not in and of itself... and extremely indifferent to whatever anyone might think about the subject.
Until humans get magical mind powers that allow them to instantly transform reality to suit their misapprehensions... their opinions mean exactly... dick.
Now was I bit rude here? Yep... but I felt it was only fair given that you opened with a very offensive strawman. Do that and expect to be treated like garbage.
You're accusing me of strawmanning my opposition by inferring that when I opposed Google's idea, and they supported it, that I shouldn't have assumed they were in support of google's move.
As they are in support of it, I can use google's plan against them as if it were their own since they've effectively endorsed it.
Now, you want to talk about wisdom and kindness? Lets try another one... Reasonableness.
You want to have a discussion with me. That starts now if you're game.
Step one. You know my position on this issue. You have not stated your position. I can neither effectively defend myself nor rebut your position in context with the thread unless you make a counter argument.
Waiting on you. I'm a swell guy. I'm sure you're a swell guy. Lets show what swell guys we are by demonstrating that we can have a reasonable discussion on the issue.
What do you say? ;)
Are you saying that bunnies are made of chocolate?
See, I can ask stupid questions too. Your question is a sad rhetorical evasion.
Whether or not something is objectively true or contains objective facts is not justification for censoring it.
Do you only look for facts on line? When you go to a library is it only to find facts? When you turn on the tv or open a newspaper is it only to find facts?
What about someone writing reviews for books... are those facts?
Lets say we have a political campaign and the two sides say things... should we censor both sides because both sides are going to tell some half truths at best.
What about if one group of ideologues attacks another group... censor both sides? Or choose sides?
You're entering a fucking minefield here and I'm trying to tell you to stop and get a fucking fucking metal detector before you blow your fucking legs off. This is a terrible idea. Yes, theoretically it would be nice if bullshit were filtered out of the internet. HOWEVER... you can't really separate bullshit from non-bullshit in an empirical, consistent, and non-corruptible fashion.
My problem is not your desire to remove bullshit. My problem is that you can't do it without trolls and shills taking the process over to corrupt the process. And as such, its best to go with something that sucks but at the very least doesn't grant anyone any particular advantage.
I you say anything besides "Oh, now I see what you mean"... then fucking fine... go marching across that minefield Mr Livingston... I'll be over here sipping on a glass of lemonade and an umbrella waiting for the boom... and when the rhetorical shreds of naive misconceptions come raining down upon the field in gory chunks... I will have my umbrella ready.
Good day.
hmmm... While I agree there should be an easy mode in most games so that people can learn how to play you are going to want a harder difficulty maintain replayability.
The best games are the ones you can play over and over and over and over again. And those games are only fun because you're either playing against human beings that in a dynamic framework that permits creativity OR if the AI/game mechanics can be made progressively harder.
In most games, the first playthrough, I'll play through it on normal or something like that. And if it starts getting too easy, I'll jack up the difficulty if I can. If the game was fun enough on normal, then I'll probably play through it again on a harder difficulty or possibly limit myself to specific strategies.
In most games there is a cheap way to win. So... I'll make it a rule that I can't do that unless I start getting bored... then the gloves come off. I might set up time limits for myself... finish this level in under this many minutes or achieve all optional objectives or something.
As to age of kings... The "ai" is not really an AI in that game anymore then it is in any other RTS. Its a pre configured decision tree. IF this THEN that.
I can't speak to your Juggernaut decision tree AI. It could well be very hard. However, that difficulty is likely either the result of limitations in the game itself limiting the player from coming up with novel ways to expose the AIs inherent lack of creativity or... and I mean no offense here... you might not have played against that AI long enough to figure out the things it does that you can exploit to instantly win every single time.
I'll give you another example, I played DotA2 for awhile and I played against the bots for a long time to relearn how to play the game. The bots in DotA2 are vicious. They're very fast, don't miss, and towards the end of the game they like to all group up into a death ball and just gobble everyone on the map.
They do have one big weakness though. And that is that they don't defend worth shit. They're so aggressive that they don't account for sneaky mother fuckers like myself that will just ignore the team fights entirely and take all the strategic objectives while they're not watching. What is more... they've basically got comical ADD because the instant I go attacking their base, they will break off from the team fight to stop me. If I destroy the objective and then run away... they'll confirm that I'm not around anymore and then go right back to trying to team fight. And while they're doing that... I'll just kill another tower or something... which will cause them to break off the team fight in the middle and try to kill me again. Rinse and repeat.
Now a human team would keep at least one person back to defend while the rest went to team fight. Sounds basic and logical right? Well, they're not programmed to do that. So they can't win no matter how good they are at team fighting because I can cause my team no matter how bad it is to win every single time. I don't have to kill an enemy team member even once. I just have to be willing to ruthlessly exploit a flaw in their AI to win.
And I do that in every game where I play an AI. I figure out how it works... what it does when I do this... and eventually I find a stupid thing it does in an unlikely situation. And then I just create that situation in fight... and I can't lose. The AI will make the same mistake every single god damn time.
And that is when I get bored and stop playing. A human being is typically more interesting because while you can use a trick against them once or twice they learn at least that something didn't work and TRY to do something else. Sometimes they come up with a really good counter and sometimes they just keep failing. But its at least more interesting.
No, otherwise most of the newspapers in the US would fall afoul of that. Most media organizations prefer one political party or political candidate over the other. And anyone paying attention can see it. The facts of it have been mathematically charted. A researcher took all the articles from various publications and saw how many times they said critical things of one political party or the other and pretty much without exception every paper had a strong bias one way or the other.
So no... google can pretty much do whatever they want because the first amendment protects private speech. Google is a private company. They're as free to bias and skew things as anyone.
So you want google to passively block or filter into obscurity all references to religion or fiction? And do you believe anything that isn't a fact?
What about mercy? Is that a fact?
What about justice? Is that a fact?
What about kindness? Is that a fact?
You lack the wisdom to grasp what you're talking about.
Intelligence you can get from reading a book or sitting a class. Wisdom requires experience. It requires making mistakes and learning from them. It requires a depth of character. It requires regret.
Your unqualified statement smells of the callow naive thoughts of the young and foolish.
Being myopic is not a rebuttal.
I didn't say they used the legal construct you're talking about and suggesting that that is the only way they could do it is either naive or just stupid.
The big ISPs don't care how a competitor is locked out of a market so long as they are. And both Google and Centurylink amongst others have said they are being locked out of communities using various means.
We're done. You're an idiot. Good day, sir.
While of course it would be politically convenient if your rival political factions in a democracy were shut out from any ability to coordinate, debate, or express themselves... there are a few problems with your fascist agenda.
First, you are admitting I'm right in that you agree it could or even should be used for propaganda purposes.
Second, in shutting out your rivals you're going to marginalize google in the first place. They'll just move to other systems. Look at Fox News or Rush Limbaugh or the Wallstreet Journal. Do you honestly think you're going to shut them down? They'll just create something else that will rapidly be just as effective. There are a dozen search engines besides Google. If google says "fuck you" to half of America then half of America will just start using Bing or something. So you'll have accomplished absolutely nothing besides google losing half its marketshare to its rivals by pointlessly pissing people off.
Third, your whole line about the "common good" is basically the same old "greater good" argument that the Nazis were fans of. You want your rivals silenced by force rather then meeting them in open public debate. This shows both that you're not actually a fan of democracy, that you're willing to impose your views by force against the wishes of others, and that you'll have that same blind faith in your own actions found in any fanatic while they do it. So... basically you're a terrible person. No offense intended. But the shit you're typing is indefensible. You can't possibly be a liberal because you don't believe in "liberty". What you believe in is the orthodoxy of your dogma and you're prepared to subvert democracy to get what you want. Here is a lesson for you, sport. The means ARE the ends. That is, the process by which you create something has a major influence on what you ultimately create. If you gain power through trickery, extortion, force, etc then your power will not be based on the truth or the will of the people but rather on your trickery, extortion, and free use of force. That will be the nature of the society you create. And that will furthermore justify your opposition to respond in kind. If you lock them out of debate then they will be entirely justified to respond by shutting YOU out of debate or just ceasing power or something.
I don't know what to tell you. I find posts like yours to be disappointing. You're basically saying you want a king or an oligarchy to cease power and rule with an iron fist... managing everything with some digital ministry of truth. You make me sad.
The current system doesn't presume to judge. It just works on raw metrics. There is a purity and an impartiality in it. There is no inherent attempt to control or shape opinion. What people click on most often when they type in those search terms is what pops to the top. That's a fair and impartial system. Don't fuck with it.
You're suggesting that truth be determined by majority vote. Want to hold a poll in Egypt about whether evolution is real or do you see the fucking the problem with putting that sort of thing to a vote?
Its a bad idea.
As to truth having a liberal bias, the truth has no bias what so ever. Presuming your ideology is the source of truth and all other belief systems are false... is what you'll hear from pretty much any fanatic.
Ask a fanatical evangelical christian and they'll tell you that the truth has an evangelical bias. Ask a fanatical muslim and they'll say the truth has an islamic bias. Ask a hardcore communist and they'll say the truth has a communist bias. Ask a hardcore libertarian or capitalist and they'll say the truth has a libertarian or capitalist bias.
You saying the truth has a liberal bias just means you're a fanatical liberal. Thanks for telling me... but now that you've admitted your bias, why should everyone else have your world view forced on them rather than the other way around?
You say because the truth favors you? Everyone says that. *golf clap*
Try again.
Given that the stat you're referring to was spread by the US CDC despite being contradicted by the FBI crime statistics, you can see how it can lead to issues.
There are a lot of things you probably think are facts that aren't... they're often widely accepted by very educated people because for various reasons it greases a lot of axes that need to be ground.
Think of all the untrue things that are repeated by the media, the government, etc. There is a lot of stuff on Wikipedia that is bullshit. Why would you think Google would succeed where the international media, major governments, other dot com services that specialize in information, and occasionally even academia starts spouting some bullshit.
How many medical studies have been shown to be fraudulent? And yet despite that their false findings were reported as truth for years. And those are just the ones you know about.
After a few media cover ups I've seen, I wouldn't say that bigfoot isn't real... as idiotic as that sounds... because the reality is that I've been lied to so many times I really can't say what is and isn't true unless I have first hand knowledge. And giving yet another organization the ability to further filter my information and presume to decide what is and isn't true... why would I be happy about that?
Would you trust Fox news to decide what was true or not? What about MSNBC? How about any of the major newspapers? Why would Google be more pure than them?
Look... Google hasn't earned my trust to determine what is and isn't true. Period. I like them as a company. I like their products. But do I trust them to determine truth? No.
The simple fact that you see partisan advantage proves you agree it will be exploited. You just think it will be exploited to help you rather than hurt you.
The funny thing you're not getting is that google itself is far from indispensible. There are lots of other search engines and most of them are comparable in quality.
At best... assuming you're right... what would happen is that people that thought more like you would be even further echo chambered then you already are... protected from alternative view points and increasingly controlled by your ruling opinion makers... while the internet culture further fragments.
You're hardly going to win against your political rivals because they'll just use Bing or something. All that will happen is that YOU are aware of less. Will your opinions change? You weren't moved by sites that came up that you felt were pushing disinformation in the first place. No one really is at this point. We can smell our own and we treat with skepticism anyone outside our tribe.
You might argue that this would help you fight for the allegiance of the moderates and the middle. And you might have something there. But things are so social networked at this point that you'll have a hard time playing gatekeeper with any proficiency.
In any case... your opinion has merely validated my initial statement.
While in theory the idea is great, the problem is that one person's facts are another person's propaganda.
Look at the crap storms on wikipedia for example with all sorts of various groups all fighting over who gets to edit some page. Can you honestly say that always ends with the people standing up for truth winning? I can think of a few situations where it was controversial and the people that were pushing bs just happened to win or nearly as bad force moderators to lock the listing in a pre crisis state. Thus basically white washing the whole incident out of existence.
Again, I think it is a nice idea in theory, in practice I'm sure assholes and trolls are going to fuck it up.
Your argument now is that google and centurylink are lying and that the only reason we have duopolies is because of innate business and logistical concerns.
That is idiotic. And I'm frankly not interested in rhetorically punching your argument in the face until the greasy blob that was your credibility either submits or dies.
So... Good day to you... you get to believe what ever you like. I really don't care.
As to something that shifts between various preprogrammed responses and something that invents them on the fly or learns new strategies entirely on its own. Iâ(TM)d argue that the former already exists and those are the ones that are so easy to beat.
A big difference between chess and an RTS is that there are so many more moves to make. In chess you get ONE move per turn and the amount you can move and in which directions is highly finite. In an RTS game imagine a chess board a billion times larger, with people able to move as many pieces as they want every turn. That is, in an RTS game EVERY piece can move every turn. And whether you even move anything in a turn or not is entirely up to you. In chess you MUST move something every turn. In an RTS game you donâ(TM)t have to do anything. You can just sit there and space out until you lose. And of course in RTS games
Defeating RTS AIs in games is largely a matter of understanding what theyâ(TM)re going to do at given times and just being rock to their scissors⦠over and over again. In starcraft, I know when the AI is going to expand to a new resource location. I know what types of armies it likes to build. I know it is probably just going to attack me head on.
So there are different ways to deal with that. I personally like to fortify so that my base is really hard to attack with anything short of overwhelming numbers. And rather than having a lethal âoedeathballâ which is what they call a big mass of units that you just march through everything to win. I prefer to have very mobile forces that are only good at killing something specific that I want to kill. So Iâ(TM)ll probably distract their forces in the middle with something stupid, and then sneak behind their lines to destroy resource acquisition or unit production facilities. Then the attrition of their death ball in the middle has meaning because they cannot replace lost units in a timely manner. They lack either the resources or the production facilities to do it.
Then I start dominating the map once they start having supply issues. And because I like it⦠I tend to hold off on killing them until I have top tier units that I can just humiliate the remaining forces with⦠and then I get bored and stop playing the AI.
A truer AI that makes up its own strategies on the fly, learns from mistakes, or adapts to my strategies in anything but a formulaic fashion has never been seen in consumer RTS games. Or if it has, Iâ(TM)ve never even heard of it.
As to RTS games where they build a second base⦠you see that in starcraft and in the newer CnC games. If you bomb out their primary but leave their expansion alone⦠theyâ(TM)ll usually rebuild their forces there if they can. Though even for a good human player, losing your primary base is generally game over.
As to winning after youâ(TM)ve survived the Rush, you should play that AI a bit more then. You just need to know what it will do after it does that initial rush. I like to set up a kill zone that the AI will mindlessly suicide all its units into. You can put a strong defensive structure RIGHT next to an enemy base and theyâ(TM)ll often just suicide their units into in penny packets. That bleeds their forces on an ongoing basis and keeps them weak and preoccupied. Then you can do whatever you want on the map. As to an AI surviving map starvation⦠the hardest AIs tend to cheat. So they have their own revenue streams. Starcraft is the best example of this⦠you set the AI to hardest and they get a trickle of resources from nowhere that they can use to buy stuff even if theyâ(TM)ve had no access to other resources for a long time. Again, those are the only AIs that are actually hard and theyâ(TM)re not any more clever than the stupid ones⦠theyâ(TM)re just cheating.
As to them never being unconventional, that is because theyâ(TM)re not really AIs⦠theyâ(TM)re
If they don't need monopoly power then why do they seek it so fervently?
You don't hear unions competing with each other. They either have informal or formal non-competition agreements which in industry is generally considered illegal... or they have actual monopolies where it is literally impossible to get labor in a given part of the country in a given industry without going through a specific union organization to negotiate the terms and buy that labor.
And you know what... that's fucked. What protection do I have as a company against the price you offer for labor being unreasonable? Because if you have a monopoly, my options are to pay the extortionate fee or pound sand. And if a union does that... they deserve to be outsourced/off shored/whatever.
If the unions operated in a more competitive environment where anyone could walk off the street and take a job they would otherwise be offering THEN I'd feel better about their prices. If the price of labor is high because no one will work for less then that, then that is a good price. if the price of labor is that because some monopoly set the prices high because they can... then that's fucked up.
Go with that theory. This is like watching a Loony Tunes episode with Wily E Coyote and his various schemes from the Acme catalog. Just run with your plan. I'm going to get some popcorn and wait for the inevitable punchline.
That's not the case sport.
Some letters from comcast were circulated on this very site that were sent to city councils. And they said "if you allow competition, they'll first concentrate on high value areas, those high value areas will cut into our bottom line, and because of that we won't be able to offer subsidized access to poor people. We would ask that you require any ISP that wishes to offer service to the city to agree to offer service to the ENTIRE city or no part of the city at all."
And that's just one example.
Now what is that called? You might be making the error that these are franchise agreements. They might not be. They might just be disallowing a given company from laying last mile cable. And if they do that for EVERYONE but the duopoly then what does it matter what you call it?
People get tripped up too easily by legal technicalities saying one thing or another isn't happening not realizing that those are just words we assign to behavior and you shift something just little bit askew... and call the same thing something else.
Both Centurylink and Google Fiber are on record complaining about the behavior you are specifically saying doesn't happen anymore.
Given that the duopolies hold sway pretty much everywhere... I'm calling bullshit on your argument and asking you explain why a duoploy exists in the first place without resorting to specious claims that it isn't profitable which is FUCKING RETARDED... or admitting that it is a matter of regulation, taxation, licenses, etc.
It is the latter. Anyone that's looked into it knows what it is and what it is not. A fiber roll out is not that expensive just taking into consideration the cost of the FIBER, the cost of the routers/switches, and the cost of the labor to install it. All that shit is cheap. And you can't tell me that you can't have multiple companies all running wire down the same street. In rural areas or even suburban areas there is plenty of room on the poll. And in urban areas you have underground conduits pretty much without exception and those have shit tons of room as well. And if you need more room... the per line license fee that every city charges for running cable should more then pay for upgrades to the infrastructure to handle as many providers as could possibly make sense.
You've unwittingly bought into a line of bullshit that the duopoly spreads about how they couldn't provide service if anyone competed with them. That's not true in any other industry and it isn't true in ISP either. Its bullshit. It makes as much sense as having ONE oil company or ONE sandwich shop or ONE maker of shoes. Its dumb. If a city can sustain dozens of large cab companies that all compete over the same territory then you can have multiple ISPs. Yes... you're running cables under the ground or slinging them on poles. It doesn't matter. That just requires that the city take its thumb out of its ass for five minutes to set up a rational system to manage it. That so few can or are even inclined to do so is an entirely different issue and I shouldn't have shitty internet because my city is run by fucktards.
The AI in these games are morons. The only ones that are even remotely threatening cheat like crazy.
In video games, the AIs that will rip your lungs out, make bag pipes of them, and play El Degüello on them tend to never miss, see through the fog of war/through walls, and often as not have access to infinite resources, higher health, and do more damage for no reason.
And... THAT is why they're a threat. Not because the little idiots are actually any good at tactics or strategy.
I honestly can't think of a single RTS game where the AI wasn't a joke. Yes, you have to know how to play the game and you might need to learn how the AI thinks a bit. But that's really easy to figure out. In strategy games, winning against AIs typically requires that you just be quick about doing things. Against humans this is important as well, but humans are sneaky.
The AI for example in Homeworld only uses hyperspace jumps to run away and they only bother with critical shipyard facilities. Human players will mass a fleet, dock their fighter craft into their hyperspace capable craft, bait an attack by making it look like their capital ships are unsupported, and then when you move your forces out of position, they'll jump their forces into point blank range, spew out their whole forces, and annihilate you. Humans are also the only ones that will use cloaking fields properly or defense field frigates... etc. And that's the same for Starcraft or CnC or any of it. And in the FPS games the only thing the AIs ever have going for them is that they're damn accurate with their shots because they have auto aim... and they can frequently see through walls so they always know where you are.
What the Civ devs are talking about is not AI but behavior profiles. They do this a lot in strategy games. They'll try to mix it up by giving some of the idiot AIs a preference for air units or a preference for sea units or a preference for building fortresses or something. And that's supposed to be a different AI. But it isn't really. Its just the same AI with a different priority list.
As evidence, the only AI's of this type that tend to be dangerous are the ones that try to rush you really early. Its a high risk high reward tactic that can end you before the game really begins. Those AIs force you to build some defenses really early. I find in any of these games, if you survive that attack... there really isn't anything the AIs can do to stop you. They're so dumb you can kill them at 10 to 1 ratios in practically any game.
as an additional datum... consider the android operating system. Google created that simply to put Steve Jobs on notice. He was trying to extort payments and concessions out of google in exchange for making google the default search engine for iPhones. Google responded to that move by creating a rival smartphone for no reason besides protecting their ability to keep google a relevant search engine in the mobile space. They don't even make money on the handsets. They just gave it all away to ensure broad adoption.
My point with my post was to say that the teamsters are playing with a live high voltage line.
If they are careful and don't act like jackasses then they should be fine. If they don't respect the voltage... They're going to get bug zapped.
No, it is a pet project by companies with lots of money and lots of very smart people... and no real idea how to use either at the moment which is why they're flailing around looking for a purpose.
Kick them in the nuts and call their mothers whores... see if they don't focus on you with a glint in their eye.
Saying they can't go faster presumes they're already going as fast as they can possibly can and are investing as much as they possibly can. That is... at best naive.
inevitable
[ inËevitÉ(TM)bÉ(TM)l ]
ADJECTIVE
certain to happen; unavoidable
And who said that a chance had come along to change the dynamic? No such chance has happened here. What they found was a way to make it happen sooner which is AGAINST their interests.
... So does Qwest Communications that has laid a good portion of the backbone in the entire country not have the qualifications?
It isn't about ME personally... they do this to EVERYONE that isn't a member of the monopoly. FUCKING QWEST COMMUNICATIONS and GOOGLE amongst many others are by your fucktard logic deemed to not have the qualifications and insurance?
Listen, shit for brains. They literally forbid anyone to run cable that is NOT a member of the monopoly. And that is not because of safety or insurance but because the local officials that issue permits are bribed. Coast to fucking coast.
End of argument. Fucking AC dipshits.