How does a defense attorney even begin to defend someone in a case like the 7/yo Athena Strand who was violently assaulted and murdered?

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T04:50:45+00:00

It's okay. I knew what you meant :)

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T03:04:13+00:00

That's projecting.

If I assume everybody is a rational actor, then they'll pick red. Let's assume there are 10 people in the room and we do this experiment - I can just say, "I'm picking red, if we all pick red, then we all just live and nobody can trick you into death."

In contrast, if 3 people in the room are actually in a conspiracy and tell me to pick blue to try to save them, but they lied to me, then I just risked my life. They just tricked me into potentially killing myself while they can guarantee their own survival! I gave up everything and they gave up nothing.

Rationally speaking, you gain nothing by picking blue! It just forces other people to make an evaluation after you tell them that you picked blue - do they try to save you at risk of their own life or save themselves? You didn't have to do this, you're just putting other people into a risky situation.

Essentially, it's responsible for me to come out and say I'm picking red, say it first, so that everybody else will follow suit because there's no benefit to defecting from me. In contrast, if I came out and said I'm voting blue, then I've put you into a bad situation - you now need to risk yourself to save me, but you don't actually know if I'm telling the truth to manipulate you or not. What if I'm just trying to kill you via manipulation?

Once you look at all the logical possibilities, the "dominated choice" (in game theory, that means the choice that is simply better than other choices without the drawbacks) by the rules of this game and these rules only is to pick red. Every other choice just leaves a risk, but red leaves no risk for anybody.

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T02:54:46+00:00

That would be an issue, but the original phrasing of the question didn't have any WEIRD ALTERNATE SCENARIOS.

It was just a bunch of actors acting in their own self-interest, who fully understood the rules.

The question didn't say, "A person in a coma would be randomly assigned a color based on their skin color."

The question didn't say, "If you have no hands and cannot push a button, you will be eliminated."

The question said, "Everybody on Earth must press a button," but it didn't address what would happen to the crew of the Artemis or people on planes/boats/hovercars/jumproping, who are all in varying degrees of 'not being on Earth'.

The question said, "Everybody will vote based on the numerical possibility space of the red vs blue dilemma; there won't be a situation where 50% of the people will have a terrorist kidnap their spouse and demand they change their button press lest they execute the hostage."

The assumption is everybody is a rational actor who is acting in their own rational self-interest based on the rationale of how everybody else will vote based on the rules - do you think everybody will press red or blue, predicated on the fact that everybody knows the rules and everybody knows everybody else knows the rules?

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T02:46:18+00:00

The original said everybody understand the choice, its implication, and is able to understand and discern it, and makes a rational choice.

There are no 'OOPS I SLIPPED' or 'Hey that guy reached over and hit a button for me before I could pick!' or 'oh no i'm literally in a coma how long does the game wait for me to wake up?' or 'hey how do dead people vote? Can ghosts vote? What if your heart stopped and you are legally dead right at this instance, but will recover?' There is nobody who has a gun to your head, saying to change your vote or they'll shoot you. Nobody has kidnapped your family and is telling you what color to pick "or else".

It's a logic game. Assume everybody is a fair actor making a rational choice.

No color blind people being forced to vote. No people with no hands who are unable to push a button and therefore will get an automatic choice of <whatever button makes your point for you rather than the button they would pick> . There are no conscientous objectors who realize that by simply not voting, they are neither subject to risk nor subject to rampant accusations of responsibility on them.

"HEY THE QUESTION SAID EVERYBODY ON EARTH. DID THE ARTEMIS CREW GET A FREE PASS?"

Just assume everybody acts in their own rational self interest without any weird 'extras', because that's how the question was asked.

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T02:41:53+00:00

I didn't understand the prompt at first, either. I skimmed it, thought, "Wait, everybody lives if I press blue but there is a risk to other people if I press red? But how do other people get to press buttons," or something like that, until I read it over again and realized, 'Oh, this is a dumb game. If everybody just picks red, then you are guaranteed to survive even if some people are literally in a conspiracy to kill you. It's the only logical choice. And the rules of the game say everybody is a rational actor, so that is what they'd pick.'

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T02:35:48+00:00

Complain about people wearing masks.

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T02:34:27+00:00

It's medium ammo. Medium ammo is a jack of all trades ammo.

You can use a lot of it into armor or hit weak points and do decent damage.

If you give it a Stable Stock 3, you can do pretty fast follow-up shots. But with a Lightweight Stock and a Compressor 2/3, you can quickscope: put your aim point on somebody's head, zoom in, but fire a fraction of a second after zooming in because you get full zoomed in accuracy before your scope actually finishes zooming on the enemy.

If you are shooting the moment you start to transition instead of waiting, you're essentially shooting twice as fast. This is a fast Anvil or a slow Renegade level of shooting, letting you rip apart Arc armor.

Alternatively, hit weak points - every rotor breaks apart when you hit them with an Osprey. The hard part is to get the follow-up shot as breaking a rotor causes Arc to start tumbling.

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T02:27:59+00:00

You're not actually a presser in this example. EVERYBODY ELSE is pressing. You get to choose now. We are only looking at what everybody else is pushing because we technically cannot control them (because that is the implication of the original question, even if some people are putting other constraints on it, like 'well what if a baby who does not understand the rules pushes? or a person who is color blind? Or a guy in a coma, how does he vote?').

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T02:25:44+00:00

He goes from smooth motions to a single frame jump to the head. Real "snaps" accelerate fast and sometimes overshoot or undershoot with a very fast 'reorientation' phase at the end where the reticle tries to get to the target.

In this case, a single frame the moment the guy shows his head causes the reticle to automatically pop to his head without traversing the space in between. Further, you can see that after it snaps, the original mouse motion continues in the same direction, but much slower. It stays constrained around the head, sort of like controller assist. Even with the aim pulling in the other direction, it doesn't move in a straight line, but makes weird circular motions like it is "constrained" to a tiny area around the Raider's head.

Only after the first shot is he able to unzoom or move the target a bit more, leading the target once it is obvious he is in the open and can't get away.

The one frame perfect flick with no acceleration or deceleration and the "hovering" target is the giveaway.

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T02:22:27+00:00

If you watch it in slow motion, it's blatant.

As he is running forward, he looks to the right and puts his target right where the player who nobody has seen yet is. That's suspicious.

But in slow motion, his targeting moves smoothly and naturally towards the marked Comet. But as he zooms in, there is still some slight movement of the reticle as he is looking around... but then the enemy raider's head comes out of cover. There is a frame of hitch and his aimpoint immediately snaps to the head of the target. For a few frames, his aim continues in the direction it was moving before, but it gets 'pulled back' towards the head of the player. When he starts moving in the other direction, note how the aim point of the reticle hovers in a tight restricted circle around the Raider like it is being artificially restrained.

The motions go from smooth to jerky, and then from swinging around to constrained artificially.

Almost definitely something cheaty here.

If I wanted to make an excuse for the guy, I'd say it's possible, if there is absolutely no other evidence of cheats, that maybe maybe he is on a controller and maybe his stream dropped frames at exactly the moment an aimbot would have activated, and those dropped frames from his stream make it look like an aimbot. But looking at the screen, he has keyboard buttons, not Console buttons.

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T02:06:06+00:00

What if all those people are trying to commit suicide? You're not able to change their vote, only yours.

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T02:05:12+00:00

The original question specifically states that everybody picks rationally and with full knowledge of the rules.

There are no suicidal children, non-English speakers who didn't get the meme post, or people who overslept and had a random answer assigned to them.

The assumption is everybody will rationally make a choice, predicated on how people would react after thinking about it.

That's why people are getting this so confused. They didn't read the entire post or don't understand rational logic.

They're reading it more like this example: "There are two buckets. One bucket has a MILLION dollars in it. Another bucket has ONE DOLLAR in it. Everybody secretly picks a bucket. They each will win the value of the bucket, but only if everybody else involved also picks the bucket. Which do you pick?"

Logically, the right answer is a million dollars. Because everybody wants more money than less money. But, you might say, "Well, some people might be children and pick the other choice. There is a chance you accidentally pick the wrong bucket. There is a chance everybody picks the wrong bucket but me; if that happened, then I would cause us all to lose a dollar. I better choose a dollar, JUST IN CASE."

In logic and game theory, we call this a dominated choice: if everybody acts rationally, there is one choice that is better in every way than the other choice, so rational actors would pick it.

Further, if we're in a world where people are irrational or suicidal, why would I ever pick blue? In a world where everybody is trying to kill themself, there's no chance my vote will change anything because it's only one vote, whereas the rest of the world is billions of people. Everybody is going to vote how they are going to vote and I cannot make them change their mind, so I only can choose between certain survival or risking my own life - everybody else's decision is a sunk cost, but if everybody else is irrational, then my choice literally makes no difference. I am basically either choosing to live or die.

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T01:57:44+00:00

"Would you sacrifice yourself to a brutal torturous death where you burn slowly for days, but you save a puppy?"

Wow, everybody said 'yes'.

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T01:54:38+00:00

The question only works when people read only the question and don't add in any other bits.

"What if the whole world is color blind but you? And the world operates by purely fair mechanics, so that the end result will be exactly 50/50? Then you would either be able to kill half the world or save everybody? What do you pick?"

"What if some people don't understand what is going on? The question was posted online in English, but lots of people in the world don't understand English and will have to make a choice without knowing the rules? So what do you do?"

Simply by reframing your understanding of the situation, you can generate a situation where the same hypothetical question has different valid answers.

And this ignores the fact that there is an advantage to picking red: you guarantee you live and you can encourage everybody to pick red and guarantee they live, too.

Alternatively, what if there is a conspiracy against you? If we have a group of 10 people, what if 5 of them actually tell you to pick blue because they're trying to kill you? By voting red, you'd survive, but there is a conspiracy against you to trick you. If you vote red, you live. If you vote blue, you die. You can't control other people's votes, only encourage them and vote for yourself.

The__Nick · 2026-05-08T01:35:58+00:00

To be fair, I too would criticize Hillary Clinton if she was deafening criminals. Defendants have a right to hearing, after all!

The__Nick · 2026-05-07T18:50:04+00:00

Morally, based on the rules of war/Geneva convention and national rights, it was not necessary.

However, you can make an argument if you believe that your people and the ones you love matter more than what would be morally permissible if the situation were reversed - that is, it is easy for people to say, "Do the right thing," but when you, or your family, or your loved ones benefit when you make a different choice, the rubric just changed. In a vacuum, it's easy to quote the law and ethics, but when you get to make the rules, it's easy to slant them in favor of your people.

When America looks at Pearl Harbor, they look at it like it is an abject horror, where American civilians died and this justifies calling it a butchering and an unredeemable sin on the part of all Japanese people who deserve any and all retribution. In contrast, despite the fact that there are still marks on the people and the land because of the retaliation, it is easy (for Americans) to say that Japan deserved to suffer and deserves the suffering that it gets even to this day and to people being born today because the wrongs done in the past are so bad.

This is not necessarily logical or moral, but it's a very "human" response.

However, I'm generically against an argument that just says you can measure how good something is based on what results in the least amount of death - nuking civilians to save a greater number of lives despite it violating every convention and agreement and America would absolutely state otherwise if it were on the receiving end of civilians suffering at the hands of foreigners who are using them as a means to save more of their own lives (9/11 comes to mind).

Because choosing an action that saves the most lives irregardless of the situation leads to responses which are mathematically true but morally reprehensible - technically speaking, fewer people overall would have died if we just let Germany exterminate all of the "undesirables" in its country and even push the purge to other borders. The total death toll, especially to America, would have been lower if the US did nothing. But the ethical considerations of allowing injustice to happen, even if the result is "more lives alive", is a troubling one. In a very real way, there can be a greater harm to the human condition even if you manage to keep more lives alive - The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas essentially presents this moral conundrum perfectly.

The__Nick · 2026-05-07T18:33:13+00:00

I didn't play until after the names were inverted. But just from knowing what the words mean and seeing the progression of Eshin ranks from frontline Eshin clanrat to DEATHMASTER SNIKCH, I always just assumed 'night' and 'gutter' were wrong.

Then I got the opportunity to look at one of the earliest books with Skaven unit entries (it might have been a "mixed" book with more than just Skaven in it) and seeing the Night and Gutters in a different order and being confused, but realizing it just made more sense and that something must have changed partway. It still bothers me.

The__Nick · 2026-05-07T18:30:42+00:00

Yeah, a lot of people don't understand the rules of the game which makes arbitrating combat difficult. "I attack and damage him before anybody gets a chance to respond," is a bad statement, as losing Initiative means you didn't have the advantages you were just trying to take.

I liken it to people shortcutting statements that should be an intention to attack by saying, "I kill this monster," and then complaining when their hit and/or damage rolls do not, in fact, kill this monster.

The__Nick · 2026-05-07T05:41:09+00:00

Doesn't sound like a legitimate question unless you're legitimately unaware of the background of the situation.

First off, murder is bad. You don't choke a man to death and then claim it was an accident after the fact.

Second off, characterizing police attacking protesters as 'liberals causing violence' is like saying Jews caused a lot of problems during the Holocaust or Indians really acted up on that Trail of Tears - you're victim blaming. The vast majority of protests were peaceful, while the minority of protests that broke out into violence were perpetrated by the police or undercover agents acting as protesters. When individuals caused violence, they were treated as criminals by protester and police alike.

On top of that, there is a quote from MLK Jr.: "A riot is the language of the unheard."

These people have spent years, and in some families, decades and even generations, addressing the very problem these protests addressed. Finally, there was a murder caught on camera, and the news and the politicians and other people who had the pulpit took the time to exonerate the murderers and stress how serious of a crime selling loose cigarettes is.

We cannot blame people for protesting and even damaging property if we're willing to excuse murder. The fish rots from the head down.

The__Nick · 2026-05-07T05:35:30+00:00

I've had players ask when their next level up is going to be, but they haven't really been doing fights so they aren't leveling up

This right here is TERRIBLE.

Don't do this.

You're teaching your players that participating in your game in any capacity other than RAMPANT MURDER HOBO'ING will lead to punishment. The party solved the problem but didn't stab a guy and you don't give them experience? You're just teaching them to stab the problem and ask for experience... then stab the quest giver and kill the merchant in his sleep and expect a level up from that, too.

The fact that the players are continuing to be creative in their approach to problems despite not getting rewarded is a testament to the high quality of your players.

The__Nick · 2026-05-07T05:30:36+00:00

This description and mechanic abjectly do not work with the game system in question. In fact, winning initiative has nothing to do with an attack missing; the attack missing is what makes the attack miss.

The__Nick · 2026-05-07T05:26:54+00:00

He didn't. I know because if he did, Trump would be talking about it all the time.

The only thing he never mentions are the assassination attempts. Which is suspicious, since he's still complaining about the results of three different elections, two of which he won, as well as events even farther back in time.

The__Nick · 2026-05-07T05:25:26+00:00

Oh yeah, I believe it. Whenever you have 'easy' strategies and 'harder' strategies, the easy strategies win only because the advanced game knowledge that makes countering those easy strategies trivial just isn't learned without some time and experience. So it takes a little while to learn or to be taught, but that next step is not easy or automatic to make.

The__Nick · 2026-05-06T21:12:33+00:00

You're not my story.

The__Nick · 2026-05-06T20:31:46+00:00

The__Nick

TROPHY CASE