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Wealth. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, October 31 2006 13:30 Profile Homepage #112
A little late, but your graph of government spending isn't research. We already know that a huge part of the budget goes to defense, but a lot of that is just training and equipping troops, not making new things. It's quite probable that research grants also go to military applications, but the government is an integral part of virtually all basic research thanks to grants.

Also, Zeviz, thank you for articulating the role of charisma in science perfectly. The most successful scientists often don't actually spend any time at the lab bench anymore.

Tully, what we're saying isn't that we have a better system for compensating scientists. We're saying that your strong vs. weak dichotomy is fundamentally flawed. The most able tend to rise to the top in any specific field and organization, but across fields and organizations compensation has little correlation with talent or training. Training has nothing to do with personal merit and everything to do with background and ubringing. The result is a world in which unbridled capitalism with limited government stifles all substantial progress, stratifies society, and locks everyone into the class into which they're born.

So yes, limited socialism is better. Pay the scientists fair wages and pay the MBAs fair wages too; they'll still make more, but not to the absurd levels possible even under the current system. Keep the government well funded and strong: government, for all its admitted inefficiencies, can do some things that business cannot, and those things are critical.

—Alorael, who would suggest not letting applied science or successful businesses make staggering profits if that wouldn't kill all business. As he's already said, people need to believe that they can make a killing through luck and talent. Obscene profit is a relative term, though, so the ideal is to make people think they're absolutely filthy rich with as little as possible.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Avernum 1: The Hardest Part *spoilers* in The Avernum Trilogy
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, October 31 2006 13:12 Profile Homepage #6
Grah-Hoth is hard, but getting to the hidden vahnatai camp and talking to Bon-Ihrno is even worse. That's really prohibitively difficult to even figure out let alone accomplish..

—Alorael, who reloaded once every 10 seconds, give or take 10 seconds.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Wealth. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Monday, October 30 2006 20:30 Profile Homepage #78
They're not inane. They're wrong. Unrelatedly, rationality is not the same as rationale. Just sayin'.

—Alorael, who thinks that's a good definition for basic research. It's the stuff that creates the opportunities for applications without having applications in mind. (It can't have applications in mind because pushing the boundaries of knowledge means, by definition, that nobody knows what they're going to discovery, let alone how to use it.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Xeon, The Beginning in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Monday, October 30 2006 17:20 Profile Homepage #14
Let's ignore the plot for now. I'm with *i when I say that a working game engine is the absolutely essential first step to anything. If you can't program that, you'll have to stick with writing the great American novel.

—Alorael, who will deliver a lock to this thread if it does not progress meaningfully beyond copyright infringement.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Wealth. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Monday, October 30 2006 08:51 Profile Homepage #58
I agree that it's better for society to have people working at their skill level, but it's also better for society to have people working at the profession they are most passionate about because dedication improves performance. Pay is only a secondary motivator, but it's significant: pay people more for a job, any job, and you tend to get better work out of them. It's best for society never to underpay.

Teachers: Putting all the worst teachers at the lower levels and all the best teachers at the top ensures that the better teachers will have to work twice as hard due to unprepared students. Besides, a huge number of college professors are teachers second and researchers or writers first. Original work and teaching aren't the same skill, and it makes more sense for a skilled teacher and mediocre publisher (or perish!) to work as a teacher and not professor.

Science is probably the profession with the longest required period of extremely specialized training, and the pay does not reflect that at all. I don't follow your claim that pay should be tied to "insight into humanity." Plenty of scientists have insight and charm, and many of them rise high in the academic ranks because charisma helps everywhere. It does not change the fact that an MBA will earn you more money than that PhD in natural science ever will.

—Alorael, who has never argued for free money to the poor. He argues that it is the governments purpose to protect from many things, and that protection takes the form of services to rich and poor. Because the poor have more needs, they should receive more services that don't apply to the wealthy. Getting everyone off to a fair start isn't just a matter of better education.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Fresh meat for the Cultists, or, goodbye sunshine in Richard White Games
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Monday, October 30 2006 08:33 Profile Homepage #18
I've been panned by all the critics since day one. It's nothing new, believe me.

—Alorael, who does not want to be tanned. There are several meanings to the word and all of them should never apply to him.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Wealth. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Sunday, October 29 2006 19:27 Profile Homepage #49
Tully, how do you explain the fact that people who grow up poor tend to stay poor, people who grow up rich tend to stay rich, and people who grow up in between tend to stay in between? You can't claim genetics without making every evolutionary biologist have a fit over the timeframe. How do you argue that advantage does not beget advantage or, if it does, how do you not see that as a barrier towards proper social stratification?

—Alorael, who would like to emphasize the "tend" above. Yes, there are rags to riches stories and sometimes the mighty do fall. By and large, though, classes maintain themselves.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Do You 'Frequent' These Boards? in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Sunday, October 29 2006 19:21 Profile Homepage #17
I lurk around while doing other things simultaneously, as I've noted elsewhere. Reading a thread and maybe making a posting takes only a minute or two and works as a great stress reliever.

—Alorael, who of course admits that some threads are more stress-relieving than others. Egol increases blood pressure.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Xeon, The Beginning in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Sunday, October 29 2006 13:36 Profile Homepage #24
I think all talk of copyright infringement and lawsuits is a bit premature. First you need to have actually programmed something. Graphics can come later.

Do you know how to program? What have you programmed so far? How much planning have you done for the technical parts of this game? Anyone can come up with a plot and "borrow" mechanics from another game, but how much work have you done and how much work can you do?

—Alorael, who is sure Jeff would be happy to take any money you made. That assumes, of course, that you make any money. Poor writing, poor plot, and stolen game mechanics are a poor recipe for success. Although you've actually given virtually no information about plot, so that may be an unfair extrapolation from lack of information.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Some Games Have Too Many Sequels in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Sunday, October 29 2006 13:26 Profile Homepage #11
All of them but the Gold Box games are for consoles, and the Gold Box games are the oldest ones on the list.

—Alorael, who actually thinks some of the other lists have members that predate the earliest Gold Box games. The Gold Box "series" ended first, though, while all the rest are still going.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Wealth. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Sunday, October 29 2006 09:39 Profile Homepage #39
Tully, your ignorance of how various professions work is the big stumbling block here, and it's not something that can be solved here. But hey, other people have said it better already.

We also only agree about what to do and not where to do it. I think we can tax the rich heavily without getting them to stop working. You think you can stop paying the poor and keep them working. The latter is only true because unlivable wages are more survivable than no wages at all.

—Alorael, who really thinks that learning a bit about how basic research works would be eye-opening. Dependence on grants, especially federal grants, is a good argument for government. So is the fact that the vast majority of important discoveries don't make the discoverers rich and may not even be recognized as important for decades.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Some Games Have Too Many Sequels in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Sunday, October 29 2006 09:31 Profile Homepage #3
Ocarina of Time. No question.Super Mario WorldFFIX: It has no painful and frustrating systems and its plot doesn't fall too far into bizarreness and mysticism.I haven't enjoyed any Dragon Quest game enough to get very far, but I also haven't played anything past III.Mega Man XI've only played the original Pool of Radiance and not very much of it, so I don't think I'm qualfiied to vote.[Edit: I am not Aran.]
—Alorael, who really would like to know why Ultima isn't on the list. There aren't that many!

[ Sunday, October 29, 2006 09:40: Message edited by: Giant Cuddly Masculine Squid ]
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Wealth. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 28 2006 23:19 Profile Homepage #31
Because your Darwinian argument has a gaping hole in it. If people who rise to the top are better, the gene/meme pool would be better off without everyone else. That's obviously false; you can't have any even remotely capitalist society without all the lower levels and lots of them.

If these people are necessary in general but expendable in all specific instances, you don't have to compensate them adequately. Pure capitalism doesn't. I think everyone would be better off if we did.

—Alorael, who would like to to imagine a secondary school teacher, a post-doctoral researcher, a doctor, and a business executive. It's reasonable to expect their salaries to go from lowest to highest, respectively. The teacher and the doctor provide essential services, the researcher allows science and technology to advance, and the executive keeps a company running. The necessity of the jobs do not correlate with pay and the amount of skill required is difficult to quantify. Would you want to suggest that businessmen are more skilled than scientists, though, or that their skills are more valuable?
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Wealth. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 28 2006 19:36 Profile Homepage #27
quote:
Originally written by Tully
At the risk of getting into a eugenics argument, I must ask, are these people not the best humanity has to offer and thus deserving of success in the capitalist system?
That's tautological. People who you define as "strong" and "successful" are the people who achieve success under capitalism. Our arguments are that unregulated capitalism is not the best system.

Let's consider some things. Our society depends on having many people at the bottom and few at the top. What would you do with a world full of executives and lacking in assembly line workers? What about even highly skilled jobs that don't pay well and may not lead to better things? Are post-docs failures?

—Alorael, who is not an economist (or a psychologist) and cannot put a hard number on how much to skim off the top. HIs reasoning is that you can get people to keep working hard as long as you don't take away everything they make. Thus, graduated income tax makes a great deal of sense. There is no need to give perfect lives to those who won't hold a job, but there is no justification for people working long hours to live below the poverty line.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
How to raise skills when level. in The Exile Trilogy
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 28 2006 12:14 Profile Homepage #62
It's under "The Exile Screen" in the manual/docs.

—Alorael, who can get there by pressing apple- in the DOCMaker manual. On a PC or in a PDF version (is there one?) it will take ever so slightly more work to find it.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Wealth. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 28 2006 12:07 Profile Homepage #11
Except for your ludicrous reliance on the utterly undefined and subtext-laden terms "strong" and "weak" I agree. There are some people who are good at accruing wealth and some who aren't. That's inevitable. You view it as something to be encouraged, though, while I believe that systems should be in place to limit the disparity to a reasonable level, or more accurately to keep the bottom from being too low no matter where the top is.

—Alorael, who certainly doesn't think that everything that the good earners get should go to the less skillful earners. That results in economic disaster. As he said before, though, taking a few percent more won't make much difference to the top and it makes a world of difference to the bottom.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Spiders of all ages... in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 28 2006 12:02 Profile Homepage #92
I think that's a Protocols of the Elders of Zion joke. It is not, to use the word of the day, kosher by the CoC. It's not very unkosher, and I'd let it slide if it were actually funny, but it's not.

—Alorael, who now has to worry about the inevitable showdown between the Elders of Zion and the Cult of White. Implants versus control of the media, GC2 versus matzah baked with the blood of infants... It will truly be an epic battle.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Libertarianism - yay or nay? in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 28 2006 09:54 Profile Homepage #67
Artists and inventors don't have or need the same skills. There's no easy way to turn the former into the latter. And guess what? Successful artists are those who produce a product that's in demand, like Jeff Vogel. Failed artists don't. How exactly is that not what you want? If Jeff makes a living from his games, he's obviously strong.

—Alorael, who has now come back to the original problem. Most people here don't think that helping the poor is an unacceptable burden on society. If the rich are slightly less happy to give up some money and the poor are much happier when benefitting from that money the net happiness increases and society is improved.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Ice cream... in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 28 2006 09:48 Profile Homepage #16
I already explained my hypothesis, and I don't share.

—Alorael, who hasn't been able to deny anyone skribbane for a long time. It's so very satisfying. Looks like another good year!
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Spiders of all ages... in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 28 2006 09:45 Profile Homepage #88
I'm sure it got misfiled with all the appropriated Yiddish and nobody noticed that some Hebrew slipped in until it was too late.

—Alorael, who agrees that grab-and-mutilate linguistics are perfectly kosher.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Fresh meat for the Cultists, or, goodbye sunshine in Richard White Games
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 28 2006 09:42 Profile Homepage #16
Where did peanuts start walking by night? I've seen that a few times now and I'm curious.

—Alorael, who can get no information from either Wikipedia or his implants. When all else fails, it's time to turn to the once and future Collective!
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Wealth. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 28 2006 09:41 Profile Homepage #5
Hating wealthy people makes only slightly more sense than hating poor people. It's not exactly a mark of shame, or at least it shouldn't be. Ostentatious, wasted wealth is different, but you don't become a bad person once you have your first million in the bank (or whatever cutoff you prefer for rich).

—Alorael, who agrees that money is not a good measurement of merit, although it correctly very roughly with some ambiguously undefined talent. Money is a perfect indicator of wealth by definition, but wealth isn't happiness or even sufficiency.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Canadian Citizenship Test. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, October 27 2006 19:18 Profile Homepage #16
And I'm reminded of a number of discussions about what to dispose of where in the lab. It always seems to come down to two kinds of people: the "The contents of the unlabeled bottle are probably harmless, so save space and money by dumping it down the drain" crowd and the "it could conceivably be harmful, even though it's a mixture of deionized water and soap" partisans.

The consensus is, of course, that someone has probably poured it down the drain already somewhere and a little more won't hurt even if the glass bottle is starting to dissolve and the liquid screams like lost souls while going down the drain.

—Alorael, who has faith in the power of science. Scientists, on the other hand, are a shady bunch of malingerers.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Libertarianism - yay or nay? in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, October 27 2006 19:07 Profile Homepage #57
No, I'm really not so sure there is.

—Alorael, who is simply cautioning against using arguments that hold no weight. It's mostly an intellectual exercise though, because Lleg won't change his mind, you won't change yours, and this thread is just people playing around the edge of the gigantic pit of flames.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
November Posting Stats Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Poll in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, October 27 2006 12:55 Profile Homepage #55
There is no justification for using IE. IE is yet another piece of shameless scurrility from the heartless depths of Microsoft. Firefox is the open-source savior that will free you from all internet worries!

Actually, in all seriousness, did IE for Mac have all the security holes that IE for Windows has? Anyone know?

—Alorael, who also didn't know that Firefox 2.0 is now available. Time to take a look!
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00

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