I would have posted but I talk to myself enough as it is.
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Comic Talk and General Discussion *
Rant, moan, rave and share - for all your chatter, natter, ETCETERA! 2013/2014
I was reading TV Tropes section on being born with bad luck. And I'm starting to question it. I mean… How could it be bad luck if it defies chance? For example…
A dice game is rigged so whever throws the dice will always get double sixes. The dice will always fall the same way and steps have been taken to make sure that it will always fall with the double sixes facing up. However, a guy cursed with impossible "bad luck" will somehow roll Snake Eyes instead, no matter what the riggers do…
Or a poker game. The hand is dealt by someone who has known the bad luck cursed character all his life, and he has triple checked that the poker hand up his sleeve is all a royal flush. Somehow he either forgets his friend the moment he deals the lucky hand (dealing it to someone else), or when he actually DOES deal that hand to his bad luck cursed friend it somehow turns out to be the worst hand you can get in Poker…
Or even worse. A slot machine. Rigged so whoever pulls the arm will always win. But when the bad luck cursed person pulls that arm he instead loses. And if as a last resort all the symbols were changed on the machine so that they're all the same, the machine either jams when the cursed person pulls the arm, or it breaks spectacularly (exploding in a cloud of shrapnel away from him).
Now how can this be luck, bad or otherwise when the laws of Chance (not sure if they are laws) are completely defied/ignored to the detriment of this one person?
TV tropes deals with plot mechanisms in story telling not problems in logic and gaming. Therefore for the purpose of telling a story according to the set conventions of story telling* all logic and game theory and laws of chance are suspended for the purpose of the story unless such make for a cool plot twist**
Reality and logic need not apply to story telling. The Speed of Light is the speed limit of the universe, but if my story requires faster than light travel, so be it. The Laws of Physics are suspended or necessarily bent so the story can work. Do as Star Trek did: can't afford the SPFX for a shuttle craft? Bend the laws of physics and invent matter transportation and then mine the gold that plot hole presents with all sorts of stories that are physically impossible but follow the "what if…" story telling plot starter. This also includes pseudoscientific "technobabble" and "made up science" for the purpose of the story.
Scientific accuracy only matters in "hard" science fiction not in "one from column A and two from column B" trope fiction.*** Talented folks with original ideas are warned to stay as far away from TVstopes as possible and let those who worship bad formula fanwriting an somethng worth pursuing do so.
*(-(i.e)" cliche" or now politely reclassified as "trope" so teens ignorant of writing conventions and life experience can feel free to copy, paste and plagarize at will)
** See Hitchcock Presents Zippo lighter/finger loss bet story or the coin falling on its edge in the Twilight Zone tale bestowing ESP.
*** Formerly derisively called "formula fiction" now embracedd by fans all over the internet world of trash writing embodied by the works mentioned in TVtropes and those who want to be featured in Tvtropes.
All from my forthcoming book "From Bad formula Cliche to Trope: how poor writing became good again due to the internet and the fallacy of the 90% rule"
So as far as storytelling goes, I'm right. Being "cursed" with bad luck is actually the story writer manipulating events in that characters life. So that individual suffers improbable detrimental situations for OUR own amusment…
And if this happened in "real life", it wouldn't be "bad luck". It's more like sabotage… like that one old movie where this guy is trying to win this girls heart, but every time he tries to make a move something lights up on fire… literally… and behind all the flames is the girl's mother…
That's right Lonne. And Bravo describes it very well- nothing in writing has to be logical or possible, but the writer has to convince you that they are or at least misdirect you so you don't notice or care that they aren't.
And yeah, luck is just a word we use to describe what happened with chance after the fact, so good or bad luck is impossible except in retrospect… but by THAT token- if someone really did actually have a lot of bad experiences early on then you could say they were "born with bad luck", which wouldn't be a plot device or something deliberately, it'd just be a poetic way of encompassing their crap life. :)
I've thought about "bad luck" seriously of course and it's not really all down to random chance because there are other factors that influence "luck" far more than random variables unfortunately… the probabilities are screwed:
Class, socical status, education, the education level of your parents, how much money you have, where you live, how much support of you have from friends or family, ethnicity, sex, WHERE you went to school, how smart and clever you are, your experience, how much of a risk-taker/risk averse you are, how you dress, what you own, even your hairstyle…
So depending on those things your "luck" will usually be better or worse. Obviously a person from a wealthy family who's a member of the ethnic majority, who went to good schools, is relatively risk averse and fits in well will generally have better luck in all of life (not talking about chance games).
Someone who has minimal family support, not too much education or assets and their job only just pays for their cost of living will generally have bad luck because it takes almost nothing to send them badly into the red (living on the razors edge).
…and yet there is no such force as luck at all in any way at all. Just probabilities.
——
Which is why giving examples of super rich people who "made it" and how you can make it too just like them is patently moronic, since people like Bill Gates (for example) started out with a whole mass of factors that helped him on his way that are not available to most people.
Also, very right-wing people especially notjobs like Ayn Rand had the idea that rich and successful people are like that because they deserve to be because of their natural talent, and conversely poor people are mud and serving is their natural place (if they have exceptional talent they can transcend their place in the world). Which is childish nonsense for the reasons stated above.
The people who know about luck are generals. When told he was lucky, one said "I make my own luck." When another was asked what did he look for in a general he replied "I don't want a talented general, I want a lucky general." It's somewhere between making one's own luck and being lucky. It's one thing to make your own luck but quite another to know when to take advantage of it or not.
History is full of people who have made their own luck just as it is full of those who said it was circumstances beyond their control and gave up. But those who perservered did so because they made their own luck by not giving up. Luck is as simple as bothering to be home and answering the door when oppurtunity knocks. Knowing the chance when it presents itself and taking it as opposed to giving up. No one has any more oppurtunity than anyone else, it's just that some are better at taking advantage of the oppurtunities offered than others are. There are as many poeple with everything who squander all their chances as those with nothing who make the most of that one chance.
I had plenty of chances to be truly successful but I made poor choices. The oppurutnity was there the luck was there. but I didn't take advantage of it. That's life and that is also the make of superior fiction in my opinion. That someone succeeds or fails because of their choices not blind luck and coincidence. That happy coincidence just doesn't make for a good story anymore. The whole near miss of apothecary and plague and mesenger in Romeo and Juliet strikes a modern audience as strained and contrived as if the author forced the sad ending to make his point as opposed to letting things work out and the point not be made forcefully enough.
Or not depending on the circumstances. ;-)
bravo1102 wrote:
No one has any more oppurtunity than anyone else.
Obviously this is quite wrong Bravo. It's attractive because it fits into the fiction of meritocracy that fuels the mythology of the "American Dream", but the science of statistics and probability prove it false unfortunately, as you should know (and I'm pretty sure you do, you're a bright guy).
ie if I take three identical coins, flip one onto a flat smooth surface repeatedly, the other onto a flat smooth surface on a 5 degree angle, and the last one onto a flat smooth surface plastered with a sticky substance, the amount of times each coin will land on and STAY on its edge will vary… but the probabilities are skewed by the circumstances I've set up.
And so it is in life! But massively more complex, because start conditions also play a huge role. (you aren't born in to a vacuum).
You mention making good choices- I covered that when I mentioned cleverness, education, experience, being a risk-taker or being risk averse. All that determines your ability to make helpful choices, but really those are just more variables that skew probability.
The unfortunate truth is that there are many circumstances beyond your control (stock market crashes, housing bubbles, war, someone hitting you with a car…). You can surf probability, making the best choices in whatever circumstance you find yourself but that can't always lead to a great result, you're only human and can only work with what you have.
Sorry, this is too abstract now.
Sufice to say, your model is like two people playing chess- both have fairly equal start conditions (except that one goes first), and who wins is based on who thinks ahead better and takes beter advantage of their positions.
Chess is an amazingly simplistic model compared to real life though. If chess was like real life there would be several million other people playing along with you, your start conditions would all be different, the rules would be slightly different, board sizes would vary, there would be extra external factors like people's pieces suddenly setting themseves on fire or something , and only then would it come down to who's better at making choices.
"life is a banquet and most people are starving to death" Thanks for being such a defeatist in the name of some kind of objective realism that destroys any hope for so many every day. If I still believed that I'd have been dead a long time ago. I'm still here and making what little luck I can manage for myself with what few talents I have left after squandering so many rich oppurtunities because I didn't believe in the rich possiblities and was such an objective realist (translation: pescimist) Yup, you're beaten before you've even begun so don't even bother and any oppurtunity you do get you'll ignore because you just don't believe it.
That's why I keep the whole live bunny, Lonne - 4x the luck! :P
—
I think I agree with pretty much everything oz says about luck. Bravo, I don't think there's anything wrong with people recognizing the advantages or disadvantages they've had(or that others have had) in life. "X belief gives me hope" isn't a great argument for it being true btw.
bravo1102 wrote:
"life is a banquet and most people are starving to death" Thanks for being such a defeatist in the name of some kind of objective realism that destroys any hope for so many every day. If I still believed that I'd have been dead a long time ago. I'm still here and making what little luck I can manage for myself with what few talents I have left…
It's not pessimism, defeatism, denial of hope, or objective reality though, it's just thinking about the subject logically- It's no more pessimistic than saying: "it's easier to cut with a sharp blade than a dull one."
You can still cut with a dull knife.
If you're clever enough, you'll still get ahead even if your start conditions are very unfavourable. And someone with extremely favourable conditions can lose all advantages through lack of cleverness. Though success is still harder for the former than the latter.
———————-
The rabbit's foot luck question doesn't really work except as comedy, because human luck and rabbit luck don't have to be the same thing. :)
If you're hungry and you hunt and kill a rabbit for a tasty meal, then that rabbit's body was luck for you, its foot can be a talisman of that.
…that's just an example. Obviously people get rabbit's feet because of a traditional belief, not any real connection with the creature and obviously it has no affect on luck what so ever.
Wow….
Some transformers toys are too massive and large for their own good…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axOiaKISMn0
And all that for $109… O_O
@Call Me Tom- it's what webcomics live and breathe on!
@Lonne- look at the original Omega Supreme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrwHldNDK-s
Now that was an awsome peice of work…
It's HOT here. nasty frikkin hot. Hotter than Topeka.
We've been high 90s, dancing back and forth with the 100F demarcation, for a week. (uh, right, F for Fahrenheit. what else could F stand for?)
ozoneocean wrote:My only issue with the original Omega Supreme (and with the combiners) is all the extra pieces. I guess this is why I liked Voltron so much. Voltron could transform from five lions into a giant robot and not need extra pieces. The Transformers Combiners (Devastator) needed extra pieces to transform, making transforming him pretty moot if you lost any of them. Same with Omega.
@Lonne- look at the original Omega Supreme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrwHldNDK-s
Now that was an awsome peice of work…
The Metroplex that was in the video I linked is one whole piece. I'll have to admit that Omega Supreme is more solidly built though…
ayesinback wrote:Something that rhymes with Duck…
It's HOT here. nasty frikkin hot. Hotter than Topeka.
We've been high 90s, dancing back and forth with the 100F demarcation, for a week. (uh, right, F for Fahrenheit. what else could F stand for?)
Can't be too sad about the weather here, though night shifts inside a loud and smelly fishery have sorta shaded my experience. Heh! The people on the national radio2, at least the morning shifts are constantly ranting about their bad weather, but I don't mind them too much though it has been kinda wet 'n cold in the capitol…
So I'm reading the latest book on Arthur and easily the best I've read in eons(And I've been reading them nearly as long as I've been alive). This guy knows what he's talking about and he just blows all the arguments away without pulling punches even calling many popular works on the search for the true Arthur "pseudo-history" Thank you Oxford University Press.
It's always nice to see a professional hisotrian take the popular ametuers to task and say "IT WASN'T LIKE THAT AND IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY! so stop playing language games and twisting a tiny amount pf feeble evidence to prove your foolish wrong-headed belief system.
But I like the outrageous one he cites that the battles of King Arthur followed the route of public houses named Black Horse due to distant ancestral memories of battle that occured on the site 1400 years earlier. I'm sure it's well worth a pub crawl to research further.
It's cold and miserable here. :(
British History is so weird… it's like it's made out of compact strata of different sorts of idiotic nationalism. Most of their current culture is basically all Germanic, hence the popular and inaccurate name "Anglo Saxon"… and yet there's still guff about "oooh, the Royal family are really Geeeeerrrrrmans"… well so if the whole English language!
Then the mythology about the Celts… as if those are the "real" Britons, just because that happened to be the dominant culture when the Romans were in occupation and so there's some historical anecdotes. But the Celts came from deep within central Asia! They migrated/invaded all the way across Europe and mostly ended up in France with only the last vestiges squelching over into the British Isles.
Basically that farrrr western expansion of that mass migration invaded those islands and became the dominant culture OVER THE TOP of the people that were already there, exactly the same as the Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Vikings, and Normans would all do later on.
I don't know how far the invasion cycle goes, but we know for sure archaeologically that there were well established people long before the Celts came. We know that genetically too. We also know that the Celtic people did not supplant the original people, they just replaced the culture and language, like good invaders. Basically saying to the original people "you're all Celts now".
…Like the Saxons would do after them.
And the Arthurian legends leverage that nationalism- Cultural Norman propaganda, harking back to pre-Saxon days as the "true Britain" to justify their cultural dominance over the Saxon British culture they were supplanting…
At least that's what I've gathered.
ozoneocean wrote:That it is, the great thing is that this guy wants to throw all the nationialist agenda away and reconsider the entire era in the context the end of the Western Roman Empire in Northwest Europe as opposed to Saxon this or Briton that. That calls for redefining much of the archeology and reexamining the sources according to when they were written as opposed to what they say. He wants the era recognized that it was a time of change across Europe rather than just SAXONS INVADE BRITAIN! ARTHUR STANDS FIRM! as if the Saxons are the Nazis and Arthur is some sort of earlier version of Winston Churchill.
British History is so weird
Call Me Tom wrote:Just realized, this looks like some group in WH40k Rouge Trader campaign after a session or two ;)
Well Ozoneocen let this comic on your head!
Its going to be shitty!
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