A salient feature of war is that people die and get wounded. Another is that people form alliances and coalitions. If your proxy doesn't perform the functions of killing, wounding, forming alliances and coalitions, then explain in what sense it can be a proxy for war.

The part it is a proxy for is the "yay tribe" "boo other tribes" part of war.

Wear your Bears paraphernalia to Green Bay next winter for a first-hand experience of the phenomenon.

I stand corrected. People can be wounded and killed.

Probably more likely if you wore Green Bay paraphernalia on the south side.

Some team "A" historically wins 55% of the championships in some European football league because its a great team usually no matter what the losers say about it (always screaming for help from referees or sold/fixed behind the scenes matches etc). The other teams that have had it losing for decades decide to do this;

1) They play the first 17 matches of the championship (say 18 teams so 17 matches each round of 2) using a normal "play to win as best you can" approach.

2) After the first round matches are over, if the first (leading currently) team is the usual team A, the other teams decide to award the championship to the second place team say B. How do they do that? They play very tough matches against team A every time they meet and they try their best to injure top players of that team. Like clockwork. Every time! When they play team B (every team of the others) they always lose and they try their best to not injure anyone. Additionally during the winter period of new player purchases they send their top players to team B under great financial terms that are accompanied by the exchange of lesser players from that team. (so they send their top player and get 3 others or something like that)

3) If team A is not the leader by the end of the first 17 matches they continue to play properly until the team A is back again ahead and then they go and apply 2 above.


Now you go ahead and tell me that just because the rules of the game dont talk about this and "technically" nothing wrong has been done, that this is the kind of world you want to live in. You go ahead and also tell me that you want to live in the world where the big money will always be able to create the top team and prevent other smaller teams to challenge it by always buying out their top players or creating all kinds of obstacles to their opponents' progress etc (sometimes even behind the scenes via illegal methods that are hard to uncover).

Of course a better world would be one where yes money can buy better players but only up to a point is able to dictate the entire process and also other properties of a team that depend on hard work, real genuine talent, traditional sport strategies efforts, their youth club academies programs that create new players from the broad population of kids etc also these factors objectively judged (as best to imagine this) lead to some kind of financial success. And so this effort is properly rewarded helping the situation, assisting the process of building a better team, so that it is conceivable for a smaller team with less means initially but plenty of willing to work people, brilliant management with dreams and all kinds of similar human factor qualities, if a certain path of efforts is chosen to challenge and eventually dominate a better financed initially team that didnt try as hard. Isnt this healthier for competition and the quality of the game that results?

Shouldnt the laws/regulations of sports always change and adapt to evolving world realities in order to enhance the core qualities of the sport and to contribute symbolically to the processes that a healthy society celebrates as inspiring and creative, those seen as having potential positive side effects for its broader operations/functions/institutions.

Greece beats Ivory Coast...

Greece loses to Costa Rica...

Confirmation bias much?

Ok chance for you to retract. Did you see both matches? Did you also see the Costa Rica Netherlands match by the way or the Mexico Netherlands match? I will use all 4.

What bias? Dont you know me by now? Could you expect this from me? EVER?

I cant get more objective and consistent than this here.

In the first match they tried from the beginning to win and delivered and when it went bad after the equalization (that Ivory coast didnt deserve the tie because they were outplayed all match) they tried again and it worked in the last minute. It was Ivory Coast that didnt come out to win it like a true team that believes in itself and its superiority. They came out not to lose. GL with that.

Who had the heart of the champion to never give up until the end? Who came out to win it?


In the second match they again played better than Costa Rica but didnt deserve to win because they played like a team with no confidence and patience. Here is why;

Greece was leading in attacks most of the match (essentially outplaying Costa Rica) . After the first goal that was delivered by Costa Rica though (with a ton of time left), within seconds to a minute a defender, for no good reason, as the team was shocked from the goal, touched the ball with the hand inside the penalty area at a point it was not necessary to save anything. Pure lack of composure and confidence. The referees didnt see it and it never became a penalty which could have ended everything there. Does a team with composure and confidence allow itself because of 1 goal to crash? Or does it regroup and resume the attacks with a sense of inevitability? Eventually after a red card ejection Greece was 11 to 10 with plenty of time (over 30 min i think in second half ) and they cornered Costa Rica and managed to equalize at some later point (5-10 min before end i think) after many lost opportunities. The goal came after a ton of stress and lack of confidence in attacks but it did. Yahoo!

At that point i say myself WTF. They cant lose that now! What a great position to be! They have 11 vs 10, the other team is tired and emotionally demolished and will get worse in physical condition with time as they have no substitutes left and they cant counterattack much as their attacker Campbell has ran out of fuel, they have 10 min now and 30min in extra time to end it. There is no reason to panic or feel stressed, its close to a certainty if you play with confidence and imagination.

So what happened? They lose a ton of opportunities but very few of them were the result of good work, solid combinations of a team that has confidence and substance. Miserable waste of attacks. They were random and desperate as if time was against them, when time was their best friend at that point, the other team was unable to handle the ball enough time, all very tired, mostly the keeper holding it all in place, unable to strike with frequent counterattacks and penalties was a 50% backup anyway if Greece's attacks failed. What an equity edge to have right? Win it now 11vs10 with momentum and less tired players or 50-50 later. What is that 75% overall with 35 min to go?

Netherlands was 1-0 down vs Mexico at 88min and scored 2 goals in 5 min at the end of the match. Now why cant you use this as example of a team that believes in itself until the end and is not emotionally wrecked by the score at the time.

When you have 30+ min you can do it with 11-10. If you fail to do it and fail not because of some unreal sequence of lost opportunities that were well designed its another story. But if you fail to deliver all while your attacks were kind of random and miserable in execution then its because you do not believe in yourself and you have no confidence or patience. You play like someone that doesnt have what it takes to close the deal. You play like the guy that has Ivey at 100bb vs 10bb in a final table and cant close the deal because they get impatient and start calling superwide his pushes or bluffing him with garbage rushing to end things and when it goes back to 55-55 he gives up altogether and goes all in with ridiculous hands like tilted instead of regrouping and playing right, forgetting the 100-10 prior position.

The result is Costa Rica having the keeper in a good day boosted by the saves and Greek strikers in a day they were not thinking properly, managed to go to penalties and then the Greek Coach, who knows for what bs reason, manages to get ejected for the period of penalties and leave the team alone to do it. What on earth its like the tilted player above! It was almost a certainty now they would lose the penalties. There is no wait a min, no fa%%%ng way we give up this even now! Just an organized march to the loss.

Costa Rica goes to penalties with the attitude that they survived and now they have the best keeper and it becomes a reality in the end. A real confident team on the other side would regroup and focus. A striker that had failed to score earlier in extra time was the one that missed the penatly! What a surprise...The keeper saves.


What happened to the game of Costa Rica Netherlands yesterday that Netherlands couldnt score a goal in 120 min moreover the fact they had the edge?

The coach changes keepers 1 min before the end to put inside a keeper that has practiced with penalties and had better record. Instantly this broadcasts loud and clear; the hell with the fact we were the supposed to win team and it didnt happen in 120min, we are in it to win it even if it comes to penatlies, its not 50-50, we will make sure of that!

It works. He saved 2 penalties all while taunting opponents. Game over.

This is what it means to have the heart of a champion. You need to be able to extract yourself from the nasty crashes and regroup and strike back with relentless determination and confidence.


So what is the bias here?

Having the heart and confidence isnt always enough but it improves your chances. This is why i like teams that not only dont give up and refuse to die in general but can recover from the depths of abyss with ice cold blood in their veins and when they need to close the deal they do exactly that with conviction.


PS: If you can objectively criticize the team you support there is no bias. Only love and respect for the proper way. And all i want in this forum from Americans to is to rise up and do the same for their own country (in general not in soccer) so that all criticism would be taken as a form of love and respect for the possibilities not the vitriolic attacks of a true enemy.

When professional wrestling started in the late 19th century, it was under the pretense of being real. Eventually people found out otherwise, and now it's generally understood that it's just entertainment. Even so, it still makes plenty of dollars from people who are so starved for heroes that they don't care or are in denial that it's all fake. Boxing remained in the public perception of being the real sport for many decades until the blatant activities of Don King and his ilk came to light, and the perception of the sport changed dramatically. Yet otherwise intelligent people continue to cling to the notion that other professional sports are about fair play, sportsmanship, and hard work. Wrong. Sports are entertainment and big business, just like professional wrestling.

The team owners learned from professional wrestling to not cheat so blatantly that large portions of the public stop being entertained and turn away. So they operate more like poker cheats. Games appear very genuine because much of the time they are, kind of like a very good replica Rolex made with many parts from actual Rolexes. But the owners are not so stupid as to risk their fortunes on the sweaty backs of a bunch of dumb jocks. The outcomes on a larger scale are controlled by sweetheart deals made between the owners, and with professional gambling syndicates who bet millions on each game. Think of the owners like CEOs, and the gambling syndicates as Wall Street. You the sports fan is like the consumer buying the company's product. The CEOs are only answerable to the investors, and that only indirectly relates to how much the consumer likes the product. The owners will then bet millions as a hedge to mitigate their risk, using illegal betting in much the same way as a farmer will use the commodities market. Star players who determine games are paid millions to do what they are told and keep their mouths shut. This is what it means to be a professional.

So for those who think it's all about heroes and putting balls into a net, I'm sorry Virginia, but there is no Santa Claus.

You are right. Its about money and near term self serving attitude and in the end we all obtain exactly the kind of world what this "buys".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

You have picked an action that had its intended outcome, and you then call that acting with the "heart of a champion". Changing the goalkeeper for a penalty shoot-out has a sample size of roughly one. It's ridiculous to try to base any conclusion on that.

And taunting opponents isn't very sporting.

He just described exactly the same world you did. At the very least, I completely fail to see the difference between everyone trying their best to win and everyone trying their best to win.

Lastcardcharlie is correct. Had the exact same GK change and taunting led to a loss, you would have interpreted it differently.

Why is he correct? I spoke of 4 games that related to the 2 he discussed. What other games you want me to speak in this world cup that some team inspired you and didnt win as counterexamples? Did Mexico which otherwise played well in general that gave Netherlands ground after their lead 1-0 inspire you in their loss (i was impressed by it in their Brazil draw game but not the way they handled their lead in the Netherlands game). There is only one i recall Netherlands vs Australia but the underdog didnt win in the end although lead for a while and showed heart. Didnt i also say that this heart thing is not enough always? You need to have a technical standard that is of course good enough to depend on. Where the fack is my bias? I didnt design statistics from 2 events. Charlie did. I didnt come here and tell anyone here you see 2/2 bravo to my heart theory lol.

All i claim is that you need to have what i call the heart of a champion when things get tough and i have described what i mean by that (so far Netherlands proves the case also in their last 2 games). It should have been enough for all of you. But you come here to toy with people not to interact in a healthy manner. Where the fack is the bias? If the Dutch team had committed suicide at penalties and the Costa-Rican keeper had saved the team one more time yes you would have seen me say that the little team showed heart and won but there is a little bit more to it like i would have wanted them to at least score some goal in the normal game to show they want to (can) win it straightforwardly. But when the other side, the Netherlands, that is expected to win, fails to do it during the 120 min the shame is on them at that point, they need to pick themselves up and show character at the penalties. There is more character needed for Netherlands to win at penalties the way they did than for Costa Rica to have won there. I certainly hope you can see the difference. I would have probably said that they showed courage but anything is possible at penalties. The guy saved 2 not 1 . Wtf is this but significant conviction that worked in combination with some luck. They changed keeper which is a rare thing to see and it made a point to the opponent that hey this is not the game before you won, this time we go at the penalties with more than 50-50 and you watch it happen.

If Greece had won the Costa Rica game i would not have posted yeah one more time the heart of champion proves itself. NO. Because they were playing with 11 vs 10. There is no adversity there. I would have claimed they showed character when down 1-0 to equalize eventually but the penalty the referee didnt see and the 11-10 deficit removed from me forever the ability to claim anything along these lines. So bs it doesnt work both ways. If it had happened differently i would have simply said that both played a decent game and Greece got lucky in the ref. decisions.

So where exactly is the confirmation bias here again? Do you know for sure how i would have reacted in all possible outcomes? I just described you how and did that objectively. The only bias here is that of all of you against me. But that is your problem.

Ps: Did you also know the keeper they introduced had better results in prior penalty testing? There was a purpose here and that makes failure of that thing to work less likely than working. And by changing keeper dont they instantly remove the idea from opponent that hey our keeper is better. No he may not be better because there has got to be a reason a new keeper is introduced. They also remove the stress from the current keeper that would have been a factor. What factor? That he didnt have to do any major saves during the game and now he would have had suddenly to finally perform while the other guy was already tested during the match by being more involved. Sample size of 1? BS. Its a sample size of 5 different things all listed already starting with the fact he saved 2/4. How something happens makes significant difference and one can indeed get a clue with just 1 event yes, if it is rich and strong enough. But again i am not doing any statistics here. You are.

Reminder: Meeting of the anti-masque coalition tonight on ICQ. Come prepared to discuss strategies.

That's where the bias is.

I believe you, and I don't doubt your sincerity.

But you come up with this semi-mystical "heart of a champion" bull**** which, it appears, means nothing more than more prosaic qualities such as motivation and determination, and then you ascribe it after the event to whoever wins.

Confirmation bias is inevitable in high-profile sport. It adds to the narrative and drama of it. But at least recognize it for what it is.

The reason he is right is that all of the teams that have lost can be described exactly the same way.

This isn't some non-competitive youth league.

You have a habit of wishing for things we already have in abundance.

Was in response to

And that was in response to me, not lastcardcharlie whom BTM is talking about now.

No you quoted the part only not the entire thing i said had Costa Rica won at penalties. I further demanded from them to have scored a proper goal for it to be the real thing (but of course still respect for them in that case for not losing to a strong team, just not as much). I didnt demand it from Netherlands because they had already failed to win at 120 so they were already in their own abyss and Costa Rica wasnt at all, they were at their salvation at the end of the extra time because now they thought they had the chance finally. The situation is made more interesting by the keeper change and the 2 saved (vs 1 that was enough but more likely to be seen as pure luck and 2 starts to be a bit interesting). Heart and mindset of a champion is something that the coach also can have, not just the players, and the Greek coach for example didnt have it in many occasions to help the team and guide it stronger. Why didnt you quote the whole thing about Costa Rica? Is this your bias now?

Not all winners have the heart of a Champion and not all losers just do not have it. Is that clear?

Nothing mystical. I described what it is. It is in a way to rise up above your expected result at the moment you find the challenge (ie to fail) and deliver the extra inspiring effort for the win. Not every win has it. But some losses still do. If i see a rather inferior at paper team 3-0 down and the last 10 minutes it does a 3-2 and tries for the miracle (stressing the superior opponent and forcing them to stall and kill time for example) and yet fails i still recognize them for having the heart that most dont when they see a match going bad as over before its time.

I gave a ton of examples how one thing is and another isnt. It is not a case of whatever happens i make it fit the position. BTM it doesnt describe all winners. Hell no! If it is show where.

I dont know what the idea to debate this is here. You want to accuse a trained physicist about failing to bias of his own opinion. That is my life, to avoid this as much as possible. In fact look who you challenge to this. I probably have to be one of the most objective people here that several times correct myself and care for the truth not to be the "winner" of anything but to be correct.

Really? Like what, where are the other examples to demonstrate the "habit"?


You want to know what the real habit here is? The one you most have to come here with a polemic style and apply it every chance you get. As if life has hardened you instead of making you softer at heart, which is what real wisdom does.

Just the ones where you sound upset that we haven't achieved your scientific society standards. At some point you should look around and notice how wonderful things are.

Without knowing the precise details of your personal life, I presume that you aren't just doing physics in your free time after toiling in the fields. How awesome is that?!? Ποιος θα μπορούσε να προβλέψει ότι μια τέτοια υπέροχη τεχνολογία θα μπορούσε να καταλήξει να είναι τόσο γρήγορα;

The polemic style (if it sounds like I have one) is for your own good. Your understanding of human nature is excessively negative.

Take a second and try to understand that last sentence before feeling anything. I am telling you that this "heart" you were amazed to see is endemic. That you find it rare saddens me. It is like you found a tree with leaves and don't recognize that it is normal for a tree to have leaves. I find that to be a particularly cold (or maybe just blind) view of humanity.

(also, the taunting is in direct violation of nearly everything that I assumed I knew of you, but that is a different matter)

My fault for not being clear. My statement was in regards to both you and Charlie and masque on the nature of competition.

I see people trying their hardest to win in all the cases that have been mentioned.

WORLD CUP

Semifinals

Tuesday, July 8

4:00 p.m.: Match 61, Germany vs. Brazil at Estádio Mineirão, Belo Horizonte

- ESPN (Ian Darke and Steve McManaman)
- Univision and Univision Deportes
- ESPN Deportes
- CBC (John Helm)
- Radio-Canada (Michel Chabot and Rudy Doliscat)
- ESPN Radio and TSN Radio (J.P. Dellacamera and Tommy Smyth)
- Fútbol de Primera

Wednesday, July 9

4:00 p.m.: Match 62, Netherlands vs. Argentina at Arena Corinthians, São Paulo

- ESPN (Jon Champion and Stewart Robson)
- Univision and Univision Deportes
- ESPN Deportes
- CBC (Peter Drury)
- Radio-Canada (Michel Chabot and Rudy Doliscat)
- ESPN Radio and TSN Radio (J.P. Dellacamera and Tommy Smyth)
- Fútbol de Primera

************************************************** **

It's Eurotrash vs. South American hooligans: There will be blood.

Let's play some Fútbol!!

More fallacious, results-oriented thinking.

I think I'm beginning to see it. It's trying really hard when the chips are down, right?

Don't be a snob. I don't give a **** about your credentials.

Oh but i am not the one being a snob here. And i tend to give a fack about things that matter to a situation to draw a conclusion what is going on. In fact snobs are the ones that dont give a fack about certain past patterns of behavior for example. It is not about credentials, its about a posting history and a life history when the possibility of having misinterpreted someone is nonzero. In a world of incomplete information profiling is on occasion of some value.


Seriously can you not see the difference between a team that loses 3-0 and gives up in desperation and another that seems to tell you i dont deserve this bs and tries harder? And it doesnt have to be "when the chips are down". It doesnt even require a win, any win. A win that results from a rare deflection for example and where their opponent has 4-5 vertical/horizontal bar opportunities is not suddenly a team you respect because it won 1-0. It is precisely this thing that is not judged by the result for the most part. It can be evident by many little details like by how a player with bad luck or good luck plays in a game vs others ie a true gambler on tilt for example or one depending on lucky streaks and bad beats of others vs someone who cares about the process details where every choice means something deeper. Are you sure the entire thing is some random walk that is always the same distribution and all that is happening is one calls the positive paths or the paths that return to the origin as brave and with "heart"? This is not some static blind thing that is defined by results like a coin flip but by the details of the process. Its dynamical.

Finally a real snob would have chosen to not deal with you after the "cheap" confirmation bias post a couple days ago.

I've heard that teams down 3-1 in a 7 game series come back to tie more often than you would predict based on probability alone. Does that mean they have more heart because they didn't just give up and die, but instead rose to the challenge? I say no, they're a bunch of slackards who weren't doing their best to begin with.

Lets have this talk with some numbers please (ie the definitions of what is the "expected" probability from 3-1 down, how it depends on where the series started and how it was structured etc all kinds of prior info or the statistics of what actually happens and how it was accumulated etc again with proper handling of the structure.)

Also it would seem playoffs are a completely different system that can have even more interesting structure and interactions and where teams are actually very close to each other often and for a team to be up 3-0 or 3-1 it may mean it is better to begin with or it may mean it is also much more tired, the games have higher volatility with the one down risking a wider less careful game after a point etc. Its very complex.

The team behind should certainly not be expected to have a true probability of >50% on average over all such teams, so obviously they shouldn't come back more than 25% of the time. The structure is typically that 2 games of the 4 were played at each stadium, and 3 of first 6 are also played at each stadium. Baseball players don't get tired. They mostly just sit on their asses or stand in the field. In other sports, the losing team has no business being less tired unless they didn't try as hard. Common sense should tell you that when a team has its back to the wall, it will try harder. To me that makes them less than professionals. My respect goes to the team who came out with everything they got from the start.