:: Productive, to me, is an answer which shows that the responder
:: understood the premise and is willing to apply a bit of suspension of
:: disbelief to place themselves in the protag's position.
: Erik Max Francis <max@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
: In other words, "productive" means doing what you want without question.
: Uh huh.
Weeeeeelllll, I don't think that's quite the issue. The thing is,
"the protag's position" in this case involves trying to judge the motives
and rationality of a person accosting him with a bizarre story. It's only
natural that the discussion would involve whether that bizarre story is
itself sensible; that goes to the core of how one reacts to the person
telling the story.
So, I think people were following the premise fair and square. They were
trying to judge what the person was telling them; *that*'s the "protag's
position" after all: do I believe this person, and in either case, do
I feel like I'd buy the ticket, and why? I, personally, would probably
feel a bit paranoid and tend to think there's a hidden hook that's going
to git me, and wouldn't easily be convinced to do it. Partly because I
don't pay the lottery at all, I suppose. My initial reaction is, if the
person attempts to remove any discernible downside, I might go along.
All in all, if that person wants me to have a lottery ticket, he should
give me one. The objection that it's too hard for him to provide it
is all well and good, but I don't believe it (whether rightly or wrongly),
so it seems reasonably on-topic to propose alternative scenarios to show
just *why* I don't believe it.
And note, the argument that 20 percent more agents were lost (for small
numbers of agents lost) "prove" that it's reasonable that the agent not
hand me the ticket, has two flaws. First, the arument didn't say how much
more effective the slightly-higher-risk task was in saving timelines,
and second, even if it wasn't more effective (by authorial fiat), that
doesn't convince *me* as somebody listening to the pitch of this guy
who's knocked at my door.
Bottom line then, such a person would have a long metaphorical
uphill trudge to convince me to go along. Ultimately, because his
story doesn't ring true to me, and that is partly because he seems to
systematically avoid any way of checking its veracity.
Wayne Throop throopw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://sheol.org/throopw
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