Author Topic: The Terran-Kabrinskian Conflict  (Read 241849 times)

Anaris

  • Administrator
  • Exalted Emperor
  • *
  • Posts: 8525
    • View Profile
Re: The Terran-Kabrinskian Conflict
« Reply #840: May 10, 2012, 02:37:18 PM »
I think it's kind of hard not to be suspicious of being misled when the Zuma seem to jump at any chance to fight Moot realms specifically, heh.

If that were true, you would have seen a lot more fighting between the Zuma and 'moot realms.

This is a common logical fallacy, and I don't know if it has a fancy Latin name, but I call it "the mayonnaise fallacy." (Because you only notice that the mayonnaise has been used when it's left out on the counter, so you assume that the person in question always leaves the mayonnaise out on the counter, not realizing that there are at least as many occasions when the mayonnaise is used, but properly put away.)

In this case, consider the situation as a whole: Most of the realms surrounding the Zuma are, in fact, Véinsørmoot realms. Thus, if the Zuma are going to fight a realm, there's a high probability that the realm they are going to fight will belong to the Véinsørmoot, simply based on pure statistics. However, the Zuma don't fight other realms much at all. So the fact that they are fighting against a Véinsørmoot realm now, and did once in the past, is in no way an indication that they are seeking opportunities to fight them.

It is not necessarily an indication that they are not, either—logic's like that, just because particular evidence doesn't prove A doesn't imply that it proves ~A—but stepping outside the realm of pure logic and adding in some knowledge of the game and the personalities and possibilities involved, I think it highly likely that if the Zuma were looking for excuses to fight the Véinsørmoot, there would have been a lot of rather large battles between the Zuma and 'moot realms before now, and rather less human vs human conflict in that part of the continent.
Timothy Collett

"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire...is your heart." "You are what you do.  Choose again, and change." "One of these days, someone's gonna plug you, and you're going to die saying, 'What did I say? What did I say?'"  ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan