Vote Count
- 3.2

Votes:

3 - Thomas (jellsprout, snipereborn, Silver)
2 - snipereborn (Isa, Thomas)

4 - Not Voting (soccerboy, Yuggy, Shavey Dave, Yaya)

FoS:

1 - Silver (Shavey Dave)

With 9 alive, it takes 5 votes to lynch.
Deadline for the day phase: February 9, 2012, 11:59PM Interguild Time.

@Mod: Yuggy has an FoS on Silver.

Hey Jell, do you not believe Thomas's RC? I'm not like Thomas and are planning call you scum for just leaving your vote on the claimed doctor, I just didn't see your opinion on it and wanted to know.

For the majority of the game, I barely existed to you. Then I accuse you, and you immediately vote for me. That vote was not an OMGUS vote?
I wasn't online yesterday, so I brought up the Ockham's Razor thing today. Trusting in the claim that makes least assumptions is usually a bad idea, but especially when there are people involved who have every intention to manipulate the situation.

What do mean by "least assumptions"?

Five days left. Snipereborn is to die.

@Yaya
I'm not sure since the janitor thing requires a lot of assumptions. Maybe he's trying to suggest this as the definition of Occum's Razor? If so, then he can't really accuse me of being the one falling back on it. Also, this is an incorrect assertion.
More than that, the policy of accepting the theory that requires the least assumptions is perfectly acceptable. I have no idea where you came up with the idea that it wasn't. Indeed, people who manipulate situations rely on the fact that you will make assumptions which they can take advantage of, so I think jell is more than a little confused.

I'm sorry I haven't posted. I was GROUNDED. Anyway Silver has been acting strange but I hesitate to vote her. She dosen't seem very interested in the game atall. Note what has been said already: posting in other topics and not this. Maybe Silver just has a simple townie role. Is it possible for her to be a vanilla townie? Then again her fishy actions could mean she is not to be trusted. Mafia. I'm trying to place Silver in a mafia team.

Post 1111!

She can't be a vanilla as there are no vanilla roles in this game. Also if she is town she would have no-reason to lie about her role, so she'd be a self-watcher. Are you un-grounded now?

Alright, my thoughts:

I feel Thomas is town. The roleclaiming case is very weak, and as far as I can tell he is acting not at all differently from his normal play. I would still like Thomas to explain this though: Also if you think that the roleclaiming was a bad idea, then Thomas could have been playing tactically, as if Silver claimed a power-role he could of protected her, the mafia would target her, and have wasted their kill.

I have a nul read on Jell. I don't think he is particually suspicious, especially not for being angry about Kooler, but I don't feel he is clearly town either.

Sniperborn has played very badly today IMO, he seems to have cracked underpressure more than once, and seems to have weak cases. His play also seems different to yesterday. I will put together a proper case later as I an running out of time now, but I will FoS: Sniperborn as he seems by far the most scummy player right now to me.

I mean that using Ockham's Razor as definite proof is a terrible idea, especially in a game such as Mafia where people can easily manipulate the events to present a situation with little assumptions that is still false.
Furthermore, Ockham's Razor nearly ever applies in reality. Mostly because you never have all possible information about the situation available to you and you can pretty much always come up with an infinite amount of alternative hypotheses that make fewer assumptions. If you look at scientific theories, you will see that as more research is done the simpler hypotheses will pretty much always be rejected in favor of more complicated hypotheses.
Let's take light for example. An early theory was that light were particles that simply bounced around like balls. Then after the double split experiment it was discovered light had interference, so the new theory was that light was a high frequency wave traveling through a medium similar to sound and all of light's phenomena could be described through interference. Then after Maxwell discovered light was an electromagnetic wave that was the result of time-dependent electric and magnetic fields and could self-propagating. Then after the discovery of the photo-electric effect the new theory was that light was a superposition of many different waves such that the energy travels in packages with all the properties of particles. After the Michelson-Morley experiment it was discovered that light traveled at a constant speed relative to any observer, regardless of the speed of the observer, which required a new theory of time also being a space-like dimension instead of a completely separate one and light as a massless particle using all of its energy to travel through the space dimensions instead of using some to travel through the time dimension. Then after the wave collapse interpretation of quantum mechanics and a revised double split experiment with observers at the splits was performed, it was discovered that light would only have wave properties as long as it was not observed, but the moment it would be observed the wave would collapse into a particle. And then there were the QED and QCD, which are so complex even I don't understand it at all.
As you can see, in the past 500 years the hypotheses regarding light has been disproving Ockham's Razor over and over and over again.
The only reason to bring up Ockham's Razor as justification for a lynch is to hopefully confuse your fellow players enough into following you. The theory started pretty simple, making only one assumption. But as more discoveries were made, the simple hypotheses just kept getting rejected in favor of of more complex ones.

About the Janitor thing, there are several possibilities.
-Thomas is Town but merely derped, Silver is Town and the claim was true
-Thomas is Town but merely derped, Silver is Town but had a power role she wanted to hide and has been lucky not to have been targeted both nights
-Thomas is Town but merely derped, Silver is scum but took the opportunity to claim the Janitor'd role and has been lucky not to have been targeted both nights
-Thomas is Town but merely derped, Silver is Town but had a power role she wanted to hide and has been targeted but the person who targeted her is afraid to reveal his/her power role
-Thomas is Town but merely derped, Silver is scum but took the opportunity to claim the Janitor'd role and has been targeted but the person who targeted her is afraid to reveal his/her power role
-Thomas is Mafia and trying to fish for a power role, Silver is Town and the claim was true
-Thomas is Mafia and trying to fish for a power role, Silver is Town but had a power she wanted to hide and has been lucky not to have been targeted both nights
-Thomas and Silver are both Mafia and set the whole thing up to get Silver to claim the Janitor'd role and remove all suspicions from her and Silver has been lucky not to have been targeted both nights
-Thomas is Mafia and trying to fish for a power role, Silver is Town but had a power she wanted to hide and has been targeted but the person who targeted her is afraid to reveal his/her power role
-Thomas and Silver are both Mafia and set the whole thing up to get Silver to claim the Janitor'd role and remove all suspicions from her and Silver has been targeted but the person who targeted her is afraid to reveal his/her power role

These are not even all the possible hypotheses, just the ones that immediately sprang to mind.

Let's look at the amount of assumptions made.
-Thomas is Town, Silver is Town, Silver is telling the truth, Silver has not been targeted
-Thomas is Town, Silver is Town, Silver is lying, Silver has not been targeted
-Thomas is Town, Silver is Mafia, Silver is lying, Silver has not been targeted
-Thomas is Town, Silver is Town, Silver is lying, Silver has been targeted, PR wants to hide
-Thomas is Town, Silver is Mafia, Silver is lying, Silver has been targeted, PR wants to hide
-Thomas is Mafia, Silver is Town, Silver is telling the truth, Silver has not been targeted
-Thomas is Mafia, Silver is Town, Silver is lying, Silver has not been targeted
-Thomas is Mafia, Silver is Mafia, Silver is lying, Silver has not been targeted
-Thomas is Mafia, Silver is Town, Silver is lying, Silver has been targeted, PR wants to hide
-Thomas is Mafia, Silver is Mafia, Silver is lying, Silver has been targeted, PR wants to hide

As you can see, 6 of 10 make the same amount of assumptions, while the other 4 only make a single assumption more. You can try to put more weight on several of these assumptions, but then you are heading into subjectivity. Ockham's Razor most definitely is not viable here.


And about Thomas, I don't trust his claim at all. Doctor is a very good role to claim for the Mafia. It is a very easy role to fake. Just say you didn't protect the person that got NK'd. And if the real Doctor goes around and counter-claims, the Mafia has immediately identified one of the most dangerous Townies in the game.

Shavey Dave is apparently very oblivious to what's going on.

Anyway...the game is at a standstill. Shavey Dave, Soccerboy, Yuggy and Yaya, your votes and reasons are needed. I don't think the game will progress a lot from this point onward without your input, because we're looking at a triangle of votes/suspicions between Jellsprout/Snipereborn/Thomas at this point in time. They obviously won't kill themselves.

Summary of Occum's Razor here.
Moreover, this is not a law, but a guiding principle. You can't disprove Occum's Razor.
You might note that I explained that the second condition, all else being equal, is highly subjective and difficult to quantify. However, there are instances where it can be applied. Again, I didn't bring up Occum's Razor today. Isa did. I defended against his claim. Now I'm defending against yours.
Moreover, I never used Occum's Razor as justification for a lynch. I used Occum's Razor to eliminate theories that that were otherwise indistinguishable.
Also, if you're going to complain about me using philosophical principles that arn't pertinent to the discussion, what do you call your rant about light? Are history lessons now very important? I already knew the evolution of theories behind light. I also know the evolution of theories regarding atoms. Should I spend half a page explaining it to everyone?
Also, you're saying that the mafia manipulates assumption. Ok, I agree. But then you're saying we should make more assumptions. So that they have more ammo? So that they have more chances at manipulating us? Just think about what you're saying; it doesn't make sense.

Testing the razor

The razor's claim that "simpler explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones" is amenable to empirical testing. The procedure to test this hypothesis would compare the track records of simple and comparatively complex explanations. The validity of Occam's razor as a tool would then have to be rejected if the more complex explanations were more often correct than the less complex ones (while the converse would lend support to its use).
Possible explanations can get needlessly complex. It is coherent, for instance, to add the involvement of Leprechauns to any explanation, but Occam's razor would prevent such additions, unless they were necessary.

In the history of competing explanations this is certainly not the case. At least, not generally (some increases in complexity are sometimes necessary), and so there remains a justified general bias towards the simpler of two competing explanations.




This is found on the linked page. Need I say more?

Nobody counter-claimed...

Alright, I read the Occum's Razor wikipedia page, and that hasn't helped your case, Soccerboy. The way I read the article, you're using it for incorrect purposes or too broadly applying it at times. You're basically doing what Thomas was with WIFOM on previous occasions.

And Thomas, Jell didn't say nobody counter claimed, he just said "if". Also, if you're looked at without automatically believing your claim, you look pretty bad, and I'm back to my thoughts of you before you claimed. At least Snipereborn looks bad because when you take away his ace-in-the-hole (Occum's Razor), his case doesn't make sense. When your ace-in-the-hole (Doctor role) is taken away, you looks significantly more scummy. Both of you could easily be mafia. And Jell's right. It'd be uber-easy to claim Doctor, just say you protected the person that didn't die the previous night. And even if you plan ahead with other players to protect a certain person, you can just say you were roleblocked by the mafia. I'm not buying it.

I know your claim was good enough for me in the 1st place, but that's partially because I didn't want you saying ridiculous statements like this at me. And now when I compare you and Snipereborn, the two scummiest players right now IMO, you look scummier.

Vote: Thomas, FoS: Snipereborn

(that puts Thomas at L-1)

Soccerboy=Snipereborn

Are you on drugs? I used twice in this game, once at the beginning (D1) mostly as a joke and once when I was trying to figure out if the janitor thing was plausible (D3). This is not overusing it.

What's more, can you at least tell me which case you're referring to? I've got one on thomas and one on jell. Or do you me the one against me?

So then when the real doc does claim in a game, it's automatically fake? Nope.

Crap, Thomas. Your post brought an idea to my mind that pretty much punches a hole in my reasoning; the doctor WOULD'VE counter-claimed, if you weren't the real doctor. Unvote: Thomas. Sorry for seeming fickle, I was gonna review everything tonight and then choose, but Isa was right about the game being at a standstill, and I was really the only active player she mentioned that wasn't voting, so I figured I could change that. I should've thought more before I chose between you and Snipereborn.

Snipereborn, I'm not saying you used it in too many cases. I'm saying in those two, you used it way too often as the answer/crutch to everything.

Isa is a guy, by the way.

In both those cases, I used it exactly once. The rest was just arguing about when it should/shouldn't be used. What's more, I'm not using it as a proof, rather a tool for choosing, which is what it is supposed to be. Look at the argument again. You'll see that I'm not using it but defending the fact that I wasn't using it (because Isa said I should use, and I said that it didn't apply). Eventually, I figured out that I did need it, but not for the reason Isa said.

Maybe I can be a bit clearer. If you take away Occum's Razor, my theory is exactly the same. It doesn't some how make less sense. The only difference is that minus the razor, there is also another competing theory that explains the same thing. So, if you take away the razor and the theory doesn't make sense, then the theory didn't make sense with razor either.
The theory I now support is that either Thomas or Silver is mafia because the Silver claim seems to contrived to be an accident between townies. Now that Thomas is involved in another roleclaim, I think he's the faia, and silver is probably innocent. Not definitely, but Thomas looks way worse.
Awhile back I said I had brought Thomas to L-3 and Isa corrected me and said that my vote brought him to L-1. I think I had too much caffeine at the time or something because I even posted that I brought him to L-1, so sorry about that.
I still find that doctor claim as weak, though. If I was the doctor, I would definitely not tell people about it, even when being faced with a lynch. If you claim anything else, you might die (either by lynch or nk), but if you claim doctor, it's death sentence if it's true. Unless you're like a bulletproof doctor, which seems like it would never happen.

But in the event that somebody fakeclaimed Doctor this late in the game, wouldn't the real Doctor figure actually claiming might root out a potential scum? At this point if somebody fakeclaimed Doctor, I doubt it'd be a townie who wants to hide their role for 1.) there's not much more of a powerful town role than a doctor and 2.) most of our PR's have been killed. I'm very on the fence about this...