Random Thought Thread

[Duckman]

12 minutes ago, paxmiles said:

Ever wonder if life is like an RPG in that you have a limited number of skill points to spend? Like the above, does learning how to fix your own car limit your ability to learn other things? Probably not, but weird to think about. 

I think it is a lot like the old RPGs where characters are not balanced by design.  Int plays a part in how many skill points but your wealth perk does as well.  Do you have the time to spend learning how to fix your car or are you busy working that minimum wage job trying to make a living?  That's one of the things that made Palladium interesting and unplayable...  You quickly figured out the difference between Bruce Wayne and Casey Jones.

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, Duckman said:

I think it is a lot like the old RPGs where characters are not balanced by design.  Int plays a part in how many skill points but your wealth perk does as well.  Do you have the time to spend learning how to fix your car or are you busy working that minimum wage job trying to make a living?  That's one of the things that made Palladium interesting and unplayable...  You quickly figured out the difference between Bruce Wayne and Casey Jones.

I go back and forth on that one.

I mean, wealth really only has any value so long as other people value it. Power is like that too. Look at Hitler. If people never did what he said, there would have been no problem. Sorry, a bit political, was just the best example on that one I could think of. 

Regarding Bruce Wayne, his wealth is often regarded as his super power, but Bruce also Heals abnormally fast (not wolverine, but he does recover from things a normal human really shouldn't recover from). Regarding Wealth, ever thought about how Bruce probably owns most of the buildings in Gotham, and they are probably insured buildings, so when Batman is out fighting crime, Bruce is probably turning a profit on the destructive nature of Batman's Villians - yeah, kinda feels like Bruce is a quasi-villian. Bruce also has Alfred, who is amazing and not acquired via wealth (he may be employed, but alfred isn't in it because of Bruce's wealth). 

Regarding Palladium, that one depends on the GM. One of our gamers managed to make his Human Vagabond into a planetary governor...Yeah, the gamer had one of those forceful personalities and our GM often yielded to it. Of note is how often the RPG's balance is dictated by the personalities of the players, rather than any mechanic to the game. I do agree, otherwise, that Palladium's RPGs often had an iffy system in terms of game balance. 

[Duckman]

If I had not been norm into the family I was I never would have had the time and opportunity to learn the things I did.  It's not the wealth makes you special.  It's that money is the time you need to study to learn.

[WestRider]

The old saw about how time is money isn't strictly true, but there are a great many situations where they are interchangeable to one degree or another. If someone has enough money to take care of those things, then they have a lot more time available for other things. I'd also note that this doesn't continue indefinitely, and this particular aspect of wealth doesn't benefit the super rich significantly more than it does the comfortably well-off. Since everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, it's mostly noticeable when money is lacking, and thus there is only one available resource (time) to spend on whatever needs to be done.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, WestRider said:

The old saw about how time is money isn't strictly true, but there are a great many situations where they are interchangeable to one degree or another. If someone has enough money to take care of those things, then they have a lot more time available for other things.

It depends how exact a task is. If I need to paint my Army for 40k, having additional money doesn't really aid this. Sure, I could hire another person to paint it, but I'm not really painting my army in such a case. Meanwhile, if I just need my army painted, then it doesn't matter who paints it, so money would help here.

Additionally, the more people I bring in to help me in a situation, the less it becomes my own accomplishment - I rapidly become just another cog in the machine. So saying that I can accomplish more with more money isn't really true in the case of big projects.

Regarding learning, it really depends on how able I am to learn. Wealth might help with better teachers, equipment, or aids, but it doesn't mean I automatically learn better. And being without this wealth doesn't prevent my learning. Learning is free, after all. Granted materials and classes designed to aid with learning do help, and better allow [stupid] people learn, but the act of learning is still free and just part of being human. A human learns constantly and from everything.

Being poor does not prevent the acquisition of knowledge, nor does it, inherently, slow it down.

[WestRider]

55 minutes ago, paxmiles said:

It depends how exact a task is. If I need to paint my Army for 40k, having additional money doesn't really aid this. Sure, I could hire another person to paint it, but I'm not really painting my army in such a case. Meanwhile, if I just need my army painted, then it doesn't matter who paints it, so money would help here.

Additionally, the more people I bring in to help me in a situation, the less it becomes my own accomplishment - I rapidly become just another cog in the machine. So saying that I can accomplish more with more money isn't really true in the case of big projects.

Regarding learning, it really depends on how able I am to learn. Wealth might help with better teachers, equipment, or aids, but it doesn't mean I automatically learn better. And being without this wealth doesn't prevent my learning. Learning is free, after all. Granted materials and classes designed to aid with learning do help, and better allow [stupid] people learn, but the act of learning is still free and just part of being human. A human learns constantly and from everything.

Being poor does not prevent the acquisition of knowledge, nor does it, inherently, slow it down.

A) I said "a great many situations", not always. A single counter-example doesn't counter the point when it's qualified like that.

B) It's not always a direct connection. Someone who makes enough per hour can afford to work fewer hours, leaving more time for other activities, such as painting. Less obviously, someone who can afford to buy prepared food and/or eat out has more free time as a result of that than someone who has to cook for themself. Someone who can afford a car has more free time than someone who has to get around on a bike, or by transit, or on foot. These conveniences allow for more time spent on whatever is wanted, whether that's painting Models or learning stuff or whatever. There are subtler connections as well. For instance, being poor often means eating lower quality, less healthy food, which results in less energy and less efficient brain function than a healthier, more expensive diet. People with more money tend to live in quieter neighborhoods, meaning better sleep and, again, more energy and more efficient brain function. They're all small effects individually, but because they tend to occur together, they do add up.

[InfestedKerrigan]

When I try to get through on the telephone to you, there'll be nobody home.

[Guest]

14 hours ago, WestRider said:

It's not always a direct connection. Someone who makes enough per hour can afford to work fewer hours, leaving more time for other activities, such as painting. Less obviously, someone who can afford to buy prepared food and/or eat out has more free time as a result of that than someone who has to cook for themself. Someone who can afford a car has more free time than someone who has to get around on a bike, or by transit, or on foot. These conveniences allow for more time spent on whatever is wanted, whether that's painting Models or learning stuff or whatever. There are subtler connections as well. For instance, being poor often means eating lower quality, less healthy food, which results in less energy and less efficient brain function than a healthier, more expensive diet. People with more money tend to live in quieter neighborhoods, meaning better sleep and, again, more energy and more efficient brain function. They're all small effects individually, but because they tend to occur together, they do add up.

This is all assumptions based on an idealized and very specific perspective of what a rich person would do or desire. 

Free time isn't really good, free time is often a huge waste of finances or eventually results in mental disorder. People usually fill their free time whenever possible because not doing anything isn't usually a desired state do be in. Sure, people without free time may "grass is greener" the concept, but it's an illusion.

Prepared food is often cheaper than making food yourself. Lower quality food is often prepared. It's a mass production thing regarding cost. Regarding wealth, really depends on your personal willpower to choose healthy things to eat. Wealth can be counter productive there, as there are lots of really expensive, really bad for you things, that a person with unlimited wealth may be tempted to have at every meal. And regarding health, most healthy foods are really cheap, just really bland and unappetizing. Oatmeal without sugar type things. Wealthy people are also more likely to eat in excess, because they can.

And regarding healthy, Healthy assumes you know how long you are supposed to life and that you desire to live that long. Healthy also assumes that your actions will have an impact on how long you live, or the quality of your life. Not everyone wants to live forever. And not all deaths are related to how healthy a person was before they died. Getting stabbed to death, for example, is a death unrelated to how healthy a person was prior to dying.

Regarding neighborhood quietness. I live in low income apartments and it's very quiet, usually. Nice thick walls. Our apartments even have a lower rate of crime than the higher costing apartments across the way (pretty sure it has to do with architecture).

Wealth CAN help you live a better life, but it's not automatic. Being poor MAY impair your life, but it also might not. It has to do with what you desire in life and how obtainable it is.

And quite often, the really miserable are miserable for reasons beyond wealth level, and have problems which really can't be fixed with money. There are lots of problems which can't be fixed with money (most are mental disorders).

[WestRider]

I'm not even talking rich. I'm talking from my own personal experiences based on the difference between when I was living on ~10K a year and living on ~24K a year. As I said earlier, the benefits taper off, and there isn't actually a significant difference between the comfortably well off and the genuinely rich.

The point is this: you have to have time to be able to do voluntary activities*. There are also many necessary activities, which can be done with either time or money**. If someone has money, they have the option to choose to use it to take care of some of the necessary activities, thus leaving them with more time available for voluntary activities***. Someone who does not have spare money has no option, and must use their time to take care of the necessary activities.

There are also many things that do not fall into either category

*Painting or learning stuff were specific examples you brought up.
**I gave a few specific, but not exhaustive, examples. Responding to those examples does not address the fundamental point.
***As I mentioned earlier, there are limits to how far this can be taken, because while there is no theoretical limit on money, time is strictly capped at 24 hours per person per day, and some necessary activities (for example, sleeping), cannot be taken care of with money instead of time.

[Guest]

39 minutes ago, WestRider said:

I'm not even talking rich. I'm talking from my own personal experiences based on the difference between when I was living on ~10K a year and living on ~24K a year. As I said earlier, the benefits taper off, and there isn't actually a significant difference between the comfortably well off and the genuinely rich.

So under 30k per year qualifies you for low income housing in hillsboro....Granted, that's a house of 1 person, I don't know how much it goes up if you have more people because I've only asked about myself.

That would be poor people. Under 30k is poor people, believe it or not.

The middle class is above that. Internet says this is people making between 42k and 125k per year (before tax)

Rich people are beyond that.

Granted, none of this reflects expenses. You can make a lot of money and still live the equivalent of a poor lifestyle if you have lots of expenses. A poor person without lots of expenses can have a decent lifestyle. And that's why income tax can be a disaster for businesses that make lots of money, but have to pay most of it in expenses (Farming, in particular, is often like this).

[Duckman]

Your initial point was learning skills and I brought this whole thing up in the context of limiting the number of skill points you might have.

A person who lacks the resources and has to spend 80-100 hours a week on subsistence (be it working, cleaning house, cooking food, shopping, etc.) simply does not have as much time to spend on learning skills.  A person who can hire a maid can, instead of spending time cleaning the house, can take a class, learn a hobby or work on something else that needs doing...  That's what WestRider was talking about when he mentioned means of travel (although mass trans can be an opportunity to learn since you don't have to focus on traffic around you the whole time).

The point is that money allows you to eliminate menial tasks which you probably have already learned most of the skills for and focus on something else.  And that doesn't even begin to factor in the quality of learning that can be attained with money to get better teachers, etc.  Some skills don't benefit from this (e.g. painting) while others do (e.g. calculus).

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Duckman said:

Your initial point was learning skills and I brought this whole thing up in the context of limiting the number of skill points you might have.

A person who lacks the resources and has to spend 80-100 hours a week on subsistence (be it working, cleaning house, cooking food, shopping, etc.) simply does not have as much time to spend on learning skills.  A person who can hire a maid can, instead of spending time cleaning the house, can take a class, learn a hobby or work on something else that needs doing...  That's what WestRider was talking about when he mentioned means of travel (although mass trans can be an opportunity to learn since you don't have to focus on traffic around you the whole time).

The point is that money allows you to eliminate menial tasks which you probably have already learned most of the skills for and focus on something else.  And that doesn't even begin to factor in the quality of learning that can be attained with money to get better teachers, etc.  Some skills don't benefit from this (e.g. painting) while others do (e.g. calculus).

A person that spends 80-100 houts a week cleaning, is going to learn about cleaning (and maybe some other things). There's no loss here. It's not like doing menial tasks prevents you from learning.

A person that hires someone else to take care of their "menial tasks" loses out on the knowledge they would have obtained while doing those "menial tasks" and instead learns another set of skills. There's no loss or gain here, just different learning.

A person that drives everywhere loses out on the social skills they could acquire on public transportation (even if the skill just how to better ignore others). They lose out on the exercise they could obtain on a bicycle or by walking.

And on the same note, a wealthy person might consider math to be menial task. If you can have others do everything for you, then your skillset is deligation. Why would you learn math or cleaning if a reliable person is always there to do it for you? Just hire a mentat for all your calculation needs.

As for quality of learning, it's iffy. I mean, you learn at the rate you learn. A good teacher doesn't enable more learning, they just focus your learning onto a particular topic. This means you are learning more on the topic and less on other topics. No more learning, but you are learning a particular topic at a faster rate than a person learning with a broader learning field. And higher paid teachers aren't inherently good teachers, they are just inherently higher paid teachers. 

Granted, you could be elitist about skills, and determine that some skills are worthless and others are useful. It's a perspective, but often a common one. You could value education only when it involves learning the skills you approve of. Makes it easier to believe others are stupid if you don't count all of their knowledge as knowledge. It's elitism, but it is very common. 

For example, someone that spends everyday playing video games based in a fictional setting. They are still learning. Granted, the skills they are learning are often only relevent in the video game or while talking with other fans of the game, but they certainly qualify as skills learned through time and practice. Some skills carry over to other things, others don't. It's still learning and knowledge. 

As an aside, I'm still surprised they haven't figured out how to make public schools into a video game yet. GED the Game....

[Guest]

I will note that it does seem like some people I've encountered have found a way to "turn off" their ability to learn. Still haven't figured out how they do it, and it doesn't seem conscious on their behalf, but it's certainly an interesting ability. I suspect that they are still learning, but the knowledge is stored subconsciously. Could be a self-esteem thing, where they just don't believe they can learn, so they don't acknowledge it when it happens. Dunno, it's weird. Like the GM didn't give them enough dialogue options or something...

[InfestedKerrigan]

Pax, duck wasn't saying I spend 80-100 hours cleaning. He was saying, between work, travel, house upkeep, vehicle upkeep, personal hygiene, etc, that I'm spendig 80-100 hours on. 

Let's say I make enough money to afford to pay a maid. She (yes, she, and she's also French-Canadian. I can't afford a real french maid in this imaginary scenario) comes in several times a week, freeing up 15 hours of my week to do something else. 

My vehicle being out of commission is currently freeing up about 55 hours a week for me, cuz i haven't worked in a week and a half.  Using this free time, I am learning a skill that I do not intend to monetize, yet will benefit from financially in the future. The cost in time, and skill, can make this option unreasonable for people.

Pax, do you have the skills to discconect the electrical system; Remove the Air Filter, Starter, Speedometer Drivegear Sensor, Driveaxels, Transaxel casing, and clutch set; and put it all back together? 

A lot of people don't, so the cost in money makes more sense to them than the cost in time.

[Guest]

27 minutes ago, InfestedKerrigan said:

Pax, duck wasn't saying I spend 80-100 hours cleaning. He was saying, between work, travel, house upkeep, vehicle upkeep, personal hygiene, etc, that I'm spendig 80-100 hours on. 

Let's say I make enough money to afford to pay a maid. She (yes, she, and she's also French-Canadian. I can't afford a real french maid in this imaginary scenario) comes in several times a week, freeing up 15 hours of my week to do something else. 

My vehicle being out of commission is currently freeing up about 55 hours a week for me, cuz i haven't worked in a week and a half.  Using this free time, I am learning a skill that I do not intend to monetize, yet will benefit from financially in the future. The cost in time, and skill, can make this option unreasonable for people.

Pax, do you have the skills to discconect the electrical system; Remove the Air Filter, Starter, Speedometer Drivegear Sensor, Driveaxels, Transaxel casing, and clutch set; and put it all back together? 

A lot of people don't, so the cost in money makes more sense to them than the cost in time.

Kinda a funny situation you've got yourself in. I mean, the supposed poor person that doesn't drive, doesn't need the vehicle maintainance, so, in your scenario, doesn't need the maid. Are you sure you are the rich person? Sounds like the person without the car is in a better situation. 

Anyway, to answer your question about my ability to repair cars, the short answer is that I've never had the oppertunity to try. I don't own a car, nor have a spot to safely store one I wasn't currently driving. That said, I am actually pretty good at this sort of thing, so I could probably figure it out and would probably have fun. My parents were the type that would hire a mechanic rather than learn how to fix their own car. 

[InfestedKerrigan]

A person without a vehicle is circumstantialy better, when you are looking at things like overhead expense, repairs, upkeep, etc.  But why do you think they don't need a maid? How much more time is being spent commuting for work, groceries, etc?  

And really, hiring a service person is either "my time is too valuable to be spent doing THAT" OR "my skills don't include THAT"

Mechanics, house cleaners, contractors, going out to eat, delivery/catering, commissioning someone to paint your army, all of it falls under that statement.

[WestRider]

Reactions to previews I saw before Incredibles 2:

- The wardrobe, makeup, and hair section for Nutcracker and the Four Realms were really trying hard to make Kiera Knightly look like Anne Hathaway.

- My interest in seeing Christopher Robin went up like 300% when I found out Hayley Atwood is in it.

- The Mr. Rogers documentary looks absolutely wonderful.

[Romans832]

4 hours ago, WestRider said:

The wardrobe, makeup, and hair section for Nutcracker and the Four Realms were really trying hard to make Kiera Knightly look like Anne Hathaway.

IS that why I didn't recognize her? Good grief

[Guest]

8 hours ago, InfestedKerrigan said:

A person without a vehicle is circumstantialy better, when you are looking at things like overhead expense, repairs, upkeep, etc.  But why do you think they don't need a maid? How much more time is being spent commuting for work, groceries, etc?  

And really, hiring a service person is either "my time is too valuable to be spent doing THAT" OR "my skills don't include THAT"

Mechanics, house cleaners, contractors, going out to eat, delivery/catering, commissioning someone to paint your army, all of it falls under that statement.

I shouldn't get to far in it because I haven't eaten today. But I did want to clarify that I'm not suggesting that hiring people to do things for you doesn't make life easier - it certainly can. I'm just talking about the acquisition of skills/knowledge. I don't think that you'll end up with MORE learning if you hire someone to do things for you.

[WestRider]

18 hours ago, paxmiles said:

A person that spends 80-100 houts a week cleaning, is going to learn about cleaning (and maybe some other things). There's no loss here. It's not like doing menial tasks prevents you from learning.

A person that hires someone else to take care of their "menial tasks" loses out on the knowledge they would have obtained while doing those "menial tasks" and instead learns another set of skills. There's no loss or gain here, just different learning.

I can tell you for a fact, from experience, that there's diminishing returns on those sorts of things real fast. Once you've cleaned the same house more than a couple of times, you ain't learning anything new from further repetition. Same for any menial task. Or even more complex stuff. For another example, I have a degree in mathematics. It doesn't matter how much time I spend working on times tables at this point, it's not going to create any significant new knowledge.

What the rest of us are all talking about is spending money instead of time on things where all that's important to someone is the outcome. For them, the final result is entirely the same whether they spend their time or money on those activities, except that there are other things that they would rather spend their time on.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, WestRider said:

I can tell you for a fact, from experience, that there's diminishing returns on those sorts of things real fast. Once you've cleaned the same house more than a couple of times, you ain't learning anything new from further repetition. Same for any menial task. Or even more complex stuff. For another example, I have a degree in mathematics. It doesn't matter how much time I spend working on times tables at this point, it's not going to create any significant new knowledge.

What the rest of us are all talking about is spending money instead of time on things where all that's important to someone is the outcome. For them, the final result is entirely the same whether they spend their time or money on those activities, except that there are other things that they would rather spend their time on.

So you clean the house once or twice, you label it menial, and stop trying new things? Doesn't sound very scientific. Why deny yourself the opportunity to learn? Cleaning supplies are usually chemistry based, the house itself has lots of mechanical devices. There's physics and math used everywhere. Could even practice althletics or art. If pets are involved, could learn biology. 

Or you could just label it menial and stop looking for knowledge. No wonder learning costs you so much. 

Now regarding spending money on others doing things for you, yeah, you could do that, but it won't help you learn, which is my angle here. I agree, you could have someone else do it for you, and if the goal is only to have it done, then that doesn't matter. But paying someone to paint your army doesn't make you a good painter. You could lie, I suppose, saying you painted them yourself, but then what's point of any of this if you just plan to lie about what you have accomplished?

[WestRider]

How much house cleaning have you done? Because I've done enough of it (hundreds of reps, not just a few) that I'm fairly confident in my statement that there isn't a whole lot of depth there. And heck, even if there is more to learn, it's mostly only going to be applicable to cleaning, and our hypothetical individual has other things that they would rather spend their time on.

On your second paragraph, I have never been talking about paying someone to paint your army. The point has been paying someone to clean your house, so you have time to paint your own army instead of cleaning. Well, that's one very specific example of the general point: There are some things you can choose to spend money on instead of time, because you would rather spend your time on other things.

Which things you choose to spend money on and which things you choose to spend time on are matters of personal values and personal resources. All I've been arguing this whole time is that there are some things on which either of those two resources can be spent.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, WestRider said:

Which things you choose to spend money on and which things you choose to spend time on are matters of personal values and personal resources. All I've been arguing this whole time is that there are some things on which either of those two resources can be spent.

<Chuckles to self>, I guess I'm getting mixed up who I'm debating with. Dunno why exactly, but I often find myself mixing up your picture/avatar with that of Infested Kerrigan. They aren't that similar, but this isn't the first time. Sorry. 

Anyway, I agree with you on the above. My point was talking about the learning of skills. Others were suggesting that additional resources would enable learning more skills, but not you apparently. My mistake. 

Oh, regarding the cleaning, yeah, it's a bit of a bad example for me. I was just using the example of someone else used to refer to any task. I do think that you could learn more from repeated cleaning, if you try. Though it's not always obvious. Sometimes the task you are preforming results in learning new skills in another field, which is still learning, even if you aren't getting better at cleaning. Most skills are related, to some degree, to everything else. It roots to how technology is developed, where one seemingly unrelated invention often results in a bunch of inventions in other fields. 

I guess if you do cleaning a thousand times, are you always doing it the same way, or do you experiement with alternate approaches? Took me a while, but one time while cleaning it struck me that cleaning is basically just rearranging matter. In conversation it tends to be described in a way that would suggest destruction and creation, but it's really just moving the mess so it doesn't look messy. Almost more perspective than physical. And now this is a conversation about how cleaning is about the mind's eye and how it relates to the world...which is a point I was making above, in that the skills you acquire may not be strictly related to the task at hand, but remain learning and can result in skills. 

[InfestedKerrigan]

12 hours ago, paxmiles said:

<Chuckles to self>, I guess I'm getting mixed up who I'm debating with.

I'm pretty sure all of us are saying the same thing to you, just taking turns explaining it.

[Duckman]

9 minutes ago, InfestedKerrigan said:

I'm pretty sure all of us are saying the same thing to you feeding the troll, just taking turns explaining it feeding the troll.

ftfy