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pro choice (mander.xyz)
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[-] Tilgare@lemmy.world 142 points 3 weeks ago

The bait and switch on this one really caught me off guard and gave me a great laugh. Good post.

[-] edinbruh@feddit.it 79 points 3 weeks ago

Finite games are all definite, either player 1 as a winning strategy or player 2 has, all other "outcomes" are just mental illnesses. Get over it, math doesn't care about your feelings.

[-] Dupelet@piefed.social 46 points 3 weeks ago

That would be true, except draws exist

[-] SeptugenarianSenate@leminal.space 11 points 3 weeks ago

Tie goes to winner of the next game, easy fix

[-] OhNoMoreLemmy@lemmy.ml 29 points 3 weeks ago

Congrats, the game is now non-finite (you can just keep drawing forever).

[-] josephc@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 weeks ago

Draw goes to the player who moved second?

[-] SeptugenarianSenate@leminal.space 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

whoever needs to use the bathroom first loses, or if you die of thirst or hunger, that could also disqualify one from such a theoretically limitless dilemma.

Alternately, if you have a mathematical way to measure boredom, and also introduce a rule that the person to truly become bored with the game first would actually win automatically after a draw… or the game could just be determined by some arbitrary momentary measure of chaotic systems outside the game that the players can see or affect, and then giving the win to one of the players based on some hidden scoring matrix of outside variables probing purely environmental or coincidental variables, to generate an arbitrary-enough-seeming-to-the-players (though not likely enough for the mathematicians) winner, in the event of a repeated draws which outnumber the lower of the two single largest numbers that each player could think of, probed proper to match before each challenge, unbeknownst to the players, that way they cannot strategize to give a dishonest answer to affect play somehow towards their advantage (by saying a lower number than the highest possible [countable-to-by-this-person] number that they had ever actually been taught to count up to)

[-] okwhateverdude@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago

For games that allow that, yep

[-] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

You can't draw in pictionairy.

[-] okwhateverdude@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago
[-] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 8 points 3 weeks ago

Let's play tic-tac-toe?

[-] eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 weeks ago

All other outcomes are a collaborative aesthetic exploration of a game tree subject to a variety of constraints.

The joy of the game, and indeed the value of the game, does not consist simply of winning. Even in go.

[-] TomMasz@piefed.social 41 points 3 weeks ago

I thought I understood sets until I saw a show on PBS where a guy showed how there were different infinities using them and I realized I knew nothing.

[-] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 22 points 3 weeks ago

I have a friend who had the license plate "ALEPH NUL" which I thought was good nerd humor.

[-] Rusty@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 weeks ago

The movie theater in Futurama is called Lowe's Aleph-Null-Plex.

[-] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago

Nice, I missed that one

[-] davidgro@lemmy.world 23 points 3 weeks ago

On the other hand, he Doesn't think you can double a sphere by cutting it into 5 pieces and reassembling them, so there's that.

[-] Zizzy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 3 weeks ago

Ok, i dont understand this level of math, but cant you force a win in a 2 player game of non-infinite moves? Why wouldnt you be able to? Genuinely asking

[-] Klear@quokk.au 44 points 3 weeks ago

Tic-tac-toe always ends in a draw with perfect play.

[-] Zizzy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 3 weeks ago

Mmm, i did overlook the, very obvious in hindsight, draw outcome. Thanks

[-] Venator@lemmy.nz 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

You could design a different game that does though. E.g. A Tic-tac-toe variant but the player who starts looses if they don't get 3 in a row by the end of the game.

[-] Klear@quokk.au 1 points 3 weeks ago
[-] Venator@lemmy.nz 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

You can force a win in a specific 2 player game of non-infinite moves(if it has no draw condition). But yeah , it doesn't apply generally to any 2 player game of non-infinite moves. And the converse also doesn't apply generally.

[-] trevdog@lemmy.world 18 points 3 weeks ago

assuming a draw condition is impossible maybe

[-] BB84@mander.xyz 4 points 3 weeks ago

For a finite game with no draws you are indeed able to.

[-] FishFace@piefed.social 17 points 3 weeks ago

Hey now, just because someone isn't pro-choice doesn't mean they're pro-AD. Honestly, people nowadays think everyone who disagrees with them on one thing must have every unhinged belief under the sun.

[-] SuperEars@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

I am behind the times on some abbreviations. And dense.

What is AD in this context?

[-] FishFace@piefed.social 11 points 3 weeks ago

The axiom of determinacy, which implies some of (or all?) of the statements in op, and is more or less stated at the end. AD implies ~AC but they're not equivalent.

[-] tetris11@feddit.uk 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

If I open up a pack of biscuits, and we each take turns eating a biscuit, AD says that there's a dominant strategy that can ensure that I eat the last biscuit. (e.g. there's only 1 biscuit; I win, or there's an odd number of biscuits; I win)

i.e. AD says you can rig games like this from the start

[-] Collatz_problem@hexbear.net 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

If you are so pro-choice, you can split your two balls into several pieces and reassemble them into three balls!

[-] Cat_Daddy@hexbear.net 8 points 3 weeks ago

If you are so pro-choice, you can draw two parallel lines and they will always intersect at the horizon!

[-] woodenghost@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

Sure, why just this morning I got me a second car by choosing five sets of points of my old car and rotating them around a bit in my garage. No, you can't see it, it was uh... a non constructive job. (jk I don't own a car, or a garage for that matter)

[-] serra@slrpnk.net 6 points 3 weeks ago

I hope that at least he believes in the Axiom of Choice.

[-] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

Another comment in the thread says that “isn't pro-choice” is exactly about the rejection of the axiom.

[-] tetris11@feddit.uk 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

For anyone wondering what this is

Bertrand Russell coined an analogy: for any (even infinite) collection of pairs of shoes, one can pick out the left shoe from each pair to obtain an appropriate collection (i.e. set) of shoes; this makes it possible to define a choice function directly.

For an infinite collection of pairs of socks (assumed to have no distinguishing features such as being a left sock rather than a right sock), there is no obvious way to make a function that forms a set out of selecting one sock from each pair without invoking the axiom of choice

So mathematicians always make the assumption that they can make a set from an infinite list of other non-empty sets based on this hunch, rather than any concrete choice function. And then they build mansions on top of this foundation, and use it to score chicks and ferraris, smh

[-] davidgro@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

... That's the joke. (That he doesn't)

[-] Venator@lemmy.nz 6 points 3 weeks ago

It's been a while since I've done products of sets, but what if one of the sets in the product is a set of empty sets?

[-] davidagain@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

Then it's not empty. If it were a union of empty sets, that would be empty.

[-] mEEGal@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago

Fucking relatable !

I'm that guy

this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
618 points (97.7% liked)

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