quitthegame

I have noticed through the years, that my writing style has somehow incited many arguments with native germanic-language speakers, without any such intent on my part. Of course, English is technically a germanic language, and the language that English is historically closest to is Frisian, which is principally spoken in parts of the netherlands, if I recall correctly. Coincidentally, there is a large Frisian community north of San Francisco, where I live, which is how I happen to know about it. But, in practice, modern english has taken basically its entire vocabulary and conversational style(extremely indirect, in polar opposition to German) from French and Latin, so perhaps that explains it. So, 'es tut mir leid'-- if this conversation were in Duke's native tongue I'm sure it would be no contest. The analysis I would like to see between 3rd age and discontinued, is on what time frame will 3rd age actually be more common than discontinued? If it's 5 years from now...who plans to still be playing RS in 5 years? Realistically, that's too long to plan for, in terms of RS3, changes to RS2, possibly quitting. Has such an analysis been done already? Still, the contextual value of party hats' history is unlikely to change, while 3rd age will likely be bettered by new gear at some point.

Uh, no. In economics, people's valuation of things is modeled by a free variable called utility. Your definition is both circular and meaningless. You initially denied party hats had inherent value for some people and now you're saying that wasn't your point and that they do have inherent value for some people. To put it in the simple logics, you initially said "No A are B" and now you say "Some A are B". No, you are completely and totally wrong yet again. Liking how they look = an incredibly small inherent value. I said some people put "great inherent value" on paintings. So to put it in simple logic, I said A = 1, B = 10000000, not that this is more than a side point anyhow! If you would use your imagination to understand what something means that implies that it wouldn't matter if someone told you "Can you please get me a cup of coffee?" or "igfsfieijodaijs" since your imagination would apparently be able to interpret it well in both cases. This obviously is not the case. This only argues against your own point, it is basically the example I could have given to further illustrate my argument but omitted due to being too obvious. In it, you are admitting your solipsism, and you are denying your own ability to distinguish between party hats and art because your imagination interprets it well in both cases, whatever that means. So you are arguing about something, where you don't even believe it really exists, and even if you did you couldn't tell it apart... good game Actually, if you read up on cognitive science, you'll find a lot of theories about the functional workings of imagination. It has been hypothesized that imagination is at its core just memory, with incremental changes along one or a few variables. Imagine memory as a many dimensional vector space, take two points in memory reasonably close to each other, that defines a new vector. Extend that vector into its containing line, that line represents imagination ranging through the realm of possibility. The power of imagination is that this process can be repeated recursively. What's your point? Visual Art's only inherent value is how it looks... good job figuring that one out, but it doesn't say anything that a kindergartner doesn't already know. Why don't you write a paper about this and submit it to the New York Times or something, I'm sure they'd be fascinated to know that the only thing that distinguishes visual art pieces is that they look different. I'm beginning to suspect that you aren't being serious, at all. Yes, they both have inherent value, and contextual value, and those are indeed demarcated like you say. But their contextual value differs in complexity, and their inherent value is vastly different, so the comparison doesn't hold. Again, even if the comparison DID hold, the historical behavior of the art markets would still contradict the thesis that rares can't have a longterm downturn in price, a point which I made and you continually neglect to rebut. 80-90% is too much. I don't believe that they could remain at that price for years even if there were such a crash, unless the game would change big time from how it works now. Well I base my opinion on my knowledge of similar crashes in value in the real world's past, I don't know what you base your opinion on because you refuse to specify it. Remember that I'm only saying the situation is possible, you are saying it is impossible, so the burden of proof is many times heavier on you, which makes your refusal to support your argument all the more confusing.

Unfortunately Duke only wants to talk about paintings, although I'd be happy to discuss the economy with him. The entire comparison of paintings to party hats was a side note in my initial post, if you want to talk about taking things way out of context. However, I don't understand your point here. The context of economics, when you're talking about how and why people value things, is pretty much the entire universe. So that's a pretty amusing accusation, all in all. Collectors like them for collecting purposes, true. Plenty of people like how they look, true. I know better, true. So what? That doesn't address my point at all. If you had said, plenty of people would pay 50 dollars for a coffee table book containing prints of phat graphics, that WOULD address my point. But actually addressing my point doesn't seem to be your agenda here. Not that this was more than a small side point anyhow... Again, this doesn't address my points at all. I am very limited in my replies to you, if you continually insist upon saying obviously true things that don't address my points, I can take it back to basic rhetoric... In logic you learn that to invalidate the statement "All A are B" all you need is to produce some B that is not A. You proudly produce a statement of the form "some B are not A", then rest on your laurels content that you have proved me wrong. But my statement wasn't of the form "All A are B", was it? I didn't even say "Most A are B". I actually said "...there are many very rich people who believe that great paintings have incredibly high inherent value. " i.e., "some A are B" This is an obviously true statement. You basically seem to think that I'm saying that inherent value means the item radiates magical value power, when I'm clearly saying that inherent value means that a person values that item just for existing, not for some goal that it allows him to accomplish. If you would just check the logical pattern of your argument, and see that it just doesn't apply at all, perhaps that would help you. You don't use your imagination to create the coherent meaning, you use your memory for that. We are taught some words have a specific meaning and that some words combined in a sentence have another meaning. There is no need to make use of your imagination here and there's a huge difference between using your memory and using your imagination. You don't need human consciousness to understand human speech, you only need memory? So computers can understand human speech just like a human? I guess you're not familiar with the Turing Test, you've just claimed that a microwave is Artificial Intelligence because it has memory. Check wikipedia on the turing test, perhaps you'll understand my point then. So what? I never claimed that items with inherent value wouldn't have contextual value too. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to name an item that possessed inherent value without contextual value. I can't believe you spent your entire post attempting to disprove the small segment of my post that I specifically disclaimed as not part of my main point, and still mostly just said obvious truths that didn't contradict what I'd written. I don't know if you're accustomed to rolling over people who disagree with your position on rares with your barrage of references to economics or what, but I studied mathematics in university so it's going to take more than a vast number of obviously true statements lacking any logical connection to my points to impress or confuse me. Let's declare a truce on the paintings alright? I agree with everything you said(except the part about intelligent microwaves), although I don't believe what you said contradicts anything I said. If you actually want to respond to any of my main points on the economy, please do so.

That is simply not true. People's tastes are more similar than they are different. If you are determined to define people by their differences, then yes, everyone is slightly different. But if you were truly honest about this, then you would realize that it is shared tastes that define cultural groups, it is shared opinions on what is good and beautiful that define artistic movements, and it is shared opinions that drive the movements of nations and history. Even your opinion that matters of aesthetics are unimportant because no one's aesthetic judgement is perfectly identical, is ITSELF a preexisting AESTHETIC judgement that you have seen and aligned yourself with. Again, your own arguments contradict themselves. Kind of like how you miss the point of rares. Some people do see the value in it. Some people think that party hats, divorced from their economic function arising from their rarity, are worth the attention they are given? Whom? I'll answer that question. No one. I don't miss the point of rares, I am distinguishing between inherent and contextual value, no doubt if you'd wasted as much time as I did in philosophy courses then you'd already be familiar with the vocabulary and we could have skipped this whole paragraph. It's a matter of taste... just like everything in society is a matter of taste. People who denigrate the role of social values in the operation of societies are just as nutty as people who denigrate the role of mathematics in science. They are in danger of doing very strange things, like comparing the artistic value placed on masterpieces with that of party hats... coming soon to a mall near you, prints of blue phats, books containing artistic criticism of all discontinued items. ~_~ Your argument is phrased so generally as to easily apply to any facet of human existence, and if such is done results in absurdity: When you talk to your wife, you need to use your imagination to transform the words you hear into a coherent meaning. 'The right conclusion would be that conversation with your wife has no inherent value in the first place, and that your imagination can tell you everything you want. ' I.e., through an incomplete process of reductionism, you've managed to slide everything that matters in life into a side compartment of metaphysical solipsism, where you pretend it doesn't really exist. Anyways, the rest of our discussion is not very exciting. We both agree that a temporary massive drop in prices may occur. We both agree that rares are a good method of investing. Your statement about increasing value with fixed market conditions is fairly obviously of limited expiration date, over a long time period it's basically unfeasible to claim that there will be no changes in market conditions, especially in as vague a state as you leave that phrase. I'm going to make very clear exactly what my original post was arguing against: people who state that since rares have historically gone up fairly steadily, with a few exceptional decreasing periods, they are guaranteed to perform similarly in the future. You are not one of these people by the way, if we hadn't started talking about the function of aesthetics in society we'd barely disagree. My point is mainly that if rares were to drop in value by 80-90%, and stay down for a period measured in years not months, than that behavior would be similar to that seen following similar bubbles in real estate and art. So much of your response to me was based on misguided solipsistic philosophies, and misunderstandings of my very carefully phrased analysis, that we'd do better to start over than to continue. Still, I thank you for the discussion, and hope that we both continue to enjoy our observation of this economic microcosm.

Simplifying a complicated situation into a false dilemma, and then without foundation stating that first one leg must happen, and then that the other leg will happen at a later date, is not math. It's much more like the opposite of math.

Real estate is not limited and decreasing, but rather slowly increasing. I would say slowly decreasing, not slowly increasing... haven't you heard of desertification, contamination, global warming = rising oceans, etc.? Plus, the world population has grown extremely quickly over the past 200 years, so analysis of historical trends in real estate necessarily implies analysis of rapidly increasing per capita scarcity. Rares and famous paintings are comparable because both items have no real practical use. I could also say that famous paintings aren't really "unique" either - there are thousands of them around - but ok perhaps not a very good comparison as those aren't 100% identical. If you want a better analogy of rares, then the best I can find these days is a US golden coin from 1933. Furthermore you say paintings by famous artists are "masterpieces by a genius" and I would like to point out that's merely an opinion and thus not of any relevance at all. To me, a lot of so-called famous paintings could just as well be thrown in an open fire and thus they are of equal (or even less) "value" to me as RuneScape's rares are. Opinions aren't of any relevance at all? You are aware that you have uttered a fairly comical oxymoron there right? I could embark on a lengthy defense of artistic merit, but I'm going to leave that one alone, just imagine I made it ;) . I will say, that your declarations that famous paintings are valueless to you are missing the point. You could find someone for any given thing who finds no value in it. But I don't think there is anyone who believes that there is great inherent value in the simplistic graphics of rares(if they do, they probably don't understand what inherent value means), while there are many very rich people who believe that great paintings have incredibly high inherent value. Famous paintings too. This is an egregious misquotation. My actual sentence was "Party hats are valued for being valuable, nothing more.", which wouldn't have worked for your seemingly witty reply. This isn't the kind of response I expected from you... The fact is that if everyone decided tomorrow that going to the mcdonalds is bad for your health and thus everyone stops going there, the mcdonalds company would go bankrupt. Same goes for coca-cola. And if everyone suddenly decided not to use google anymore from now on, the 150bil market cap of the company will be gone faster than you wrote your post. In other words, you're not proving anything here, except for stating a situation that won't happen. Yes, it's all based on trust and expectation, but like I just pointed out, a lot in the economic world is based on trust and expectation. True, but McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and Google all provide valuable services as a basis for their worth. Nevertheless, it's useless to attack me with those examples, because I'm not proclaiming that they will last forever. I mean, companies like those go bankrupt every day, so those examples do nothing but support my point, and argue against yours... I'm not trying to prove anything here, I'm pointing out holes in other people's proofs, so why accuse me of not proving anything? I'm not "confident" that rares will go up in value forever. I only always state that rares can only go up on the long-term providing that the market conditions don't change. The major market conditions that influence the prices of rares on the long-term are population growth, inflation and the lack of expensive alternatives for people to spend their cash on. That sentence, "I only always state that rares can only go up on the long-term...", is the exact sentence that makes me think the rares market is primed for a huge crash--Not because I see a specific way that it will fall, not that I believe I have a better understanding of the factors than you. The only thing that jumps out at me, is that people saying "xxxx can only go up in the long term" is exactly what people have historically said during price runups leading up to huge bubble collapses. Paradoxically, the more faith people have that the prices won't collapse, the more primed the prices are to collapse, because that faith is exactly what drives the prices up to unsustainable levels. Actually, I would characterise that faith as the 4th condition that influences the price of rares in the long-term, it's the condition you omitted from your description, and it's the reason we disagree. Ah, very nice thread, it seems like I've read that before. The major issue I have with both you and Blaek in that thread is your dependence on the unstated assumption, "conditions must change measurably before any major change can happen in the market". This simply isn't true, randomness in the market is a very powerful factor, it could take nothing more than a small price adjustment to finally break investor confidence in rares and begin a massive panic. Having studied chaos theory in university, I know how trite it is to bring it up here ... but it's here whether I mention it or not. I wish I had a link to this, but I read an article recently referencing a study of expert predictions in many fields. It found that the problem with expert predictions is that experts tend to overvalue their own analysis as to the reasons for events, which in turn discounts their knowledge of the statistical behaviors of the events in question. Thus, the reason why relatively crude computer simulations often outperform the experts, is the computer simulations' lack of an ego. How long have I been a skeptic about the price of rares? I'd say I'm a lifelong skeptic, about everything. I think the thing that induces me to post on this subject is not solely the unreasonable faith of many of the rares adherents, but their annoyingly zealous proselytization in service of that faith. Viewed as either a self-serving attempt to increase the value of their product, or as an annoyingly incoherent meme, to me it is a plague on the forums. Anyways, as to my personal "predictions" for rares, I think it is possible that they could continue in their current state for 5 more years, or they could crash tomorrow. I believe that there is inescapable doubt and uncertainty as to which, but that people afterwards will claim they knew when and why it was going to happen. The fact that even if no one really understands the situation, when everyone makes a prediction, some of them are bound to come true-- will escape them completely. That brings up another interesting point, in the stock market or real estate market, any speculative bubble will eventually deflate, either with a collapse or a slow leveling/subsidence. But, what if Runescape ends before the rares market ever collapses? That depends in part on how it ends, a sudden shutdown as it's replaced with a rs 3, or a slow death as it runs its course and declines. I have a gut feeling that in the latter case, the rares market would collapse, since people would then see the "end of the future" and want to convert to more usable goods. The consideration of expected lifespan for RS2 has bearing on another disingenuous argument I see here a lot--that only discontinued items can truly be rare. Let's assume for the sake of argument that there are 10000 party hats. Imagine that they made a new rare that only drops once per week. So, 52 new ones per year. Does anyone really think that runescape2 will run for 200 more years, making the new item more common than party hats? Scarcity is time-dependent, and only some time frames are reasonable. yet another interesting point, is that for the merchants whose only goal in RS is to accumulate rares/wealth, there may be no compelling reason to diversify as a means of guarding against a rares collapse. At that point, their only reason to play RS would be gone, so the loss of all their gains wouldn't really matter. A very unique situation, to be sure.

The thing that is the most amusing about this thread is the people who quote the law of supply and demand, to "prove" that discontinued items will always overtake the value of current items. Sure, the supply of discontinued items is always slowly decreasing. The demand has historically seemed to trend upwards, which is most commonly attributed to inflation. But what happens if we really examine how demand could behave in the future, compare it to historically similar situations? Like speculative bubbles in real estate and art? In fact, I see people in this thread comparing party hats to paintings by famous artists, and I will rebut it as a general indication of how such analogies are flawed. That comparison is laughable for two reasons: 1. Paintings by famous artists are unique, irreplaceable, masterpieces by a genius. Party hats are all the same, completely lacking in any inherent merit, created as a throwaway by someone who's greatest work is of no lasting consequence. Party hats are valued for being valuable, nothing more. 2. Paintings by famous artists are historically liable to sudden and relatively permanent declines in value. That comparison, bad as it is, even if granted truth only proves the opposite of what it's meant to prove. The fact is that if people wake up tomorrow and decide that party hats and other discontinued items aren't worth pursuing, as there is no real basis for their value save for the lack of a suitable alternative for displaying wealth, then they would lose all of their value overnight. I'm sure many of you are laughing while you read this, confident that rares will go up in value forever-- just like everyone else who had faith in the permanance of the billions of speculative bubbles scattered thickly throughout history. But the positive feedback cycle that is driving their value up works even better in reverse, which is what most of those people who believed in prior bubbles discovered long ago.