At 5/13/10 06:40 PM, Mr-Contradiction wrote: Is this not a clear example of fascism?

Actually it's an example of law and order. This is unfair, so it is against the rules.

Also, medal points aren't currency. You can't trade them, you can't spend them, and once you have them you can't lose them unless a mod or staff member removes them. They are nothing more than bragging rights, essentially. So everything you said that relies on medal points being currency is fallacious, at best.

At 5/13/10 11:27 PM, chris-marks wrote:

At 5/13/10 06:40 PM, Mr-Contradiction wrote: Is this not a clear example of fascism?

Actually it's an example of law and order. This is unfair, so it is against the rules.

Also, medal points aren't currency. You can't trade them, you can't spend them, and once you have them you can't lose them unless a mod or staff member removes them. They are nothing more than bragging rights, essentially. So everything you said that relies on medal points being currency is fallacious, at best.

Just a note, read up on what fascism is. Here's the dictionary definition: a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc.

The dictator doesn't have to be one person, it can be a collective, or a government if you will. That is why you will commonly hear someone who is being censored calling the censors "Nazis". Hitler was elected on his campaign platform of enforcing order and removing opposition to the true German heritage. Fascism is simply extreme order. Laws taken to the point where they govern things that they do not need to govern.

And no, currency does not have to be defined as a tradeable item... It is a monetary value associated to an item. This LOAF OF BREAD is worth 6 DOLLARS. That is currency. Replacing actual things with a make believe system of numeracy.

Why do the points even matter if the medals are bragging rights? Why is there a ranking system at all? There certainly isn't an officially implemented one. Perhaps the good folks who administrate this site thought ahead and did not want to see this type of competitive attitude come about. Or they didn't want to spend the time, whichever you find more likely.

But I am off to bed. As for anything else, it should be clear by now that I don't care whether or not you consider me a hacker. While I myself do not hack, I recognize the reasons behind hacking. I play games for entertainment. Medals are shiny baubles to be sought after when playing these games. Whether or not you play for medals, you should in no way care about what others are doing. Achievements are personal by nature... If someone wants to press a button and achieve everything they can, how does it impact you or me?

If you want to remove me from your rankings list, be my guest. I never asked to be included on it in the first place. I only joined NG logs to see the fancy chart extrapolations. Everyone can enjoy their free +1 rank next week, courtesy of me.

At 5/14/10 12:42 AM, Mr-Contradiction wrote:

At 5/13/10 11:27 PM, chris-marks wrote:

At 5/13/10 06:40 PM, Mr-Contradiction wrote: Is this not a clear example of fascism?

Actually it's an example of law and order. This is unfair, so it is against the rules.

Also, medal points aren't currency. You can't trade them, you can't spend them, and once you have them you can't lose them unless a mod or staff member removes them. They are nothing more than bragging rights, essentially. So everything you said that relies on medal points being currency is fallacious, at best.

Just a note, read up on what fascism is. Here's the dictionary definition: a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc.

Then your comparison fails because we're all completely powerless to actually stop hacking from occurring. All we can do is shun people who do, and exclude them from our elitist little list we keep.

And no, currency does not have to be defined as a tradeable item... It is a monetary value associated to an item. This LOAF OF BREAD is worth 6 DOLLARS. That is currency. Replacing actual things with a make believe system of numeracy.

You're fond of dictionary definitions: "something that is used as a medium of exchange; money." So yes, it does have to be definited as a tradeable item, because that's the nature of exchange. The nature of money is that you can spend it to get things, and you can't spend medal points. So once again your argument fails due to failing to meet the definitions of words.

Why do the points even matter if the medals are bragging rights? Why is there a ranking system at all? There certainly isn't an officially implemented one. Perhaps the good folks who administrate this site thought ahead and did not want to see this type of competitive attitude come about. Or they didn't want to spend the time, whichever you find more likely.

Pride. That's all.

But I am off to bed. As for anything else, it should be clear by now that I don't care whether or not you consider me a hacker. While I myself do not hack, I recognize the reasons behind hacking. I play games for entertainment. Medals are shiny baubles to be sought after when playing these games. Whether or not you play for medals, you should in no way care about what others are doing. Achievements are personal by nature... If someone wants to press a button and achieve everything they can, how does it impact you or me?

Level playing fields are important.

If you want to remove me from your rankings list, be my guest. I never asked to be included on it in the first place. I only joined NG logs to see the fancy chart extrapolations. Everyone can enjoy their free +1 rank next week, courtesy of me.

Meh.

I somehow doubt your post is "just for the sake of discussion." Nice job with the "you can't fire me, I quit" charade though.

Anyways your whole argument is moot. First off medals aren't really a currency. A monetary value associated with an item is not a currency, it is a price. If you trade bread for corn then you are participating in a barter economy as opposed to an exchange economy. To be a currency something has to be a median of exchange (i.e. it has to be tradable) that is widely/universally accepted (you can't go to the grocery store and give them a loaf of bread for some milk) and have a common value. This is just the definition. As per your argument, my 100 point medals has no value to you since I can't give it to you.

Anyways, this isn't a competition to prove you're better than other people, it's a community that shares a common interest. Why do you think there's so many guides and walkthroughs written by people on the medal list; why do you think HOS and Spiffy update a list even though they aren't on it? To highlight all the people "better" than them? That's ridiculous. In no way does other people getting a 100 point medal make it worthless to me, since I'm not doing it to be better than them. I'm happy when other people earn hard medals.

The problem with hackers is that they're typically only interested in saying "look at my points, I'm better than you." This destroys the community and makes it less fun when people who aren't even playing the games try to turn collaboration into competition. The points make it a bit more fun since it's easier to evaluate progress, but honestly the points aren't the point, so to say.

The correct comparison for medals would be tests. You're arguing says that, absent your score affect the grade of others - i.e. a curve, people should be allowed to cheat if they want to. And when a teacher gives a cheater a bad grade, it's because they're being a fascist, and also - they're preventing efficiency and progress. The problem you miss in both cases is that the points aren't the goal. In the case of tests it's learning the material and in the case of medal games - achieving some predefined goal (essentially solving a problem). I think you can agree that if we let everybody cheat on tests that tests become worthless measures of progress, and similarly if everybody hacks medals. The first would destroy the education system and the second would destory the medal community here. Therefore the optimal response of both communities is to try and remove the incentives for cheating. You do this by giving people F's if they cheat, and by taking away their medals if they hack.

When thinking of our community imagine a book club. They work best when everybody reads the book - or is at least is forthcoming if they didn't. It's hard to have discussions about experiences with people that don't share those experiences. That's why hackers destroy the community. They make it about saying "I read the book" rather than about discussing and understanding the book. Also, hackers are usually people who just want to say "HAHA I'm better than you!" Which makes the experience less fun for everybody else.

You seem to have a very flawed understanding of facism (yes, a dictator has to be one person. That's the dictionary definition.) and discrimination. The characterizing feature of a dictatorship is not what the rules are, or that there are rules, it's how those rules are established. Calling somebody a Nazi is meant as an insult, not as an accurate classification- so that's not justification of your definition. This community is a democracy or republic if anything. We decide together on the rules of the medal ranking list. There is no a priori discrimination against people who like to hack (they are free to participate if they refrain from their desires) so there is nothing unjust about not allowing hacking. Everybody is given the same opportunity and rules, and you can choose to participate or not.

It's like if everybody is playing monopoly, it's not discrimination to not let you steal money from the bank - nobody is allowed to do it. Those are the rules of the game and it's not discrimination to then enforce those rules. If you don't agree by the rules then you don't play. The rules themselves are somewhat arbitrary, so you're flawed in challenging us to attach a moral justification to them. If you want to play monopoly where stealing from the bank is allowed - that's fine, but don't expect me to play with you.

The fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter why hacking isn't allowed. You are informed ahead of the time that hacking medals is not allowed and you are aware of the consequences of hacking. Although not without motivation (my above arguments), I agree with you that they are somewhat arbitrary and certainly they aren't firmly grounded in some concept of morality. However these are are the rules that most people here want to play by (Newgrounds, the flash game developers, the medal community), so that's how we're going to play. If you have a problem with that - fine, don't play with us. Make your own site, make your own games, and allow hacking as much as you wish. I doubt any of us would have any problem with that. However you can't stay here and expect us to change the rules to suit you and don't be surprised when we enforce the rules we have.

Also, although unrelated, tradition can be justification for doing something. For example red=stop, green=go on stop lights. It's not the only thing that matters, but tradition is certainly something that should be taken into consideration.

Anyways, since you're leaving anyways why don't you just end this banter and stop clogging up our thread with your attempt at justifying hacking. I don't care enough to have a debate over the internet for the sake of debate, so I'm done now. I gave you our perspective, and if you don't like it fine. If it makes you feel better to call us fascists than so be it. I assure you it doesn't hurt my feelings coming from you. Now hopefully we can get back to discussing medals - which is the point of this thread. If you want to continue this debate how about you create a thread in the politics forum and leave us alone.

"it should be clear by now that I don't care whether or not you consider me a hacker"
Nothing else has convinced me more that you hacked. If you honestly earned everything legitimately then I'm shocked that you supposedly don't care. Either way if you don't care then you won't be a large loss to the community so it's fine for both of us. You can go on not caring about us and we can go on not caring about you. Win-win.

At 5/14/10 01:25 AM, greeneggs4spam wrote: Calling somebody a Nazi is meant as an insult, not as an accurate classification- so that's not justification of your definition.

Also, Godwin.

Also also, still waiting to hear back from fucrate about the Professional medal in Fig. 8. Maybe I should send a message to aeiowu... I think I'll do that.

Eh, I was going to post a lengthy reply to Mr.C, but I think you guys summed it up pretty readily. I would just like to add:

Hacking is wrong at its basest form because it's against the rules. ie. the terms of use:

3. Website Access

1. Newgrounds hereby grants you permission to use the Website as set forth in this Terms of Service, provided that: (i) unless you are the content's original creator, you will not copy or distribute any part of the Website in any medium without Newgrounds's prior written authorization; (ii) you will not alter or modify any part of the Website other than as may be reasonably necessary to use the Website for its intended purpose;

At 5/13/10 06:40 PM, Mr-Contradiction wrote: Alright I'm done ranting for now... I should get a new hobby now that I've effectively beaten NG's collective of medals... Too much time sitting around thinking about how everything is broken. It must be difficult to tell that my ideal world is an anarcho-capitalist society where the only defining law is that you may not violate anyone's free will.

So basically you want a world where people do what they feel. Ever watch the The Simpsons Do What You Feel? Get out of Canada please and resign as an engineer since you obviously do not hold the oath of an engineer in high regard.

Ahh philosophical discussions. Interesting. You're absolutely right, Mr-Contradiction. Indeed we are a fascist and exclusive community over here. Of course, I'm just talking about ideology, we don't literally go around burning down the houses of hackers. We have set up our own "community" over here in this thread as well as the medal rank thread, and each and every one of us are medal whores, spending time at games achieving these little icons that are worth no more than bragging rights.

Why do points matter to us? Well, medal points are just a convenient collective way of looking at your medal achievements. Now clearly I can't speak for everyone, since different people have different motivations. My motivation from the start was the achieve all the medals (legitimately). Thus when I first joined this thread and learnt of the medal rankings, I had my sights on the top guys since they had ALL the medals. Since then, those few people have been identified as hackers and removed, but little has changed for me. I still want all medals, and clearly if you have all medals you'll be at the top.

Yes, having more medals/points is a cheap way of saying "Hah! I'm better than you." And people here subscribe to this line of thought because we are sad, deprived people with nothing better to do and have nothing else in our lives to validate our worth. (Well I'm exaggerating of course....) But yet the (usually) unspoken agreement among people here is honesty and integrity. We want fair competition and a fair platform with which to compare amongst ourselves. We take the "moral high ground" against hackers and are generally unashamed of it. We think cheating is wrong simply because it sidesteps the rules and fair platform we have established here within our little community here.

To be honest, I dislike "free will" arguments. In society (well, depending on where you are on this planet, I guess), exercising free will is generally tolerated unless it violates that of other people. If you do so, this is generally considered a crime and the criminal is excluded/segregated from society. Just like how we jail murderers and rapists. Just like how we deport foreign nationals whom we deem unworthy of staying in our country for whatever reason. In our case, we remove you from our little ranking system. (Now, by no means am I suggesting that it takes little effort to compile the list weekly and discrediting the work) I'm trying to say that this isn't as shameful as what your post might have suggested to some people; it's simply the way the world works.

Sure it is your "free will" to hang out else in NG and hack all you want. Clearly if I were a programmer I wouldn't think it "wrong" to test my hacking skills against the NG medal system. As a gamer I don't think it's wrong too; it's a perfectly legitimate motivation. However if a hacker were to come amongst us and say "hey look, I have more medals than you, you n00b" or simply try to join our "fair" (by our definition) platform without playing "fair", begone with you.

You say greed is our motivation in excluding hackers, and that they don't harm anything or anyone. Well, yes, greed is a reason. I don't take it as an insult, and I don't think any of you should. After all, greed underlies most of our actions as human beings. Nothing is harmed but our ego of being "better" than everyone in this little world of medal points. At the same time I do think that establishing a platform for fair competition is a pretty admirable thing to do, and something I hope our community will continue doing. The spirit of fair competition and fair play is the basic premise behind most sports, and I suppose that is kinda what medal earning has evolved to (at least over here)

In short, I am only against hacking if you hacked but come over here and pretend that you didn't. Free will arguments aside, I think blatant lying and deception is morally wrong by most people's books. Otherwise, we welcome you to compete fairly against the rest of us.

At 5/14/10 02:17 AM, Wylo wrote: Eh, I was going to post a lengthy reply to Mr.C, but I think you guys summed it up pretty readily. I would just like to add:

Hacking is wrong at its basest form because it's against the rules. ie. the terms of use:

3. Website Access

1. Newgrounds hereby grants you permission to use the Website as set forth in this Terms of Service, provided that: (i) unless you are the content's original creator, you will not copy or distribute any part of the Website in any medium without Newgrounds's prior written authorization; (ii) you will not alter or modify any part of the Website other than as may be reasonably necessary to use the Website for its intended purpose;

At 5/13/10 06:40 PM, Mr-Contradiction wrote: Alright I'm done ranting for now... I should get a new hobby now that I've effectively beaten NG's collective of medals... Too much time sitting around thinking about how everything is broken. It must be difficult to tell that my ideal world is an anarcho-capitalist society where the only defining law is that you may not violate anyone's free will.

So basically you want a world where people do what they feel. Ever watch the The Simpsons Do What You Feel? Get out of Canada please and resign as an engineer since you obviously do not hold the oath of an engineer in high regard.

Well it turns out there was some arson planned for this evening and I was not privy to prior notice.

I'm glad that a few people managed to rebut my arguments in some way shape or form. I would like to inform everyone that this was done for the sake of debate. As I stated earlier, I wanted to take the side of hackers since no one else would. Wylo, I am sincerely disappointed that you would attack a brother when he was simply arguing a topic for the sake of debate. It is not about "doing what you feel". It is about doing what you feel, without violating anyone else's free will. If I feel like pissing into a gutter on the street I can't do that if it violates someone else's desire not to have to see it. As a real world, this would be impossible, because there will always be people trying to take advantage of others against their will. Thus it is a utopia, unattainable to us. My utopia is where everyone knows what to do, without having to be told by a law or a rule.

The point that most people seem to be getting caught on is "unfairness". Since hacking is presumably available to everyone (unless the programs are purchased) the sense of unfairness is only perceived. It is moral unwillingness that is causing a divide between the positions.

As with most debates there are comments on definitions of words; please note that I never said "The first definition from Merriam Webster". English is a multi faceted language where words have several meanings. Currency can be an untraded object.

As for the NG terms of service. It says not to (i) reproduce, distribute or effectively steal hosted content, or (ii) alter the website in any way/use it for its intended purpose. The point I think you believe hacking falls under is "intended purpose" correct? This would be remarkably difficult to argue in a court, but I agree that most authors would not intend for their submissions to be hacked. Hacking would most likely violate that ToS statement. Since I now know of an established rule to be broken by hacking, I really can't argue that it is allowable. The spirit of the freedom to choose should not be dismissed though...

Interesting historical fact: Computers were invented thanks to the code-breaking (re: hacking) attempts during the 2nd World War on Nazi communications. Large banks of mechanical tabulation devices were constructed to assist the countless calculations required to break the codes. If the world had outlawed "hacking", (most likely some lawyers would have found away around the definition of the word...) would computers exist now as they do now? Denying possibilities leads to stagnation. Would you rather attempt the risk versus reward, or be guaranteed the compromise? Personal choice, and I am glad that there exist places around the world that will allow it.

At 5/14/10 01:15 AM, chris-marks wrote: Then your comparison fails because we're all completely powerless to actually stop hacking from occurring. All we can do is shun people who do, and exclude them from our elitist little list we keep.

Exactly... Enforcing control upon them. Since hackers most likely simply desire to be high on your list (since there is no other ranking system), you are enforcing a control to oppress that action. I am not accusing anti-hackers of hating Jews, I am looking into the high levels of regimentation and the resultant stagnation.

Hypothesis: Perhaps some of those banned hackers stop playing on Newgrounds and go to Kongregate, Newgrounds has lost that contribution to the site. Not that it matters on the internet... And your rebbutal to that comment would be "We don't want them here". What if Mindchamber hacks to get medals? Why should you care???

Level playing fields are important.

I would like for you to explain this. You are free to hack. How is the playing field not level?

Another post to follow once the double post lock is clear...

At 5/14/10 01:25 AM, greeneggs4spam wrote: I somehow doubt your post is "just for the sake of discussion." Nice job with the "you can't fire me, I quit" charade though.

I didn't say I "quit". If you as a collective do not want me to participate in your ranking system, I am fine with that. Not sure why you think I am sincere in my support of hacking.

As per your argument, my 100 point medals has no value to you since I can't give it to you.

Exactly. Medals have no value. They are not a thing to be "ranked" or traded. They are personal achievements for personal gratification. The attachment of points to them, what makes them rankable, is what I was attacking when I was talking about currency.

Anyways, this isn't a competition to prove you're better than other people, it's a community that shares a common interest. Why do you think there's so many guides and walkthroughs written by people on the medal list; why do you think HOS and Spiffy update a list even though they aren't on it? To highlight all the people "better" than them? That's ridiculous. In no way does other people getting a 100 point medal make it worthless to me, since I'm not doing it to be better than them. I'm happy when other people earn hard medals.

That's good for you. I personally don't care if JimmyTwoBits got eight billion points this week, or if he wrote a walkthrough for Button Clicker 17: The Buttoning.

The problem with hackers is that they're typically only interested in saying "look at my points, I'm better than you." This destroys the community and makes it less fun when people who aren't even playing the games try to turn collaboration into competition. The points make it a bit more fun since it's easier to evaluate progress, but honestly the points aren't the point, so to say.

I agree here. Hackers are the ones who want to be at the top no matter what. They have to be the best, and so they take the shortest route. What I don't get is how it "destroys the community". If you truly don't care about being better than people, why do you care if there are eight hackers at the top of the list? Any system of ranking is by definition a competition. If it were truly a collaboration, everyone would have similar points. Don't get me started on communism.

The correct comparison for medals would be tests.

I stated several times that my arguments only held for virtual situations where there were no adverse effects other than your suggested "destruction of the community". Tests are used to evaluate knowledge so that the person can contribute to society properly.

They make it about saying "I read the book" rather than about discussing and understanding the book.

That is nice. Life is a journey and all that. Somewhere in my topic I said that hacking flows logically from results based analysis. Thus we are arguing based on different assumptions and no comparison can be made. I concur that hackers lose all sense of accomplishment (not that any really exists for them) since there is no journey involved in their gameplay. It took me hours of practice to get Ching Chong right, and I enjoyed getting to the top of Seppuku Tower. The hackers just teleport to the end, kill the boss, grab the loot, and sell it for 10 cents.

You seem to have a very flawed understanding of facism (yes, a dictator has to be one person. That's the dictionary definition.) and discrimination. The characterizing feature of a dictatorship is not what the rules are, or that there are rules, it's how those rules are established. Calling somebody a Nazi is meant as an insult, not as an accurate classification- so that's not justification of your definition. This community is a democracy or republic if anything. Everybody is given the same opportunity and rules, and you can choose to participate or not.

Oh boy did you misunderstand here... Sorry, lets define the fictitious fascist regime as an oligarchy then. And dictators have been elected as many times as they have lead coups... I am not associating fascism with dictatorships. I am associating fascism with excessive control of the populous. As for the Nazi bit, there may still be a few people who use it in the proper context instead of a blind insult as you have described. Precious few I admit, but that is the spirit it was intended.

I never once brought up justice in my arguments. Hacking is by definition an injustice. It is cheating the system. What I wanted to talk about was how IN THIS INSTANCE, hackers have no real impact on non hackers. Controlling the hackers is therefore a violation of their will with no supporting reason aside from "we don't like it".

It's like if everybody is playing monopoly, it's not discrimination to not let you steal money from the bank - nobody is allowed to do it.

When me and my friends play monopoly, if someone needs money badly, they can suggest that everyone gets a bonus from the bank. Effectively, everyone hacks. This is not unfair. If we don't like the rule where you can only buy houses when you have all of the property of that colour, we ignore it as a whole. Is this wrong to you?

Your collective has outlawed hacking. That is the agreed upon rule, and it should be enforced as such. Only allow verified legitimate players into your clique. I don't need to reiterate my comments on fascist levels of control here do I? If you and ten friends wanted to get together and rank each other competitively, go ahead.

The fact of the matter is that...

Well that was a long winded sentence. I as a person agree. But do you understand why people hack? This was what I was trying to get across. That in this system, it is realizable that people could hack, and that it would in no way affect you aside from bumping you from #1.

Also, although unrelated, tradition can be justification for doing something. For example red=stop, green=go on stop lights. It's not the only thing that matters, but tradition is certainly something that should be taken into consideration.

Never. Tradition is an excuse used too widely for its minuscule merit. Yes, red lights usually mean stop. Unless they mean duck and cover. Unless they mean stand still and be quiet until the lights are off. Unless they mean prepare to engage the enemy. Unless they have no meaning whatsoever, and are in place so that film doesn't develop too early. Tradition is used to validate the status quo. Good ol humanity resisting change.

I don't care enough to have a debate over the internet for the sake of debate, so I'm done now.

That is disappointing... Children these days are so flighty.

I gave you our perspective, and if you don't like it fine. If it makes you feel better to call us fascists than so be it. I assure you it doesn't hurt my feelings coming from you.

Sigh... You truly misunderstood SO MUCH of what I said. Evidently you let emotion rule a large portion of your argument. I am not calling you a fascist. I did not intend to hurt anyone's feelings with this debate.

"it should be clear by now that I don't care whether or not you consider me a hacker"
Nothing else has convinced me more that you hacked. If you honestly earned everything legitimately then I'm shocked that you supposedly don't care.

Well I am glad that you have come to a conclusion on something that is none of your business. My apathy is apparently very compelling. I have honestly earned everything but the one medal from Lastman legitimately, and I only followed the links in the author's comments there. Getting back home was surprisingly easy imo. And I honestly don't care that I have a large number beside my account on an internet site. It was fun (I even warmed up on the Doom Triple Pack after playing it for two days straight) to play the games, medals were simply an impetus to be good at them. Hell, I'm even kind of enjoying playing the first ten levels of Explore campaigns over and over trying to get that last medal.

Well this has been rousing, I haven't argued that extensively since that luncheon incident...

What's with all the lengthy diatribes? Only douchebags hack. We all know they're douchebags, they know they're douchebags, and deep down inside their parents have probably come to the realization they they've spawned douchebags. The only real argument for hacking is "I don't care, lol" anything else is just playing devil's advocate for the sake of playing devil's advocate

At 5/14/10 03:02 AM, queenofbabes wrote:

Well shit. After reading greeneggs4spam's and other posts I was ready to ignore these threads from here on in because the representative sample told me they were populated by close minded, pompous pricks who are so ruled by emotion that they can't even debate properly. But then someone has to pipe up with a thoughtful, well reasoned argument.

Bravo queen.

Bravo.

I apologize if I have misinterpreted your words, but by stating your ideal world, anarcho-capatalist, alongside with your arguments, it strongly implied that you believed every word that you were saying. Especially since the arguments you presented fit very well in that society.

I think you have free will and desires mixed up. A person may not desire to see you piss in a gutter, but it is their choice to ignore you and move on or look at you in all your glory. Free will is about choices. You may say that you are imposing on their free will by making them have a choice. But without the choice, there would be no free will by definition. Your utopia cannot be based on free will because if everyone acted as they should, there is no free will in that society since there are no choices.

You bring up the topic of WWII. Morals change due to society's wants and conditions. The Allied forces and people deemed 'hacking' the Nazi code to be acceptable. However, I doubt many of the Allied nations would deem 'hacking' into their own communications to be acceptable. By the same token, there are hackers today who are commissioned by the government. It is acceptable that these hackers are there to test the faults within their own system. However, there is strong resistance to the government hacking into individual's personal privacy. (Freedom Act anybody?)

Interesting fact: 'Computers' were not 'invented' in WWII. Things like the computer which is a continuously developing product cannot be invented, unless you wish to state the first mention of computer in the English language, which was not in WWII, or wish to specify what type of computer, like the digital computer, which I highly doubt was developed solely for WWII code breaking.

Re: Fairness. Everyone is free to hack, however this is still not fair. Not everyone has the background knowledge and computer expertise to be able to hack even if there are tutorials out there. It would only be fair if NG actively promoted hacking, providing tutorials, etc. Only then could 'everyone' do it.

Re: ToS. It is easy to prove in court as long as there is evidence of hacking, like getting the impossible broken medals, like some other people on NG. However, the damages awarded would be miniscule (ie. ad revenue lost from that individual plus consideration = tens of dollars) which is why no one actively sues for small-time hackers.

Re: Stagnation. Hacking is more of a hindrance than a stimulator for progression. Do pirates stimulate software development? Yes, they stimulate DRM packages, but without pirates in the first place, there would be no need for security, allowing of allocation of funds elsewhere. Do viruses and spyware stimulate society? It may provide revenue for the hacker via stolen credit cards which could stimulate his local economy but its just a redistribution of wealth since the victim's local economy suffers. Think of all the hours and money spent on developing security just to prevent a single hacker from getting to millions of bank accounts.

We desperately need a new medal game now.

At 5/14/10 04:58 AM, Mr-Contradiction wrote: Bravo queen.

Bravo.

Thank you.

At 5/14/10 05:49 AM, Wylo wrote: Re: Stagnation. Hacking is more of a hindrance than a stimulator for progression. Do pirates stimulate software development? Yes, they stimulate DRM packages, but without pirates in the first place, there would be no need for security, allowing of allocation of funds elsewhere. Do viruses and spyware stimulate society? It may provide revenue for the hacker via stolen credit cards which could stimulate his local economy but its just a redistribution of wealth since the victim's local economy suffers. Think of all the hours and money spent on developing security just to prevent a single hacker from getting to millions of bank accounts.

I have a couple of things to say about this issue though. Not regarding the "without pirates we won't need security" issue. Well, without criminals we won't need policemen. It's a tricky debate and I don't want to be drawn into making statements like "without criminals our policemen will all be out of a job ohnoes".

But regarding hacking/pirating and stagnation: Sure hackers stealing money from bank accounts is wrong, and smaller software companies are indeed finding it hard to survive if hackers are undercutting their bottom line and preventing them from becoming established in the market. Yet looking at large software companies and record labels. They complain hackers and pirates rob them of vast sums, but they still make their millions that most people only own in their dreams. I don't see Microsoft being bankrupt even though it was easy to download a copy of bittorrent. (Although nowadays they've become smarter by requiring online registration with a unique key, etc.)

Let me share something with you. Back in my country, about a decade ago, software piracy was rampant. You could easily buy a copy of Windows off a street vendor for the equivalent of US$2-$3. Of course, a legitimate copy cost hundreds, which was not what most people could afford. At some point the government stepped in with a thorough campaign and pretty much rooted out all these pirates, but I always wonder: could IT literacy have taken hold in the country without cheap copies of pirated software? By "tolerating" piracy for as long as they have, did the government ensure that the people now had a competitive edge? How has this been a "hindrance"?

But I digress.

You don't read well

At 5/14/10 04:48 AM, Mr-Contradiction wrote: When me and my friends play monopoly, if someone needs money badly, they can suggest that everyone gets a bonus from the bank. Effectively, everyone hacks. This is not unfair. If we don't like the rule where you can only buy houses when you have all of the property of that colour, we ignore it as a whole. Is this wrong to you?

At 5/14/10 01:25 AM, greeneggs4spam wrote: It's like if everybody is playing monopoly, it's not discrimination to not let you steal money from the bank - nobody is allowed to do it. Those are the rules of the game and it's not discrimination to then enforce those rules. If you don't agree by the rules then you don't play. The rules themselves are somewhat arbitrary, so you're flawed in challenging us to attach a moral justification to them. If you want to play monopoly where stealing from the bank is allowed - that's fine, but don't expect me to play with you.

DAAAMMNNN that looks similar to what you wrote... arguing against what I wrote?

At 5/14/10 04:48 AM, Mr-Contradiction wrote:

:If you and ten friends wanted to get together and rank each other competitively, go ahead.

That's what we're doing. Most people would not consider us to be fascists because we only want to include people in our ranking that play by the same rules as we do. By your logic it seems it would be fascism if we weren't able to take hackers off the list and it would be fascism if we took hackers off the list who wanted to be on it. Your concept of fascism is a strange one.

At 5/14/10 12:42 AM, Mr-Contradiction wrote: Just a note, read up on what fascism is. Here's the dictionary definition: a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc.

At 5/14/10 01:15 AM, chris-marks wrote: You're fond of dictionary definitions: "something that is used as a medium of exchange; money." So yes, it does have to be definited as a tradeable item, because that's the nature of exchange. The nature of money is that you can spend it to get things, and you can't spend medal points. So once again your argument fails due to failing to meet the definitions of words.

At 5/14/10 04:39 AM, Mr-Contradiction wrote: As with most debates there are comments on definitions of words; please note that I never said "The first definition from Merriam Webster".

lolol.

Also I assure you currency cannot be untraded by any standard definition. You used the word incorrectly, move on.

Please move this discussion to the politics forum. Keep in mind you're a fascist if you don't.

At 5/14/10 04:39 AM, Mr-Contradiction wrote:

Level playing fields are important.

I would like for you to explain this. You are free to hack. How is the playing field not level?

No, I will not explain, for two reasons.

1) If it isn't entirely self explanatory by the very nature of the argument, then nothing I can say will possibly be able to further your understanding.

2) It is perfectly obvious that you're just arguing for the sake of arguing. Take your douchebaggery elsewhere, please.

At 5/14/10 07:35 AM, greeneggs4spam wrote: Please move this discussion to the politics forum. Keep in mind you're a fascist if you don't.

Indeed, it takes to long to scroll down this way. Also, it's pretty irritating to see all those waals of text come by. And above all, it has next to nothing to do with medals anymore, it's only philosophy.

To get us back on topic, last night I did send a message to aeiowu about the Professional medal. I'll let you all know if anything comes of it. Also the pig feeder game doesn't have medals yet, and I'm wondering if the author only said that to ensure the game would pass judgment.

Medal or no medal?

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At 5/14/10 09:10 AM, ugolegend94 wrote: Medal or no medal?
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/53 5959

Gimmick for getting the flash passed. There's no medal.

At 5/14/10 09:10 AM, chris-marks wrote:

At 5/14/10 09:10 AM, ugolegend94 wrote: Medal or no medal?
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/53 5959

Gimmick for getting the flash passed. There's no medal.

These are jokes that I like them!

Let's talk about medal games for 10 more posts, push the thread to the next page.

I just played Bomb Diggity for a little bit, trying to get another medal, and the game is still ridiculous. It's not that I can't memorize the map, it's that the amount of sliding is unreasonable, which makes it really hard to control her. Also the game just kind of spontaneously decided not to defuse a bomb or kill a henchman every so often, which was frustrating me to no end. In one game I had the game give up on defusing twice, which cost me two lives and almost certainly the "keep urbanville safe for 5 minutes" medal.

Yeah, all those glitches really make it hard to obtain the last medals. I only need the 50 henchlings and 15 minutes of safety medals, but all those glitches and flaws in the gameplay make it almost impossible to obtain these medals.

At 5/14/10 10:34 AM, LiquidOoze wrote: Yeah, all those glitches really make it hard to obtain the last medals. I only need the 50 henchlings and 15 minutes of safety medals, but all those glitches and flaws in the gameplay make it almost impossible to obtain these medals.

You still have 50 henchlings left? 25 was the second or third one I got (out of 3), I'm surprised it's that hard to get to 50.

Erm...could I get a TL:DR version of the previous walls of text?
What I understood is that Mr.Con wanted to defend hackers "for argument's sake" (ho, ho, ho), and that somehow the conversation got "philosophical" and whatnot.
But what could sum up the answer about why hacking is wrong is "It's against NG rules, and if someone has enough proof, you can get all your medals deleted".

At 5/14/10 11:34 AM, HeavyTank wrote: Erm...could I get a TL:DR version of the previous walls of text?
What I understood is that Mr.Con wanted to defend hackers "for argument's sake" (ho, ho, ho), and that somehow the conversation got "philosophical" and whatnot.
But what could sum up the answer about why hacking is wrong is "It's against NG rules, and if someone has enough proof, you can get all your medals deleted".

Also we found out that Mr.Con can stand for Mr.Condescending, and that he doesn't understand the basic concept of currency. Though really, if he'd been able to get his point across without a wall of text in the first place, it probably wouldn't have come to this.

In other, medal game related news, I've managed to memorize the first half of my Fig. 8 route. So once I've memorized the second half, I can try to put together a 15 million point video by doing it in two halves, followed eventually by a ...100 million? point video by doing it all at once. Getting between that bar and the F is going to be the biggest hindrance to doing it all in one shot.

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At 5/14/10 03:22 PM, Pokemonpoeguygcn wrote: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/53 6052

I so wish I didn't have to work like a fiend for the next hour and a quarter...

TL;DR version: I think we've established that while you can hack, if you do you're not welcome here, and you're at the mercy of NG staff.

Let's keep debates mannered if you want to continue. No more name-calling, please.