[UA] Risking it - Sunbjectivity or objectivity?

[Patrick O'Duffy]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Wedig" <mrteapot at disinfo.net>
> What about human variables?  In the case of the sealed gun, the risk
involved is based on wheter or not someone loaded it or not.  This too can
be seen as a concrete, statistically measurable matter (e.g, he loads two
guns out of twelve, or whatever).  Obviously, some actions on the parts of
people count as chance variables for entropomancy, as one of the examples of
charge gaining involves leaping into unnecessary battles, etc.

--
Exactly. It involves putting yourself into a dangerous situation where you
can't control the variables. That may mean 'dangerous to life and limb',
like parachuting blindfolded, or it may mean 'dangerous to my wallet', like
playing poker.

I think we're getting too caught up in the idea of 'chance' for
entropomancers, when the core of the school is _risk_, and taking risky
actions. A risky action can be completely deterministic, with no random
variables - but if you don't _control_ the variables, and thus can't predict
outcomes, you're able to tap the situation for a charge.

--

> As for risk, the risk involved in a sealed gun problem seems identical to
Russian roullette to me.  Either a bullet is or is not in the chamber of the
gun.  How the bullet got there doesn't seem to matter as long as there is a
possibility that it is there and a possibility that it is not there (and
probably a proportion between the chances of these possibilities) and that
the bodybag doesn't know which possibility is correct.  The risk the
entropomancer runs is that someone might have loaded the gun.  Whether it is
loaded or not does not affect the charge gathering, so much as the
possibility and the recognition of this possibility.

--
No argument - although I think that in more unusual situations, you need to
pin down where the risk and chance actually enters the system. Take the
example of picking up a gun that may have been loaded, depending on the roll
of a die that you don't know about. The variable is the die-roll, not the
gun - the gun is a totally deterministic part of the system, influenced
solely by the chaos of the dice roll.

So yeah, he gets the charge even if it's not loaded, because it just as
easily _could_ be loaded, and the adept knows that. He's not giving himself
up to chance - he's deliberately taking a meaningful _risk_ in a ritual
context.

Another good example is when a bodybag doesn't defend themselves in a fight
and risks injury/death. Rules aside, there's no 'chance' in the fight - the
participants are using skills and training (albeit in a chaotic
environment); they aren't rolling dice and using randomizer rules. The adept
gets the charge because he places himself in danger and no longer has
control over the variables.

And I think all of that fits perfectly into the established paradigm.

--
Patrick O'Duffy, Brisbane, Australia

What are you fucking looking at? What? You think I'm one of the nutless
freaks you peddle your watered-down gnat's piss to? One of your mental
barflies gone bad? I'm a fucking journalist! I am working!

 - Spider Jerusalem, TRANSMETROPOLITAN #34


_______________________________________________
UA mailing list
UA at lists.uchicago.edu
http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua