Quality comment, well said.
I’m not sure (take that literally, please) wether both causes deserve to be treated as equals, but I can very much vibe with the general spirit of your comment. That’s what I had in mind when writing the last paragraph of my previous comment.
This is like if Hezbollah bombed Yoav Gallant in Tel Aviv. And then Hezbollah starts bombing israeli airports “pre-emptively” because “an israeli attack” (retaliation) is coming.
Yes, exactly. They had good reasons to assume the other side is angry and might do something violent, because they themselves just did something very violent to them! So to protect themselves, they deprive their opponents of means of retaliation. Pre-empting the retaliation.
Hitting someone and then hitting them again because you expect them to hit back does not seem very " self defensy" or “pre-emptive” te me.
I get you. I would totally agree if this was about a school dispute. However in war, there are a number of things which can be done in self defense or to pre-empt an enemy attack which might seem counterintuitive at first, like for example destroying your own infrastructure, or investing in weapons with the intent to never use them.
In war, an attacker can very well attack again to defend themselves and/or to pre-empt the enemy reaction.
If you could hire one of two generals to protect your country; one which considers pre-emptive follow-up attacks and one who would rather let the other side strike back because it seems fair, who would you hire?
You expect a military force to sit tight, not move, not shoot, while they know the enemy is about to attack?
Because, the enemy “is defending itself”?
I’d love to hear that rally speech with which you would motivate your soldiers to just eat incoming rockets without using the tools they have to prevent being attacked.
The strikes are only pre-emptive if we put on white-nationalism glasses and take away Lebanon’s right to defend itself. Israel attacked Beirut first.
I guess as always with language, there are many possible interpretations. Yours is one, that’s right.
To me, it came somewhat surprising to see you connected “pre-emptive” to moral judgements, or to the question who attacked “first” (which is a controversial and potentially infinite topic to track the actual honest true ‘first’ origin).
Another interpretation is just military doctrine. The best defense is a good offense. Who cares who started the fight.
In this interpretation, the IDF felt there might be an attack incoming, and prevented it’s adversary from doing so by striking first.
Much like Hezbollah (or any other military force) would gladly pre-emptively strike their foe to protect their own troops. Doesn’t say anything about who started the overall conflict or even who’s right.
You still have a point; by highlighting the reasons behind the strike, and painting it as a protective measure, it probably makes it easier for the reader to sympathize.
Much like that comment. Can you give a better example, or express why it’s a bad example? That would bring some quality in.
FYI you can self-host GitLab, for example in a Docker container.
You can find “piggy power” at the bottom of the article, headlined “How to describe your game instead”.
Pixel Washer is a cozy, zen-like game where you play as a cute *piggy power washing* beautiful pixelated worlds.
I can read it in two ways: Either you’re a ghostly piggy power, who is washing. Or you’re a “piggy”, who is “power washing”. The grammar is ambiguous.
Maybe you meant to take side for the interpretation as a “cute piggy”. I agree that’s the most likely interpretation.
Still, this might confuse or downright misinform some readers. The main point of the article was to communicate what the game is in a clearer, more accessible way. So I found it worthwhile pointing out how it kind of fails there.
The author was concerned somebody might read a description like “Pixel Washer is like PowerWash Simulator meets Stardew Valley”, and partially fail to understand it, because they don’t really know what “PowerWash Simulator” or “Stardew Valley” are. Because they aren’t literate enough in game titles.
But similarly, one can worry readers might not know certain words or grammatical constructions (maybe because they are no native speakers, or for other reasons), to decide wether it’s a washing power or a piggy washing; because they aren’t literate enough in English.
Describing your game by listing other games is tempting, but not a good idea, and I’m about to convince you why.
That did not age so well. I found most arguments rather weak. Here’s an overview of all the three arguments, copied from the article:
Generally, we have at least two options for describing thing A: We can relate it to another thing B (“Pixel washer is like Stardew Valley”), or we can relate it to some abstract attribute (“Pixel washer is uplifting”). Either way, we use language shorthands to describe similarities with other known entities.
About 1: Yes, that is obviously true. And it’s also true for the opposite, when you don’t relate your game to other games. Granted, your description becomes more accessible to a broader audience since it does not require them to know the other games. But instead, the reader now has to be able to understand and visualize what your description might look and feel like as a game (and thus becomes less accessible again). Take for example the first sentence of the proposed better description:
“Pixel Washer is a cozy, zen-like game where you play as a cute piggy power washing beautiful pixelated worlds.”
I’d flag ‘cozy’ and ‘zen-like’ as probably rather less known and/or well-understood terms. I’m also not sure what ‘piggy power’ means. Is it even meant as one thing or is english grammar misleading as so often? Does it involve actual pigs or only their powers, whatever that might mean? But fair enough, even if all that remains not understood, the minimal takeaway is probably that it’s a game with pixels and pigs and washing. So yeah, the alternate description probably works for most people.
But in the same way, a description referring to other games also works for most people.
In case of unclear references, a game-reference wins over a word-description. Like when I look up ‘cozy’ and ‘zen-like’, I may or may not come across definitions and pictures which convey the same idea as the author intended. For example, I might find results about baking cookies or shooting arrows, which have nothing to do with washing pigs. Whereas, when I look up “PowerWash Simulator” and “Stardew Valley”, the results are far less ambiguous.
Argument 2 is the strongest from my point of view. But again, it’s pretty similar for both ways. It should be kept in mind. Maybe it’s best to ask your game testers how they would describe the game, including those who don’t like it, to avoid setting too high expectations because you fell in love with your game while making it.
Argument 3 was entirely new to me. It never crossed my mind, nor did I hear anyone complain about it. I think people very much appreciate language shorthands, if they are used well and are not misleading. If so, they can save time and give a crisp description. And let’s not forget that we are talking about advertisement. We know we are being lied to, that a ‘fast-paced action shooter’ can feel dull and boring quickly. As the author points out, these descriptions serve one purpose only; to generate more sales.
I also wanted to include a reference to Roguelikes or Roguelites. Apparently there once was a game named ‘Rogue’, which no one knows. But it spurred other creators to make something similar, and now we have genres called Roguelike and Roguelite. I think that’s kind of funny in this context, since in this case you somewhat cannot describe the genre without comparing it to another, specific game.
Last but not least, the whole argument is probably less relevant in mainstream games, but more so in indie, or niche, new games in a creative way. When there is almost nothing which is very similar, comparisons to other games might work less well than if you’re just releasing another RTS or FPS.
Hehe, right! (technically). Context matters! When talking about fruit, people usually don’t include stellar objects when weighing their options. Still true when taking in consideration that “apples to oranges” is usually metaphorical and not really about fruit.
I like that, especially this insight:
when two things have very few attributes in common or the attributes they can be compared on are very broad, general or abstract, it is harder to compare them.
A melon and a pogo stick are harder to compare, for their defining attributes hardly overlap except on a very abstract way.
Good on you to say “harder to compare” :D
it’s all semantic subjectivity. Poetry compares dissimilar things and equates unequal concepts all the time.
Another thing worthwhile to point out; subjectivity. I guess that part bothered me too. “cannot be compared” attempts to establish some kind of objective truth, whereas it only can be a subjective opinion.
The reference to poetry was nice, too.
My point works just as well with an arbitrary amount of options. Someone could say “These quintillion things cannot be compared”.
The number of options is irrelevant to what I tried to address. Though my examples were only pairs, so sorry for causing confusion.
Thanks for taking the time to write this detailed reply. I guess you’re right about the equivocation and I can see the irony :D
Though I have not fully understood yet. Following your example, the two different concepts are …
What blocks me from fully agreeing is that still, both are comparisons. And they don’t feel so different to me that I would call them different concepts. When I look up examples for equivocations, those do feel very different to me.
I still guess you’re right. If you (or someone else) could help me see the fallacy, I’d appreciate.
Agreed, yeah. Guess I was taking the word too literally.
In contrast to a monarchy, where people cannot choose their leader, in capitalism people can choose from which company they buy, or even create their own.
As another person already pointed out, these are obviously two different categories.
The question then is, why do people choose the way they do, both when buying and when running a company? To me it seems, they don’t because of some external pressure (like monarchy requires).
The point can be summed up as a question: Why don’t people run (more) non-capitalist services and productions, and why don’t they prefer them when looking to satisfy their demand?
These non-capitalist things exist, it’s certainly possible. But as far as I know, they are all very niche. Like a communal kitchen, some solidary agriculture or housing project. Heck, entire villages of this kind exist.
So the alternative is there, but it requires actual commitment and work. I don’t see how capitalism could be abolished in an armed uprising (in contrast to monarchy). But it can be replaced by alternative projects. Partially. Why are they so small and few?
Because religion evolved to thrive in us.
It’s like a parasite, and our mind is the host. It competes with other mind-parasites like other religions, or even scientific ideas. They compete for explanatory niches, for feeling relevant and important, and maybe most of all for attention.
Religions evolved traits which support their survival. Because all the other variants which didn’t have these beneficial traits went extinct.
Like religions who have the idea of being super-important, and that it’s necessary to spread your belief to others, are ‘somehow’ more spread out than religions who don’t convey that need.
This thread is a nice collection of traits and techniques which religions have collected to support their survival.
This perspective is based on what Dawkins called memetics. It’s funny that this idea is reciprocally just another mind-parasite, which attempted to replicate in this comment.
Gotta know your whales.
making the shops pay more to use the payment service, so that the shops then increase the prices, so that you pay the same as before
Just nitpicking because I enjoy these thoughts:
When the shop increases prices, it has to do it for all the customers, including the ones without credit card. So a part of the cost is offloaded to other types of customers. While credit card customers should see a slight increase in price, it should not be as much as they saved previously. So still a net win for them, at the cost of others.
As others pointed out, the real scheme is probably entirely different.
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One is multiple parallel goals. Makes it hard to stop playing, since there’s always something you just want to finish or do “quickly”.
Say you want to build a house. Chop some trees, make some walls. Oh, need glass for windows. Shovel some sand, make more furnaces, dig a room to put them in - oh, there’s a cave with shiny stuff! Quickly explore a bit. Misstep, fall, zombies, dead. You had not placed a bed yet, so gotta run. Night falls. Dodge spiders and skeletons. Trouble finding new house. There it is! Venture into the cave again to recover your lost equipment. As you come up, a creeper awaitsssss you …
Another mechanism is luck. The world is procedurally generated, and you can craft and create almost anything anywhere. Except for a few things, like spawners. I once was lucky to have two skeleton spawners right next to each other, not far from the surface. In total, I probably spent hours in later worlds to find a similar thing.
The social aspect can also support that you play the game longer or more than you actually would like. Do I lose my “friends” when I stop playing their game?
I don’t think Minecraft does these things in any way maliciously, it’s just a great game. But nevertheless, it has a couple of mechanics which can make it addictive and problematic.
Hehe, good point.
I think AI bots can help with that. It’s easier now to play around with code which you could not write by yourself, and quickly explore different approaches. And while you might shy away from asking your colleagues a noob question, ChatGPT will happily elaborate.
In the end, it’s just one more tool in the box. We need to learn when and how to use it wisely.