OOTS #1172 - The Discussion Thread

[Nazzo, the 102nd]

Re-reading this latest comic, I actually have a question about how the characters are positioned.

In the first panel of the "page break" (the one where Durkon is throwing the hammer) he is to the left of Gontor; I'm assuming Gontor doesn't move until 5 panels later (in which he says, "Oh wait, I can move"), at which point he moves to the right. However, in the final panel Gontor is to Durkon's left, but based on how the panels were laid out prior to the final one, it seems like everyone is in the opposite position than they should be based on Gontor's movement away from the light.

The simplest explanation is that the "camera" moved in the final panel, and everyone is in their correct positions; still, it keeps throwing me off because my brain goes, "Wait, shouldn't Durkon be facing the other way?!" and/or "Wait, did Gontor walk around Durkon between the second-to-last panel and the final one?"

It's ultimately not a big deal; I'm just curious why Rich chose to "move" the camera for the final panel (assuming that's what occurred here). Maybe the next comic will reveal something that otherwise would have been spoiled had the "camera" been positioned like it was in the previous panels?

Looking at the position of the door (and the blue barrier) I'd say that last panel's "camera" is behind them, relative to the other panels. But that brings the problem of Ex-Gontor walking to the opposite direction. Let's say he just did a 180º turn off-panel.

I've only seen four "yes" votes so far, and more than eight total council members. So take-backs or additional members aren't needed, if things are otherwise resolved swiftly.

By my count, there are 15, not counting Dvalin's cleric. Nine of them are dominated. The vote now is four in favour and two against, so they need four more to reach majority.

[Fanatic]

Why would direct observation be considered interference?

I would not consider

Do you suppose Thor could get a precision lightning strike through that hole?

mere observation.

[happycrow]

The reasoning being that with Durkon not being able to catch it the hammer is just going to keep flying in large ovals?

It would certainly be amusing to watch, and an interesting way of abusing the meeting hall's own defences.

YES, to Gone-tor's slowly-increasing horror.

[Rollin]

I'm not worried about the hammer striking the Mechane, because the Mechane is probably still over the temple of Thor, which is on the outskirts of Firmament while the council chamber is in the center.

[diremage]

I would not consider

mere observation.

I was specifically asking about Dvalin directly observing the council chamber to notice that hey, there's a bunch of vampires dominating more than half of the dwarves, and maybe they aren't really expressing the will of the clans at the moment.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I was specifically asking about Dvalin directly observing the council chamber to notice that hey, there's a bunch of vampires dominating more than half of the dwarves, and maybe they aren't really expressing the will of the clans at the moment.

Again: Dvalin observing the council would also interfere with the will of the council. This is electioneering 101: the people in charge observing a vote changes the vote. Therefore, Dvalin might not allow himself to observe, even if he can, because them's the rules.

Grey Wolf

[diremage]

Again: Dvalin observing the council would also interfere with the will of the council. This is electioneering 101: the people in charge observing a vote changes the vote. Therefore, Dvalin might not allow himself to observe, even if he can, because them's the rules.

Grey Wolf

Sorry, but electioneering 101 does not apply; you are mistaken.

[Schroeswald]

Again: Dvalin observing the council would also interfere with the will of the council. This is electioneering 101: the people in charge observing a vote changes the vote. Therefore, Dvalin might not allow himself to observe, even if he can, because them's the rules.

Grey Wolf

If they don’t know you’re watching it isn’t interference.

[brian 333]

Since The Giant didn't give us a copy of Dwarfbert's Rules of Order we simply do not know what is allowed or not until Gonetor gloats about it. We can't be certain of the rules until we learn them the hard way, one at a time.

I am, however, certain that Sigdi knows the rules, and knows the plan by which they aim to defeat the vampires.

[Dion]

This is electioneering 101: the people in charge observing a vote changes the vote.

Someone should tell Hel that her assumption that all the gods will watch the vote is DOUBLE wrong!

Not only are other gods on to her tricks, it turns out that electioneering 101 prohibits it!

I was specifically asking about Dvalin directly observing the council chamber to notice that hey, there's a bunch of vampires dominating more than half of the dwarves, and maybe they aren't really expressing the will of the clans at the moment.

The council themselves just agreed to a motion that they would have a binding vote despite the vampire domination. I don’t see how Dvalin can contradict that?

[Rogar Demonblud]

He is sworn to obey them always, no questions. He's the dwarfiest-dwarf to ever live, so he's both a demigod and the epitome of Lawful Stupid.

[diremage]

The council themselves just agreed to a motion that they would have a binding vote despite the vampire domination. I don’t see how Dvalin can contradict that?

Well, since they're on to plan B and breaking laws already I think we have to move on to some Electioneering 102 type stuff. First disenfranchise the opposing party to prevent the principles from voting, which Durkon will do by killing them all. Then gerrymander the recount, which maybe Hilgya and Belkar could help with, to ensure that only people who agree with Team Hero become the replacement Clan Leaders. They can help that along challenging a few of the more vocal dissenters to formal duels, and if they're feeling squeamish maybe some character assassinations. The honorable deaths of the dissenters will get them a better end than they would have voted for themselves, so really killing them would be for their own good.

Finally, maybe convince Dvalin to reword the question so that both possible outcomes are favorable to Team Hero. Maybe phrase it as, "Would you rather I send you to Hel and then save the world, or would you rather have your normal chance at Valhalla after I save the world?" We can work on the exact phrasing.

Once that's all done they can distract the dwarven populace from the gravity of the vote, maybe by propping up a public fall guy like Xykon and declaring that the dwarven borders are closed to undead. Then demand Xykon be investigated for tampering with the vote.

[Andrew Markham]

Quick question: Wouldn't Circle of Protection from Evil block the mind control for the council? Jump on the table, cast the spell, then vote?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Sorry, but electioneering 101 does not apply; you are mistaken.

Ah yes, the personal conviction of some guy on the internet. Such a wining argument.

We have seen the strictness with which Dvalin follows rules. If he feels he shouldn't observe the deliberation of his clan members to not unduly influence their will, he won't.

Grey Wolf

[goodpeople25]

If they don’t know you’re watching it isn’t interference.

Do you think Dvalin believes that?

Also maybe Dvalin set it up so that he can't observe and that the voters know it, it might be the only way to not interfere when he could observe so easily.

[Squire Doodad]

Quick question: Wouldn't Circle of Protection from Evil block the mind control for the council? Jump on the table, cast the spell, then vote?

We talked about stuff like this with the Dispel Magic, Antimagic Field and "giant elemental falls from the sky" theories.
The spell could be cast, but odds are it wouldn't work on account of the spell being interrupted by the caster being completely stoned before they can finish.

[F.Harr]

Ha-HAAAAAAA! I bet you never concidered a lawful dwarf would PLAN for that certanty! I don't know how, but Durkon is good, not dumb.

[Jasdoif]

Again: Dvalin observing the council would also interfere with the will of the council. This is electioneering 101: the people in charge observing a vote changes the vote. Therefore, Dvalin might not allow himself to observe, even if he can, because them's the rules.

There's some complication in that Dvalin delivered the question personally...and his priest is still channeling him throughout this comic, as indicated by her eyes. By all indications, Dvalin is still there, I presume so he can observe when the council come to a conclusion for him...so at what point would possibly being observed impose a noticeable alteration on their behavior, and are they past that point by default? o_o

[Grey_Wolf_c]

There's some complication in that Dvalin delivered the question personally...and his priest is still channeling him throughout this comic, as indicated by her eyes. By all indications, Dvalin is still there, I presume so he can observe when the council come to a conclusion for him...so at what point would possibly being observed impose a noticeable alteration on their behavior, and are they past that point by default? o_o

We know gods can't hear mortals, but their priests do (Odin's priest interrupted mid-speech by Greg), so my headcanon is that the gods can talk through the priest, and can listen to the priest, but won't listen beyond that. So the priest can pass on the result of the vote, but otherwise Dvalin isn't looking through her eyes or listening in.

Grey Wolf

[Forikroder]

isnt there technically some wiggle room in his wording?

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1016.html

technically even if the dominated ones vote yes he could decide it wasnt there will, and vote no since he consulted the council and the free willed ones all said no

[Quebbster]

isnt there technically some wiggle room in his wording?

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1016.html

technically even if the dominated ones vote yes he could decide it wasnt there will, and vote no since he consulted the council and the free willed ones all said no

Where would the drama be?
This is Durkon's story, and it's up to him to save the day. Dvalin going "Psych! The world was never really in danger!" would be a poor way to resolve the storyline.

[mjasghar]

Again: Dvalin observing the council would also interfere with the will of the council. This is electioneering 101: the people in charge observing a vote changes the vote. Therefore, Dvalin might not allow himself to observe, even if he can, because them's the rules.

Grey Wolf

{Scrubbed}
Secret voting has developed over time because of push back against actual cases of abuse - cf rotten boroughs where the local powerful man would open the votes as they were cast so they knew who had voted against them and because of money influence weren’t getting punished.
Generally there’s also been a push back by the political classes over time. {Scrubbed} So the people drawing up district boundaries can create a district that literally follows roads and loops around to include as many voters that support the ruling party. And once you have a strangle hold you can make sure that no one can challenge it.
{Scrubbed}
I mean, that’s almost literally the definition of d & d Lawful Evil for a reason

[DavidSh]

Though it'd be a more democratic system if the clan members could observe the voting of their chiefs.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Though it'd be a more democratic system if the clan members could observe the voting of their chiefs.

Anyone dwarf can just walk into the voting chamber, so they probably can. However, remember that they are not the dwarven parliament. These meetings are usually a waste of everyone’s time.

Grey Wolf

[D.One]

We know gods can't hear mortals, but their priests do (Odin's priest interrupted mid-speech by Greg), so my headcanon is that the gods can talk through the priest, and can listen to the priest, but won't listen beyond that. So the priest can pass on the result of the vote, but otherwise Dvalin isn't looking through her eyes or listening in.

Grey Wolf

I believe Hel's speech about how "all the gods are watching that chamber" kind of rules out "no observation". I also believe Dvalin would go on with whatever the council decides, if the correct protocols are followed, because that's how he's shown to be.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I believe Hel's speech about how "all the gods are watching that chamber" kind of rules out "no observation".

That "every" in Hel's speech is, to me, clearly hyperbole. Balder and Njord at least are clearly too uninterested in the proceedings to be paying attention. And "every" god would include the western and southern pantheons, which probably aren't even aware that this is going on. Hel is, I suspect, instead referring to all the gods that could stop her or call foul ("Odin and the rest") if she were to give Durkon a heart attack - i.e. her statement is sufficiently accurate to how English works.

ETA: Heck, we know her statement is false since Thor and Loki are NOT at the time looking into the chamber. She is clearly not an infallible source of information about what the other gods are doing.

Though it'd be a more democratic system if the clan members could observe the voting of their chiefs.

To add to my previous response (was going to edit it in, but might be missed), I'm not sure that the council is democratic. I doubt the position of clan leader is elected. Kings, even undemocratic kings, can have councils of advisors that vote amongst themselves without any pretence of being democratic in the large sense. A king that wants unbiased opinions from said chamber would still allow them to make their decisions independently, because, again: the presence of the king in such deliberations would tend to bend the will of the people who want to disagree with the king's actions but don't dare get on the "enemies" list of the king for doing so.

Grey Wolf

[littlebum2002]

Yes, that is a problem when designing a decision system from a machine learning algorithm: you have to feed the computer a gold standard to learn from. If humans can only make the right decision 66% of the time, which you can read as “the gold standard designers couldn’t agree on what was Right in 34% of scenarios,” the computer won’t be any better than humans at it — and even if the computer was better, we have no way to measure it.

That sort of invalidates your premise that computers are always better at making decisions; if we always knew what was the right decision, we could build a perfect gold standard and could measure the computer’s decisions on an absolute scale; but as we don’t, we can’t. We don’t have any way to know whether computers exceed our ability. We can only measure things we have a reliable scale for (eg, fatalities, reaction speed, amount of data processed prior to making the decision, effect on travel time, and fuel efficiency, etc). The “goodness of fhe decision” scale isn’t one of them.

You're comparing "things the best computer engineers in the world know" with "things the average guy in his Toyota Corolla knows". Those are in two different worlds. The average person doesn't know the correct composition of fuels needed to power a rocket, does that mean powering them is impossible?

Right now, the best intelligence in your car is you. Most of the time, that means you've had a handful of hours of driver's ed and took a driving test. That is all the education you have had in learning the best way to act while driving. On the contrary, the best intelligence in a self driving car was created by someone who studied hundreds if not thousands of hours of traffic analysis. Are you saying that the latter can never be more intelligent than the former? That's absurd.

So, no, a computer can't know more than the human who created it. However, a computer can know more than the average human, which is all we are looking for in this case, and which is INCREDIBLY easy considering how little the average person knows about driving.

[D.One]

That "every" in Hel's speech is, to me, clearly hyperbole. Balder and Njord at least are clearly too uninterested in the proceedings to be paying attention. And "every" god would include the western and southern pantheons, which probably aren't even aware that this is going on. Hel is, I suspect, instead referring to all the gods that could stop her or call foul ("Odin and the rest") if she were to give Durkon a heart attack - i.e. her statement is sufficiently accurate to how English works.

ETA: Heck, we know her statement is false since Thor and Loki are NOT at the time looking into the chamber. She is clearly not an infallible source of information about what the other gods are doing.

Grey Wolf

Perfect. I do agree that when Hel speaks about "every god", she is probably exagerating, and stating what she thinks to be true, and she is probably wrong about it.

I also agree (and I've stated it) that Dvalin will (or would, if something happens that somehow prevents the vote itself) follow the result of the vote, even if it's umpleasant, because he's been shown to be a "by the rules" god. Notice the cautious way he explained the situation to the elders, avoiding to give any important details about the Snarl.

The only point I'm really refuting is that Dvalin isn't watching the vote, both because:

1) He's a god, he's interested in the vote, and he's known by his subjects as someone who will obey the result, so the perceived risk of him lashing out in someone who voted "wrong" is little;

2) We have no evidence he's not watching. The fact that the gods in the Godsmoot couldn't hear the mortals, only themselves, isn't evidence, because the purpose of the Godsmoot is to provide a neutral ground of comunication and decision-making for the gods, while this meeting of the council happens because Dvalin wants to hear his subjects' decision on the matter.


PS: In fact, we have no definitive proof he is watching, but also no proof or indication he's not. It's all up to debate and headcanons until Rich states that in comic.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The only point I'm really refuting is that Dvalin isn't watching the vote

I don't disagree, but please be aware of the context of my position: I was addressing the (often raised) concern that why would Dvalin not consider the will of the council invalid if he can see the domination of over half the councildwarves.

I presented three possible reasons, ranging from "best" to "worst", and this one ("Dvalin chooses not to observe so as to not invalidate the will of the council") as what I considered a plausible middle. I am not making the claim that this is the only correct answer (how could I even do that, given I presented three!), but that it is a plausible reason why he might not call the vote off. If you have an alternative, by all means present it. If I like it, I'll steal it for the next time this is brought up, because I doubt it'll be addressed in-comic (the time for that was this page), and I'm clearly making little headway with my own.

Now, please also don't think I'm suggesting you should have known this in advance. I am keenly aware that it's been like 15 pages since my original post, most of which has been spent discussing the realities and promises of AI driving (again: mea culpa, mea maxima culpa), so I can accept that the context explained above has been lost in the shuffle.

Grey Wolf

[mjasghar]

You're comparing "things the best computer engineers in the world know" with "things the average guy in his Toyota Corolla knows". Those are in two different worlds. The average person doesn't know the correct composition of fuels needed to power a rocket, does that mean powering them is impossible?

Right now, the best intelligence in your car is you. Most of the time, that means you've had a handful of hours of driver's ed and took a driving test. That is all the education you have had in learning the best way to act while driving. On the contrary, the best intelligence in a self driving car was created by someone who studied hundreds if not thousands of hours of traffic analysis. Are you saying that the latter can never be more intelligent than the former? That's absurd.

So, no, a computer can't know more than the human who created it. However, a computer can know more than the average human, which is all we are looking for in this case, and which is INCREDIBLY easy considering how little the average person knows about driving.

You’ve usually had 15 or 16 or whatever the legal age in your country is of living - which includes risk assessment
If you’re 15 and can’t cross the road safely there’s probably something wrong