Randomness thread, part two.

To be fair, savy is right. The majority of people who find this that are inclined to keep it are the kind of people who are inclined to put at least some of it up their nose. Chances are, this is purer than street coke and will blow the head off the average British coke head. Arrogance kicks in, people get flashy, before you know it you've got an entourage of hangers on who will take money/coke off you and disappear the instant your back is turned. Most people who find and keep some or all of this coke will either end up arrested, robbed or dead within a short amount of time. I do, however, think I'm in the minority. First thing I'd do with it is bury it somewhere where it's unlikely to be found, and try to forget it even exists for at least 6 months. I wouldn't be having a cocaine bitch party, that's for sure. A lot of people would though.

I would love to meet the guy who puts most of 360kg up his nose lol.

I also would definitely not be telling anyone I had a kilo stashed in the forest somewhere. Also pretty sure I wouldn't go on any crazy binge. But I'm also sure a lot of guys would.

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

First thing I'd do with it is bury it somewhere where it's unlikely to be found, and try to forget it even exists for at least 6 months.

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That would be the thing to do if your plan was to sell it; just keep it quiet for a while.

I would definitely want to have a cocaine bitch party.

That's what I'd do if I didn't give a fuck about the money and my health/sanity and just wanted to snort it. Get me some bitches.

I'd do the same if I found a big bag of cash... fucking bury it and live my life as normal. I'd only disappear if and when it wasn't obviously linked to the missing money. Nobody is gonna think I've got a shit load of cash when I'm still wearing the same clothes I've had for years. If the first thing you do when you find lots of money is go on a spending spree, people ask questions. Sure I could blah blah my way through a few conversations about a big poker win, but if someone is asking questions locally, my name might get mentioned.

When something like this is found, there's a very good chance that somebody will be unhappy about your good fortune. From that point of view, I can understand calling the police. The people who this coke belonged to are very unlikely to risk exposure by bothering the person who called the cops. There's nothing to gain in return for the risk. On the other hand, if you get seen leaving the scene with a bag or two stuffed in your coat, well they will be keen to get their hands on what you took because it will help mitigate the losses. If there was a risk I'd get seen and recognised, fuck knows what I'd do. Calling the cops is a no. Taking a few would be super risky. Not taking any before it gets found by someone else would be foolish, especially considering someone might still see you and recognise you, and the bad guys might not believe you didn't take any.

Fuck it, I'm still in the "take what you can and get the fuck out of there quickly" camp. Life's one big risk.

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

I would love to meet the guy who puts most of 360kg up his nose lol.

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I was kind of thinking you wouldn't have anywhere near that much even if you took a load of it. That being said your nose doesn't just mean you as an individual, friends etc.

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Originally Posted by Savy

I was kind of thinking you wouldn't have anywhere near that much even if you took a load of it. That being said your nose doesn't just mean you as an individual, friends etc.

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I still prefer to imagine one guy snorting hundreds of kilos versus your more reasonable scenario.

Like so:

Attachment 934

Lol.

Ong digging a hole in the woods...

... to hide drugs in.

The time-lapse reenactment video would go viral, for sure.

I occasionally watch an episode of tabletop as I think MMM posted it in a youtube thread a while ago and I sometimes like the guests. Tend to get a bit bored 10 minutes through and turn off but as the new season has started #AD (i wish) I was wondering how many of you actually sit down with friends and play board games. I genuinely can't imagine any of my friends doing this, which is strange.

I know people who sit down and play Dungeons and Dragons if that counts, but as for me I haven't played a board game in at least 12 years.

I have three kids under age 10. I play board games all the friggen time. Probably not what you guys are talking about though

I will say "exploding kittens" is a supremely fun game for any age.

Game night is best night.

I do keep up with Table Top. Tiny, Epic Galaxies looks really fun.

I live in a 4 unit apartment building. We all gather in one of the apartments about once every month or so and order pizza and play games.
They are more into card games than board games, so we frequent Cards Against Humanity and any form of Flux, most often C'thulu Flux.

Cards against humanity has always struck me as a bit try hard.

I suppose my first year at uni we used to play card games to kill time so I suppose it's the same kind of thing just a bit more organised.

Taking Ongs check mate idea one step further.

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/chess_notation.png

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Originally Posted by Savy

Cards against humanity has always struck me as a bit try hard.

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Agreed, I think. If you mean that plenty of equally funny and wrong responses could come from less raunchy choices, then yeah.

It's a nice ice breaker for a new group of gamers to get together and play. It makes it clear that you're there to have fun, and anything that may be offensive outside the context of the gaming is all part of the fun of cutting loose and having a good time w/o being judged by the other peeps.

It's like, "Hey, it's safe here to say outlandish things in the interest of getting soda to spray out of someone else's nose."

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

anything that may be offensive outside the context of the gaming is all part of the fun of cutting loose and having a good time w/o being judged by the other peeps.

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That's a good point. I think my problem with it is people who aren't really that funny trying to be funny but in "extreme" ways.

Forums that I use seem to be in a real decline recently. Have been for years but definitely going through a slow patch & it's not like they are going to get new people anytime soon. Is the death of forums a common thing? I assume others use different forums here. It's hard because places like reddit, which I've just never got into, feel too impersonal and those that have a good sense of community kind of reject new members by being a bit too cliquey.

Shame really because a lot of the internet now is too specific. Like I want to do x find place that does x. This is a poker forum but I've learnt loads of cool shit about physics, psychology, economics, etc because although we all came here about poker other intricacies of members come through.

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Originally Posted by Savy

That's a good point. I think my problem with it is people who aren't really that funny trying to be funny but in "extreme" ways.

Forums that I use seem to be in a real decline recently. Have been for years but definitely going through a slow patch & it's not like they are going to get new people anytime soon. Is the death of forums a common thing? I assume others use different forums here. It's hard because places like reddit, which I've just never got into, feel too impersonal and those that have a good sense of community kind of reject new members by being a bit too cliquey.

Shame really because a lot of the internet now is too specific. Like I want to do x find place that does x. This is a poker forum but I've learnt loads of cool shit about physics, psychology, economics, etc because although we all came here about poker other intricacies of members come through.

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The decline of forums is a common thing but I'm not sure the death is. Smart phones and Reddit are for sure taking a sledge hammer to forums, but I think some people see that and don't like it and gravitate towards forums. There are big forums focused on single topics that branch out to others the same way FTR does, but FTR is hurt league of big by US poker policy.

Anyone know how the number of active users has changed here over the years?

The trouble with forums is that they only work well at a certain size. Once you surpass a critical number of active users you can't possibly keep up and it becomes a clusterfuck. The battle.net forums are a good example for a sensible hybrid where posts are in chronological order but they have an upvote and highlight system based on upvotes and status of the member. Battle.net is insufferable for different reasons. The subreddits that deal with strategy only work when they're at a size where they are basically operating like a forum. A pure vote based system really does not work when 9/10 people don't know what they're talking about and valuable posts get buried in favor of popular opinion posts that are mostly wrong. I do lots of recording and mixing, but I haven't been on any of the related forums for years because the amount of shit posts in relation to anything remotely helpful is way too high.

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Originally Posted by Savy

Taking Ongs check mate idea one step further.

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/chess_notation.png

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I was waiting for Ong's response to this but I guess he's too busy walking up and down the beach looking for any suspicious packages that may have washed ashore.

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

I was waiting for Ong's response to this but I guess he's too busy walking up and down the beach looking for any suspicious packages that may have washed ashore.

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haha

Actually, I've been busy with the family the last week. Birthdays, photo shoots etc.

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Originally Posted by Savy

Cards against humanity has always struck me as a bit try hard.

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It's a great party game, but it only works once. It's a joke that wears thin quickly.

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Originally Posted by Savy

I was wondering how many of you actually sit down with friends and play board games. I genuinely can't imagine any of my friends doing this, which is strange.

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Started doing this again once I turned 30. Not a bad thing to do as a couple if you're visiting relatives or have a few people over for something to eat and a few drinks. We keep it pretty simple: Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble of Cluedo normally.

I wouldn't do this with just me and my mates though when we catch up. If we don't choose to go down the pub for the night, we just get the consoles out.

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Originally Posted by savy

I was wondering how many of you actually sit down with friends and play board games. I genuinely can't imagine any of my friends doing this, which is strange.

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I missed this, obviously scanning savy's posts half heartedly.

I sometimes play board games with friends. Ghettopoloy was doing the rounds for a while, there was War on Terror, we played Risk for a while... we were even playing a turbo Monopoly game aimed at kids only the other day. I hate Monopoly though, your fate resting on the whim of the dice and your ability to pay attention for an entire fucking game so you don't miss rent. Arguing over trades, getting pissy because you haven't got a fucking set. I hate Monopoly.

When we do play Monopoloy, we have "skinning up rights", which basically means if you're rolling a spliff, then you automatically get rent if someone lands on you. This rule was put in place to ensure that those rolling spliifs didn't have to concentrate on the game when it wasn't their go, allowing them to get on with the more important job.

Same applies if you're making a round of tea.

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

your ability to pay attention for an entire fucking game so you don't miss rent.

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I'm reading this thinking 'how hard is it to remember what properties you own?'...

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

When we do play Monopoloy, we have "skinning up rights", which basically means if you're rolling a spliff, then you automatically get rent if someone lands on you.

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...and then it all became clear why memory was a problem when Ong and his friends were playing.

Agreed Monopoly is a dumb game though. It seems to be about 99% luck and maybe 1% wheeling and dealing. And the amount of sense you need to see if a deal is good or bad is basically 'can you do simple maths', so really it's about 100% luck. Might as well just roll dice and let the highest roll win - would save a lot of time.

Scrabble is a good game because it actually makes you think, not just about coming up with words but about future plays you and your opponent might be able to make if you do 'x', for example.

Hi

a/s/l?

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I'm reading this thinking 'how hard is it to remember what properties you own?'...

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It's not about remembering. One doesn't need to remember anything, because one has the title deeds all neatly lined up. The problem is I'm not very good at paying attention to boring things like other people moving their piece round the board. I'm better at picking up on everyone suddenly going quiet while the next person to roll holds the dice for the standard ten seconds, but even this slips past me sometimes.

There's a little more than 1% strategy, imo. Sometimes one has to pay over the odds for a property one doesn't want, just to avoid someone else getting it and building hotels on it.

Last time I played properly, I had an argument with my friend because I wouldn't sell him a property that he needed. I didn't need it, and he had nothing I needed, but he felt I should sell it to him because otherwise he had no chance of winning. I pointed out that I wanted him to remain broke because my only chance of winning was to bankrupt him and take his property off him for nothing. He thought that was selfish. I pointed out it's fucking monopoloy and capitalism is king, welcome to the real fucking world.

Can't be doing with stressful arguments with friends over a stupid game.

It's worth pointing out that Monopoly was designed to be a frustrating and unpleasant game.
The whole point was to highlight the problems with monopolistic capitalism.

Most "House Rules" only exacerbate the problem by extending the game by injecting more cash into players hands.

Determining which color properties are the most valuable and how much to build them up is far from "simple" math.

Someone mentioned Hotels earlier. Never build Hotels. There are finite number of houses and hotels in the game, and you cannot build a hotel unless you pay 4 houses, reinjecting those houses into the bank, where your opponents can buy them. The marginal benefit from building a hotel on your property is overshadowed by the fact that you've allowed your opponents to advance their properties by 4 pips, whereas you only got to increase your properties by 1 pip.

Wake up sheeple.

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

Determining which color properties are the most valuable and how much to build them up is far from "simple" math.
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notsureifsrs.jpg

You (and everyone) knows Boardwalk (or w/e the England version equivalent is) is the most valuable property, get it and Park Place and build everything you can on it. After that, the green ones. It's not complicated.

And if you can get a monopoly while keeping others from doing so (all due to luck because only an idiot will willingly trade you for a property that gives you a monopoly) then you win practically 100% of the time.

Dumb game.

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

He thought that was selfish. I pointed out it's fucking monopoloy and capitalism is king, welcome to the real fucking world.

Can't be doing with stressful arguments with friends over a stupid game.

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There should be a game called 'communist monopoly'; everything just gets distributed equally. Just as dumb as the real thing but in a different way.

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

notsureifsrs.jpg

You (and everyone) knows Boardwalk (or w/e the England version equivalent is) is the most valuable property, get it and Park Place and build everything you can on it. After that, the green ones. It's not complicated.

And if you can get a monopoly while keeping others from doing so (all due to luck because only an idiot will willingly trade you for a property that gives you a monopoly) then you win practically 100% of the time.

Dumb game.

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Lies. All lies!
Game theory and probability theory have conclusively proved that:
Most expensive != most valuable

The most valuable properties are the Orange Properties which are ~7 spaces away from jail, which is the most often visited space in the game, and 7 is the EV of a roll of 2 dice.

After that, it depends on how many opponents you have. More accurately, it depends on how many other turns happen in between your own turns.


EDIT: See above about building hotels. Unless you're playing with a house rule of infinite houses and hotels, then you help your opponents more than you help yourself by upgrading your properties to hotels.

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

Lies. All lies!
Game theory and probability theory have conclusively proved that:
Most expensive != most valuable

The most valuable properties are the Orange Properties which are ~7 spaces away from jail, which is the most often visited space in the game, and 7 is the EV of a roll of 2 dice.

After that, it depends on how many opponents you have. More accurately, it depends on how many other turns happen in between your own turns.


EDIT: See above about building hotels. Unless you're playing with a house rule of infinite houses and hotels, then you help your opponents more than you help yourself by upgrading your properties to hotels.

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Ok fine.

It's still a dumb game that's mostly luck. How do you get a monopoly on the orange properties, if not by luck or the other players' lack of knowledge of the game theory optimal way to play a dumb game (which is another way of saying if you're lucky your opponents have better things to do with their lives).

If there were more than minimal skill involved, we'd expect there to be some monopoly champion of the world with a big grand prize. We don't (or at least I've never heard of it).

Dumb game.

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

Wake up sheeple.

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I was seriously asleep on all this. Gonna gank some foolz next time I play.

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

Ok fine.

It's still a dumb game that's mostly luck. How do you get a monopoly on the orange properties, if not by luck or the other players' lack of knowledge of the game theory optimal way to play a dumb game (which is another way of saying if you're lucky your opponents have better things to do with their lives).

If there were more than minimal skill involved, we'd expect there to be some monopoly champion of the world with a big grand prize. We don't (or at least I've never heard of it).

Dumb game.

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Agreed.

Except for the part about "better things to do with their lives." That's at least a little bit jaded.

Solving for optimal strategy is one of the major draws of gaming in general. An entire field of mathematics is called game theory and is dedicated to the math of optimal strategies in choice-based scenarios. It may not be exciting to you, but plenty of people are excited by this kind of problem solving.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

I was seriously asleep on all this. Gonna gank some foolz next time I play.

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:highfive:

You can find more on YouTube. I've linked to some Monopoly solutions in the past, so I know they're out there.
Matt Parker has one, for sure. Not sure if it was on the Numberphile channel or StandUpMaths channel, though.

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

Ok fine.

It's still a dumb game that's mostly luck. How do you get a monopoly on the orange properties, if not by luck or the other players' lack of knowledge of the game theory optimal way to play a dumb game (which is another way of saying if you're lucky your opponents have better things to do with their lives).

If there were more than minimal skill involved, we'd expect there to be some monopoly champion of the world with a big grand prize. We don't (or at least I've never heard of it).

Dumb game.

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You realise if you were playing a game of monopoly with MMM prior to his post you'd have thought the exact same thing and he'd have had an edge on you. Then when you lost you'd just blame it on luck.

Bold is nonsense.

Savy makes a good point, but that edge would be slim.

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

Solving for optimal strategy is one of the major draws of gaming in general. An entire field of mathematics is called game theory and is dedicated to the math of optimal strategies in choice-based scenarios. It may not be exciting to you, but plenty of people are excited by this kind of problem solving.

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I know all about game theory, thank you Sir. In fact, I've applied it in my own research on how people perform cooperative versus competitive actions. There is a clear polarity between how people try to be predictable in cooperation and unpredictable in competition in an otherwise identical movement.

One cool aspect of this work is that people are somewhat shit at being random. Even when they try to be completely random, they still generate patterns.

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Originally Posted by Savy

You realise if you were playing a game of monopoly with MMM prior to his post you'd have thought the exact same thing and he'd have had an edge on you. Then when you lost you'd just blame it on luck.

Bold is nonsense.

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A slim edge != 100% chance of winning. MMM might have won 11/20 games on average (just guessing but the real number is probably close to that), and his 'luck' would be just what I said - that I had better things to do that try to gain a slim edge in dumb game.

p.s. So yea bolded is not nonsense, because the game is still mostly luck. In fact, if MMM played someone else with the same knowledge of GTO monopoly the World Monopoly Champion would be 100% determined by chance. IOW, dumb game.

I never said you'd lose all of the time.

Can you think of any good games that don't have variance? I can't. I'm not saying making games 51/49 to the better player is ideal.

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

I know all about game theory, thank you Sir. In fact, I've applied it in my own research on how people perform cooperative versus competitive actions. There is a clear polarity between how people try to be predictable in cooperation and unpredictable in competition in an otherwise identical movement.

One cool aspect of this work is that people are somewhat shit at being random. Even when they try to be completely random, they still generate patterns.

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Oops. Sorry. I forgot about your research.

The second point is one of the most fascinating things about being a person. We lie to ourselves all the time and we tell ourselves that we're good at things we are not and smart about things we barely understand. Our brains actively ignore huge swaths of what we could be capable of perceiving.

E.g. next time you look at yourself in the mirror, notice that you only ever see one eye looking directly back at you. OK, this makes sense.You're focusing on that one eye, and not the other one, so it makes sense. Here's the brain lie: when you look from one eye to the other, you see no transition. You see no blurred "sweeping camera" motion. The bottom line is that your eye definitely did receive that blurry info, and your brain was like, "yeah... that's just not useful." Whether or not your conscious mind finds it useful, you will ignore all of those blurry moments. Here's a clincher... when they would have been caused by your own motions. You still see stuff as blurry when you look out a car window. Your brain doesn't link the motion of the car to motion of your muscles, so it doesn't ignore the blurriness.

It's fascinating, this madness.

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

p.s. So yea bolded is not nonsense, because the game is still mostly luck. In fact, if MMM played someone else with the same knowledge of GTO monopoly the World Monopoly Champion would be 100% determined by chance. IOW, dumb game.

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As would literally any game assuming perfect execution (which needs to be true in Monopoly too).

I was more so arguing that there would be a world championship with a big prize.

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Originally Posted by Savy

I never said you'd lose all of the time.

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You said when I lost I'd blame it on luck. That sounds to me like it was a foregone conclusion in your mind.

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Originally Posted by Savy

Can you think of any good games that don't have variance? I can't. I'm not saying making games 51/49 to the better player is ideal.

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Chess? Checkers (draughts)? 0 variance in those if I'm not mistaken.

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Originally Posted by Savy

As would literally any game.

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This. In any game where the opponents employ identical strategies, either the game is biased toward one of them (who goes first?) or they will have equal chance of winning any given game.

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

Chess? Checkers (draughts)? 0 variance in those if I'm not mistaken.

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Then why doesn't the better player always win? Does ELO not even allow us to make predictions about how often an X rated player would lose to a Y rated player?

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

You said when I lost I'd blame it on luck. That sounds to me like it was a foregone conclusion in your mind.

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If you play a game with two outcomes you have the following

1 - When you win
2 - When you lose

As I was only talking about one of them I said when you lose. The times you'd win you wouldn't blame it on luck you'd probably think something more along the lines of well luck is involved but I'm playing pretty great so I probably win more often than I lose so said result is expected.

Checkers is also solved so always ends in a draw, boring.

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

The second point is one of the most fascinating things about being a person. We lie to ourselves all the time and we tell ourselves that we're good at things we are not and smart about things we barely understand. Our brains actively ignore huge swaths of what we could be capable of perceiving.

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I've never really looked into whether people believe theyr'e good at being random or not, though that's an interesting question. It's mostly (I think) that people have an innately poor understanding of what randomness looks like, and so they can't reproduce it.

Also, it's worth noting that the very idea of behaving randomly assumes you ignore what you just did on the previous trial and that's pretty much impossible to do.

What tends to happen is people seem to think 'ok i was fast on the last trial, so I'll be slow on this one. Random!' , when obviously they shouldn't do that.

It's fun. Try to pick a random number between 1-100, then another random one. The chances a person will pick one high and one low number are nearly 100%.

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

E.g. next time you look at yourself in the mirror, notice that you only ever see one eye looking directly back at you. OK, this makes sense.You're focusing on that one eye, and not the other one, so it makes sense. Here's the brain lie: when you look from one eye to the other, you see no transition. You see no blurred "sweeping camera" motion. The bottom line is that your eye definitely did receive that blurry info, and your brain was like, "yeah... that's just not useful." Whether or not your conscious mind finds it useful, you will ignore all of those blurry moments. Here's a clincher... when they would have been caused by your own motions. You still see stuff as blurry when you look out a car window. Your brain doesn't link the motion of the car to motion of your muscles, so it doesn't ignore the blurriness.

It's fascinating, this madness.

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Your brain sends a signal to the perceptual regions telling them when you're moving and how far, that's why eye movements don't make the world jump. You can fuck with this by just pressing gently on your eyeball (through the lid obv., I don't recommend you poke your own eye), and watch the world move around while you're obviously sitting still.

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Originally Posted by Savy

Then why doesn't the better player always win? Does ELO not even allow us to make predictions about how often an X rated player would lose to a Y rated player?

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Because they make mistakes. If you want to call that 'variance' then I guess it's fine. I would consider that skill myself. Variance to me means some external influence such as a dice roll.

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Originally Posted by Savy

Checkers is also solved so always ends in a draw, boring.

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Never said it was a good game, just said it doesn't depend on variance.

I want to call it variance because that's exactly what it is. By definition.

Your point about skill doesn't make sense though because the better player is more skilled than the worse player and he still loses at times.

Then how do you define skill?

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

Then how do you define skill?

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In the most general sense being expected to win more often. It's worth noting that a lot of games and sports have a level of skill required to introduce variance into the game whatsoever. For example if I played Ronnie O'Sullivan in 100 frames of snooker I wouldn't come close to winning a single frame. If Ronnie played the lowest rated player on the professional circuit the chances are he'd win most of the frames but the chances he didn't lose a single frame would be almost 0.

Some games like poker someone who has only just learnt to play the game could play 100 hyper HUSNGs with the best hyper HUSNG player in the world and it wouldn't be that strange for him to win a couple.

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Originally Posted by Savy

Your point about skill doesn't make sense though because the better player is more skilled than the worse player and he still loses at times.

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My point is that he doesn't lose because of some random external event, like a die gets rolled and the referee takes his queen of the board.

Being more skilled than your opponent in a game of pure skill does not require you to win 100% of the time. In chess for example, you may be more adept at playing an open game whereas he is more adept at a closed game, for example. He may try to steer the game towards a closed system, but your skill only allows him to do that a minority of the time. So you might win 80% of the time, and he wins 20%. That's a difference in skill, not luck or variance.

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Originally Posted by Savy

In the most general sense being expected to win more often.

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What I mean is what are the relative contributions of skill and luck to the outcome. If someone is expected to win 80% of the time against a given opponent, do you think the universe draws a random number and if it's higher than .8 they win? Because that WOULD be variance, but that's also not what happens obviously.

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

What I mean is what are the relative contributions of skill and luck to the outcome. If someone is expected to win 80% of the time against a given opponent, do you think the universe draws a random number and if it's higher than .8 they win?
Because that WOULD be variance, but that's also not what happens obviously.

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If we're being general about it then yeah that pretty much is what happens.

Also that'd mean they'd only win 20% of the time.

edit - Skill is something you control. If you can only control the way the game goes a certain % of the time then that is out of your control and hence comes down to probability.

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Someone mentioned Hotels earlier. Never build Hotels.

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Not quite.

Optimal strategy is to build up to four houses, then when houses have run out, on your turn you can buy a hotel, which frees up four houses, which you can then immediately buy before anyone else gets a go. This is powerful in mulitplayer games when you bankrupt someone and take their properties, giving you a new set.

The real strength in controlling houses is that when a rival is forced to sell a hotel to pay a debt, if he can't break it into houses, then the whole development will have to come down, costing him a fortune and clearing a safe path. It's not just about stopping other people from developing, keeping them weak, it's also a weapon against already strong rivals.

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Originally Posted by Savy

Also that'd mean they'd only win 20% of the time.

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Pedantic but correct.

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Originally Posted by Savy

If we're being general about it then yeah that pretty much is what happens.

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I can see the appeal of that idea, but don't think it's really correct.

Skill at a game is not a constant that applies universally within that game, which would NOT lead to the 'universe deciding' theory having a good fit to the world. In any one playing of the game numerous situations arise in which skill level will vary within an individual. The overall accumulation of those situations and their likelihood across multiple games and opponents' styles equates to the overall skill level of the player in question. None of that happens at random (i.e., due to variance) in a game such as chess, since all the situations that arise do so because (and only because) of the moves the players make.

Take a novice white chess player who opens p-qr4. That's (I think) a dumb move that immediately lowers his prospects for the game. But that move itself was not determined randomly, he chose it. So there was no variance at play, just skill.

Now say black replies with something sensible (I dunno, n-kb3). That's a reasonable move that immediately makes his prospects better. Again, determined by his skill, not randomly.

I just don't see where variance comes into a game like chess.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

There should be a game called 'communist monopoly'; everything just gets distributed equally. Just as dumb as the real thing but in a different way.

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This isn't how communist Monopoly would work.

What would happen is when you land on a property, instead of buying it, one would work there, thus taking a share of the means of production, which gives you a percentage of the profit the company makes. You can't claim rent because you don't own any property, you're merely a former employee once you roll the dice again.

When we earn money by landing on property, we get very little. When we pass go, we get fuck all. When we go to jail, we miss ten goes unless we roll a double six or pay a $1000 bribe. When we land on chance or community chest, we have to pay outrageous amounts of money for "luxuries" like batteries and full cream milk. When you land on tax, it'll probably be enough to bankrupt you. There's also a card in the chance pile that triggers a famine, ending the game in a draw, unless someone has picked up the "stockpile food and guns" card, in which case that person wins.

Do you guys play monopoly where you have to land on a property to buy it? Or do you play with the rule that says if the person landing there declines to buy, then the property goes up for auction to all players?

The latter, I believe, results in a more skill-based game. Also makes it a fuck-ton faster.

It should go up for auction, but some people will adopt a house rule that says it just remains for sale.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

This isn't how communist Monopoly would work.

What would happen is when you land on a property, instead of buying it, one would work there, thus taking a share of the means of production, which gives you a percentage of the profit the company makes. You can't claim rent because you don't own any property, you're merely a former employee once you roll the dice again.

When we earn money by landing on property, we get very little. When we pass go, we get fuck all. When we go to jail, we miss ten goes unless we roll a double six or pay a $1000 bribe. When we land on chance or community chest, we have to pay outrageous amounts of money for "luxuries" like batteries and full cream milk. When you land on tax, it'll probably be enough to bankrupt you. There's also a card in the chance pile that triggers a famine, ending the game in a draw, unless someone has picked up the "stockpile food and guns" card, in which case that person wins.

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Add spots where the work is harder yet the pay is the same. Then you got your communism.

Actions are fun. They can take a long time, what with people upping the bid by the minimum amount.

I'll bid a dollar for Mayfair.

It begins.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Add spots where the work is harder yet the pay is the same. Then you got your communism.

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Yeah, except I forgot one thing.

There's an oil field on the board, which you can buy, and if you get it, then you're definitely going to win, because you can make millions while everyone else struggles to survive.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

Yeah, except I forgot one thing.

There's an oil field on the board, which you can buy, and if you get it, then you're definitely going to win, because you can make millions while everyone else struggles to survive.

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I think that's called Oligarcholy.

Chinese Monopoly would be great, too. When you open the game, it immediately starts polluting. If you haven't got a well ventilated room, you'll die of carbon monoxide poisoning before you've even dished out the starting cash. It works like a mix between capitalist and communist monopoly, except landing on chance is dangerous, not expensive, because you might get shot by the government for posting an image of the dude and the tank on twitter.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

Yeah, except I forgot one thing.

There's an oil field on the board, which you can buy, and if you get it, then you're definitely going to win, because you can make millions while everyone else struggles to survive.

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Make millions by helping millions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

I think that's called Oligarcholy.

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:goldstar:

Then there's Jamaican Monopoly. The chance cards all say the same - "pay a ten pound fine or roll a spliff". All the properties are cheap, and there's very little currency in circulation. However, weed is considered legal tender. Merely promosing to pass the next spliff is good enough to settle most rent debts on undeveloped land. One might need to offer a cold beer if there's a hotel on there that you can't afford.

Trumpopoly: You rent your properties to the secret service. Chance is fake news, CC is when you hold a rally to bash the media. If you get too many chances and not enough CC's you get impeached. Otherwise you get re-elected every four times around the board. Free parking makes you a dictator and elections are abolished.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

Trumpopoly: You rent your properties to the secret service. Chance is fake news, CC is when you hold a rally to bash the media. If you get too many chances and not enough CC's you get impeached. Otherwise you get re-elected every four times around the board. Free parking makes you a dictator and elections are abolished.

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Oh god I would play the shit out of this.

If you can get this in meme form, t_d would love it

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Oh god I would play the shit out of this.

If you can get this in meme form, t_d would love it

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I would but I'm too busy trying to apply GTO to win every time at go fish.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

I can see the appeal of that idea, but don't think it's really correct.

Skill at a game is not a constant that applies universally within that game, which would NOT lead to the 'universe deciding' theory having a good fit to the world. In any one playing of the game numerous situations arise in which skill level will vary within an individual. The overall accumulation of those situations and their likelihood across multiple games and opponents' styles equates to the overall skill level of the player in question. None of that happens at random (i.e., due to variance) in a game such as chess, since all the situations that arise do so because (and only because) of the moves the players make.

Take a novice white chess player who opens p-qr4. That's (I think) a dumb move that immediately lowers his prospects for the game. But that move itself was not determined randomly, he chose it. So there was no variance at play, just skill.

Now say black replies with something sensible (I dunno, n-kb3). That's a reasonable move that immediately makes his prospects better. Again, determined by his skill, not randomly.

I just don't see where variance comes into a game like chess.

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I also don't agree that it fits perfectly when talking about specifics and have been clear I am talking quite generally. As I've said multiple times though skill is a meaningless word with no definition so to say something is determined by skill doesn't mean anything. When I say something is variance I am talking about just exactly that.

Your opponents moves are very luck based btw.

GTO and Go Fish is never not funny together.

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

I REPEAT

THIS IS NOT A DRILL


Nearby system has 7 Earth-sized planets, several in the habitable zone

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017...abitable-zone/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Savy

I also don't agree that it fits perfectly when talking about specifics and have been clear I am talking quite generally.As I've said multiple times though skill is a meaningless word with no definition so to say something is determined by skill doesn't mean anything. When I say something is variance I am talking about just exactly that.

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I don't think you're making much sense here but ok.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Savy

Your opponents moves are very luck based btw.

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You may get 'lucky' in the sense that your opponent habitually blunders in a situation, you don't know that beforehand, and you create that situation for different reasons. I'll give you that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

GTO and Go Fish is never not funny together.

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Ever played bullshit? That's such a great easy card game.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Poopadoop

I don't think you're making much sense here but ok.

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Tbf I rarely do.

I think the only real issue is how you're each defining variance.

At heart, variance is a measure of variation in a result or outcome. Whether or not that result is driven by a "truly random" variable is not necessarily a factor.

Variance is deviation from expectation, squared (or near enough for a lay discussion). So if you have any outcome which is not 100% consistent, then there is a mean outcome and a variance about that outcome.

Frequently when discussing variance, one person may be talking about the variance in one thing while another person is talking about variance in another thing.

E.g. If you track your winrate in poker after many hands, then you may say, the more hands I play, the lower the variance gets. This is false on it's face. It's true that the more hands you show a profit, the expectation that you are a winner has lower and lower variance. However, the more hands you play, the variance in your final BR is always increasing. So the statement that a winning player sees less variance over time is difficult to make sense of. It depends on variance in what, exactly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

I think the only real issue is how you're each defining variance.

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Clearly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

At heart, variance is a measure of variation in a result or outcome. Whether or not that result is driven by a "truly random" variable is not necessarily a factor.

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There's two levels of variance at play here; the 'truly random' variance inherent in the influence of a random variable (e.g., dice) on a game's outcome, and the variance within an outcome of a game. The former, when in play, will always contribute to the latter, but the latter can arise without the former (notwithstanding whether you can characterize people's choices in a game as falling in a distribution, which they probably do - hence why I conceded the point to Savy).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

If you track your winrate in poker after many hands, then you may say, (1) the more hands I play, the lower the variance gets. This is false on it's face.

It's true that the more hands you show a profit, the expectation that you are a winner has lower and lower variance.

However, the more hands you play, the variance in your final BR is always increasing. So the statement that (2) a winning player sees less variance over time (3) is difficult to make sense of. It depends on variance in what, exactly.

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1) The problem here is that people use variance and standard error interchangeably, which is obv. wrong.

2) Again, it's a misuse of the word. They're really referring to their probability of showing a profit rather than the variability of their BR - two different things.

3) It's not that it's difficult - it's that there is no way to make sense out of nonsense.

Quote:

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That's the verdict of scientists who have analysed ancient DNA of the extinct animals for mutations.The studies suggest the last mammoths died out after their DNA became riddled with errors.
The knowledge could inform conservation efforts for living animals.

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So it seems that inbreeding got them

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39142941

Hopefully not a repost but my favorite thing right now....

https://vimeo.com/190453307

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bigred

Hopefully not a repost but my favorite thing right now....

https://vimeo.com/190453307

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<3

Remember when Game of Thrones was a thing? It's been off my radar for ages now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JKDS

Remember when Game of Thrones was a thing? It's been off my radar for ages now.

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Still the best show on TV IMO.

New season starts 7/16

The 90s are back, kids


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FBE4oFgBmU&amp;t=205s

Anyone else here a fan of the Tanis podcast? I think it might be one of the best fictional pieces I've ever encountered. That's all mediums included.

Drinking some Carlsberg in Kuala Lumpur so consider this a Bigred guest appearance. Let's talk about things we care about. The Highly Suspect show I posted before had my favorite song of 2016 (opening song) Bath Salts.

Other cool things I loved from 2016 include:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYy0o-J0x20

An amazing song I listened to while roaming the dark streets of Ha Giang, Vietnam one night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnrGMHhnqrw

Apparently you can only post one video tag per post

More Bo Burham:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkIVV2iQtM4

Books wise I've been reading a lot of discworld (mostly the guard series), Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss, Hilbilly Elegy by JD Vance, Ancillary Justice, and a few others. What's everyone else reading?

I really don't like the songs by this band but this opening and song are great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1EmDsYxOpI&amp;t=426s

Also a cool flashback:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L47a_BAhp0c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMI0KUfD4cE

One of my favorite Bo Burnham bits.

books:

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin
Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson

Just finished VALIS by Philip K Dick.. fucking awesome..

Going to start Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow soon, which is gonna be a massive undertaking..

Hillbilly Elegy sounds very interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=188&amp;v=UpT-SAunuLk

Remember that different states have different laws. You may get fucked by imitating him, even if he was right in his own jurisdiction.

I was gonna post this yesterday but bigred was on a tear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmlmxamw_k

He hits a lot of important points and I think it's a great example of how easily people can become convinced incorrectly and how difficult it is to pull out of it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JKDS

Remember that different states have different laws. You may get fucked by imitating him, even if he was right in his own jurisdiction.

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I think the point is how extraordinary it is how someone in a position to really ruin your day is citing fictitious laws to have his way.