[MUD-Dev] MUDs and societal transformations

[Marc Bowden]

--On Wednesday, April 17, 2002 3:10 PM -0700 "Brandon J. Van Every" 
<vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com> wrote:
> Marc Bowden:
>> <vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com> wrote:
>>> Patricia Pizer:

>>>> If you took the vocal members of the roundtable and separated
>>>> them into 2 groups, you'd find all the concerned members in the
>>>> group of those that actually have experience designing,
>>>> publishing and running successful MMOs.  Funny so many of them
>>>> have come to the same conclusion, isn't it?

>>> Now take all the people in the room who didn't speak.  Are they
>>> lacking experience?  If they are experienced, then it would say
>>> more about who's willing to make a fuss about this or that.

>> The Bram Stoker approach is negated by the qualifier "vocal
>> members".

> Actually with that correction Patricia's statement says even less.
> It says we're not even paying attention to experienced MUD admins
> who didn't care to comment.

  "How much money do you have in quarters?"

  "$1.25."

  "But you're not paying attention to the nickels!"

  "We were talking about quarters..."

You can't mangle set theory by adding elements not in the set before
the experiment when you get a result you don't like, or doesn't
support your point of view; hitting a tautology you don't like isn't
a cue to start jiggering the data by changing the corresponding
conditional of a constructive proof until you get something that you
like better.  In logic, this is called "begging the question" -
voiding the provision of support for a claim, either by circular
reasoning or by substituting another claim or supporting evidence
not related to the initial claim.

"The Bram Stoker approach" is a subset of the above, wherein you
press the validity of your arguement based on an unprovable,
unmeasurable "silent majority" which supports your viewpoint.

  - Marc, obviously hell to work for
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