[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN} Who to design for?

[Sean Howard]

"Caliban Darklock" <cdarklock at gmail.com> wrote:

>> but I think you can definitely make pretty good predictions on the next
>> big thing. Usually, it's a gut feeling.
>
> You mean like when John Romero made me his bitch?

Um... no.

> Which is why I take issue with the idea that the common wisdom "is
> wrong more often than not". There is a constant stream of ideas
> entering the common wisdom. Those which are false eventually drop out
> of it, while those which are true stay there forever. It seems
> self-evident that the common wisdom inevitably ends up being dominated
> by truths.

Because there is no such thing as a finished thought. You can ALWAYS look
at something from a different perspective and see something new and
worthwhile. Common wisdom is a finished thought. It's a bumper sticker
slogan's worth of "deep thought" that is anything but. Common wisdom
prevents people from looking outside the box, or worse, trying to get
others to look outside the box. They will always retort with "If it
weren't true, it wouldn't be common wisdom" - which is, itself, common
wisdom, and I should add, wrong.

The ONLY thing important is the discussion. The debate. The back and forth
of ideas. The devil's advocate. Common wisdom is biased intelligence. It
comes to you under the guise that it is true. Truth is never that simple.
Life is never that simple. Nothing important is simple enough to fit on a
bumper sticker. There are always ifs, ands, or buts. And if you adhere too
tightly to this absurd idea that somehow, people must be right some of the
time, you don't spend enough time thinking whether or not they are right
THIS TIME. Start with the negative and work backwards until you've run out
of ways to disprove it.

-- 
Sean Howard