Coopertition - Not As Easy As It Looks!

[Chris86]

Originally Posted by Tom Ore

What's the CD record for total lines in 3 consecutive posts?

I don't know, but I think you've found the CD-appropriate way to say tl;dr. Though from what I skimmed, both seemed to make good points that lead to the conclusion: there's no way we can all have the same "moral" views of the game! But I'll say something about this: chill out! It's a game!

[Taylor]

Chief Delphi - where a conversation about meta-coopertition evolves into a discussion about metaphysics. I love this place.

[Mr. Lim]

Although I petitioned the mods to have Patrick and Tristan's posts moved to another thread, I thoroughly enjoyed reading all the posts.

In reference to "chill out, it's just a robotics competition," I'd have to say that I again disagree!

FRC is about so much more than just the robots.

I couldn't tell you how bored I was during our mandatory "philosophy for engineers" course during my undergrad. The significance of relativistic moralism never really rang through to me, until now.

Although at times painful, it was really neat to see a tangible example of these concepts intelligently dissected, debated, and applied right before my eyes... using robots.

Crazy.

For a topic I despised so much in undergrad, I still can't believe I got roped in to reading every.. single... word... intently.

Seriously though, having a good handle on Tristan's and Patrick's points WILL ACTUALLY HELP YOU AT COMPETITION THIS YEAR.

You could just say "yes" to every opportunity to coopertate, take the "moral high ground," and throw every team who doesn't want to coopertate under the bus for being "cretins."

At the end of the day, you might just be encouraging teams to take coopertition bridge defense underground.

It is far more effective, and less damaging to a team's "moral reputation" to promise the opponent they will coopertate, meet them at the bridge, and then have an "intentional accident" which causes the balance to fail.

Intent is impossible to judge. And no one would dare make any accusations, nor should they.

You could never "catch" anyone doing this, and they would come off smelling like roses. At least they TRIED to balance the coop bridge, right?

I need to make it absolutely clear that I would find the above scenario absolutely disgusting...

...exponentially worse than anything we saw at GTR-E.

Instead of building a "universal morality" where teams feel pressure to resort to underhanded means, I would much rather have a balanced approach that said:

"Okay, there are some valid reasons NOT to balance that coopertition bridge. If you choose not to, I won't bully, coerce, convince or hold it against you. If you're going to do it, at least do it the right way. Get to the bridge first, tip it towards you, and stay on it so no one else can get on. Not everyone will agree with what you're doing, but they will understand why you did it, and not throw hatred at you. I would much rather you do this, and be transparent about it, as opposed to the underhanded alternatives."

[ThirteenOfTwo]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Though I probably shouldn't dignify your repetition of baseless attacks with a response, I'll simply point out that I'm pretty sure I have an adequate academic background to make reasonably strong statements about engineering, law and policy. What's more, I suspect I have as much FRC experience as you do—as a team member, mentor and lead official. There's a traceable lineage between rules I co-developed and the past and present FVC, FTC and VRC competitions. I've built a big flying robot, consulted on a solar car, and worked in enough actual engineering positions to know my way around a production line or design shop in a few different industries—and there's stuff I directly developed in thousands of vehicles and several factories. Moreover, I've worked for governments on actual technical codes and policies—and am reputedly quite good at it, at least according to real-world experts. While I'm impressed by the fact that games you designed are played on tabletops all over Western New York, I didn't dismiss your expertise as a substitute for a cogent argument.

So let's not make this about us as individuals, and agree to avoid the personal attacks in future.

Your post is otherwise cogent and well developed, but these last two paragraphs seriously taint your credibility as someone whose moral beliefs should be agreed with. Your mistake is one that I see made all too often, and it's really frustrating for me when it occurs.

Essentially, you're making ad hominem attacks just as much as he was--perhaps more so, in that you actually call your shot by declaring you are aware the nature of such arguments before proceeding to make one. Listing your own accomplishments in a way like this is generally intended not just as a defensive response but also as a way of defamation, as in "you aren't as good as me": see the passive-agressive comment about tabletop games.

Then you turn around and say that the argument should not be personal. Right after making the argument personal. Essentially, all that a paragraph like this says to a reader like me is "I'm better than you, and if you disagree then that's an ad hominem attack, so I get the last word. Ha."

In the future, a better response would be to dismiss his ad hominem claims by pointing them out for what they are without bothering to refute them. If his technique is already fallacious, the factual correctness of what he is saying about you is of no import.

My two cents.

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by Mr. Lim

Instead of building a "universal morality" where teams feel pressure to resort to underhanded means, I would much rather have a balanced approach that said:

"Okay, there are some valid reasons NOT to balance that coopertition bridge. If you choose not to, I won't bully, coerce, convince or hold it against you. If you're going to do it, at least do it the right way. Get to the bridge first, tip it towards you, and stay on it so no one else can get on. Not everyone will agree with what you're doing, but they will understand why you did it, and not throw hatred at you. I would much rather you do this, and be transparent about it, as opposed to the underhanded alternatives."

Or, you know, if you're against cooperation, just leave the bridge ALONE.

I'd consider intentionally blocking the bridge for someone who might want to go on it a form of coercion.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Libby K

I'd consider intentionally blocking the bridge for someone who might want to go on it a form of coercion.

Indeed. Interfering with an alliance partner who wants to balance is, in the words of Woodie Flowers, being an "incompetent jerk".

[Tknee]

Let me start with the disclaimer that outside of being an avid spectator, I haven't participated in a FIRST event for years.

I'm an ardent supporter of unintuitive strategies that can benefit a team in the long run as long as they do not: a) sabotage an alliance member in a match; b) rely on lying to the opponents; c) rely on promises made between teams regarding being picked. I feel that sharing these strategies are akin to sharing tools.

With all that said, I don't think cooperation bridge defense, pre-determined results and meta-coopertition are all that useful in this years competition.

Cooperation bridge defense is essentially alliance sabotage (or preventative measures against alliance sabotage - which should be unnecessary). The need to defend the cooperation bridge disappears if your entire alliance is in agreement whether to balance the bridge or not. I would hope that members within an alliance can communicate with one another their needs and graciously set aside some of their desires to come up with a compromise strategy.

Before continuing let's consider reasons why you would not want the cooperation bridge balanced. The reasons I can think of are: i) you think your alliance can win the match if your robots are engaged in other endeavors ii) you do not wish your opponents to receive the 2CP that come with a balanced bridge. (there's also iii) you do not wish your alliance member to receive the 2CP - but that's alliance sabotage).

I find the 6v0 situation described in the original post as extremely unlikely. If Red1 is such a powerhouse, they probably do not require the full 2 minutes to balance the bridge; if blue alliance is such an overwhelming underdog who is trying to score minimal points, it is difficult to imagine them up 10 points near the end of the match; lastly if the alliance bridge is balanced Blue1 has already showcased their balancing - driving off doesn't negate having done it. Nevertheless the gist of the scenario is that underdog alliance blue is attempting to avoid reason i as to why the bridge isn't balanced and is willing to lose the match to avoid it (with the understanding that they will probably lose the match regardless) while showcasing some of the robots abilities.

I do endorse communication between opponents but want to point out that agreements between opponents regarding bridge balancing don't have to be a binary yes or no, but can be conditional e.g "We will attempt to balance if we are winning by 10 or losing by 20 with forty seconds left in the match". Now in the example, if red alliance gives blue alliance a conditional statement, the blue alliance can develop a strategy to score minimal points to ensure that there is a balancing attempt, but without a set agreement to lose the match. Thus if they find themselves winning, they can do so in good conscious and receive the 2QP for winning instead of from CP as they had expected. I suppose things could still go wrong if blue is inside the margin in which a balance attempt is offered and end up losing, but the point is that teams can accomplish the goals described in the 6v0 scenario without having to agree which team will win or lose.

As for meta-coopertition, my thoughts are more jumbled and less clear. With the assumption that you usually want the cooperation bridge balanced, let us focus on reason ii as to why you wouldn't want the cooperation bridge balanced. Supposedly you are playing against a dominant robot (DR) and don't wish DR to seed 1st in order to prevent DR from picking dominant robot 2 (DR2). If there are more than 2 dominant robots, one must wonder how much preventing DR from seeding high going to help. So under that scenario consider:

1) How much are you hurting the DR vs How much are you hurting yourselves - To be truly helpful to you in the long run, other teams (meta-coopertition) must have the same thought process.
2) Can you predict that the other alliances in subsequent matches will join in refusing to cooperate with said dominant robots - Even if the DR plays subsequent matches against teams that may also be interested in preventing the DR from seeding 1st, those teams have to convince their alliance.
3) The benefit of splitting DR1 and DR2 goes primarily to the teams that get to pick (are picked by) DR1 & DR2. True all the alliances benefit from not having to play a DR1-DR2 alliance, but if DR1 and DR2 are that dominant, their two alliances will still be the favorites for the competition.

With all that in mind, I don't see meta-coopertition being all that helpful.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by ThirteenOfTwo

Your post is otherwise cogent and well developed, but these last two paragraphs seriously taint your credibility as someone whose moral beliefs should be agreed with. Your mistake is one that I see made all too often, and it's really frustrating for me when it occurs.

Essentially, you're making ad hominem attacks just as much as he was--perhaps more so, in that you actually call your shot by declaring you are aware the nature of such arguments before proceeding to make one. Listing your own accomplishments in a way like this is generally intended not just as a defensive response but also as a way of defamation, as in "you aren't as good as me": see the passive-agressive comment about tabletop games.

Then you turn around and say that the argument should not be personal. Right after making the argument personal. Essentially, all that a paragraph like this says to a reader like me is "I'm better than you, and if you disagree then that's an ad hominem attack, so I get the last word. Ha."

In the future, a better response would be to dismiss his ad hominem claims by pointing them out for what they are without bothering to refute them. If his technique is already fallacious, the factual correctness of what he is saying about you is of no import.

My two cents.

I accept the criticism.

I also note that rhetorically, even his fallacious argument could be influential—hence my desire to foreclose that line of argumentation.

Patrick recently (in another thread) wrote of his professional accomplishments in the design of games¹ as being a pertinent qualification to discuss FRC issues. (He also listed several academic degrees he earned.) He then insinuated that to understand the issue, I should acquire a level of expertise akin to his own, without actually knowing whether I might have alternative qualifications that give weight to my opinions. I let that slide in the other thread, but felt I should put the matter to rest when he reiterated his uninformed criticism above, adding "we've already established that your vision of a clear regulatory standard has no basis in the real world vis-a-vis either game design or engineering specifications". I obviously disagree that anything of the sort has been established, and listed some reasons why he ought not jump to that conclusion (and why I think others ought not believe him so readily).

In other words, I presented a list of accomplishments to refute his statement, and not to assert superiority; when I said "I didn't dismiss your expertise as a substitute for a cogent argument", I meant that.

But yes, the tabletop gaming comment was perhaps too pointed, was certainly ad hominem and diluted the point I was trying to convey. Although I'm usually reasonably good at avoiding it, sometimes a full-bodied insult is too tempting to pass up, especially in response to repeated slights.<sup>2

1</sup> He mentioned tabletop games before, so I'm assuming that's the experience he was citing.

² As has already been noted, Patrick disagrees with me that those were slights. I think they were, and think they were probably intentional, despite his protestations.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

² As has already been noted, Patrick disagrees with me that those were slights. I think they were, and think they were probably intentional, despite his protestations.[/size]

To be perfectly clear, I am intentionally saying that you are ignorant on the topic of game design and that this ignorance is feeding into your argument in ways it doesn't appear you are aware of. It also appears to be coupled with an equally large ignorance on metareading and reading for understanding. That's not an insult -- not even a teeny, tiny, itsy bitsy bit of one -- and if you take offense to it I have some very bad news for you: you, me, and everyone else on this planet are profoundly ignorant about just about everything.

Telling you that you appear to be ignorant on any given topic is not a slight, any more than telling me that I am ignorant on the topics of biology, figure skating, baseball, programming, or any number of a large variety of topics I have never troubled myself to learn much about would be a slight. Given the infinite number of topics one can study, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with being ignorant on a great many of them.

There is, however, something wrong with simultaneously being ignorant on a topic and speaking authoritatively about that topic.

I had hoped that instead of taking offense, you might have taken a step back and said, "wow, maybe I don't know as much about this as I thought I did." Pride has a bitter taste, but eating some once in a while is good for all of us.

[Aren_Hill]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

To be perfectly clear, I am intentionally saying that you are ignorant on the topic of game design and that this ignorance is feeding into your argument in ways it doesn't appear you are aware of. It also appears to be coupled with an equally large ignorance on metareading and reading for understanding. That's not an insult -- not even a teeny, tiny, itsy bitsy bit of one -- and if you take offense to it I have some very bad news for you: you, me, and everyone else on this planet are profoundly ignorant about just about everything.

Telling you that you appear to be ignorant on any given topic is not a slight, any more than telling me that I am ignorant on the topics of biology, figure skating, baseball, programming, or any number of a large variety of topics I have never troubled myself to learn much about would be a slight. Given the infinite number of topics one can study, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with being ignorant on a great many of them.

There is, however, something wrong with simultaneously being ignorant on a topic and speaking authoritatively about that topic.

I had hoped that instead of taking offense, you might have taken a step back and said, "wow, maybe I don't know as much about this as I thought I did." Pride has a bitter taste, but eating some once in a while is good for all of us.

I think why he keeps correcting you is because you are wrong, stating "you are ignorant, so stop arguing" isn't really a valid way to try ending this.

Myself and I'm sure many others on these forums hold Tristans words and thoughts in very high regard on the topics currently being discussed, and from a moral ground I'd probably side with the one who's not insulting anyone (just on the moral ground). As you're essentially telling a baseball player who's been in the league for awhile he doesn't understand baseball in the slightest and should be okay with it.

[Steve W]

This thread has degraded and gone off topic therefore I am closing it. If any Mods feel that I am wrong, please feel free to reopen.