Confed battleship design

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Delance said:
And that Confed decided to build mega-carriers with a massive socket just in case they ever captured a gigant alien anti-fleet gun.

(Uh, I'm kidding, it was just a happy coincidence)
The Midway's versatile design enabled the installation of the Alien Fleet Plasma, not a specific socket/node
 
No way! it was the split hull that enabled it! THE SPACE CATAMARAN.
Ok, joking.
But the original WC masses themselves were arbitrary, so even if they're consistent to one another (and they aren't), they are still arbitrary.

BTW, being arbitrary is not necessarily a negative thing. There are endless arbitrary things in our lives.
 
Once again, they're not arbitrary, they're contextual. Something that's arbitrary is decided by chance -- the masses are not... a carrier outmasses a destroyer outmasses a transport outmasses a fighter. This is intentional and therefore can't be "arbitrary".
 
Arbitrary isn't necessarily UNintentional. it can be intentional, but as long as it is not derived from something "natural", it is arbitrary. Arbitrary is NOT inconsistent or incoherent.

For instance, the FIRST mass they determined while developing WC1 wasn't contextual. There was no context. Granted, ALL other masses were consistent with that one, but the ORIGINAL one was arbitrary anyway.
 
Edfilho said:
Arbitrary isn't necessarily UNintentional. it can be intentional, but as long as it is not derived from something "natural", it is arbitrary. Arbitrary is NOT inconsistent or incoherent.

Why are people challenging LOAF over the definition of a word? LOAF is an advanced English major. He knows what the word means.

Edfilho said:
For instance, the FIRST mass they determined while developing WC1 wasn't contextual. There was no context. Granted, ALL other masses were consistent with that one, but the ORIGINAL one was arbitrary anyway.

And as LOAF has said many times in this thread, there's no original one because the entire original fleet was designed to be internally consistent from the start.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Once again, they're not arbitrary, they're contextual. Something that's arbitrary is decided by chance -- the masses are not... a carrier outmasses a destroyer outmasses a transport outmasses a fighter. This is intentional and therefore can't be "arbitrary".

Not necessarily by chance, but also by, say, whim or impulse. The point is that something arbitrary is not determined by reason, or principles. But we are talking about different things. The masses are contextual when compared inside the universe, but are arbitrary (without a specific reason) when compared with objects outside it. As you were saying, the masses are contextual and make sense to one another, so the carrier has more mass than the destroyer. That’s right. On the other hand, the criteria itself as to which one object has a single mass is not substantiated by any specific cause or reason except in relation to other objects. This relation in-universe is the sole principle as to which cause is determined, as far as we know. So, we don't know why a WC object of a certain size has more or less mass than a real world object of similar size, say, a destroyer. When it comes to a more principled speculation, all the information available are in-universe, so it only makes sense to compare objects within the WCU. You did make a comment on the same line, saying that comparing a WC ship to a Battlestar Galatica ship was irrelevant. And that was the reason of my original comment, that speculating about why WC objects have their masses by comparing them with objects outside WCU would be a pointless exercise, since they can only be compared to one another, in relative terms. The bottom line is that it's contextual in relation with objects inside WCU itself, but it's arbitrary in relation with objects outside WCU because we have no basis to make the comparison.
 
I would add the following example:
If I made up a mass unit, like the Xilitron, which has no meaning in the real world, and assigned values to the WC ships like this:
Hornet: 10 xilitrons
Raptor: 25 xilitrons
Drayman: 89 xilitrons
Exeter: 140 Xilitrons
Bengal: 407 Xilitrons

They would be arbitrary, even though they are consistent.

But I won't bother, because Loaf is a Major. It's not like I've done a hell lot of college myself.
 
Edfilho said:
But I won't bother, because Loaf is a Major.

But you just did.. after saying we should all stop. LOAF being involved in intensive English studies and you two being non-native English speakers are just peripheral details that make this siller though. The core of the matter is that the whole thing makes sense as LOAF described it. This is just a ridiculous semantics debate, and you guys do this all the time.
 
This is just a ridiculous semantics debate

True, but it raises an interesting inconsistency.

If anything it was one of the most intelligent comments that I've read on this forum for days, despite if anyone "cared" or not. My thanks to Dacis2 for that.

And for the record, I've met some non-native English speakers who know the language much better than friends of mine who have BA, MFA, or other similar degrees in English. This is to say, it is not fair to compare someone's reasoning ability and comprehension based on the fact that they are or are not a native speaker of the language.

Edfilho has demonstrated plenty of ability with the English language, and suggesting that the subject is "siller" because of his ability in the English language in comparison to loaf is shortsighted at best.

There was the possibility for intelligent debate, but it was quickly stamped out. Instead it was replaced by bickering-- not on part of those who raised the question, but by others who didn't want to discuss the subject at hand.
 
If anything it was one of the most intelligent comments that I've read on this forum for days, despite if anyone "cared" or not. My thanks to Dacis2 for that.

The Brazilian twins not understanding what the word arbitrary means was one of the most intelligent comments you've read on this forum? Adorable.

Now, go back and read the thread: it's Delance and Filho playing their normal idiotic game. They think it's incredily endearing to say something dumb and then to get together and defend it on incredibly shakey semantic games until they've completely lost sight of whatever their original point was. Just look at post 44 -- sure, Filho says, our *point* is wrong, but we could still be *technically* correct under one tiny condition (you are not - the first set of masses was almost certainly the fighters, which are based on the masses of modern day aircraft)! Kudos to Chris for yelling at them this early in the game.
 
Flex said:
True, but it raises an interesting inconsistency.

No.. no it doesn't. It raises a very obvious notion that's universally present in science fiction with no merits to debate.

Flex said:
And for the record, I've met some non-native English speakers who know the language much better than friends of mine who have BA, MFA, or other similar degrees in English. This is to say, it is not fair to compare someone's reasoning ability and comprehension based on the fact that they are or are not a native speaker of the language.

That's great. I've known Delance for ten years now though, and he still riddles his posts with the same basic English mistakes he did before Wing Commander Prophecy was released. He shouldn't be arguing the nuances of diction with an English expert, yet he does so all the time.

Flex said:
Edfilho has demonstrated plenty of ability with the English language, and suggesting that the subject is "siller" because of his ability in the English language in comparison to loaf is shortsighted at best.

I could say the same thing about this post.

Flex said:
There was the possibility for intelligent debate, but it was quickly stamped out. Instead it was replaced by bickering-- not on part of those who raised the question, but by others who didn't want to discuss the subject at hand.

The people you're cleverly accusing of stamping out debate have spent thousands of hours trying to encourage Wing Commander discussion. But there's no high level physics discussion that was prevented from occuring here. The numbers cannot make sense in a real world physical sense. The only sense they make is within the terms of the Wing Commander universe, which is the discussion we've promoted over and over again in this thread.
 
Ptarmigan said:
Cool ship! :cool:
thanks!
Edfilho said:
I would add the following example:
If I made up a mass unit, like the Xilitron, which has no meaning in the real world, and assigned values to the WC ships like this:
Hornet: 10 xilitrons
Raptor: 25 xilitrons
Drayman: 89 xilitrons
Exeter: 140 Xilitrons
Bengal: 407 Xilitrons

They would be arbitrary, even though they are consistent.

But I won't bother, because Loaf is a Major. It's not like I've done a hell lot of college myself.
how about we use octogrammas

TCS Illustrious has a mass of two billion octogrammas
 
Flex said:
True, but it raises an interesting inconsistency.

If anything it was one of the most intelligent comments that I've read on this forum for days, despite if anyone "cared" or not. My thanks to Dacis2 for that.

And for the record, I've met some non-native English speakers who know the language much better than friends of mine who have BA, MFA, or other similar degrees in English. This is to say, it is not fair to compare someone's reasoning ability and comprehension based on the fact that they are or are not a native speaker of the language.

Edfilho has demonstrated plenty of ability with the English language, and suggesting that the subject is "siller" because of his ability in the English language in comparison to loaf is shortsighted at best.

There was the possibility for intelligent debate, but it was quickly stamped out. Instead it was replaced by bickering-- not on part of those who raised the question, but by others who didn't want to discuss the subject at hand.

So now we're talking about how we write on the forums? Come on! This isn't an English class. Sure we try to write properly here, but it doesn't have to be perfect.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Now, go back and read the thread: it's Delance and Filho playing their normal idiotic game. They think it's incredily endearing to say something dumb and then to get together and defend it on incredibly shakey semantic games until they've completely lost sight of whatever their original point was. Just look at post 44 -- sure, Filho says, our *point* is wrong, but we could still be *technically* correct under one tiny condition (you are not - the first set of masses was almost certainly the fighters, which are based on the masses of modern day aircraft)! Kudos to Chris for yelling at them this early in the game.

Strong words, but they are not accompanied by an equally strong point. It seems you didn’t do much effort to understand what was said, or even made an effort to misunderstand it, since you basically made the same point on 43. A shakey semantics game would be an attempt to equate arbitrary with chance, which obviously was not the sense in which the word was used, and then refute something that wasn’t said. Anyway, it was also bizarre when Chris claimed me and Edmo couldn't understand the worlds arbitrary and contextual as well as you, because of your degree in English. That makes no sense, especially considering those come from Latin words arbiter and textura and only entered the English language later on. If anything, someone who knows Portuguese, Italian and Latin would be more than well equipped to understand it.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
The Brazilian twins not understanding what the word arbitrary means was one of the most intelligent comments you've read on this forum? Adorable.

Now, go back and read the thread: it's Delance and Filho playing their normal idiotic game. They think it's incredily endearing to say something dumb and then to get together and defend it on incredibly shakey semantic games until they've completely lost sight of whatever their original point was. Just look at post 44 -- sure, Filho says, our *point* is wrong, but we could still be *technically* correct under one tiny condition (you are not - the first set of masses was almost certainly the fighters, which are based on the masses of modern day aircraft)! Kudos to Chris for yelling at them this early in the game.

You know, Loaf, the only argument you came up with that meant anything at all is "the first set of masses was almost certainly the fighters, which are based on the masses of modern day aircraft", which is a guess, it might even be right, who knows.

BTW, you both displayed your ignorance of etymology, because arbitrary is derived from a latin word, and therefore is more "native" from latin tongues than English. It is very foolish to think that the use of "arbitrary" has anything to do with speaking english at all. Not to mention that in my studies of linguistics I've both used and read this term with the precise meaing I tried to convey. Go read Charles Sanders Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure, not to mention Umberto Eco. The idiotic semantics game is on you.

Chris also missed entirely the irony of my Xilitron post, which is sad. Chris, shouting at other people about how great and wise your friend is makes up a very poor argument. It only makes you look bad. Here, read a bit about it: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/authorit.html

And everytime I have some valid point, all you guys do is twist semantics to make it weaker, the accuse ME of doing that. Dude, I KNOW which one of the aceptions of the word I used. Funny how that happens again and again and again. When I don't concede to the silliness, you just try to debase me with childish insults. That is really bad form and poor sportsmanship.

And the saddest part is that if I try to treat you guys like you guys treat me, I get banned. Debates are completely unfair, unbalanced and arbitrary, whenever I disagree with LOAF. And yeah, "arbitrary" here has another meaning! Gasp!

PS: My grasp and understanding of the English language must not be as bad as you convey, considering how I get payed by publishers to review books written in english, and advise if they should be translated or not. I even got to translate a philosophy book to Portuguese. Mere wild chance, perhaps...

EDIT: Holy crap, I sincerely had no idea delance was posting the above. Great minds think alike, ehehehe.
 
I'm sorry, what part of what I just posted made it sound like I really, really wanted the adorable Brazilian conspiracy to post *more*? Delance, six month ban... Ed, permanent ban.
 
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