Breaking out the charm as usual I see.

I'm not sure what you expected when you decided to call me out on a perceived semantic error. You were mistaken (see: " wrong in one's opinion or judgment ") two pages ago, and you continued to pursue it anyway.

I like playing with my STAR WARS toys... toot, toot!

What about the Merton post don't you agree with? Just out of curiosity. It's a bit of Easternized Western philosophy, but I've always thought it's appropriate when it comes to competition.

First, it's an awful bit of doggerel.

Second, as a philosophy it doesn't stand up to experience. I've met a chess grandmaster, a couple of Olympians, and a few extraordinarily talented martial artists--and none of them, I think, would agree with Merton. Competition can be part of an unhealthy worldview, but in itself it doesn't weaken or blind competitors.

Ignorance is not necessarily more fun.

For every person that blindly follows a math wing efficiency prediction without bothering to understand it there is at least one person who will blindly fly a dud ship simply because everyone else says it's bad.

It's one of the most amazing and important aspects of human psychology, and why counter culture is a thing that will always exist.

Math wing hasn't made the game bad, only made you aware of why it is bad.

I'm not sure what you expected when you decided to call me out on a perceived semantic error. You were mistaken (see: " wrong in one's opinion or judgment ") two pages ago, and you continued to pursue it anyway.

Was I? Looks more like you latching into a secondary definition in defiance of connotation or more importantly context.

The question is simple: if MathWing did not exist would the Meta be more diverse?

The simple answer to that is everyone starts out playing mini's games because the mini's look cool. It's only when players start to concern themselves with winning do things like "meta" become an issue.

In other games, models and figures come unpainted and building and painting of those becomes a huge part of the enjoyment of the hobby. Other fringer types like to discuss and argue the mythology of the universe their game is set in. That goes pretty deep too.

If you're playing on a Saturday night with a couple of hard ciders and and bowl full of finger sized cheeze puffs Mathwing is something you might tip your hat to...hell, you might have had some rather cogent thoughts in the daytime about how you planned to run your list, but when you've got a good buzz going, you don't give 2 ****s about the numbers. You're playing something that you love and you're comfortable with.

Sure there's a ton of people running netlists. A lot of them aren't going to have instant success with them either and that's going to kill their enjoyment of it. I read a guy's post who says all he runs is Xwing lists and he kicks ass at it because he knows his ships so well. I didn't hear him complaining about how crappy the Xwing was in the current meta. He enjoys using the Xwing and that lessens his investment in wins and losses, which makes him a better player. You kinda need to use the force to escape the meta...

Just as Thomas Merton wrote:

“The Need to Win”

When an archer is shooting for nothing

He has all his skill.

If he shoots for a brass buckle

He is already nervous/

If he shoots for a prize of gold

He goes blind

Or sees two targets—

He is out of his mind !

His skill has not changed. But the prize

Divides him. He cares.

He thinks more of winning

Than of shooting—

And the need to win

Drains him of power.

This quote is so accurate to archery. I lost a national indoor title to nerves that I totally should have won a couple of years back. Caring about the result is death in archery. I shoot fives all day (on an NFAA face) until I notice that I've shot four in a row, then that fifth arrow in the set is going to be a 4. Screw you, archery.

I'm not sure what you expected when you decided to call me out on a perceived semantic error. You were mistaken (see: "wrong in one's opinion or judgment") two pages ago, and you continued to pursue it anyway.

Was I? Looks more like you latching into a secondary definition in defiance of connotation or more importantly context.

Looks more like you don't understand that words can mean more than one thing. You're also the one conveniently ignoring that it was my own context .

You're trying really hard, and I have no clue why; you're still wrong.

On the other hand, I do think people put a bit too much stock in mathwing. It's still a random game, and a slight efficiency improvement isn't going to be noticed in a single, or even ten, games.

And MathWing also has a margin of error: it's not a perfect model. It may not even be right.

Dang right about that. My personal experience is Defenders are monsters.

I play by experience, not some number cruncher telling me what's good and what isn't.

P.S. I in no way support bashing MJ. He is a very fine man doing a very fine job, but MathWing simply isn't the end-all be-all.

But really I clearly don't give a **** about mathwing since I can't stop playing defenders. Play what you love and you'll likely fly well enough to win unless you love something that is horrifically bad regardless of math.

like a cheese burger?

This is like blaming scientists for global warming.

Who discovered how to find, process and designed the technology to burn fossil fuels? Who invented aerosols? And split the atom to create nuclear power? I'll tell you who. Them pesky scientists! Blame them for everything. I accept no responsibility for my actions. I only pulled the trigger, they made the gun!!

I assume you're joking here, but as a scientist I find this opinion hilariously ignorant. You see it all the time in movies where the scientist is either a moustachio-twirling evil villain or a blundering idiot. Often both.

but hell, its true

I'm not sure what you expected when you decided to call me out on a perceived semantic error. You were mistaken (see: "wrong in one's opinion or judgment") two pages ago, and you continued to pursue it anyway.

Was I? Looks more like you latching into a secondary definition in defiance of connotation or more importantly context.

This has devolved into into the all too common scenario where two parties argue pointlessly back and forth in an effort to demonstrate to the crowd at large who is "right". Meanwhile the crowd largely doesn't care and just wants it to end.

As an uninvolved and and unbiased neutral party, I declare WonderWAAAAAGH the winner so we can all go about our day.

Another Defender pilot.

I don't like Mathwing, but I've no issue with those behind it. I know the 100 point system generally used makes numbers important, it's why I can't have HLCs everywhere, but I want to fly ships and go 'pew pew'. Not limit which ships/pilots I use because it's not efficient.

I fly the ships I think are cool, in a group I think could work, with tactics that I practice to improve. I tweak after a few games and move on.

I'm no champ, but I do enjoy playing.

I'm not sure what you expected when you decided to call me out on a perceived semantic error. You were mistaken (see: "wrong in one's opinion or judgment") two pages ago, and you continued to pursue it anyway.

Was I? Looks more like you latching into a secondary definition in defiance of connotation or more importantly context.

This has devolved into into the all too common scenario where two parties argue pointlessly back and forth in an effort to demonstrate to the crowd at large who is "right". Meanwhile the crowd largely doesn't care and just wants it to end.

As an uninvolved and and unbiased neutral party, I declare WonderWAAAAAGH the winner so we can all go about our day.

I'm also uninvolved and unbiased, and I think you're wrong. TIE Pilot is the real winner here, and I'll be willing to argue that point for several pages.

obviously, we must resolve the issue

with MATH!

I'm not sure what you expected when you decided to call me out on a perceived semantic error. You were mistaken (see: "wrong in one's opinion or judgment") two pages ago, and you continued to pursue it anyway.

Was I? Looks more like you latching into a secondary definition in defiance of connotation or more importantly context.

Looks more like you don't understand that words can mean more than one thing. You're also the one conveniently ignoring that it was my own context .

You're trying really hard, and I have no clue why; you're still wrong.

The only trying hard I see here is how hard you're trying to turn what was a civil conversation into a flame war.

Anyway, the context part. If you look at the original line, "I dunno about that. Your ability to ignore 5 pages worth of refutation only to post this is pretty darned impressive" and apply the second definition (to disagree rather than to prove wrong) you're now saying was the meaning you meant then that post kind of loses, well, everything. Calling him out for ignoring five pages of disproof is fair enough. Can you say the same calling him out for ignoring five pages of mere disagreement with no implication of proof whatsoever?

Moreover, refutation as opposed to refute does not bear the secondary definition of mere disagreement as per your own source. http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/refutation

I'm not sure what you expected when you decided to call me out on a perceived semantic error. You were mistaken (see: "wrong in one's opinion or judgment") two pages ago, and you continued to pursue it anyway.

Was I? Looks more like you latching into a secondary definition in defiance of connotation or more importantly context.

Looks more like you don't understand that words can mean more than one thing. You're also the one conveniently ignoring that it was my own context .

You're trying really hard, and I have no clue why; you're still wrong.

The only trying hard I see here is how hard you're trying to turn what was a civil conversation into a flame war.

Anyway, the context part. If you look at the original line, "I dunno about that. Your ability to ignore 5 pages worth of refutation only to post this is pretty darned impressive" and apply the second definition (to disagree rather than to prove wrong) you're now saying was the meaning you meant then that post kind of loses, well, everything. Calling him out for ignoring five pages of disproof is fair enough. Can you say the same calling him out for ignoring five pages of mere disagreement with no implication of proof whatsoever?

...okay, for serious. FTS Gecko is welcome to the opinion that the metagame is uncomfortably narrow, without enough diversity to make him happy. I disagree, because I think it's an issue that's getting better--particularly if you look at Top 8 instead of tournament winners.

But Gecko also drew a causal link (in the thread title, even) between MathWing and that lack of diversity. Causal attribution is a factual claim, and in this case it's a really tenuous one--so yes, it's subject to disproof, and yes, several people rebutted it fairly effectively.

How do you prove that there's no link though? We've got no way of getting the data to prove it either way: I'm not even sure it's possible to. Without an environment that lacks MathWing to compare it to how can you say with any degree of certainty either way? It's pretty much entirely a matter of gut feeling and speculation, and you don't get much more subjective than that.

obviously, we must resolve the issue

with MATHS!

Fixed. But otherwise an excellent post!

Defender deficiency from mjs numbers is deeply seated in the valuing of the 4k turn. The joust value is a simple numerical analysis of the stat line, which is arguably the least disputable aspect of the method. What the white k-turn does to the non-jousting coefficient is less concrete. Mj highlights those numbers in orange, acknowledging that the numbers are suspect or imprecise, mostly because there is little precedence or direct evidence for the feature.

How do you prove that there's no link though? We've got no way of getting the data to prove it either way: I'm not even sure it's possible to. Without an environment that lacks MathWing to compare it to how can you say with any degree of certainty either way? It's pretty much entirely a matter of gut feeling and speculation, and you don't get much more subjective than that.

You can't prove a negative. So you are correct: there is no way to prove that there is no link.

And you are also correct that there's no way to prove there is a link, because the data simply does not exist.

So, for the love of the all that's Holy in the world, can we please just let this futile thread die the death it deserves?

How do you prove that there's no link though? We've got no way of getting the data to prove it either way: I'm not even sure it's possible to. Without an environment that lacks MathWing to compare it to how can you say with any degree of certainty either way? It's pretty much entirely a matter of gut feeling and speculation, and you don't get much more subjective than that.

I don't know how old you are, but I'm (just barely) old enough to remember competitive geeky games before the Internet. I also got involved in X-wing early enough to remember what the game was like before and during the formation of the communities we have now. Those experiences at least strongly imply that convergence on a competitive metagame is likely to occur regardless of efforts like MajorJuggler's.

Moreover, there are (very broadly) three things required to prove that A caused B. First, you have to demonstrate that A occurred at the same time or earlier than B; second, you have to demonstrate that A and B are related (that there's a plausible hypothesis for how A could have caused B); third, you have to rule out other plausible alternative hypotheses--to make sure there aren't any pesky C's or D's that could have caused B instead.

So if someone is making a causal claim, you can use that framework to assess it. You can disprove a causal claim directly by demonstrating that either of the first two requirements are untrue, as several people have in the thread. You can also at least weaken the claim substantially if you can imagine a plausible alternative cause that could have caused the effect instead, and several people have pointed out that competition itself is enough to explain the effect FTS Gecko is complaining about here.

I read Gecko's statement as exacarbation rather than origin, but I see where you're coming from.