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How the Magic: The Gathering Color Wheel Explains Humanity

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Re: How the Magic: The Gathering Color Wheel Explains Humanity

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was more referring to the cultural content (names, flavor text, art) than the game mechanics. Besides which, Turing completeness, accidental or not, is a silly metric that doesn't say anything about a game.

>Turing completeness, accidental or not, is a silly metric that doesn't say anything about a game. You can literally crash the game so you never know if you've won or lost.

If you're referring to the Turing completeness, the algorithm and cards that were found require both players to be acting in concert to achieve the Turing machine; either player could stop at any time. I don't see the fact that players can choose to act strangely in a game to be a reflection of the game itself.

If you're talking about things like combining effects together that happen to cause an unbreakable infinite loop, then I'd argue that you're wrong; there's a rule that defines unbreakable infinite loops as a tie, so you know whether you won or lost (i.e. you did neither; it's not an xor, although it is a nand).

Re: How the Magic: The Gathering Color Wheel Explains Humanity

#23
post #19

On a side note: If you were successful in MtG and other 'deep' games, would you list it on your CV? Or does it still have the image of a children's card game?

I learned much with MtG. Problem with such games is that they are "winner takes it all" and in "real life" a win with "one life point" usually isn't worth it.

There are plenty of pass/fail situations where it is, though. A sale where you get the job due to a 1% lead over a competitor is still a sale.

Re: How the Magic: The Gathering Color Wheel Explains Humanity

#24

On a side note: If you were successful in MtG and other 'deep' games, would you list it on your CV? Or does it still have the image of a children's card game?

In Australia at least, it's not unusual for CVs to include an "interests" section with 2-3 interests listed.

It's typically used to list hobbies and interests and if it gets mentioned during an interview, the candidate can briefly touch on their success (and maybe even how it lossely relates to the role).

Re: How the Magic: The Gathering Color Wheel Explains Humanity

#25
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree in the general, it's pretty clear that magic the gathering draws considerable inspiration from human literature and culture, and was exceptionally well planned and very carefully evolved over decades so if even if these arrangements aren't intentional, they certainly aren't accidental.

> was exceptionally well planned and very carefully evolved over decades Have you seen the number of banned cards? Or the fact that it's accidentally Turing complete? This is a card game, nothing more nothing less.

It's surprising to me that you assert that a system which is simultaneously complex-enough to support Turing-complete calculation, and simple enough to be a "pick-up-and-play card game", is not carefully evolved.

Fair shout on the number of banned cards, though - R&D and playtesting could definitely do better, there!

Re: How the Magic: The Gathering Color Wheel Explains Humanity

#26
The whole opposites/balance motif is just something humans are really into about right now because we can't yet compare more than two things in our brain at a time.

In reality all of these things are orthogonal, and while we do have words to distinguish them, they are only "opposing" in the sense that there is a word specifically meant to distinguish between them. Whatever that word is, it's just an over-simplified symbol in your brain.

There is always a solution that includes both "opposites" but is too paradoxical feeling for us to yet see.

Overall, these "opposing" concepts are really just different means of reaching the same juicy core of sentience, but nothing less than all at once will get us the entire way.

Re: How the Magic: The Gathering Color Wheel Explains Humanity

#27
post #8

It is fun to see how much of this overlaps with the official guidelines for colors [0]. I think that the five colors are better explained in terms of deck strategies and win conditions. Crucially, by design, no color is best, nor is any combination of colors best. White represents not dying, both by preventing damage and by healing damage. White wins by having more health than their opponents, and outlasting them in…

> Crucially, by design, no color is best Except for blue of course.

If I play blue, no fun for you!

- Teferi

Re: How the Magic: The Gathering Color Wheel Explains Humanity

#28

On a side note: If you were successful in MtG and other 'deep' games, would you list it on your CV? Or does it still have the image of a children's card game?

For what it's worth, I know enough people who went on from MtG to make a ton of money in poker and/or finance that I'd probably perk up if someone with decent Grand Prix or Pro Tour finishes popped up during hiring. That said I am also biased and sentimental.

Re: How the Magic: The Gathering Color Wheel Explains Humanity

#29

The whole opposites/balance motif is just something humans are really into about right now because we can't yet compare more than two things in our brain at a time. In reality all of these things are orthogonal, and while we do have words to distinguish them, they are only "opposing" in the sense that there is a word specifically meant to distinguish between them. Whatever that word is, it's just an over-simplified s…

Yes. Things are complex and multidimensional. But projections to lower dimensional spaces help us grasp it. Even if they distort the complex thing somewhat. If you see enough projections you can get the idea and some intuition about multidimensional thing. Much more than you could achieve just trying to see it in its full complexity at once.

Re: How the Magic: The Gathering Color Wheel Explains Humanity

#30
> Victory for a white agent feels like brightness, purity, exaltation — a clean breeze sweeping across a high plain under a bright sun. Defeat feels like watching the corrosion creep forward, the great monuments crumble, or the enemy pouring over the gates, knowing that the goodness of the world is unraveling.

> Victory for a black agent feels hefty, exultant, and satisfying, like a bag of gold coins or a heavy hammer — it’s the feeling you have when you know that the game is won, even if you haven’t yet crossed the finish line. Defeat, on the other hand, feels like aging or imprisonment — like scrabbling against an unscalable wall behind which your dreams are turning to ash and trickling away, leaving you with nothing.

... I'm just going to leave those would-be poetic words there, and await the inevitable visitation of the Junior Anti-Fascist League to claim thoughtcrime against the author.

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