fergands-words-blog

[fergands-words-blog]

Back into the game-coding

The consequences of taking an unplanned unintentional hiatus from game development... Not remembering what the hell I was planning on working on next...

Though, while I never planned to stop so abruptly, nor for nearly as long as I had; I did have the good sense to properly comment and structure my code so I could read it months down the line. Can’t say I’m particularly skilled at coding. I’ve got little formal education, and my self-teaching has been sporadic at best. However, I’m finding that my knowledge base is sufficient enough to actually get started and figure out how to progress. In doing so, I’ve learned a great deal more in a shorter period of time than all the schooling and reading and copying snippets of code I’ve done before.

This post doesn’t really have any kind of purpose. The only reason I’m making it is because I’m sort of stuck on what to do next with this project. Or, more accurately, how do I want to start the next step? Once I have an idea of what I want to do, the coding part pretty much just falls into line; but getting to the point where I have a blueprint is a hassle and possibly my least favorite part of the process. I want to write the code, see if it works or how I can improve it and continually refine it. It’s much easier for me to plan out how I want to code something when I’ve already coded it, which seems absurd in a way and doesn’t really help when I haven’t coded it yet in the first place...

But I digress... This quick bit of writing has done what I was hoping it would, and jump started the thinking/planning process. Now it’s time to finish this, and do some reading into the concepts I need to use to do what I’m planning to do. By the end of this project, I’ll actually have something in my programming portfolio. Exciting!

[fergands-words-blog]

Occam's Razor and Conspiracy

I'll start with a quick aside; since this is my first blog post on something that I might actually stick with. This whole thing isn't going to have a particular theme, but more of the ideas and experiences I wish to talk about. Partially because writing is a method for me to not only express myself, but to also collect, organize, and refine my thoughts. I've decided to start with this particular topic because it's become one of my primary methods for making sense of the world around me, and lately it's largely been applied to politics.

Lately, I’ve seen a dramatic increase in conspiracy theories becoming more and more mainstream. Not just any kind of conspiracies, but increasingly grandiose ones. The kind that becomes more and more convoluted and confusing as time goes on in desperate throes to fit within the confines of reality. At first, a liberal media is biased against a president they do not like to the point of selling outright lies as fact. Today, the FBI and Justice department are corrupt through and through, attempting to undermine the president in order to support a single political party whom many within the ranks of identify themselves with their opposing party, without anyone blowing the whistle or stepping even slightly out of line to blow the lid off this massive conspiracy. Or, a much simpler explanation of events, a man and his inner circle, none of who thought victory was within the realm of possibility, broke a few laws in their own self interest with the expectation that no one would dig past the surface of a failed run at presidency.

Let me be clear about something. I don’t honestly believe that Donald Trump colluded with russians in order to win presidency at the expense of the integrity of our democratic process. That would require two things I don’t believe to be true; that he expected even a possibility of victory, or that he even wanted a victory in the first place. Why would anyone conspire to win an election they didn’t want to win and thought was a lost cause regardless? People don’t tend to purposely act against their own self interest, and I don’t see how becoming president would serve to advance Trump’s own self interest. Campaigning and losing on the other hand, generates publicity, which does serve for his own best interest. I’m not claiming any of this to be true, however. This is simply the explanation I’ve come up with that requires the fewest assumptions. That is, applying Occam’s Razor.

To think about everything going on, and making the fewest assumptions as well as assuming all involved parties are trying to serve their own best interest (which in itself is making the fewest assumptions about behavior). It makes sense for Russian leadership to act in a way they believe would enhance their influence of, or undermine the United States. It makes sense for Donald Trump to make a grandiose publicity stunt like making a run for president, especially with how completely unlikely it was for him to actually achieve victory. It makes sense that his own ego wouldn’t allow him to step down as a massive series of dumb (un)luck landed him with a victory at his bid for presidency.

Honestly, just about everything starts to actually make sense when you don’t jump to wild conclusions involving unimaginably huge cover ups and conspiracies that grow exponentially in their convolutedness. I don’t claim to have answers, I’m mostly waiting to see what the answers are. To be honest, I’m actually open to the possibility of massive conspiracy; but only if an appropriately massive amount of supporting evidence is given along with such claims. So far, nothing I’ve seen has pointed me away from the explanation that a bunch of people are trying to act in their own self interest, for better or for worse, and sometimes with wildly unexpected outcomes for the involved parties.