Realistic approach to crafting in video games

Note: File this under "things that only game developers and maybe a few economists care about".

Looking at the approaches to the crafting of items available in video games, I see two approaches to crafting in video games:

1. List = Each item, for which you have the resources to craft, is displayed in a list, and can be crafted by selecting an item.  Terraria uses this approach.
2. Drawing = Each item must be crafted by placing items in predefined arrangements in a limited number of slots.  Minecraft uses this approach.

Both of these approaches share two properties:

1. Limited list of craft-able items
2. Predefined categories of items craft-able with predefined set of items.

Neither crafting approach is open to player ingenuity, as Linux is open.  If a player wants to make a less expensive pickaxe, he can't make it less expensive by decreasing the quality of the pickaxe, nor can he substitute items.  Rather, crafting is a fixed paradigm, in which the player can only craft what the developers allow.  There are ways in which developers try to make their paradigms lean toward realism, but they usually revolve around magic (e.g. enchanting in Minecraft and Diablo) or some other arbitrary buffing system.

This paradigm is modifiable outside of the game, but this is no solace for those who cannot program yet wish to improve their situation inside the game by merely making things in different ways than the game permits.  In the spirit of realism in gaming, I propose a crafting system that takes what humans already do in order to craft something.  It has two modes of crafting, in order to represent the widest range of means by which humans craft stuff:

1. Limbs
2. Machines

By default, every player has two hands to hold stuff and two legs, among other things.  In each hand you can hold an item.  You can swing each hand; you can press two things together with both hands; the range of activities of hands is endless, which will make this particular approach to crafting difficult to implement in a way that mimics the total range of realistic human manual crafting options.

Let us take a simple example to explain the Limbs Mode of crafting: turning rocks into smaller sharper rocks.  The player holds a rock in each hand.  One rock is a rock from a river; it is soft in appearance and rounded due to erosion and weathering.  The other rock is hard and a bit rougher in appearance.  The player swings both rocks together, breaking the river rock into pieces.  The harder rock merely gains a scuff mark, but is otherwise unaffected.  Now, the player has a hard rock in one hand, some rock pieces in the other hand, and some rock dust and pieces on the ground in front of him.  The player's effort may or may not get him a sharp enough stone; chances are that he got mostly dull chunks of rock.

The Machine Mode is much more complex, because machines can be very simple machines that require human operation, or they can very complex, that require that a button be pressed to start and stop them.  Let us take the example of a forge.  When you want to heat up a piece of metal, you have to use a pair of metal tongs to hold the piece of metal in the center of the forge's fire pot.  Since the fire pot doesn't burn hot enough on its own, air flow must be introduced, usually by some sort of bellows.  While the player is holding the tongs, which is holding the metal piece in the fire pot, he has to operate the bellows.  Thus, acting alone, using a simple forge is a two-handed operation.

Operation of machines, such as forges, involves tools and manual effort, but that is not the norm for modern machines.  Nowadays, many machines (e.g. home printers) require only that you supply it with input materials (e.g. ink and paper), a power source (e.g. electricity), some data (e.g. document information), and to press a few buttons (e.g. the power button and the print button).  Thus we can see that modern machines are less labor intensive than older machines, such as forges.  The labor intensiveness of any particular machine tends to be inherent to the machine, though it is obviously possible for a machine to be used in a way other than what it was designed to be used.

Regardless of the Mode of Crafting, players must at some point use their limbs, most likely their hands, at some point in the chain of crafting.  That is, before a player can a forge, some player must build that forge, which will likely require the use of tools, which in turn requires the usage of hands.  As was likely already obvious, this two-moded approach to craft is really a one-moded approach; the second mode is only possible by means of the first, and all it does is make production easier.


This may all seem cumbersome at first, but it need not be so when implemented.  Heck, I readily admit that my approach to crafting is tautological; my theoretical system is realistic when I merely tell you how it works in reality.  However, this essay is meant only to provide the concept of a realistic approach to crafting.  I am merely exposing reality, in its simplicity, so that realism in games may be easier to achieve.

----

 There are two questions that I have not answered above, which I will have to address later:

1. How are machines to be built?  (hopefully without the need for physics calculations being done on the fly.)
2. How can this realistic approach to crafting escape from the pit of the predefined items, that plagues Minecraft most of all.
     (The answer must tie into the answer to the first question.)

I do have answers for those two questions, but I think they are not sufficient to present yet.  I am seeking to keep things simple, just as crafting is simple (i.e. use your hands) so machines and item definition must be simple.  By simple, I don't mean easy; I mean something along the lines of, "the most raw", and, "in its most rudimentary constituent parts."

Talking the Talk vs Walking the Walk: on the origin of blind adherence to an ideology and a solution

An ideological dialect is a set of phrases and terms that fit together in association with an ideological framework.  The dialect is used as shorthand for the ideology, in order to facilitate more efficient communication.  The semantic framework of an ideology is distinct from the ideology itself.  Because of the nature of human speech, it is entirely possible for one to speak in an ideological dialect without actually ever understanding the ideology itself.

For instance, a person may grow up in a family of Christians and believe himself to be a Christian, until he actually starts analyzing his supposed understanding of Christianity.  He later decides that he dislikes Christianity and therefore moves either to call himself an atheist or turn to some other religion.  The issue is that he learned how to talk like the other Christians around him, but he did not actually learn anything about Christianity.  His understanding of Christianity was a straw-man of the ideology: the ideological dialect of Christianity.  The reason this occurred was due to the fact that the other supposed Christians around him tested his belief in Christianity not on whether or not he understood Christianity, but whether or not he could use their phraseology.  He would say, "yes I believe Christ is my personal Lord and Savior," and his family would believe him, because he used the words in a semantically correct manner.  He passed the test, but he didn't understand why the words are meaningful; he identifies himself as a Christian, though he knows only the words.  He merely found out that the words are meaningful and how to arrange them in a meaningful way in order to fit in with his family.  Thus, his conversion away from Christianity was in fact a conversion away from the ideological dialect and not from any particular ideology.

There is a bias inherent to low-level tests of ideological status.  That test consists of reciting, rote, the phrases that are meaningful to those that know the phraseology of that ideology.  Since the ideological dialect depends on a fluency in an actual language, English in our case, it is trivial for someone to use the words in a grammatically correct manner; the only trick is to use the ideological phrases and terms in a semantically correct manner.  Thus, an ideological dialect is far simpler to learn than a language.

To put it very plainly, it is very easy to talk the talk, but what matters is that one can walk the walk.   Talking the talk is speaking the ideological dialect; walking the walk is understanding the ideology.

It must be stressed that using an ideological dialect but not understanding the ideology can be either (1) an innocent lack of understanding, a sort of naivete, or (2) the lack of understanding can be on purpose.  It is my guess that the innocent lack of understanding is more common outside of politics, whereas deliberate failure to try to comprehend an ideology is more common in politics.  Regardless, it is the understanding of the ideology and declaration of belief in the ideology that must be the test of adherence to the ideology.  Mere understanding is not adherence, but mere declaration of belief is mere linguistic gymnastics.

I am saying that one should not take someone else at their word.  If they are seriously interested in proving their ideological status, then they should prove it by demonstrating their understanding and declaring their adherence to said ideology.  Unfortunately, demonstrating understanding is as complicated as the thing to be understood; many ideologies have an intricate framework that many do not have the time to comprehend.

I am betting that everything I've said is intuitive once demonstrated, thus it may seem like a no-brainer to even mention these things.  However, I see it all too often where someone will say they believe in a particular ideology, but reject it without at any time ever understanding anything other than the dialect of that ideology.  Thus, the rejection is not a rejection of the ideology itself, but a rejection of the dialect of the ideology.  It is possible that this could lead to a more wholesome understanding of some other ideology, but it is also possible that the individual may seek another dialect to speak for the sake of identity.

The common names for ideological dialect are rhetoric, dogma, and doctrine, though they lack clear definition.  With the distinction between dialect of and understanding of an ideology, we can determine whether or not someone is being dogmatic/rhetorical/doctrinal or if they actually care about understanding the ideology in question.  It unfortunately goes without saying that to argue for or against an ideology requires a proper understanding of that ideology, else one commits the straw-man fallacy.  Despite this, many people will argue for or against an ideology and appear dogmatic when someone proposes a counter-argument.

Thus, a Facebook thread will be quickly filled with catch-phrases from both atheists and Christians about a particular controversial topic; both sides talk the talk, but neither side is walking the walk.  That is, neither side is concerned with understanding, they merely want to bash each other for the ideology with which they claim to identify; the Christians claim the atheists are evil (e.g. "atheists are going to Hell") or stupid (e.g. "Evolution is only a theory"), and the atheists claim that the Christian are stupid (e.g. "you don't know what a theory is") or evil (e.g. "you just want to force your morality onto everyone else").  With each example in parentheses, each side is either straw-manning the position of the other side.  Each side is merely attacking the ideological dialect of the other side, with the assumption being that that is the essence of the other side's argument.  Further, it is entirely possible that both sides know only their respective ideological dialects, thus what could have been an argument over a controversial issue is turned into a dramatic, glorified cursing-match, the likes of which is all too common.

There two solutions that I see to the problem of someone seemingly only able to straw-man an ideology (against an ideology) or only able to talk the talk of an ideology (in favor of an ideology):

1. Have that person demonstrate their understanding of the ideology being discussed.  If they succeed in demonstrating a sufficient level of understanding of the ideology, then the debate can continue.
• This affords you the opportunity to strike at the roots of the other person's position.  If they can only talk the talk, then you can dismiss them as using the straw-man fallacy in favor of their own position. (Such a revelation will do wonders for you in formal and informal debate.)  If the person can walk the walk, then you have free reign strike at the roots of the ideology, most importantly the soundness of its assumptions and the validity of its conclusions.
2. If the person fails to demonstrate anything more than the ability to use an ideological dialect, then walk the person through each part of the underpinnings of the ideology.  It is not relevant whether or not the ideology is correct; explanation and understanding are the goal.  Once the person understands the ideology, then you have opened up their mind for them to either reject the ideology or argue for it more intelligently.  Such spurning or grasping of an ideology is not dogmatic, rhetoric, or doctrinal; it would be the result of understanding.  The next thing to do is to explain the opposing ideology, such that the person has a more complete understanding of what other people are saying about the issues associate with the ideology.

If someone appears to be a blind believer or appears to be dogmatic and implacable in their stance, then first ascertain whether or not he/she actually understands the ideology.  For lack of a better name, I am calling this the Walking Method of Debate (Ha, WMD), in which one walks through all the steps to arrive at the conclusion for which one's opponent is arguing.  With their ideology exposed and lain out on the table, one then proceeds to examine each part of the argument for any flaws.  The most important things to look for are any assumptions that are not sound and any conclusions that are not valid.  If your opponents argument lacks either soundness or validity, then the conclusions are necessarily false.

Thus, WMD has two parts to it: (1) walking through every bit of the opponents argument and describing it as clearly and accurately as possible, and (2) critically examining each part of that argument for soundness and validity.

WMD is most obviously applicable to attempting to refute someone else's position; person A will attempt to convince B to reject position X by walking through the logic of position X and demonstrating its flaws.  That is its most common usage.  However, it is more often used to argue in favor of a position; person A will attempt to convince person B to accept position Z by walking through the logic of Z and demonstrating its merits.  Obviously, one must be careful to get an accurate and complete view of the position, because it is remarkably easy to straw-man a position, even one's own claimed position.

I recognise that WMD is not new; I have not created some anything that people have not already been using.  As far as I know, I am merely giving it a name.

Why the US Dollar is a Bubble Product

 (Note: this post is in response to this post on Reddit.  The indented and bold text are quotes from that post)

Recently, there has been much talk over a possible collapse of the US dollar, by various means.  In particular, economists have offered predictions, the most notable of which has come from Austrian economists, who generally point out that the US dollar is a fiat currency.  Herein, I delve into that subject.

[don't] Austrian [economists] predict an oncoming, complete collapse of the US dollar?

It is true that some Austrian economists claim that the US dollar will collapse in the near future.  However, most Austrian economists are focused on economic theory, because any prediction without an explanation appears arbitrary to most people.  That is not to say that the majority of Austrian economists are looking to make predictions; rather, they are probably interested in explaining the theories for the sheer sake of educating others in those theories.

Regarding any supposed collapse of the US dollar: a collapse of the US dollar will be preceded by some action, whether on the part of an individual (very unlikely) or by a group of individuals (more likely).  Basically, either the demand for US dollars would have to fall sharply, or the supply of dollars would have to rise sharply.

Now, we must define what the collapse of a currency is: a devaluation of the currency such that it loses its status as a money and begins to be consumed or discarded by those who had previously used it as a currency.  When the Wiemar Republic's currency was devalued through hyperinflation, poor individuals began using that paper money as fuel to keep themselves warm; this is an example of a currency being treated as a commodity.  In Zimbabwe, hyperinflation was so great, that many started looking to gold prospecting as a means of paying for food and other necessities; the Zimbabwean dollars began to be regarding as trivial pieces of paper.

It must be mentioned that a currency collapse does not happen instantly nor evenly.  Some people may try to use the paper notes as currency, thus they are assuming that it has some value left as a currency.  This is so because value is subjective; there is no objective reason that I should trade X units of goods for Y units of currency; each person decides based on the information available to him/her as to how to allocate their scarce resources.  Thus, a currency collapse will affect certain industries to different degrees.  For instance, the financial industry would be hit the hardest, since they trade present dollars for future dollars (and vice-verse),  present goods for future dollars (and vice-verse).  Further, those who trade dollars for other currencies will see their wealth sapped most immediately, thus they will drive the flight from dollars, once the collapse begins.

And wouldn't that likely proceed a massive pullback by the entire world economy?

It certainly true that a major devaluation of the US dollar would lead to a bust in many industries throughout the world.  The US dollar, like all fiat currencies, is the product of a bubble, because it is overvalued through government coercion.  Over the years, the US government, and the state and local governments have been enforcing legal tender laws.  One aspect of legal tender laws is that government-charted organizations, most of all corporations, are required to record and track their finances in US dollars.  This is partly for financial regulation purposes, partly for criminal-investigation purposes (e.g. tracking embezzlement), and partly for tax purposes (e.g. you need to know how much the corporation actually made, so that you can figure out how much to charge it in taxes).



Also, there is the ease of creation of the paper notes.  Because the Federal reserve is not liable for printing the paper money, they are free to print as much as they like.  The issuer of the paper notes makes no promise to exchange anything for the notes.  Instead, the US government promises to force people to use the currency.  On the dollar bills it says, "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private".  This means that the government has unilaterally declared that you and I and everyone else in America are required to use the US dollar to pay for debts if on party to the debt demands it to be so. (Incidentally, this is the second part of legal tender laws.)

Another aspect that contributes to the overvaluation of US dollars is the fact that governments in America requires payments of taxes in US dollars.  (There is an exception regarding gold, but that is a very small issue.)  The IRS says that you must pay X US dollars for Y reason; they do not give you the option to pay in any other currency, such as Euros.  You might say, "why can't a company just operate with some other currency, and make conversions whenever the government requires money or financial information?"  First, the exchange rates are adjusted, based on supply and demand, to make such conversions undesirable.  Further, the price of US dollars in that other currency may fluctuate too greatly, such that the people running the organization may fear that they might lose money by not holding US dollars.  Afterall, the tax code doesn't change very often, whereas currency exchange rates change frequently, at least once per minute.

With large organizations required to use US dollars for their financial accounting, with US dollars being the only taxes, and with the US dollar as officially enforced legal tender, the result is that the US dollar is valued because not using it for finance, paying taxes, or paying debts would result in fines, imprisonment, or some other violence from government.  This bubble is particularly pernicious, because it is even more unavoidable compared to a bubble like the 2000s housing bubble; to avoid usual bubbles, you can merely not trade in the products associated with the industry that is experiencing a bubble.  With the dollar, you can't run a business for very long without using US dollars, whether because everyone is using them or because not doing so would lead to you seeing the force of government.

Thus, the US dollar, like all fiat currencies, is in a perpetual bubble.  The bursting of that bubble could happen just like any other bubble: it will painful and the recovery process will be only as fast as governments do not intervene.  The bust of the Dollar Bubble can be lessened if governments in America were to remove all references to the US dollar from their laws.  Unfortunately, doing so would bring on numerous complications for legislators and bureaucrats.  But, that's another can of worms.

On Political Elections and Government

What so many seem to miss about political elections is that almost half of those that vote did not get what they wanted.  While it is possible to avoid bad elections results in the board of directors of a non-profit organization, one is not able to avoid the bad results of political elections.  That is, you cannot generally avoid the policies of government, whereas you can generally avoid the policies of private organizations.  The point of government is to socialize both costs and benefits; the point of private organization is to privatize both costs and benefits.

The point of modern political elections is to get a wide-range of people involved in deciding who will be put into each particular government office.  Occassionally, voters are given the option to vote on a few policies of government or even on changes to the document that describes the role/functions of the government.  However, at least half plus one of the voters must vote one way, with the rest getting the result that they do not want.  No matter the result of the election, all are required to pay taxes, whether you approve of the result or not.  When government places the burden of its operations on all through taxation, how is it that this democratic system is fair?  When just under half have consented to the opposite of what they get, how is it that they can be justifiably forced to pay for what they do not want?

In a private organization, if you dislike the policies that are being enacted, you are free to disassociate from that organized group of people.  If participating in that group required paying regular fees, then the cost of the operations of the organization likely fell on those who participated in the organization.  Thus, if you disassociate from and stop paying into the organization, then you are no longer bearing any of the costs of the operation of the organization.

With government, you cannot avoid the costs of its operation, because paying taxes and following its policies are compulsory; with private organizations, you can avoid the costs of its operation, because the fees/dues and following its policies are voluntary.  While elections might serve to lead a government to not enact ludicrously terrible policies, it is nevertheless the case that governments, by their very nature are organizations meant to compel people to do what they do not want to do.  With taxation, governments do not have to worry about providing good service; people will pay because not paying results in jail-time and other punishments.  With the all-must-do-as-government-commands quality, governments do not have to worry about whether or not some minority, 1% or 49%, do not approve of particular policies.  So long as a particular government maintains its veil of legitimacy as the coercive monopoly in the geographic area, the legislators, bureaucrats, government courts, police departments, and mayor/president have no institutional incentive to enact good policies.

Elections serve as a spiritually satisfying means of "making your voice heard".  What is ironic is that despite all the "get out and vote" messages, voting in political elections doesn't make things better.  Ignoring the problem of the rationally ignorant voter, governments continue to burden society with its taxes and various other forms of interventions; no matter for whom you voted, whether that be Obama, Romney, Johnson, or Virgil, the government has won.  Political elections are meant to make the government look legitimate.  How valuable is legitimacy when the organization can operate by taking money from all, whether or not any want to pay?

Obviously, the burden of describing a society without government is on me to demonstrate.  While there are numerous issues to address, I dedicate this blog to demonstrating that government is both unnecessary and ineffective for a free, peaceful, and prosperous society.