Senseless Utterance == On the Doctrine of Angels ... (No Content)

[Ed Miller]

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I read this thing twice and I haven't the foggiest idea what point the author is trying to make.

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This article was not written as joke.

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If you don't know what point the author was trying to make, then how can you be so sure it wasn't written as a joke?

I rather like the article. I'm sorry you don't.

[shark6]

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If you don't know what point the author was trying to make, then how can you be so sure it wasn't written as a joke?

I rather like the article. I'm sorry you don't.

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I don’t know what point the author was trying to make because the article has what I’ll call “Fancy Wording Syndrome”, or “FWS”, combined with “Excessive Use of Microsoft Thesaurus” or “EUoMT”.

Examples of FWS are:
1. “…I will focus only on the mechanism by which random sequences in particular are safeguarded upon observation”
2. “…despite being obvious to the gambler (especially in retrospect), appear to be inaccessible to the secular eye of statistical analysis.”

Example of EUoMT are:
1. “In the light of the distressing psychological dissonance”
2. “fuzzy pluralistic state”
3. “… couch them properly in ontological, rather than observational, terms.”

In algebra I should have trained from grade 3 through post elementary as Mason suggested, instead of scarcely 8th grade through 4 years of engineering education to comprehend the crux of this missive (FWS).

I know this article isn’t a joke because it is seriously written. But if there was a joke with this epistle (EUoMT), it was that 2+2 paid a guy 200 bucks for it.

[Sniper]

derick, You missed the point...

Online poker is rigged... by Angels [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

I agree completely. Mason does a fair job of distilling, into one sentence, what the author was only barely able to do in 500. Not to mention that this idea - the importance of understanding probability - is hardly one that needs to be reiterated to 2+2ers.

Whether the tone was meant to be whimsical or sincere, earnestly technical or tongue-in-cheek, there is no excuse for the author's contempt for style. If this is a parody, it is only a parody of bad writing.

Ed and Mason's defense of this article strike me as suspect.

[fyodor]

I believe going back to the 1st issue of this magazine and the column by GrannyMae, it was confirmed by Mason that there would be room for humour. Different people appreciate different types of humour.

There will be people who are amused by Jago's style.

I prefer Dostoevsky to Dickens, but that doesn't mean Dickens sucked. I don't have to read Dickens if I don't want. (except that time in high school where I was failed on a test becuase I read the classic comic of a Tale of Two Cities instead of the actual book)

Suggesting that Jago's style is simply not my cup of tea is being charitable: there is such a thing as bad writing. Some even enjoy bad writing, and I suppose that I can't begrudge them. It's tougher to pin down bad writing than it is bad poker play, because we don't have objective measures like EV. Having said that, phrases like "in the current postmodern political environment" (three adjectives per noun is two-and-a-half too many), and "appear to be inaccessible to the secular eye of statistical analysis" are pretty solid indicators.

Again, I'm open to the theory that Jago is offering us a witty parody of pedants (to borrow the OP's term) and academics, but a writer's forum might be a more appropriate venue. That, and I am staunchly of the opinion that a poker article ought to contain at least a modicum of poker theory, which this article doesn't. Lorinda provides fine examples every week of how to mix humour and poker content.

[Xhad]

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Having said that, phrases like "in the current postmodern political environment" (three adjectives per noun is two-and-a-half too many), and "appear to be inaccessible to the secular eye of statistical analysis" are pretty solid indicators.

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Do you call it a plot hole when Elmer Fudd manages to talk after having shot himself in the face?

If you're suggesting that bad writing is part of Jago's "genre", I wouldn't argue. I would just question why an exercise comparable to a cartoon has been offered as a poker article.

Otherwise, I don't see the relevance.

[autobet]

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we should be teaching our children probability theory at an early age. I think it should start in about the third grade

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This is 100% correct - we should.

However, another percentage ... what percentage of 3rd grade teachers could correctly teach it?



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I used to teach fourth grade. The probability section was at the end of the textbook. I enjoyed teaching it, but didn't get to it every year.

So in order to teach probability the teacher would have to make it a priority by teaching it out of order.

If they are lucky most kids will get a few weeks in middle school and maybe a few weeks in high school.

[joel2006]

I absolutely loved the article, I found it hilarious, well-written, and well thought out, as well as making a valid point. And if there was any place to publish it, 2 +2 is that place. But it probably isn't for everyone, and I can understand the frustration of those who (for whatever reason) didn't get the joke. The humor is dry as the Sahara and intended to poke fun at not only academic, but also theological writing, two types of writing that some readers of this forum may not be familiar with. In addition, if one lacks the necessary familiarity with the vocabulary employed the humor is lost in the struggle for comprehension. I disagree with Mason's take on the article's central point (although I agree that probability should be taught earlier). Basically I think the article's saying that when a 'gambler' observes a pattern in events, that pattern is real, but when a statistician analyzes the data, then an angel rearranges it so that it will appear random in retrospect. I think the article's main implied point is that all the Probability classes in the world won't help certain people, that 'gamblers' are going to believe what they want to believe, logic, facts, and statistical analysis be damned. That is why the article both begins and ends with a (tongue-in-cheek) call for statisticians to desist. To eliminate the emotional distress that 'gamblers' suffer and ( I think) to maintain the profitabilty of the poker games. Who among us hasn't played with someone who said something like "Wow, there has been a seven on four out of the last five flops, those sevens are really hot. I'm playing any seven from here on out."