This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Classic Theme
Thottbot Theme
Why Americans can't speak (or write in) English properly.
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
Squishalot
Who contributed more into you coming into being, your mother or your grandmother? You can't compare them because your mother's existence is dependent on your grandmother's.
Yet at the same time, given that there is a likelihood that your mother would not give birth to you, perhaps your grandmother's choice was the wrong one. Similarly, if you have a choice to pass to player A or player B, on the basis of % plays, certain choices are better than others. Which is why I still disagree with your method of calculation, but anyway...
How do you measure a stick?
You compare it to a standard.
I thought we've moved on from this already. I meant 'how' in the context of process, not methodology. You still haven't demonstrated how your brother is above the 50% mark of the perfect basketball player. All you've said is that more than 50% of his passes would result in a scoring play.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
How do you measure a stick?
You compare it to a standard.
I thought we've moved on from this already. I meant 'how' in the context of process, not methodology. You still haven't demonstrated how your brother is above the 50% mark of the perfect basketball player. All you've said is that more than 50% of his passes would result in a scoring play.
How do you measure a stick "in the context of process"?
Similarly, if you have a choice to pass to player A or player B, on the basis of % plays, certain choices are better than others.
Better or worse has no bearing on the issue. The play either scored or it didn't.
Post by
Squishalot
How do you measure a stick "in the context of process"?
Ascertain a stick length as a quantity of known units (eg, x inches).
Compare that quantity of units to your 1 yard universal.
What process would you follow to measure a stick?
Better or worse has no bearing on the issue. The play either scored or it didn't.
In that case, your measure of his 'good' passing ("not counting mistakes that are not his own") is false, because a mistake committed by someone else later in the play is, indeed, his fault for starting a play that resulted in the other player's mistake.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Ascertain a stick length as a quantity of known units (eg, x inches).
Compare that quantity of units to your 1 yard universal.
What process would you follow to measure a stick?
Inches aren't necessary. You compare the particular length of the stick to your concept of length absolutely. In this case, that happens to be a yard. Therefore you can say that the stick is a yard.
Now translate that to basketball.
You compare the particular skill of a player to you concept of skill absolutely. In this case, that happens to be 'good.' Therefore you can say that this player is good.
In that case, your measure of his 'good' passing ("not counting mistakes that are not his own") is false, because a mistake committed by someone else later in the play is, indeed, his fault for starting a play that resulted in the other player's mistake.
Not really.
Just because a play is bad doesn't mean that individual components of it weren't good.
Post by
313135
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Hyper. I think your "measuring stick" is a little off. You say that your brother is above 50% in shooting, blocking shoots, passing (I'm going to guess you would need to include rebounds and steals in these measurements, as they are very important too).
...
So according to your standard, both of these players aren't "good", even though they are considered two of the best of all times.
Please re-read the last 16 pages.
The problem with your arguement is that "good" is a relative term no matter what
I think you're confusing relative with subjective.
Let's turn this to football (b/c I'm more familiar with it). Who is the better quarter back, Marino, Favre, Montana, Brees, Manning, or Brady?
If you look at career stats, they stack one way. If you look at championships played, they stack a different way. If you look at championships played vs. won, then they stack an even different way.
What about the caliber of the teams they played on and surrounding talent? Isn't that a factor?
What is the end of football?
I would appreciate if you actually used my methodology if you're going to try and show it doesn't work.
Therefore good is a relative and biased term.
Again, you're mistaking relative with subjective.
-as an afterthought, do you have access to his stats? If so can you post them. If not, do you know what his stats are? Wouldn't you say if you don't actually "know" his stats to compare to the rest of basketball players, then again you assuming based on watching him play.
Stats don't matter. He's only playing against a certain pool of players. Same with all the stats you posted. Those are biased.
-edited after-afterthought. I don't doubt your brother is a good basketball player. I don't even doubt you can base this on a certain criteria, and thus your statement based on the criteria is unbiased based on the criteria you set forth. This doesnt' change the fact that claiming someone is "good" is still biased, since an agreed upon standard of what determines "good" doesn't exist in basketball (or team sports in general).
Again, I'm not sure you've actually read everything I said about this.
Post by
Squishalot
You compare the
particular
skill of a player to you concept of skill absolutely. In this case, that happens to be 'good.' Therefore you can say that this
player
is good.
Bolded for emphasis. It means that this player is good at that particular skill, not at 'basketball'.
Just because a play is bad doesn't mean that individual components of it weren't good.
Who contributed more into you coming into being, your mother or your grandmother? ...
The play either scored or it didn't.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
You compare the
particular
skill of a player to you concept of skill absolutely. In this case, that happens to be 'good.' Therefore you can say that this
player
is good.
Bolded for emphasis. It means that this player is good at that particular skill, not at 'basketball'.
I don't think you understand.
We're talking about basketball skill...i.e. "good at basketball."
Just because a play is bad doesn't mean that individual components of it weren't good.
Who contributed more into you coming into being, your mother or your grandmother? ...
The play either scored or it didn't.
Yes, maybe your grandmother did do her part and have your mother. That's a "good pass." You mother then might not do her part and have you, but that in no way means your grandmother didn't do hers.
Post by
Squishalot
We're talking about basketball skill...i.e. "good at basketball."
In that case, your 'skill' is comprised of multiple particulars, unlike the 'length' of your stick, as defined by you (shooting, blocking, passing, etc). So your stick comparison doesn't work, since 'length' is only one particular.
So again - how are you measuring his basketball skill? So far, all you're doing is measuring individual aspects of his basketball game.
Yes, maybe your grandmother did do her part and have your mother. That's a "good pass." You mother then might not do her part and have you, but that in no way means your grandmother didn't do hers.
Your grandmother made a bad decision in having your mother, and should have raised a different daughter then instead, who would subsequently not have made a mistake. As you say, the play either scored or it didn't, and that's a consequent event of the whole play, including your original pass.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
So again - how are you measuring his basketball skill? So far, all you're doing is measuring individual aspects of his basketball game.
No, you're the one who keeps insisting on measuring individual aspects of the game, not me.
In that case, your 'skill' is comprised of multiple particulars
No, it's not 'comprised' of anything. It manifests itself in many ways, yes, just like a stick's length can manifest itself (in it's ability to be used as a weapon, in it's ability to prop open certain things, etc.).
Your grandmother made a bad decision in having your mother, and should have raised a different daughter then instead, who would subsequently not have made a mistake. As you say, the play either scored or it didn't, and that's a consequent event of the whole play, including your original pass.
No, having a different daughter would not have brought you either. A grandchild, yes. You. no.
She did her part in bringing
you
into existence.
Post by
Squishalot
No, you're the one who keeps insisting on measuring individual aspects of the game, not me.
Actually, no, you're the one who raised the measurement of particular skills in your attempt to identify why you weren't biased.
She did her part in bringing you into existence.
And if you're a failed play, then her actions resulted in a failure.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
No, you're the one who keeps insisting on measuring individual aspects of the game, not me.
Actually, no, you're the one who raised the measurement of particular skills in your attempt to identify why you weren't biased.
As a whole, yes. That whole is called basketball.
Any discussion involving a particular thing such as shooting only came about because you decided just to focus on it.
She did her part in bringing you into existence.
And if you're a failed play, then her actions resulted in a failure.
Depends on what you mean by "resulted in."
Was she the agent of the failure? No. Did she realize her end (to bring you into being)? No.
Post by
Squishalot
As a whole, yes. That whole is called basketball.
Any discussion involving a particular thing such as shooting only came about because you decided just to focus on it.
Consider what we said before:
What makes him 'good'?
His conformity to the 'perfect' basketball player.
And how are you classifying how 'conformed' he is?
What is his shot percentage? What is his block percentage? How many times has he fouled?
How many times has he lost? It's all very linear.
I'm not much concerned about the discussion on shooting alone. I'm still curious on how you measure his game characteristics and come to a conclusion on how it works towards his end (being to win the game).
(edit: It's also worth noting that the first measurements you provided on how consider whether your brother is 'good' are relative measurements. But I'll let you off for now, if you can demonstrate your objectivity by explaining how you take those and come up with a measure of 'goodness'.)
Was she the agent of the failure? No.
a person or thing that performs an action or brings about a certain result, or that is able to do so
She's a person that performed an action, eventually resulting in the failed play. She is an agent, though not 'the' agent, since you can't identify just one person which resulted in the failed play.
Did she realize her end (to bring you into being)? No.
This would suggest that she made a bad pass.
Post by
313135
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
87606
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
pelf
Wow. I never noticed when this moved from UI&M to Off-Topic.
I'd like to tip my hat to HSR and Squish for enacting a Socratic dialogue about what it means to be "good" at basketball. That was really quite inspiring.
I am not so passionate that I will aggregate, in Notepad, replies across the 10 or so pages since this thread was in UI&M, but at least one thing caught my eye as I was browsing through...
It recurs a lot that people will say, "It doesn't matter if the language is degraded by any measure of degradation as long as the idea behind it is communicated." It's sort of hard to argue against that. Pausing for a moment, one poster said something to the effect of, "However, if I can't understand them, then I'll have to ask for something actually resembling English." Aha. Here's the problem, then: if we are to accept that degradation of language (which, as accepted, will be integrated into the standard of our language over time) then we must accept the loss of ability to change to something "actually resembling English." That
becomes
English.
I suppose my worry, and perhaps one of the reasons I started this thread back then, is that when people grow up around degraded English and everyone around them deals input/output in the same degraded English and the real world into which they graduate after ... whatever ... doesn't reinforce what the stupid teachers told them when they said there was an actual reason to learn all this crap ... when this is the life they live and world they live in, they don't actually even
know
or care about the "actually resembling English" English. The language is lost and dissolves at their lips. Or fingers.
Perhaps reading 1984 was just entirely too horrifying for me as a child.
Okay, this is just more of that with an \ crowbar in between.
If one tries to promote the idea that...
If what a person intended to say was understood regardless of the lack of Quality in the writing or speaking then the act of communication was successful, the annoying of either party due to quality-of-execution judgments notwithstanding.
...then is it incumbent upon everyone to spend the extra time to try to decipher what everyone else is saying as it's everyone's right to diverge from the standard however they want? Isn't that one of the goals having a common or national language is supposed to achieve? If we all expect to be saying the same stuff in the same ways using the same grammar, syntax and dictionary, then we can all communicate. Isn't the you-know-what-I-meant philosophy of composition actually wasting time and producing ambiguity, in the end?
Bleh. The necro was on-topic; but, I wouldn't begrudge anyone who didn't want to participate in its resurrection. I just figured I owed the thread a small reply after I was reunited with it after so long.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
I remember this thread.
Post by
HighFive
I have no idea what "incumbent" means. Your point is lost on me.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
It recurs a lot that people will say, "It doesn't matter if the language is degraded by any measure of degradation as long as the idea behind it is communicated." It's sort of hard to argue against that. Pausing for a moment, one poster said something to the effect of, "However, if I can't understand them, then I'll have to ask for something actually resembling English." Aha. Here's the problem, then: if we are to accept that degradation of language (which, as accepted, will be integrated into the standard of our language over time) then we must accept the loss of ability to change to something "actually resembling English." That
becomes
English.
I suppose my worry, and perhaps one of the reasons I started this thread back then, is that when people grow up around degraded English and everyone around them deals input/output in the same degraded English and the real world into which they graduate after ... whatever ... doesn't reinforce what the stupid teachers told them when they said there was an actual reason to learn all this crap ... when this is the life they live and world they live in, they don't actually even
know
or care about the "actually resembling English" English. The language is lost and dissolves at their lips. Or fingers.
Perhaps reading 1984 was just entirely too horrifying for me as a child.
Okay, this is just more of that with an \ crowbar in between.
If one tries to promote the idea that...
If what a person intended to say was understood regardless of the lack of Quality in the writing or speaking then the act of communication was successful, the annoying of either party due to quality-of-execution judgments notwithstanding.
...then is it incumbent upon everyone to spend the extra time to try to decipher what everyone else is saying as it's everyone's right to diverge from the standard however they want? Isn't that one of the goals having a common or national language is supposed to achieve? If we all expect to be saying the same stuff in the same ways using the same grammar, syntax and dictionary, then we can all communicate. Isn't the you-know-what-I-meant philosophy of composition actually wasting time and producing ambiguity, in the end?
There are two questions behind the issue:
1) Whether there is an objective standard behind change in language being good or bad, and
2) Whether the changes in language happening in our culture of media are really the same sort as the changes that have been shaping our language as humans for the last 10000 years.
With regards to the first, I think there are good and bad changes, but that there is also a huge gray area. And as to the second, I believe that we have entered a new age of language development that is no longer driven by natural causes. Man seeks to express himself in new ways, but with information traveling at light speed around the world and every written and spoken word being archived, a stagnation occurs. Since man can no longer rely on a natural evolution of language, he has to create his own changes, for better or for worse.
Post by
Squishalot
I remember this thread.
It was amusing. I don't think we ever resolved it though, but I don't think I'm able to recall how we got to where we did with any degree of certainty...
Isn't that one of the goals having a common or national language is supposed to achieve? If we all expect to be saying the same stuff in the same ways using the same grammar, syntax and dictionary, then we can all communicate. Isn't the you-know-what-I-meant philosophy of composition actually wasting time and producing ambiguity, in the end?
My ethnic heritage leads back to a country where people commonly mix and match different languages (English, two common dialects of Chinese, and two regional dialects of Chinese) in their speech. Not just in sentences, but within sentences also. The reason for this is primarily because certain words and thoughts can be better expressed using a different language. There are subtleties in using words in certain languages, rather than their translation, and this particular society has no qualms with using them as and when required to provide emphasis.
With regards to the first, I think there are good and bad changes, but that there is also a huge gray area.
As with anything 'good' or 'bad', there are ways to create an objective standard (e.g. measure the average speed of comprehension). However, as with anything 'good' or 'bad', there is no real justification for choosing one standard over another.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.