Honesty doesn't pay :(

[Atrocities]

Well lets see now, to date Fyron has won at lest 11 smack downs and lost none. My money would be on Fyron to win number 12.

No offense Jack, its just that Fyron is really good at smack downs.

[Jack Simth]

No, he doesn't win so much as everyone gets bored of him continuing to say the same things over and over in the face of clear contradiction; giving all appearences of not fully reading what he responds to. Here, let me show you:

He posted this (among other stuff)

Imperator Fyron said:
It is not clear to me why you are asserting I put words in your mouth, since I didn't do so.

with a timestamp of 06/16/07 10:07 AM.

In response to a post of mine, timestamp 06/16/07 08:59 AM where I said (among other things)

Jack Simth said:
Oh, and I didn't use the term "jailed". Quit putting words in my mouth; it's not polite.

Having very recently quoted a a portion of a post of his, timestamp 06/16/07 01:30 AM, which included (again, among other things - I'm trying to boil it down to just a single, highly specific point for ease of reading, and in the process cutting out a lot of stuff not directly relevant to the analysis of the tactic used in the specific example)

Imperator Fyron said:
You further compound the problem by asserting that 1% of all non-criminals are jailed;

When he'd been responding to my initial post on this topic, timestamp 06/15/07 09:27 PM, where I never once used the term "jailed" - Narf did. Yet Fyron very explicitly stated that I asserted "that 1% of all non-criminals are jailed" (Emphasis added). There's plenty of other examples in the discussion above if you want to look for them; I'm not going to spoon-feed them out further, but that one is easily demonstrated, if merely picking nits in and of itself (choice of terms).

There is no point in debating against people who use such tactics - any argument will effectively fall on deaf ears - they either don't hear, ignore, or don't understand the actual arguments used. But they "win" because most people don't examine the "debate" closely enough to realize what happened, and understand why the other person stopped responding.

It took me a while to figure out why I didn't like Fyron's posts. Sometimes emotional gut reactions get there faster than reason. Now I'm there by way of reason, too.

[Fyron]

It seems to me that "jailed" and "punished" are interchangeable synonyms here that don't change the meaning of anything. There was no "tactic" involved, merely an innocent switching of the two words in my mind. Hence no, I was never trying to put words in your mouth.

I'm not sure why you have decided to take such a simple debate so personally... Gotta love the baseless ad hominem attacks.

[Ludd]

Imperator Fyron said:
It seems to me that "jailed" and "punished" are interchangeable synonyms ...

Paris Hilton may disagree with that.

[Jack Simth]

Imperator Fyron said:
It seems to me that "jailed" and "punished" are interchangeable synonyms here that don't change the meaning of anything. There was no "tactic" involved, merely an innocent switching of the two words in my mind. Hence no, I was never trying to put words in your mouth.

I'm not sure why you have decided to take such a simple debate so personally... Gotta love the baseless ad hominem attacks.

And you give yet another example of not fully reading, understanding, or processing what you're responding to; you missed a sentence:

Jack Simth said:
There's plenty of other examples in the discussion above if you want to look for them; I'm not going to spoon-feed them out further, but that one is easily demonstrated, if merely picking nits in and of itself (choice of terms).

I already admitted that the specific example used was meaningless when I made it. There are others if you care to find them, they are just marginally more subtle. That one is simply very easy to demonstrate.

Now, to be fair, I did make that post in anger; most of your posts don't do that. When you're helping someone with the game, or discussing the game, you do an excellent job. I apologize for not putting that caveat in earlier.

I'm attacking your debate behavior and tactics, not you personally. The meat of it is not an attack against you, personally. Granted, in my anger, I did use negative-connotation words in relation to you mixed in with the actual arguements. I apologize for that aspect. The meat of the point still stands, and you demonstrate it yet again.

[Fyron]

The only "tactic" used was to say that the basic assumptions used in the thought experiment (mental exercise) were wrong. Anything else was either an innocent switching of synonymous terms, or imagined on your part. Isn't the meat of an argument far more important that sitting there and nit-picking every little word used? We obviously disagree on the merits of the initial assumptions; going into some point-by-point pissing match doesn't accomplish anything.

Ludd said:
"Paris Hilton may disagree with that. "

Well, I wouldn't expect her to understand the subtleties of context.

[Jack Simth]

Imperator Fyron said:
The only "tactic" used was to say that the basic assumptions used in the thought experiment (mental exercise) were wrong. Anything else was either an innocent switching of synonymous terms, or imagined on your part.

[sarcasm]
Yes, obviously; after pointing out how you do it yet again in a later post - in the same thread, with quotes, mind, that basically anyone can check on - it must be purely imagined on my part. Right. Of course. What other explaination could there possibly be? It must be purely my fault.
[/sarcasm]
Don't get me wrong - I'm sure I'm totally missing a plank in my own eye somewhere. But your speck is getting annoying.

Imperator Fyron said:
Isn't the meat of an argument far more important that sitting there and nit-picking every little word used? We obviously disagree on the merits of the initial assumptions; going into some point-by-point pissing match doesn't accomplish anything.

Ludd said:
"Paris Hilton may disagree with that. "

Well, I wouldn't expect her to understand the subtleties of context.

actually, I AM making a distinction - an important one, even - between punished and Jailed. As evidenced by the fact that I put "criminal" in quotes. It's a token of a fairly arbitrary nature. You say it can't reflect reality? Try this on for size:

Take, for example, a test for illegeal drug use. It's not unreasonable for a test for illegal drugs that is inexpensive enough to be applied to every member of an entire corporation to be 99% accurate (in both directions). The corporation may only have a 1% "criminal" population - users, in this case. Punishment consists of a summary firing. You check 10,000 employes, the expectation is for 99 true positives, 99 false positives, and one false negative. The test indicates that you've got just under a 2% user population (1.98%, to be precise); exactly 1 in 2 positive results are false. If you actually have a 2% user population, then you're expected to get 198 true positives, 98 false positives, and two false negatives; the test indicates that you've got just under a 3% user population (2.96%, to be precise). Just under 1 in 3 of the positive results should have been negative.

There's a reason I put "criminal" in quotes and used "punished" rather than jailed. But you didn't ask why, no request for clairification, nothing of that nature. Just a direct attack saying it's all stupid assumptions. Then when, silly me, I tried to correct you on the basis of logical constructs used, you started missing fairly important stuff and replying anyway. If A -> C under circumstances B, when B is false, obviously, it says nothing at all about C; the logic statement - by definition, mind - doesn't apply. Yet there are situations where B is true, and it does apply.

There's no point in debating you, Fyron. I'm just in the mood to play the fool today.

[Fyron]

Can someone lock this thread before Jack flames me again? I guess I should have learned my lesson about trying to discuss things civilly with him last time. Sorry for wasting everyone's time.

[Ludd]

All hail the Imperator! (Remember Thou art Mortal)