Open 804: Popcorn Mafia Redux [Game Over!]

[petapan]

@STT Not maf is always a shit poster he never evolves
You have to look at the little content he puts out and go from there
Also look at game state - if he's not being talked about much (like in this game) he is more likely scum. That is what happened in Doubles Mafia.

you've hit one of the points i was going to make about him

[SirCakez]

I think cakez/duchess is scum

No we should shoot duchess or cakez or not mafia.

PETA solidified my townlean on rock

Shoot duchess

PETA solidified my townlean on rock

Shoot duchess

you don't think i'm onto anything wrt STT?
because i wanna shoot that hydra real bad.

I don’t really care currently I would rather see duchess shot right now.

duchess stt scum

Amazing insight Wheme, tell me one I haven't heard before.

Nice call out
I didn't realize When's posting had gotten so atrocious
Complacent scum? This could be the mole in my TRs

[SirCakez]

Duchess - Thank you. I know other people understand my argument and where I was coming from, but the way Cakez has approached this interaction has literally left me feeling like a crazy person because of how much he has misrepresented, misunderstood and changed the argument. (STT claims to understand but they'd not be making the point they were making if they actually understood, but it's whatever.) Anyway, regardless of your alignment, I appreciate it. Nacho has pointed out before that being understood is something that is really important to me; I'm not really concerned about being right, but I do want to be understood.

What do you think of Mush's deconstruction of Duchess's case?

Both of us agreed with some points, didn't agree with a couple. I only skimmed it though, and it's something I'll probably come back to tomorrow. Gonna finish responding to Peta here and then I've got to get some grading done.

I'm thanking Duchess there because I think she's right and you're scum, or because I think she's town. I'm thanking her because I feel understood.

I understand the thank you - I was just curious because you praised the case but then Mush shot it down later

[unwnd]

Wheme has been my scumread the moment RLotus got the gun. Nobody picked up on the subtext (not even Imperium) when I was talking about how Dunn wasn't the only person to get my ire

[Imperium]

i'm reading in real time but not taking notes or anything of the like since i'm disorganized. i can see there was mention of it previously but it was never really fleshed out

in general this game, i've liked a lot of what you've said and what you've been doing, like how you really seemed to want to interact with norfolk and actually get a read on him rather than just call for his head like half the players in the game, but if i had to raise a point of concern it seems like you've been difficult to pin down to a concrete stance for a lot of the game. that's not a crime necessarily, my reads tend to waver a lot which is why i hate committing myself to lists but in a setup like this, there's a lot of scum, i'd expect some strong scumreads because you can pretty much close your eyes and throw a dart and still hit scum.

so i want to ask, what's your opinion of norfolk after you interacted with him, or tried to? why's duchess a scumread for you? why's unwnd scum? why is MUSH your top townread?

(i'm still a few pages behind where i first subbed in in my readthrough so i may have missed some stuff, apologies if i'm making you repeat stuff, this is just the impression i'm geting)

It was never fleshed out, you're correct, but i find it not

notable

but odd that you didn't recognize that it was part of a conversation about players that had started at 710. Yes, he at that point said he was thinking lotus, and I restated my previously stated points - my little pings that I wanted to reread and flesh out, which I would have done regardless of who he said. We were in a conversation, one in which he had just stated not too long before that he wasn't going to be shooting right away. (Just double checked this; he said he wanted to give us a chance to get our thoughts out there the night before.) Anyway, there was no indication that he was shooting right then until after that point when he said he was shooting and gave his reads list. I get Dunnstral in the moment thinking it looked that way, but I guess I don't really understand how you don't recognize it for the conversation that it was.

For what it's worth, I didn't even think he was going to be shooting right that moment when he said he was informed they were shooting. I thought that we were still going to talk more. (I realize this part here is pretty meaningless from an outside pov who truly has the above thought, but.)

Nacho feels pretty good about norfolk being scum. I think he's pretty likely to be scum. I'm still trying to make sense of duchess, but I think my original theory on the people, like cakez, who had given reasoning I disliked on Norfolk being scum might have been wrong. unwnd mentioned that scum probably were more likely to slip norfolk into their scum reads if scum and dunnstral mentioned that scum probably don't want much conflict this game, and that has me shifting my assumptions some. I only played this setup once before at my homesite, and after giving the gun to the strongest player my team bussed the fuck out of me. It lost us one at the start of the game, but I spent day one working to make my partners not look like my partners and vice versa. We almost won the game that way; we would have but the last partner standing just flaked from lylo.

ANYWAY, I think my original thought on how scum would behave was based on my only experience, but dunnstral's no conflict point makes a lot of sense to me. And while I do think unwnd has a point, I'm not sure how much i want to agree with that because bad distancing is still an issue that will get someone shot. Does that make sense? This is a lot to say that I'm trying to reorganize my thoughts a bit, and I had to step away from the game before I unleashed.

I was concerned that Norfolk's pop back in after the cakez/me thing was a bit appeasing of cakez. Cakez did misrep that point of Norfolk's so it was odd to me that he wrote him off as misguided town at that point. When he came back he had him as scum, which had me wondering if scum were going to kind of float cakez as scum to hopefully get him shot because if town the game losing shot is Cakez shooting us. (Part of me wonders if this is what Duchess was doing too) I've haven't really felt great about anything he's posted. Except I did have one little thing I wondered, but I think it's probably stupid. I used that questionnaire as support for him being either nervous town or scum at the beginning of the game, but he came in and corrected me. He told me he lied in that post, and he loves being scum and having a role - he finds VT boring. Now does scum point out the mistake I made, or does he let me continue thinking he'd be nervous regardless? I guess yes, because maybe he wants to point out how much he loves being scum. I also wondered about the shifting position to being ready to get the gun.

Why does everyone townread Mush?

I should go to sleep. I saw the first part of your name and read nacho, and was about to remind you that I literally just explained that and my fears about it before realizing it was you guys.

I, in part, and town leaning her because some of the ways she questioned and talked to whemestar and me reminds me a lot of me as town a long time ago in a way that I couldn't really accomplish as scum. This is a dangerous reason to townread someone though I know because this has bit me in the ass before. Just because I have limitations in my ability to play scum because drawing scum sucks doesn't mean someone else will.

Other than that, I kind of liked the way she's described her play style and what she looks for. Does that make sense. I'm a sucker for self-meta though, so that probably won't be a strong reason for anyone else.

The little kind of setting traps? or little things that give her information, I've also kind of liked in a way.

It's not a strong read because I don't think my reasons are very solid. I didn't agree with her whemestar points or really part of the cake one about the voting.

OH wait I liked her reaction to ABR calling her obvtown. In the moment, it was a post that just felt good.

My MUSH read started there and just really kept continuing. I've pretty much liked the majority of her posts down to the descriptions of how she looks at the game. I liked the way she was certain and ready to go after STT, which literally moved at the same moment that Nacho started having doubts about STT. We might just be the next best synchronized skating team.

Nacho also thinks unwnd is more likely to be scum than I do, but I do suspect him. ABR didn't do anything that ABR usually does regardless of his alignment, so I didn't have a read there pre-unwnd at all. The problem I've had is the kind of mediator (sort of) play style he's adopted this game. But it doesn't even feel like that because at points it's felt like it was fanning the flames of me and cakez rather than actually mediate. Though as I just looked back for an example, I see that I misread his original point in 503 so hrm. And I think I misread 856 too. I thought he was saying that we were handwaving cakez, when it's felt the other way around, but I don't think that's what he was saying. Let me come back to this.

[Imperium]

Duchess - Thank you. I know other people understand my argument and where I was coming from, but the way Cakez has approached this interaction has literally left me feeling like a crazy person because of how much he has misrepresented, misunderstood and changed the argument. (STT claims to understand but they'd not be making the point they were making if they actually understood, but it's whatever.) Anyway, regardless of your alignment, I appreciate it. Nacho has pointed out before that being understood is something that is really important to me; I'm not really concerned about being right, but I do want to be understood.

What do you think of Mush's deconstruction of Duchess's case?

Both of us agreed with some points, didn't agree with a couple. I only skimmed it though, and it's something I'll probably come back to tomorrow. Gonna finish responding to Peta here and then I've got to get some grading done.

I'm thanking Duchess there because I think she's right and you're scum, or because I think she's town. I'm thanking her because I feel understood.

I understand the thank you

- I was just curious because you praised the case but then Mush shot it down later

[Imperium]

UGH the point should be that ABR was just being ABR and did nothing alignment indicative while here. Is the point I was trying to make, but I think I garbled the words so it doesn't actually make sense.

[Not_Mafia]

@STT Not maf is always a shit poster he never evolves
You have to look at the little content he puts out and go from there
Also look at game state - if he's not being talked about much (like in this game) he is more likely scum. That is what happened in Doubles Mafia.

How dare you

[Imperium]

So MUSH and Imperium both jumped off of their wagon on me with coordinated swiftness and grace. I think you should try for the 2021 Olympic scum team for synchronized gymnastics.

Snark aside though, if you were town, who would you shoot? (assume you had gun and deadline is now). I had the impression you guys thought I was the top target, so who's your best target now?

Preview edit: Wow you guys write so fast. We'll get that stack list next. Imperium, does that stack mean your top shot (regarding my aforementioned hypothetical) would be unwnd?

What's funny is I believe Nacho was holding on to his thoughts that you might not be as scummy as he originally thought until he saw Mush's response. And when she gave the response she did, it bolstered his town read on her and supported some of what he was thinking about you. I THINK I might be misinterpreting his thought there; I was playing a video game when he was posting the other night.

I know before that Nacho absolutely wanted you shot. I think now his position is either Norfolk or unwnd, which I agreed on, but I've just realized I misread a couple of his posts that I didn't like, so I need to reassess that unwnd read.

[Imperium]

Not_mafia is just numerically likely to be scum.

[Not_Mafia]

I'm town though

[unwnd]

Here are the people I dislike and why I dislike them.

I don't like

Dunnstral

right now. I fear this feeling however because the last game we played I didn't like him either. There was an intricate tell I provided with Dunn for the longest time and I think I forgot it. It seems that somewhere we both got bad at reading each other because we shared mutual scumreads. I have less of a confirmation bias feeling towards Dunn and more like an annoying twitch. That statement made about 'scum wanting to avoid conflict' did have truth to it, but I think that is not the full representation of the game, nor is it relevant. I think this game has been quite scrappy, even if they are just minor events (outside of the blatant obvious ones like Imperium v. Cakez) so for Dunn to say this to me seems like he's giving this game a cursory glance and nothing else. The pop-in from him after RLotus just furthered the agitation, and the only response he had to my complaints was 'well I responded 30 minutes after' as if the time responded matters? You could even say 'avoiding conflict' would be the most apt description of his play right now.

I think I probably dislike

Whemestar

even more. I gave his ISO a look and there was a reason I pointed out that he keeps saying to shoot Duchess. He also says to basically shoot (most convenient read to make at the current juncture based on thread trajectory). No, really. Go ahead and look. Sidenote: I believe Duchess has tried to respond to Wheme about twice now but they both seemed to drop it. hint hint: they're scum together and Wheme is trying to buscred Duchess by holding onto the read while they play coy with another, but you didn't hear it from me. Other complaints? The moment he isn't calling to kill someone else he just leaves these little tidbits of 'oh, if I get the gun imma shoot sooo much scum' like I had to eyeroll when typing this. All flash and zero fucking substance. No logical progression in reads just shouting into the void. Even the questions asked from himself don't seem to follow a useful pattern. He's just saying shit in the moment and then it's like he gets bored and forgets why he did it but shoot duchess. I don't understand why people believe this is townie.

Yeah so

Duchess

is still probably scum in my eyes. A bit below the belt to say 'hey, let's interact' and then ignore them but the engagements Duchess gives just read like wordy advice in conversation. Like, the way they talk to Cakez is such a sit-down moment I felt like I was not seeing two people have a developing conversation rather Duchess spending their time telling Cakez how it is. You can relate this mindset to the rest of their posts, where it all just is subject-oriented. What do I mean by this? It means that Duchess is not treating this game as something to solve, rather to talk about as if they were instructing. I just think Duchess is finding it very difficult to justify their reads, so they talk around them, and add all this needless context. I really don't know where Duchess is coming from and if I had to absolutely gather what they've said like..maybe they dislike Cakez and Wheme still?

[unwnd]

Norfolk

is like. A dwindling read me. I don't like what they're doing but this eeyore syndrome is really getting to me. It probably wouldn't be a great shot right now for that alone, because Imperium did make a point about how people are just oh-so-convinced Norfolk is scum and that perhaps scum were just directing a shot through apathy. That's clearly not Imperium's words but that's how I would represent Norfolk in terms of the rest of the playing field. Someone who started the game apathetic and continues to lead with said apathy. This read is dependent whether you believe this is fake or not, which requires a bit more sensitivity. If he doesn't like being VT or not confident then like is it justified to give him a gun? What I would like to see more out of Norfolk is despite the fact he isn't confident--there should be an attempt. A recent post from memory was him delving into some meta and mostly just self-defense, but at what point do we just decide to make him play the game if he's town. I still have him as a potential slankscum but I also wanna see what leaving him alone further might do.

[unwnd]

I don't wanna talk about my townreads or my nullreads (in detail), because the line between them get constantly blurred. Right now I would put MUSH as #1 and Cakez as #2 townie. I've given my reasons on both throughout this thread and I don't see my position changing on them. Tammycho is creeping up on my list because I'm starting to believe what they're saying. This is not a tonal read, rather the more they explain their thought process..the more I agree with them. Leave it to Tammy to always make really nice formatted posts that I enjoy reading. I also don't mind Nacho's blurbs either and I was never really scumreading them, just a bit cautious about the way they were engaging Cakez whom I've townread for a while now. This is slightly unrelated how Dunn was like 'you're just pocketing Cakez' no no Dunn

I'm

the one being potentially pocketed here. My intent to get them to stop fighting was because I knew that Nacho would not settle until his point was made and Cakez would just continue to dish out newfound evidence over and over and over. Like yeah that's scummy at face value but it's almost townie for Cakez because of what I said before.

Who's left after that? Peta/Rockhopper are still catching up so I'll wait to determine how I feel about them, but the displayed interjections make me favor them at least in the way they're doing it. Doesn't seem like idle commenting rather it's gonna lead to something bigger. Not_Mafia is not really readable and I will not try to. STT borders on Null maybe even a bit lower since reevaulation. I like what STT comes up with but is it just done in a way that...is only necessary? Peta made a point to me how STT going after MUSH should be something that I should advise given that MUSH would be an easy push to make. I do advise this, and if I had to say one thing I could dislike about STT is that their posts all come readily prepared in a way that feels a tiny bit insincere.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Exhausted. I can't post much tonight, but I can do a little bit.

Because now we know all of Lotus's interactions were genuine, this gives us meat to dig into their interactions with and see if the other side of them looks genuine as well. Stop being deliberately obtuse.

did this ever happen or is it just a thing you made noise about

It's something I've been intending to do but you may have noticed that practically as soon as the "BAD SHOT WHAT A DOOFUS TOWN'S DOOMED" crap died down I had my life fall even more to pieces and have been barely able to manage more than like what, five? of my normal wallposts in the past two days. On top of that, I had to deal with STT being obvscum (until Bayesian-bot evidence proved that scummy actions are NAI for them) and people following up on shit I asked them for all the way back when I actually DID have time.

Give me a fucking break.

I still absolutely think it's a thing worth doing but I do not have the time or the energy to do it at this point in time. If someone else does it I will be exceedingly grateful, but I'm expecting no one will, and that they won't get what I will out of it, so I intend to get to it when I have a chance even if someone else DOES do it. Probably, if luck is with me, I will do it tomorrow, but I can't actually promise it in my current condition so don't get all evil-rubbing-hands-together-moo-hoo-ha-ha-ha about this if I miss it either.

For the record, if you didn't mean this in a snarky "oh so you are just providing filler huh?" way, and my response seems harsh, please be aware that I'm fucking exhausted and sick and hungry and am just typing this in bed until I pass out and I made a pretty clear request to delay asking me shit until I got back to the damn game, so I'm more than a little annoyed that I get on to say "yeah I got some time for something if anyone needs anything" and have to immediately respond to some snarky fucking shade-throwing frivolous bullshit from someone who should know at least a bit of the way I play, and on the /same goddamn page/ that I said "hey hold your questions thanks" no less. So I might be a tiny little bit disinclined to give you the benefit of the goddamn doubt here.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

unwnd, STT's play style is Bayesian reasoning and probabilities. It's /going/ to be overprepared and insincere by default, because LessWrong types are trying to run computer programs on Mark 1 Plains Ape hardware as a lifestyle. It's NAI, you can't make any reads off of that. Focus on results more than approach with that sort of player, that will show you what their aim is.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

(I should clarify that, as a Discordian, my needling of rationalists should be considered both Part Of The Joke and Divine Commandment. Being tired and cranky, I may be leaning too far into it for the audience, but I mean no harm.)

[unwnd]

unwnd, STT's play style is Bayesian reasoning and probabilities. It's /going/ to be overprepared and insincere by default, because LessWrong types are trying to run computer programs on Mark 1 Plains Ape hardware as a lifestyle. It's NAI, you can't make any reads off of that. Focus on results more than approach with that sort of player, that will show you what their aim is.

Ah, I hate reading stuff like that. The problem with what you're saying is with a gun game there is no objective evidence, meaning there isn't wagonomics really. Like yeah, we can "vote" but I'm mostly ignoring it and just noting who says to shoot what. Go take some time for yourself MUSH and come back when you're fresh by the way, I don't wanna see you stress about Mafia. I hope your life situation improves and you're a trooper even for sticking it out and posting in here.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Ha! This is my time for myself. I need a distraction or I'll go mad and start spouting terrible prophecy again. The last time I did that, COVID happened. This is all for the best.

Appreciated nevertheless.

[unwnd]

Just realized there's 5 scum and I'm at

RLotus
unwnd
Cakez
MUSH
--
Imperium
Petapan
Not_Mafia
STT
Norfolk
--
Dunn
Duchess
Wheme

I could be wrong about one of my townreads.

Hum

[WhemeStar]

nm should have been first shot

[Not_Mafia]

Why do you want to give me the gun?

[WhemeStar]

Why do you want to give me the gun?

its more like i want to find out your allignment

[MUSHSHAGANA]

For unwnd:

I need to elaborate on why I liked Duchess's response to me at some point -- again, probably tomorrow. I don't think it's townie so much as it is not-scummy, which is a more interesting thing for me and has more town weighting to it in the way I build reads out. I will note that this doesn't make Duchess a strong townread; there's too many open questions that I have.

I see your point on the instruction thing, but I'd note that I'm doing something along the lines of instruction too. Check my pushes on Wheme and Imperium, and especially how I /end/ the pushes. This is a regular feature of my play -- if I press someone hard and decide they might not be scum, I point out what they did that made me pressure them, give advice to change it, and pay attention to see if they adjust their play in response to that, in what way, and how effectively. I don't think Duchess is doing the same thing I am, but I also don't think that you can make that a core feature of your scumread if you also townread me.

I have no particular issue with your Wheme or Dunn scumreads, I even agree with the substance of them, I just have some suspicions that I need to follow up on before I can sort them properly. Not giving too much away, but here's a riddle for you: who do they agree with? (Note: I do not know the answer to this yet.)



I probably have another hour before my meds kick in due to the time, so I'm available for probably that long.

[SirCakez]

Another reason not to shoot NM - we probably just lose if he's town lmao