136 réponses à ce sujet

[D.I.Y_Death]

Farbautisonn wrote...

D.I.Y_Death wrote...

I'm going to assume you missed the underlined text there because this makes the analogy valid. Also analogies are not strawmen or red herrings, they establish context in which a situation is taken which is important for this topic.

-Ermn... no. If the "analogy" had merit it would be able to illuminate the problem. However by stating "I know thats not how it works", then you have de facto created a strawman. You are asking me to address a hypothetical situation you yourself realize is null and void.

Geddit? 

The details of how a nuclear reactor works are irrelavent. Heck, you could replace nuclear reactor with pinecone and have the exact same analogy WHICH IS THE POINT.

You're clearly not stupid or short sighted enough to misunderstand basic reasoning skills and elementry school reading comprehension so why bother with the pointless semantics? This is Sheldon from big bang behaviour.

[AkiKishi]

The Razman wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

The Razman wrote...
Imagine that Iran will develop a superweapon in the future, that will 100% kill everyone on the planet. You could send the UN in, be diplomatic, impose sanctions, denounce them, threaten them, all of those "finnese" options ... but they all have a chance of failure. In all of those scenarios, there's a chance that Iran might succeed anyway, and if they do ... then we're all screwed. No last minute alternative options, no takebacks ... we're all gone, dusted, done for.

The only 100% way of being sure that humanity doesn't die is to nuke Iran, right here, right now. What do you do?

I think our definitons of finesse are a little different.

Logic does not compute it's a false premise.

I am asking you to participate in a hypothetical scenario. Do you not understand the terms, or ...?

Why would I participate when the premise of the hypothesis is flawed?

[ArthurBDD]

Making a nuclear reactor release all of its energy at once would be a COLOSSAL explosion.

[Farbautisonn]

D.I.Y_Death wrote...

The details of how a nuclear reactor works are irrelavent. Heck, you could replace nuclear reactor with pinecone and have the exact same analogy WHICH IS THE POINT.

You're clearly not stupid or short sighted enough to misunderstand basic reasoning skills and elementry school reading comprehension so why bother with the pointless semantics? This is Sheldon from big bang behaviour.

-Caps. Temper temper.

And.. pinecone being the same analogy as a nuclear reactor going critical? Wat? 

No. I just dont like analogies. They muddle the waters, and rarely cause consensus on anything... The last few weeks here on BSN should be ample evidence to that fact. We know what we have, lets use that. No need for nuclear reactors or pinecones.

Sheldon from big bang... Sorry. Never came across that guy. But he sounds fun.

[The Razman]

ArthurBDD wrote...

Sure, not by me, but that doesn't mean I don't find it silly when the writers concoct absurd parameters for the way the Catalyst works solely for the sake of giving me a tough choice.

Sorry, but I find the concept of finding the blueprints for an anicent device which conveniently has the function of targeting all Reapers in the galaxy and destroying them to be far more insulting and trite to the supposed galactic threat that the Reapers are meant to pose.

Attempt a victory with conventional forces, combined with Shepard on the station trying to find the Starchild's physical form (if it's some sort of super-advanced AI it must have a main processor somewhere) and shut the thing down, hoping against hope that with the loss of their guiding mind the Reapers will at the very least be confused.

Might cause a ridiculous amount of casualties, might not even work. I'd say if it does work the fleet should be decimated and massive casualties take place across the galaxy as the Reapers fight their equivalent of a massive civil war over who gets to lead them in the absence of their creator. The other life forms of the galaxy hide and bide their time, waiting for the day when they can emerge and take out the few, weakened survivors of the Reaper civil war. It's a grim, punishing, unrelenting future, but the mass relays are still there and the rebuilding of the galaxy is viable.

I'm sorry, fighting the Reapers with conventional forces and winning? That's just insulting to the entire plot of the game. You went through all of this to get the Crucible and make a last ditch effort against the Reapers with it ... to get to the end and say "No, I don't accept any of this ... I'm just going to open up this gigantic can of whoop-ass and destroy the Reapers without the Crucible!" ... you don't seriously see that as a viable alternative option, do you?

It makes the plot of the trilogy "The Reapers are god-like machines, I've spent 5 years trying to find a way to stop them from harvesting the galaxy, their might has downed thousands of galactic civilisations before over millions of years, and only by paying a terrible price can I hope to ... oh wait, I can just kill them with big-ass guns. Nevermind, LOL!"

[ArthurBDD]

The Razman wrote...

It makes the plot of the trilogy "The Reapers are god-like machines, I've spent 5 years trying to find a way to stop them from harvesting the galaxy, their might has downed thousands of galactic civilisations before over millions of years, and only by paying a terrible price can I hope to ... oh wait, I can just kill them with big-ass guns. Nevermind, LOL!"

Or alternately the plot could be "The Reapers are god-like machines, I've spent the entire game helping to build this super-weapon, but now it turns out the super-weapon isn't what I expected what it would be and I have to revise my assumptions. However, the Reaper's creator has revealed its existence to me, and that changes the whole scenario - now I know who my enemy is, and if I could just destroy them in time, maybe there's hope for us all." Hell, perhaps the mission to find Catalyst's logic core and destroy it could have a time limit based on your current EMS - so if you have a low EMS, the galactic forces aren't strong enough to buy enough time for you to do it.

But that's just something I pulled out of thin air. Maybe the alternative to obeying Catalyst should in fact be a suicide mission which doesn't actually work at all. But so what? Give us the choice to say "No! There's a better way!", even if that better way is to go down fighting rather than betray who we are.

[AkiKishi]

ArthurBDD wrote...

The Razman wrote...

It makes the plot of the trilogy "The Reapers are god-like machines, I've spent 5 years trying to find a way to stop them from harvesting the galaxy, their might has downed thousands of galactic civilisations before over millions of years, and only by paying a terrible price can I hope to ... oh wait, I can just kill them with big-ass guns. Nevermind, LOL!"

Or alternately the plot could be "The Reapers are god-like machines, I've spent the entire game helping to build this super-weapon, but now it turns out the super-weapon isn't what I expected what it would be and I have to revise my assumptions. However, the Reaper's creator has revealed its existence to me, and that changes the whole scenario - now I know who my enemy is, and if I could just destroy them in time, maybe there's hope for us all." Hell, perhaps the mission to find Catalyst's logic core and destroy it could have a time limit based on your current EMS - so if you have a low EMS, the galactic forces aren't strong enough to buy enough time for you to do it.

But that's just something I pulled out of thin air. Maybe the alternative to obeying Catalyst should in fact be a suicide mission which doesn't actually work at all. But so what? Give us the choice to say "No! There's a better way!", even if that better way is to go down fighting rather than betray who we are.

I find the plot of ME3 a bit of joke anyway. ME1 was fine, it could stand alone, delaying the Reapers was a victory. ME2 could have worked too, if ME3 had built on it and not just ignored everything that happened.

Any moron can write an unkillable being/race , but it takes skill to make that unkillable being/race killable in a plausible manner. Any moron can again Deus Ex Machina their way out of the situation, but it takes skill to do it another way.

[The Razman]

Farbautisonn wrote...

-Thats not a dilemma. And no Im not asking for "easy". Im asking for "makes sense, is logical". Im not saving the galaxy. Im dooming it. Im either destroying it, forcing it into becoming a hybrid, or giving the reapers what they wanted all along (me), plus causing galaxywide destruction.. And I have no guarantees of my sacrifice being worth a damn. The choise make no sense when compared to the logical straighforward one: "Call off your hounds". I do not see the need for any of the destruction to happen. I dont see the need for me to merge, I do not see the need for me to destroy the reapers or merge all life into a synthetic reapear esque existence. Just... go away. There is no logic that prevents that from being an option.

You seem to be more angry that there's no option which gives you a clear "win" for all eternity. That there isn't a "kick ass and save everything/one" end isn't a flaw. If that option existed, the other options would be meaningless. It's not a dilemma if the option is between "good, win everything" and "bad, destroy everything".

-Unfortunately we are never told the mechanics of this feat so if we are to attack the question with any kind of scientific merit we have to rely on past empirical evidence. That destroying a mass relay causes significant damage if not outright destruction of the system in which it resides. I dont get your analogy. How do you expend all the energy residing in a nuclear station in an instant... if not through a violent reaction such as an explosion?... so please. Knock off the analogies. They serve as red heerings and strawmen in this discussion. Nothing more.

I am relying on past empirical evidence. You've chosen to go down the road of "I saw an explosion destroy a star system" without thinking about what we're told about that event. All the energy releasing from the mass relay when it was destroyed caused the destruction of the Batarian relay (we're told this). In the ME3 ending, all the energy gets released ... into a wave. We see the wave. We're told that that wave is energy. If the energy is in the wave ... where's the energy for your supernova explosion coming from, exactly? It just happens in some kind of 70s action movie style, where "hey, something got destroyed, so there's gotta be a big-ass explosion"? No.

The fact that you can see the relay blowing up in a very conventional manner in the endings where the explosion even occurs, and not expanding in a white ball of supernova energy, shows this perfectly. To ignore that in favour of "I'm only going by what I can actually see with my own two eyes" means that you're against actually thinking logically about what your two eyes are seeing.

-I have to choose a solution... crafted by him. The supposed master of the reapers. Is he telling me he cannot controll the reapers? Or rather that he wont? In both cases I have even less reason to place any faith in him.  I think its a very valid complaint. His machines, his game. He can end it or put it on hold. But no. Instead of doing the obvious, he forces us into becomming accomplices, he forces his choises upon up. If he is so powerfull can you give me a reason why this would be an illogical request?

Because he's said he won't. It's his plan, he believes in it, why would he stop it just because some organic came and told him to? Starchild isn't yours to command ... you came to him for help, remember?

If he wanted to just continue as things are and let us all die, he wouldn't just let Sheperd die. Instead, he's offering solutions. To reject those solutions when there are no alternatives would be silly. To complain about Sheperd not coming out with some alternative solution to stop the Reapers ... is equally silly.

-Really? He has been doing this for 37 million years and hasnt for once considered that he is going about this the wrong way. He uses his tools to wipe out advanced life every 50k years. If that isnt having a god complex I have no Idea what is.

God-complex, maybe. That's a psychological delusion, not a possession of god-like qualities though.

Erm... Yes it matters. Because if you dont believe him, then you have zero reason to do any of the things he say.

To quote many, many people throughout history ... "do you have a better idea?"

[ArthurBDD]

BobSmith101 wrote...

Any moron can write an unkillable being/race , but it takes skill to make that unkillable being/race killable in a plausible manner. Any moron can again Deus Ex Machina their way out of the situation, but it takes skill to do it another way.

That's pretty much it right there, it's a writing issue.

The big problem with the Starchild isn't just that you have to go along with their logic - although that is incredibly galling. It's also that the writers at Bioware thought a deus ex machina - and that's exactly what this out-of-left-field super-AI is - was at all an appropriate and sensible way to end a space opera adventure trilogy.

Sure, Mass Effect brought a little grimdark to the table, but at the end of the day it's slap bang in the middle of the space opera adventure story tradition. Would victory plucked from impossible odds have been outlandish? Sure it would. But it's nothing that Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Sheridan, Sinclair, or SHEPARD haven't done before.

[The Razman]

ArthurBDD wrote...

But that's just something I pulled out of thin air. Maybe the alternative to obeying Catalyst should in fact be a suicide mission which doesn't actually work at all. But so what? Give us the choice to say "No! There's a better way!", even if that better way is to go down fighting rather than betray who we are.

Sure. I'd have no problem with an ending which allows you to throw it all away and kill yourself, along with galactic civilisation. Nobody else would though. "I didn't want to believe him, so I lost? WTF IS THIS? CHANGE IT SO I CAN WIN THIS WAY!" ... would be the response, methinks.

[D.I.Y_Death]

Farbautisonn wrote...

And.. pinecone being the same analogy as a nuclear reactor going critical? Wat? 

I think this proves my point for me. You're not understanding the hypothesis and are so hung up on the details you can't see the big picture. If you can't do that then you don't really have a right to be slamming another's analogies as they are going above your head and explaining isn't helping.

No. I just dont like analogies. They muddle the waters, and rarely cause consensus on anything... The last few weeks here on BSN should be ample evidence to that fact. We know what we have, lets use that. No need for nuclear reactors or pinecones.

Bad analogies made by people who can't articulate muddle, confuse and segragate. We're talking about a hypothetical situation where a nuclear reactor emits its energy in a giant, violent burst or emitting in in a single, non-violent event, like instantly draining a battery of all power.

Doesn't matter what you use, pinecone, nuclear reactor or the god damn batman. The principal stays the same.

Sheldon from big bang... Sorry. Never came across that guy. But he sounds fun.

Anal retentive nerd with aspergers sounds fun to you? Whatever floats your boat man but be prepared to have people like me become more and more condescending as time passes. This is litterally grade school reading comprehension, you're either purposely being ignorant or you're incapable of understanding a general analogy due to your clear inability to drop the semantics. EIther or means I'm not gonna bother, you can't teach a pig to sing and you can't teach basic reasoning skills to someone who simply doesn't have them.

Have a good life.

[ArthurBDD]

The Razman wrote...

ArthurBDD wrote...

But that's just something I pulled out of thin air. Maybe the alternative to obeying Catalyst should in fact be a suicide mission which doesn't actually work at all. But so what? Give us the choice to say "No! There's a better way!", even if that better way is to go down fighting rather than betray who we are.

Sure. I'd have no problem with an ending which allows you to throw it all away and kill yourself, along with galactic civilisation. Nobody else would though. "I didn't want to believe him, so I lost? WTF IS THIS? CHANGE IT SO I CAN WIN THIS WAY!" ... would be the response, methinks.

Sounds like an argument against pulling a character out of nowhere right at the end of the game and having them tell you what to think.

The Starchild's story not only limits your choices - it also limits your freedom to interpret Mass Effect and speculate as to what it's about, directly against the "lots of speculation" the writers seem to have been going for. Before we met the Starchild, Mass Effect was about a whole heap of things. In the wake of the Starchild's revelations, it becomes about synthetics vs. organics and pretty much no other theme matters.

[Farbautisonn]

The Razman wrote...

You seem to be more angry that there's no option which gives you a clear "win" for all eternity. That there isn't a "kick ass and save everything/one" end isn't a flaw. If that option existed, the other options would be meaningless. It's not a dilemma if the option is between "good, win everything" and "bad, destroy everything".

-Thank you for your commentary on my agitational level. Its much appreciated and wouldnt at all be considered inflammatory. Its not presumptuous nor does it attribute arguments or statements to me that I did not make. Splendid worki indeed.

You presume that there has to be a dilemma. I dont see why there has to be one. Is there a law somewhere I can look that up? 

Generally speaking, you're very good with presumptions. Ill grant you that feely.

I am relying on past empirical evidence. You've chosen to go down the road of "I saw an explosion destroy a star system" without thinking about what we're told about that event. All the energy releasing from the mass relay when it was destroyed caused the destruction of the Batarian relay (we're told this). In the ME3 ending, all the energy gets released ... into a wave. We see the wave. We're told that that wave is energy. If the energy is in the wave ... where's the energy for your supernova explosion coming from, exactly? It just happens in some kind of 70s action movie style, where "hey, something got destroyed, so there's gotta be a big-ass explosion"? No.

-Thats not "going down a road". Thats called relying on historical evidence, empirical fact. What are you relying on? You are relying on a "wave" not being as harmfull as an explosion. Because godchild told you. You do realize what a shockwave is? I dont know what the hell youre trying to argue here, but you are making my case for me. That "big ass explosion" you refer to is actually what we see. Shockwaves eminating from the Relay epicenter.

The fact that you can see the relay blowing up in a very conventional manner in the endings where the explosion even occurs, and not expanding in a white ball of supernova energy, shows this perfectly. To ignore that in favour of "I'm only going by what I can actually see with my own two eyes" means that you're against actually thinking logically about what your two eyes are seeing.

-Oh... Im sorry. So the colour of the explosion matters now. My bad. Magnets... how do they work? Seriously. There is a significant relase of energy in a shockwave. Or perhaps you are assuming that the relays release their energy in a specific wavelength... Whats your assumption here? 

Because he's said he won't. It's his plan, he believes in it, why would he stop it just because some organic came and told him to? Starchild isn't yours to command ... you came to him for help, remember?

-Wrong. I didnt know he existed. I just wanted to remove the threat to my galaxy. And youre using circular logic. He cant because he wont. Allright then. Why should I trust him again? 

If he wanted to just continue as things are and let us all die, he wouldn't just let Sheperd die. Instead, he's offering solutions. To reject those solutions when there are no alternatives would be silly. To complain about Sheperd not coming out with some alternative solution to stop the Reapers ... is equally silly.

-Ermn... He lets shephard die. Cease to exist as he is... in all scenarios. Solutions? Sure. His solutions. Solutions that make zero sense to me in the context of "pull back your damned ships and lets talk this over". Nope. Instead we are forced to make a choise he dictates. How do you know that there are no alternatives? Godkid himself says he controlls the reapers. The reapers do obey orders as we see from the endings. They CAN pull back. So why doesnt godkid offer this choise ? Thats an alternative right there.

To quote many, many people throughout history ... "do you have a better idea?"

-I gave you plenty. Stop the reapers, pull back. If godkid must, keep them in holding whilst we find a way to solve this issue. If you godkid refuses, find the HAL2000 fusebox and start pulling out the databoards. Find the "disable" button. Find the reaper IFF and the Relay mechanism for firering beams of energy so you can nuke any incomming reaper. Weaponize the relays in other fashions. Plenty of "better ideas" than what we got. 

[Farbautisonn]

D.I.Y_Death wrote...

I think this proves my point for me. You're not understanding the hypothesis and are so hung up on the details you can't see the big picture. If you can't do that then you don't really have a right to be slamming another's analogies as they are going above your head and explaining isn't helping.

-Im sorry. I am to blame for not undestanding an illogical and fallacious analogy. Gotcha.

Bad analogies made by people who can't articulate muddle, confuse and segragate. We're talking about a hypothetical situation where a nuclear reactor emits its energy in a giant, violent burst or emitting in in a single, non-violent event, like instantly draining a battery of all power.

-That power has to go somewhere. And thats alot of energy to disperse in a "non-violent" event. Dispersing a relay is even more energy to disperse "non-violently".

Doesn't matter what you use, pinecone, nuclear reactor or the god damn batman. The principal stays the same.

-No. Doesnt. For an analogy to have some value it has to facilitate a greater undestanding. It doesnt. The original example relied on a fallacious premise making it null and void. But Im really looking forward to see you use batman or a pinecone in an analogy that would make sense here. Do go on. Im listening. 

Anal retentive nerd with aspergers sounds fun to you? Whatever floats your boat man but be prepared to have people like me become more and more condescending as time passes. This is litterally grade school reading comprehension, you're either purposely being ignorant or you're incapable of understanding a general analogy due to your clear inability to drop the semantics. EIther or means I'm not gonna bother, you can't teach a pig to sing and you can't teach basic reasoning skills to someone who simply doesn't have them.
Have a good life.

-Oh. So you're "Letting me off the hook" as it were? Thanks. Much easier than having to try to argue your case too.

Modifié par Farbautisonn, 03 avril 2012 - 01:30 .

[Arkitekt]

Farbautisonn, I didn't pick it up, but are you saying that the Relays blew up the systems where they are placed? About that little detail, I think that you are exagerating your case here.

Yes, I would agree that BioWare made a bad job at exposing their view on the matter, but I never saw that particular effect as inevitable. It's clear from the cutscenes that the explosions are different. The mass effect fields are discharged to the mass relay network and then the relay blows up in an apparently less violent fashion than the Alpha relay, which hadn't discharged anything.

One can be slightly distracted at the details of the various endings, but if you actually pay attention and compare the explosions (of the RED and GREEN endings, the blue endings seem not to destroy the relays at all) to the Alpha Relay one, you'll see that the event *is* different.

[D.I.Y_Death]

Farbautisonn wrote...
-Im sorry. I am to blame for not undestanding an illogical and fallacious analogy. Gotcha.

Oh they're logical, but you can't comprehend the scope of the analogy and thus go back to square 1, the details. Except the details weren't important in that particular analogy. It might seem like I'm getting snappy but I assure you I'm not, I just have no tolerance for this kind of sillines.

-That power has to go somewhere. And thats alot of energy to disperse in a "non-violent" event. Dispersing a relay is even more energy to disperse "non-violently".

Now you're getting it
Now lets flash forward and skip the analogy. Rupturing a relay via an asteroid obviously creates a violent explosion and release of energy. Ugh can't really go into it more without using spoilers but the other way that the relays release energy shot a gigantic beam of energy then exploded.

One is a violent reaction resulting in a star system getting blown up and one shoots most of that energy before exploding, minimalizing the damage that would have occured if you, blew up a relay without the use of the crucible.

-No. Doesnt. For an analogy to have some value it has to facilitate a greater undestanding. It doesnt. The original example relied on a fallacious premise making it null and void. But Im really looking forward to see you use batman or a pinecone in an analogy that would make sense here. Do go on. Im listening. 

You misunderstand how analogies can be used. In this instance the point of the analogy was to drive you away from being anal retentive with the details, because you simply weren't getting it. Did you pass greade 12 english? This is really basic stuff man, I don't even have to tell my 12 year old cousin this...

-Oh. So you're "Letting me off the hook" as it were? Thanks. Much easier than having to try to argue your case too.

More like I have better things to do that waste time arguing semantics with someone who can't even comprehend the magnitude of the thesis and how the analogies relate. If you understood it would have been clear but instead you get caught on the insignificant details and refuse to move past.
Plus when I deal with people like you I tend to get rude, start flaming and that's just no good. As is I want to slap your English teacher for failing you so badly so instead I'll say it once more: Have a good life.

[Arkitekt]

I have to love tldr back and forths which are always compounded with the generic "I really don't have time to deal with you", just after you wrote a wall of text. Pretty funny.

[D.I.Y_Death]

Arkitekt wrote...

I have to love tldr back and forths which are always compounded with the generic "I really don't have time to deal with you", just after you wrote a wall of text. Pretty funny.

I have the courtesy to tell someone why I refuse to interact with them, is that a problem?
L00p, I'd love to see some examples, I've remined neutral in just about every thread I've posted in within 24 hours. So please, show me an example of my circular logic and whatever else you're goin on about. Otherwise you can vacate my thread, thanks in advance.

Modifié par D.I.Y_Death, 03 avril 2012 - 02:00 .

[Farbautisonn]

Arkitekt wrote...

Farbautisonn, I didn't pick it up, but are you saying that the Relays blew up the systems where they are placed? About that little detail, I think that you are exagerating your case here.

-Even if we dont have an "arrival" esque detonation, we still have a significant release of energy in the shape of a shockwave. If that release is close to a habitable planet It will still have dire consequenses for that planet. Its even a part of one of the endings... you end up killing the reapers but scortching your own planet.

Yes, I would agree that BioWare made a bad job at exposing their view on the matter, but I never saw that particular effect as inevitable. It's clear from the cutscenes that the explosions are different. The mass effect fields are discharged to the mass relay network and then the relay blows up in an apparently less violent fashion than the Alpha relay, which hadn't discharged anything.

-I saw it as hard to avoid given the empirical evidence given up to the point where we initiate the explosion. All of the detonations and shockwaves are violent. And yes, discharging the relays would amount to "damming up" an explosion, discharging a significant degree of the energy to avoid a catastrophic and uncontrolled detonation. But, the problem is that none of this is ever touched upon. So... what are we to believe? 

One can be slightly distracted at the details of the various endings, but if you actually pay attention and compare the explosions (of the RED and GREEN endings, the blue endings seem not to destroy the relays at all) to the Alpha Relay one, you'll see that the event *is* different.

-Ermn... are we watching the same vid? Did we play the same game? What happens at 1.29? That looks like a relay going up in bits to me.

[Izhalezan]

The Razman wrote...

The only 100% way of being sure that humanity doesn't die is to nuke Iran, right here, right now. What do you do?

When did this turn into a GOP debate...? I swear all but one candidate was talking about this during all the ones we've had.