395: Big Lebowski -- game is dead :(

[Colonel Kurtz]

/confirm

I haven't had internet, and I barely do now.

[Colonel Kurtz]

No, big_kahunia, you see, the reason why I haven't been posting is long, boring, and definitely WOULD stall the game because it has nothing to do with mafia. Your assertion that I am scum because I am paying some attention to the game I am moderating rather than others is baseless, stupid, and harmful to the game, and I will explain why it is incorrect using one fact:

Fact: Mafia can only talk at night

If I was in the mafia, I would have to be breaking the rules of the game to strategize with my mafia budd y/ies. The purpose of a Day start is that the mafia cannot act before there is any voting, so they have no more time to strategize than the town has to figure out who they are.

So basically, it seems to me that your argument is that I must be mafia because I clearly was cheating.

Right....

vote big_kahunia

for wildly grasping at straws.

[Colonel Kurtz]

Well I've never been in a game where that is possible, so pardon me.

It seems to me that general practice is that mafia can only confer at night. In fact, I know that is general practice.

This is what the game gets its name from; obviously, it's the most important role and is in just about every game.

The Mafia know each other and can talk to each other

at night

. Each night, they choose a victim from the rest of the players. When day breaks, the victim is dead. The goal for the Mafia is to survive while killing everyone else in town.

It seems to me that saying "oh, well obviously the mafia are allowed to talk at night if there's a day start because we did it in this one game" then you are using an exception as a rule.

Proof by example (also known as inappropriate generalisation) is a logical fallacy whereby one or more examples are claimed as "proof" for a more general statement.

This fallacy has the following argument form:

I know that x X has the property P.
Therefore, all other elements of X have the property P.
The following example demonstrates why this is a logical fallacy:

I've seen a person shoot someone.
Therefore, all people are murderers.

Your argument is
In Newbie 220, the mafia was allowed to talk before Day 1 when there was no night
therefore in this game the mafia would be allowed to do the same
oh, and that means you're scum

In summary: no.

[Colonel Kurtz]

I realize that my tone there might have come off as being kind of harsh, I'm honestly not trying to be a jerk about this, but I think you should just reexamine your arguments, because they don't make logical sense.

[Colonel Kurtz]

I looked into the Newbie 220 setup, and IN THE RULES OF THE GAME the moderator made a concession that the mafia could talk during pregame.

This was in his listed posting of the rules

You are the mafia. You may only talk with each other during the game's "night" (and pre-game) not during the "day." You let me know before the night's deadline who will be your victim. You win the game when all the other players are dead. You have time to talk with your partner until I start the day.

Our moderator has made no such note.

Oh, and by the way, ricktus, say what you mean and mean what you say:

You may want to take a reread of my posts, as at no point did I intend to infer "oh, well obviously the mafia are allowed to talk at night if there's a day start because we did it in this one game", instead just say that it IS a possibility and should not be discounted. I hope that this was a case of misconstruing my arguments rather than deliberately manipulating them.

Oh, I did, and I see there that you're voting for me.

As for a day start being to prevent any mafia strategy head-start, I imagine it is more to stop people being killed before they have started playing where we only have 12 players - a night start could easily chop that down to 9 before anyone has said a word. Pre-game communication seems feasible to me.

unvote, vote Colonel_Kurtz

Call me old-fashioned, but to me, a vote means "I think that this person deserves to be lynched the most", not "it is a possibility that this mafia game could have had pre-game scum communications, and since that is a possibility and you had a combination of internet/holiday/life issues and didn't confirm when you were tending to your Mini, that means that you could possibly be scum so I think I'll just put a vote there on you no cause for alarm just little vote there it doesn't mean I have to make a decision on what I think about you just that you're the most scummy right now". Haven't you people heard of an FOS?
But then there's bandwaggoning...which I'm not big into, except back in the 'Nam, of course...

Basically, I have a hard time believing that you just think it's a possibility that scum could communicate pre-game, because you voted for me with that being the lone point that you have as to why I'm scum. I consider a vote to be a fairly strong action against someone, so excuse me if I misunderstood your intent.

[Colonel Kurtz]

This?

1) Do not discuss the game outside of the thread.

Certain roles may allow some of the above rules to be circumvented, as specifically indicated. (I don’t think I’m revealing too much by saying that a role exists which allows rule 1 to be broken.) If you feel a mistake has been made or you’re just not sure about something, feel free to PM.

That more than likely just means we have masons, or the moderator is reminding everyone that the mafia can talk at night.

[Colonel Kurtz]

I was referring to warpdragon's "bandwagons are fun" comment with the bandwagoning thing.
You can call a vote whatever you want, but it's still a statement that you think that person is the most lynch-worthy. And since you're being flaky about the pre-game communication issue, I actually fail to see *why* you are still voting for me at this point.
And it still is a fact that in the generally accepted rules of mafia, scum can only communicate at night; you have failed to actually disprove that it isn't a rule unless otherwise noted.

[Colonel Kurtz]

Those rules also weren't written specifically for this game, they were stolen from another moderator and our's is using it because he likes the way they are worded. In addition to that, the person that he stole the rules from admits to them being entirely plagurized.

[Colonel Kurtz]

because there are no set hard and fast rules for mafia, it is left to the mods discretion and I assume that they can let people talk outside the thread without informing the game as a whole if they wish. I think the point is that YOU have failed to prove that scum can only communicate at night unless otherwise noted.

I'm pretty sure there are a few, check the wiki. I believe there's one about people only being allowed to communicate during night.
Anyway, about big_kahunia's theory that since I posted in another game, and not this game, I must have been intentionally lurking, I feel that since you dolts are still rolling that fetid ball of crap around, I should address it. Assuming that because I am 'lurking', there is one simple explanation, is also bad logic.
Your argument about my stalling having to do with me being scum is based on speculation, opinion, and probably a healthy dose of you trying to stir up dust.

The fallacy of the single cause, also known as joint effect or causal oversimplification, is a logical fallacy of causation that occurs when it is assumed that there is one, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes.

Often after a tragedy it is asked, "What was the cause of this?" Such language implies that there is one cause, when instead there were probably a large number of contributing factors. However, having produced a list of several contributing factors, it may be worthwhile to look for the strongest of the factors, or a single cause underlying several of them.

in statistics, a spurious relationship (or, sometimes, spurious correlation) is a mathematical relationship in which two occurrences have no logical connection, yet it may be inferred that they do, due to a certain third, unseen factor (referred to as a "confounding factor" or "lurking variable"). The spurious relationship gives an impression of a worthy link between two groups that is invalid when objectively examined.

Correlation does not imply causation is a phrase used in statistics to indicate that correlation between two variables does not imply there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the two. Its negation correlation implies causation is a logical fallacy by which two events that occur together are prematurely claimed to have a cause-and-effect relationship. It is also known as cum hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin for "with this, therefore because of this") and false cause.

If you don't feel like boring yourselves with the details of my life, just replace the next paragraph with "I was busy putting my degree to work".

Since you are so interested and speculative as to why I posted in the game I was modding and didn't confirm here, fine, I will tell you. Admittedly, this is all boring and about my personal life, but if I tell you why, will you at least just shut up? Ok, I did not have any kind of reliable internet at my house until after New Year's. I posted by having my girlfriend post for me. Allow me to repeat this. I told someone some predetermined stuff to post for me in that game. Why did I not do this myself? I am a freelance trumpet player when I'm home from school, and religious holidays are a really busy time for that. I had hardly any time for life, let alone mafia, until a few days after Christmas. I told her what to type while I was driving to gigs. I got my internet back not long ago, and I made a few posts from my girlfriend's house once I was done gigging 24/7. Apparantly she ignored the PM when I got it, and I responded once I had actually gotten back into being able to have free time.

So that's a whole lot more reasons (and a whole lot more reasonable) than "he must be stalling so he can plot with his mafia buddies (which would be cheating, whee!!)", and I'm sorry that all was so boring and stupid, and I really wish I hadn't had to tell you guys the details of my life, but I felt at this point it was necessary.

[Colonel Kurtz]

Dude, explicit instruction said that you had to have seen the movie.

Look it up on wikipedia

or rent it or something.
Meanwhile is there anyone else here who hasn't seen it?

It's a four page reread, how did you miss that?

[Colonel Kurtz]

Well, you've so far wasted two days on a problem that isn't a problem. You didn't need to bring it to anyone's attention that you hadn't seen the movie. The mod said to wiki it if you hadn't seen it, you didn't need to talk.

Essentially, it looks to me like you're killing time while you try to formulate a way to get the spotlight off you. Probably by pointing your finger at someone else.

Just go ahead and point, your argument probably will be crap because the scummiest thing that's gone on so far is big_kahunia's 'he waited to confirm so he must be scum' idiocy, but at least it will be different crap.

[Colonel Kurtz]

Calling you out on a bad argument isn't a personal attack. If I said that you're scum because you fuck goats, that would be a personal attack. See the difference?

[Colonel Kurtz]

While, philosophically, I agree with you that personal attacks have no place in mafia, I think that I have yet to make one.

id·i·o·cy
Pronunciation[id-ee-uh-see]
–noun, plural -cies. 1. utterly senseless or foolish behavior; a stupid or foolish act, statement, etc.

As you can see, calling a statement idiocy is not calling the person who made it an idiot. For example, Bill Clinton's 'depends on what the definition of "is" is' speach was idiocy, but he was not an idiot because he said that. Saying that someone's action was idiocy is not the same as calling a person an idiot.

I don't know where you're from, but clearly not somewhere where they teach you how to read.

You see, THAT was a personal attack. Or if I were to say that your contribution so far this game has been shoddy and therefore your opinion doesn't matter, that would also be a personal attack. However, if ALL that I say is that an argument is not valid, I am NOT making a personal attack. Calling an argument invalid, or nonsensical or idiocy is all the same thing; you can't decide that one word out of four that describe the same thing is vulgar. Shit, feces, solid animal waste and poo all describe the same crap; ironic that I keep coming back to this theme, isn't it?

Calling it idiocy wasn't a Freudian slip or a way to insult big_kahunia without saying 'ohhh you're a stupid stupid little man', I simply was choosing another word that meant the same thing as "bad". The fact that you're trying to read *that* much into what I'm writing just shows me that you're trying to find a reason to say I'm scummy while the pot still has my buttprint in it. Why you're doing this, I don't know; you probably just don't like me. Frankly, I don't blame you, but I think you should find a way to try to make me look bad other than wagging your finger at me for using abrasive language.

Can we get on with the game, please?

[Colonel Kurtz]

I can't let this one slide either, sorry. Sorry about the double post, too.
Oh, and for the record, none of this is a personal insult

I don't know where you're from, but calling someone an idiot is a personal attack.

I don't know what the two parts of that sentence had to do with each other, but ok! I agree, calling someone an idiot is a personal attack, even if they are being an idiot. Name-calling has no place in a game of serious discussion, such as this.

You said, "bk's ... idiocy."

Yes and no. This is...yet again, a fallacious statement! Here's why:

The practice of "quoting out of context", sometimes referred to as "contextomy," is a logical fallacy and type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning. Quoting out of context is often a means to set up "straw man" arguments. Straw man arguments are arguments against a position which is not held by an opponent, but which may bear superficial similarity to the views of the opponent.

Why is this quoting out of context? Because this is what I said:

the scummiest thing that's gone on so far is big_kahunia's 'he waited to confirm so he must be scum' idiocy, but at least it will be different crap.

You see, 'idiocy' is referring to '"he waited to confirm so he must be scum"', not "big_kahunia". Quotation marks are not the same as parenthesis, you actually have to apply what is inside of the quotation marks to the sentence. Try this sometime, like now, for instance.

I don't appreciate this.

Thanks for sharing.

Don't say that you're attacking the argument; because, your words clearly state what you mean.

Yes, this is why I choose them carefully. I think your argument is poorly thought-out and not logically sound in any way, which is why I described it as "idiocy". You see, grown-ups know that when you disagree with someone, it doesn't mean that you think they're a poopie-head, it only means that they disagree with you. The only adults I know who think that disagreeing with something they say means that you have insulted them are religious fundamentalists. Are you a religious fundamentalist? If not, please stop acting like one.

I stated my rationale for posting that argument.

And the mod stated why your argument was completely invalid. Just because you have a "rationale" does not mean that you are right. That pretty much applies to everything you've said in this game.

[Colonel Kurtz]

But in almost every game I've played in as scum, we were allowed to talk before game, as b_k suggests is so in this game. So I'm curious as to why Colonel and willows would think it is only after each day, that one could talk.

Based on your join date, I would say it has to do with the fact that you started playing after Newbie games started. I haven't been mafia in a while, but in every game I've ever been in as mafia, the mafia *couldn't* talk pre-game. Checking the wiki, I noticed that it only says that mafia can talk at night, so I assumed this was still, for the most part, true. To me, only in an 8 or 9 player setup does it make sense for the mafia to be able to talk pre-game, so I think that being allowed to talk pre-game is a rule that new moderators have started using because they saw it in their newbie game and brought it over.

[Colonel Kurtz]

unvote big_kahunia

I've been reading over. And I'm not sure what Fircoal is trying to ...say. I'm really not sure. Is he scummy? Is he writing his posts in a different language and using Babelfish to translate it to English?
Dunno that it makes him scum, though.

I support a no lynch, because I really don't feel that we have anything to go on at this point. I think if we lynch big_kahunia, we'll find that he was an overzealous townie, and he has posted the most scum-esque stuff by far.

vote No Lynch