Steve, you need to learn to quote me and then base your tirades off my direct quotes...
not just rant based on things I didn't actually say (very popular thing to do around here).
Not only did I directly quote every single thing you said, I put every word you said in a form logicians use called standard form. I parsed your words word for word to get at the meaning as precisely as possible.
I strictly adhered to the words you used with precision.
As I wrote in the previous reply:
First of all, our mode of debate: This debate is pointless and cannot be advanced unless one of both of us are open to admitting that we are wrong. We need a way of keeping our arguments organized and clear without straw manning.
In logic there is the form of organization called putting an argument in standard form. I will be doing that with your arguments. My impression from your general posting is that you often make points by insinuation or inference, rather than explicit claims. That mode of argument and general approach to debating is not conducive to resolving debate. People can too easily talk past each other, shift and change their definitions mid-argument, or just selectively respond to what they want to. Alternatively, people cay say anything they want and assert that it’s true. Nephitus post is excellent evidence of this. I’m not going to respond to it, although it is very clearly wrong, simply because it would take me an hour to dig up the data to prove him wrong while he probably wouldn’t even be convinced (anyone who makes such far fetched claims isn’t likely to be persuaded by logical reasoning anyway).
I’m going to straightjacket our debate into a more rigorous logical form.
Second, I want to be clear that I think there are some great obstacles to debating you. Let me name them. 1) You seem to be very loose with your definitions. Earlier you talked about Gifts “dominance” and then Trinisphere “dominance.” Dominance is very particularly defined as 40% or more of the metagame (and specifically top 8). In leyman’s terms: it means you have the “best deck” metagame where the all decks are best decks or anti-best decks. Metagame warping on the other hand is less strict. It is the feature of metagame that the presence of a particular deck warps around it. Trinisphere did this. Flash at GP Columbus more recently.
To overcome this obstacle, I will very carefully parse your post and your words.
I want to overcome these obstacles, otherwise this debate is pointless because it cannot have a resolution. While I enjoy talking about magic, this debate is more serious than a general discussion on magic and I’m only engaging it to persuade you of my argument. If you feel that you aren’t open to being wrong, then I will end my engagement immediately. On the other hand, if others find your arguments persuasive, I will do my best to deconstruct, and where possible, obliterate them.
That quote should have reinforced in you my genuine and heart felt desire to accurately convey and understand your arguments as you presented them based upon the words you used.
Your concern, raised here, that I didn't quote you seems very odd to me.
Do you think that I didn't quote you? Or didn't attempt to directly use the arguments you raised?
I never said gifts was %40 of the metagame. I said I faced it roughly 40% of the time on average in the tournaments I played in from late 2005 to early 2007
I stand by my statement, that was speaking just for me.
Logically, if a person says that you face a deck x% of the time, that implies that this sample is representative of a population. This is known as inductive reasoning on the basis of a population sample. If there is a differential, generally that has to be explained.
I never said it composed 40% of the metagame. I said I faced it alot, and I did. I was often at the top tables of tournaments and ran into that deck multiple times in many tourneys, not just the handful you keep citing as evidence over and over again.
The handful? I've never heard of 16 events being called a "handful" before. Let alone events that total up to over 1504 players!!!!!!!!
I never said everyone faced it 40% of the time
You seem to completely gloss over this (as does moxlotus). Just because I faced it alot doesn't mean it was everywhere, I know this and never tried to claim otherwise.
Dave, what you are doing is very common in debate. This is why I went out of my way to reproduce your arguments in standard form. It is important that we have common terms of the debate before we can try to persuade one another of our point of view. In each and every instance, I went out of my way to fairly and accurately convey your basic arguments.
What you miss in this point is that it is a completely reasonable inference to say that if you faced Gifts 40% of hte time, you are implying that it was there roughly in those amounts. Does anyone else who read Dave's previous posts think that he wasn't making this inference or rather get the impression that it wasn't there in those amounts?
I said it was format warping
Dave,
You said many things. I tried very carefully and fairly to represent what you said and quote you directly so as there would be no misconstruction of what you said.
You indeed said it was format warping, but as I explained:
You said:"but I think you're glossing over the fact that just because a deck doesn't have half of it in top 8 doesn't make it dominant. To me, if a deck is format warping it is dominant."
I responded:
"By definition that is true. But that is a definitional conflation.
You are glossing over/completely ignoring the fact that I provided a second criteria for restriction based on format warping effect. That is in part how we justified the restriction of Trinisphere. It’s mere presence completely shaped the metagame around it. TPS and Control Slaver were the next two best decks because they were the only decks that could beat Trinispheres. This was simlar to what Flash did at GP Columbus."
In short, you are being somewhat to very sloppy with your terms.
I'm not sure if your imprecision is intentional to make it more difficult to reply or parse your arguments, but that is the effect.
If I misconstructed your arguments when putting them in standard form, I would hope that you'd go back and correct them.
... I'll stand by that and gave what I felt ample examples to support my claim. I never claimed my experiences to be "objective reality" either. I cited my experiences with the card, I outright said I was biased (just as you are) a
Dave: this is the heart of the matter.
There is a right answer to this. Either Gifts is or is not dominant. Either it is or is not format distorting and so on down the line.
I answered your claims of format bias in several ways. I agreed that you probably are biased. But in several instances, I explained why I probably am not - at least not to the degree you claim.
To reiterate my answer to that particular point:
1) I think if you review my article archive and read through the dozen or so articles I've written on the subject, you'll find an amazing consistency of thought and action on this issue.
2) Moreover, assuming for the moment I am biased, that is a common fallacy if you are suggesting that in any way undermines my arguments. It's simply an ad hominen fallacy. The claim that a person is biased in no way logically undermines the strength of their arguments.
3) I haven't played gifts in some time - i have very little invested in it at the moment. In fact, a week from monday you'll see the new deck i've been working on the last 6 months - a deck with no Gifts.
nd I simply wanted to present a view from the other side of the fence. I stated all of this in my very first post and most of it has been missed or completely ignored.
First of all, note that the three points above were mentioned in my first reponse to you, clearly refuting your claim here that it was missed or ignored.
Secondly, this is a debate in which one of us is right and one of us is not. It isn't so much that there is an objective reality so much as the arguments we advance are in conflict. We can't both be right.
I'll echo Diceman in that you're the one who isn't using "objective reality," instead trying to say 'I'm right, I'm right' and just spouting off rants without directly addressing alot of what I or other people actually said to challenge you. I wasn't out to debate you to get a 'I'M RIGHT, YOU'RE WRONG' result. You apparently are.
While I'm sure Shockwave is surprised that you call him Diceman
, I'm very confident that nothing I said was "I'm right, I'm right."
I believe in producing evidence and justifying arguments using a mode of reasoning we call logic. I'm not always right, but I strive to be right.
As I said in the preface to my previous post: This debate is pointless and cannot be advanced unless one of both of us are open to admitting that we are wrong.
We need to be critical of ourselves and others so we can get closer to the truth of the matter here. There are many arguments being bandied about. I tried to approach this debate from the perspective that it can be resolved given the terms and context. This is because the critieria for restriction is clear. While people can say that they feel or believe a card should be restricted, they generally have to provide reasons. We can always attack the reasons put forward.
If we can't have a reasoned discourse, what's the point of forum debate?
When I reapplied for Mana Drain membership there was a fantastic article I was instructed to read on reasoned debate - with all due respect, I highly suggest that you refer to it:
2) Den Beste's "Intellectual Honesty" (
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/03/Intellectualhonesty.shtml)
I have strived, with great effort and great expense of my own personal time to apply those precepts here in good faith, but I don't feel that you have to the same extent, with due respect.
We both are very opinionated and that's ok. When I started to debate you I certainly did not expect you to change your view, I just wanted you to see it from my side.
But Dave, part of intellectual honesty is opening your view to attack, not simply asserting that your view is correct. It is not at all unreasonable to present critiques of your points. That's part of rational discourse. If we just go around telling people of our "point of views" then that isn't a debate. That's sharing time.
Your article was good. I disagreed with alot of it and listed just about all of the reasons why I did.
Thank you for the complement.
You disagree and that's fine, but what's important is that we clealry articulate the reasons we disagree and then open those reasons to further criticism.
After all, isn't the key to advancing debate or reaching truth the exchange of views in a marketplace of ideas? Is that not what this is?
Your current debate is not good.
Admittedly, I probably shouldn't have created the impression that I was somehow "furious" about your reply. I truly was not and said that for reasons that aren't clear to me now.
However, beyond that, I thought that my post was a model post about how to address competing points, how to fairly represent them (perhaps we should use the standard form technique more often), and try to persuade other people of our points of view.
I believe that I did a great job of deconstructing your arguments and then refuting them to the best of my abilities.
Is that not what makes a debate good?
This is why I've decided to stop trying to go toe to toe with you. It just isn't worth my time and I don't want this thread being locked over it because it really did start out well. You keep trying to make it black and white, right and wrong, and as already pointed out by people we're having a debate over an issue that was already settled.
There are a number of problematic/fallacious comments in these two sentences alone.
Why do you assume that the issue is settled?
The debate is not settled - what is settled is very narrow: whether the DCI would restrict Gifts. So long as people disagree, it is not settled.
I don't want this thread to be locked either, I want to be able to respond constructively to posts such as this.
However, there are right and wrong answers. Perhaps not to the general question of whether Gifts should be restrictd, but certainly to the arguments that people advance.
For example, you say: Gifts should be restricted.
I say: Why?
You say, for reasons A, B, and C. The debate over the merit and validity of your support is certainly a good, and worthwhile debate. There are right and wrong, balck and white answers as to whether your reasons A, B, and C support your argument or not. The same is true of my criticisms.
The I made its stance and they are telling you, by your logic, that you are wrong.
You are upset and challenging them, and that's fine... good luck.
Hahah!
I'm actually happy with most of what the DCI did. I applaud them for making the tough move to unrestrict cards. They were bold and courageous.
I would have thought that the tone of my article made it clear that I'm not upset, but trying to deconstruct the justifications for restriction and show why restriction was wrong.
Moreover, the general point here is really an ad hominem attack Dave. Whether I'm emotionally involved or not really has no bearing on the strength of the logic I used, wouldn't you agree? Furthermore, the fact that the DCI made a decision doesn't mean that their justification withstands logical scrutiny. Is that not why we use logic? Seems like a classic appeal to authority here Dave.
In conclusion, you say you are furious over the dci listening to players like 'me' on card restrictions.
Not at all!!!!
I'm very happy to engage you, but we need an honest debate. I have striven to ensure that I accurately and fairly represented your views. I have tried to undersatnd your points and fairly represent them so that we could analyze them from a logical perspective. I welcome a detailed analysis of the reasons the specific places you disagree with me so we can clearly deconstruct them and see why we disagree and who has better support for their arguments.
I hope that this post gives you further insight into why I'm posting. I'm not upset with the DCI or you. I'm frightened by what this may portend.
Vintage players have always called for restrictions, and 99% of the time they have been wrong and things have worked out just fine. My concern is that if the DCI restricts gifts on no hard evidence and the word of some players, then what does that portend for Grim Tutor, Bazaar, Merchant Scroll, and Flash? What's next? It's about doing the right thing for the format.
Let's keep the DCI honest, no?
Take care,
Stephen Menendian
