When Gaming Gets Personal

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

   Sargon,

First, thank-you for your thoughtful piece.  I do appreciate both the calm and yet
forceful tenor of it.  I will, therefore,
reply with some observation, but with the qualifier that I may have misunderstood
that which you were attempting to say. 
If such is the case, it's probably my fault more than your own.

 First, you seem to be arguing that the logic of syllogisms
are a cultural manifestation and therefore subject to change.  Sadly, that is not the case for syllogisms
have been around for over 2,000 years and have been taught, learned, and
accepted in every literate culture across the globe, or at least every one of
which I'm aware.  And they are accepted
as logical.  The reason for that
universal acceptance (with the lone exception, I must say, of some French
feminist who have declared logic itself to be a patriarchal artifact and thus
suspect).  The reason they have been so
accepted is that the reflect something Aristotle labeled the
"enthymeme."  Scholars have
long disputed what Aristotle meant by the Enthymeme, but the literal
translation, I think, give us a clue. 
Literally it means, "in the mind" and Aristotle called it the
"heart and soul of persuasion." 
Given he also said that in the mind there existed a "proportionate
mental space not unlike that of geometry" (De Anima), I conclude, with William
and Martha Kneale, that the enthymeme is a process by which the imaginative
space within the mind categorizes things into "in" and
"out."  In other words, using
the traditional syllogism: All men are mortal; 
Socrates is a man; Socrates is [therefore] mortal, if you use a Venn
diagram to draw this out, you will find that "all men" are completely
in the space of that which is mortal (Major premise);  Socrates is fully within the category of men
(Minor premise).  And therefore, in the 2
dimensional representation of the syllogism, Socrates is also fully in the
space of mortal.  Therefore, Socrates is
mortal (conclusion).

To Aristotle, and to most cultures who have come into contact
with syllogisms the logic of the syllogism is so clear that that denial of
it's, well, logic, is rare and usually has nothing to do with the logic, but
instead, the premises from which the logic begins.

One thing you do forget is that it is NOT I who is making
the conclusions, it is the logic.  The
syllogisms are not my personal thoughts, they are what the premises drive you
to conclude.  I can no more make
something logical which is not, than my opponents can make illogical that which
is demonstratively logical.  Logic is in
the structure, not in my presentation of it.

So your claim that I am standing against them alone, is a
miss of what they are actually up against. 
They are up against the logic as laid out.  That they keep attacking me is
irrelevant.  

I do think you are right that the premises with which I
begin my argument are places where my conclusions can be attacked.  In one post I've laid out the six premises of
my argument and invited attacks on each of them.  To my knowledge no one has as yet taken up
the challenge and thus, there they stand.

The moral premises with which I start are: "do unto
other as you would do unto them" and "avoid causing needless pain
whenever possible."  Most players, I
think, have no problem subscribing to both, but, as you note, they may think
applying them to this game to be irrelevant. 
Much of my argument has dealt with the idea that when we enter into an
imaginary area of play we can forget about our morals, because I argue, and
science so far supports my view, that it is impossible for you to not take
yourself into the game.  In other words,
what happens in Illy does not stay in Illy, it is carried with you in some form
or other.  What exactly is carried with
you, how much is carried with you, and if it's a net good or net bad thing, is
up for debate, but not that you are not effected by what you do and say and
what is done and said to you in the game. 
I like to term the idea that players are "present" in the game
and that is the connection which forces us to bring morality into the game.

Have you ever planted a garden?  I have. 
A very large one in fact.  I
plowed the ground with a 7hp hand plow, tilled it, cultivated it, planted and
pulled out the weeds.  I was 13 years old
and my garden was beautiful.  But then my
grandfather got sick 600 miles away.  My
family jumped in our car and mad the trip. When we got there he was very ill,
but managed to hang on for a few weeks. 
So we stayed.

Meanwhile, back at my beautiful garden the weeds began to
grow.  And because the soil was so
fertile the grew very well indeed.  After
six weeks I returned and found a good deal of my crop was choked out by the
weeds.  When I left there were only minor
weed problems and I could deal with them easily.  But because I didn't deal with them when they
were tiny and insignificant, I had to work very hard to do so later.

Intimidation by threats of coercion is like a weed.  It isn't a nice thing to have in the garden of Illy. 
It chokes out those who would settle in some areas and intimidates those
near those areas since, as I've found out, if you oppose them, they will
strike.   Intimidation does not stop at
the border and is not just within the land area claimed.  It's a tactic which, if allowed, can be
planted in all kinds of ways.  An
alliance can, for instance, declare that anybody in a certain area who is not
sending troops to fight for them, is an enemy and will be removed.  It can say, if you are a new player you will
give me a certain payment for my "protection."  It can do great damage once we allow it on
the playground.  It's not about the
claiming of land, it's about the health of the game.

Going against so many players wills may or may not be
true.  Have you ever wondered just how
many players are pro-intimidation by threats of coercion and how many
anti?  No method that I know of, can
measure that.  The best measures though, are
two: how many alliances are using the tactic of intimidation by threats of
coercion, and, how many people are posting in the forums for or against the
tactic.

The overwhelming majority of alliances do not use
intimidation by threats of coercion. 
Most don't make land claims. 
There may be a lot of reasons for that, but one of them might be that
they don't indorse the practice of intimidation by threats of coercion.  The other measure is that most posters are
pro-intimidation by threats of coercion. 
Of course, given the strong arguments I present and the tenacity with
which present them it would be unusual for the pro-intimidation by threats of
coercion, to ignore those posts.  And if,
as I believe, I'm more than holding my own in the debate, there really isn't
any need for many anti-intimidation by threats of coercion players to say
much.  But of course, that may be just my
imagination.  

The point is, we don't know how many people are on one side
or the other because we don't have any way to really measure.  I do wish those who were anti intimidation by
threats of coercion would speak up, but maybe my own shouting has just drowned
them out.  For that I am sorry.

As for the social practice of being something other than you
are in the offline world, I do not believe that it is possible to not bring you
personality into an unscripted environment and thus to pretend you are just
"play acting."  Oh, I believe
you can tell yourself that, but I also think the line between the imaginative
and the real is very thin when it comes to human psychology and even thinner
when it comes to human physiology.  Our
bodies release the same chemicals when we are frightened at a horror movie as
we do when we are frightened in real life. 
Play is, in fact, one way we choose to experience the thrill of danger
without the risk of harm.  If our minds
were able to keep our bodies from experiencing the rush of being in danger
because we know we really aren't in danger, every roller coaster would be shut
down.  

Finally, you do seem to think Illyriad is a war game.  I have no problem with you playing it as a
war game as long as you don't intimidate other into playing it as such when
they have no wish to do so.  Intimidation
by threats of coercion, and the subsequent acts of coercion are not healthy in
any game except for, perhaps, those where military action is necessary and
unavoidable and part of the formula for "winning."  But that would mean the game designers have
laid out what it means to win, and that hasn't happened in this sandbox.

Thank you for your comments.

AJ