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Post by Weyland on Feb 11, 2011 15:55:15 GMT
You're lowering the tone of this board just when we're hoping to attract some lovely, intelligent, fluffy people from JSG, where such types were to be found in huge numbers . . . For fun, you could add them all up, Riot, but that would be very close to a zero-sum game. According to my very wonderful Members Analysis program, the JStG Board has 707 members, of whom 520 have made fewer than 50 posts, of whom 215 have posted nothing, of whom one is jamesstgeorge (all lower case).
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Post by swl on Feb 11, 2011 23:21:12 GMT
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Post by rjpageuk on Feb 12, 2011 2:18:09 GMT
WHenever you see people use the term zero sum game (such as in that thread) it is clear they have no idea what it means and are using it to sound clever.
What they meant was an "unwinnable game" which is not what a zero sum game is.
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Post by aubrey on Feb 12, 2011 9:36:21 GMT
I thought it meant winning one point by conceding another - the conceding done without realising or maybe just without acknowledging it.
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Post by jean on Feb 12, 2011 9:47:05 GMT
I've just asked him. It had better not be a simple explanation I shall look foolish for not having understood.
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Post by trubble on Feb 12, 2011 10:47:57 GMT
n. A situation in which a gain by one person or side must be matched by a loss by another person or side: "It's not a zero-sum game in which either youth or pensioners must lose" (Earl W. Foell). Investopedia Financial Dictionary: Zero-Sum Game A situation in which one participant's gains result only from another participant's equivalent losses. The net change in total wealth among participants is zero; the wealth is just shifted from one to another. Investopedia Says: Options and future contracts are examples of zero-sum games (excluding costs). For every person who gains on a contract, there is a counter-party who loses. Gambling is also an example of a zero-sum game. A stock market, however, is not a zero-sum game because wealth can be created in a stock market. Read more: www.answers.com/topic/zero-sum-game#ixzz1DjxZcS9XIn other words - there has to be a loser.
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Post by trubble on Feb 12, 2011 10:50:13 GMT
;D
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Post by Weyland on Feb 12, 2011 11:00:20 GMT
"A stock market, however, is not a zero-sum game because wealth can be created in a stock market." This is the fantasy upon which the current house of cards was built. Actually, fantasy is a euphemism for lie. See above.
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Post by motorist on Feb 12, 2011 11:37:39 GMT
Weyland, if you are suggesting Trubs might be incorrect, I should remind you that - should Trubs every say anything that might SEEM incorrect, the Universe alters itself to match what she said, she is that orsum
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Post by trubble on Feb 12, 2011 11:46:17 GMT
As usual, Moto makes an interesting and fair comment.
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Post by Weyland on Feb 12, 2011 12:01:50 GMT
Weyland, if you are suggesting Trubs might be incorrect, I should remind you that - should Trubs every say anything that might SEEM incorrect, the Universe alters itself to match what she said, she is that orsum <band stops playing> You insult my intelligence, sirrah! Of course I know all that, the truth of which enhances with every passing day. You have misplaced the word SEEM. She merely SEEMED to say those things, but was in fact quoting some other source, probably an investment banker or kindred pinstriped vermin. Simple as that. On with the music!
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Post by riotgrrl on Feb 12, 2011 12:39:51 GMT
Weyland, if you are suggesting Trubs might be incorrect, I should remind you that - should Trubs every say anything that might SEEM incorrect, the Universe alters itself to match what she said, she is that orsum Pshaw . . she ain't all that.
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Post by Weyland on Feb 12, 2011 12:43:10 GMT
Weyland, if you are suggesting Trubs might be incorrect, I should remind you that - should Trubs every say anything that might SEEM incorrect, the Universe alters itself to match what she said, she is that orsum Pshaw . . she ain't all that. Catfight! Alph -- prepare the mud!
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Post by motorist on Feb 12, 2011 12:48:40 GMT
nekkid, of course. Purely to save on the laundry of course
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Post by Weyland on Feb 12, 2011 14:22:45 GMT
nekkid, of course. Purely to save on the laundry of course Action stations! All hands on deck! Man the Webcams!
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Post by jean on Feb 12, 2011 23:27:56 GMT
n. Zero-Sum Game A situation in which one participant's gains result only from another participant's equivalent losses. The net change in total wealth among participants is zero; the wealth is just shifted from one to another.... In other words - there has to be a loser. The poster in question writes: So he's right to throw the phrase around the way he does?
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Post by jean on Feb 12, 2011 23:36:16 GMT
No, that can't be right. Otherwise football etc. would be spoken of as zero-sum games.
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Post by trubble on Feb 13, 2011 9:30:03 GMT
The link that I left gives slightly different explanations for different contexts. Football is one and it's cited as an example of a zero-sum game.
I reckon your messageboarder could find an interpretation that will support his use of it. I also reckon that rjpageuk is right.
When you see a phrase being flung around liberally on teh intarwebs (strawman is a good example) it's a sign that it has become virtually meaningless. It's so easy to pick up intelligent sounding words and phrases and throw them into every debate without worrying too much about what they mean.
Now, Jean! Could you do me a great favour and tell me your understanding of the word 'nihilistic'? I can find dictionary terms but what I want is a more common usage definition. I want to know what you would assume (rightly or wrongly) it to mean. This is has nothing to do with anything online. It's just a little bugbear of mine regarding a conversation I had about 20 years ago lol.
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Post by jean on Feb 13, 2011 9:37:12 GMT
Here are my thoughts without looking anything up.
'Nihil' is Latin for 'nothing'. 'Nihilistic' in ordinary use means negative, unwilling to attribute any meaning to anything. I don't know how long it's been used in English. Does it owe its origin to some school of philosophy? Existentialism?
The '-istic' implies an '-ist', a person holding a particular set of beliefs, which is why it looks as though it comes from a formal system of belief.
(I'll have to go and look it up now!)
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Post by jean on Feb 13, 2011 9:52:39 GMT
1. Characterized by or professing nihilism; rejecting prevailing beliefs, laws, etc.1848 W. A. Duer Duties Rising Generation 30 There have been many such, and are such to-day; anarchistic, socialistic, communistic, nihilistic. 1871 H. Alabaster Wheel of Law p. lii, I cannot decline to allow the term Nihilistic to be applied to it. 1873 W. Wagner tr. W. S. Teuffel Hist. Rom. Lit. II. 35 A kind of nihilistic resignation. 1943 G. Greene Ministry of Fear (1963) i. iii. 41 The experience which had given him an amusing nihilistic abandon had left her brooding. 1978 I. Berlin Russian Thinkers 65 Both were obscurely felt to be nihilistic¡ªthe humane values of the nineteenth century fell to pieces under their fingers. 1992 M. Medved Hollywood vs. Amer. iv. x. 163 It has become chic to praise a movie for being nihilistic, macabre, unsentimental.
2. Of or relating to the Russian Nihilists (nihilist n. 2); characteristic of their beliefs. Also in extended use.1868 G. Duff Polit. Surv. 35 Nihilistic doctrines¨Econtain a large proportion of sound tendencies. 1881 Times 11 Apr. 9/4 In Russia the outbreak of nihilistic fury has made humanitarian treatment impossible for the present. 1890 J. Hatton By Order of Czar 149, I thought she might have been a nihilistic spy. 1991 W. Paterson & D. Southern Governing Germany (BNC) 42 German conservatives threw in their lot with the nihilistic agents of a permanent revolution. 1992 S. White After Gorbachev (BNC) 237 ¡®Nihilistic views¡¯ were intensifying among young people; they were becoming politically disorientated.
3. Psychiatry. Designating delusions that the patient's body, the world, or parts of either have ceased to exist or to function, associated with mental illnesses such as major depression and schizophrenia.1902 A. R. Defendorf tr. E. Kraepelin Clin. Psychiatry 40 In progressing mental weakness this form of delusions may become nihilistic, when everything, the patient included, is non-existent or less than nothing. 1927 D. K. Henderson & R. D. Gillespie Text-bk. Psychiatry xi. 294 The feature of the depression is the frequency with which absurd nihilistic ideas are expressed. Patients claim that they are dead, that their blood has ceased to circulate,¨Ethat their bodies are utterly destroyed. 1967 A. T. Beck Depression i. ii. 38 A typical nihilistic delusion is reflected in the following statement: ¡®It's no use.¨E The world is empty. Everybody died last night.¡¯ 1995 Acta Psychiatrica Scand. 91 185 The most common nihilistic delusions concerned the body (86%) and existence (69%).
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