On balance, Mafia is a waste of time

== Roadmap == I'm just going to go over the main voting issues and respond to Zarro's arguments internally. == Voting Issues == (1) Happiness The people who play mafia do so because they enjoy it, and playing makes them happy. Zarro claims that I do not prove a link to happiness, but it's axiomatic that people would not play the game if they did not enjoy it, and doing things we enjoy makes us happy. The reason this is important is that happiness is one of the biggest impacts in this debate because becoming happier increases your productivity by 12%, improves your health by the same magnitude as giving up smoking, and makes you more likely to succeed in your relationships and career. In contrast, doing a lot of Zarro's recommended tasks would make the people who currently play mafia *unhappy.* Some people hate reading dense books, watching dry documentaries, forcing themselves to write a novel, or dealing with their finances (e.g. doing their taxes). These tasks are not fun for a lot of people. If you never do anything fun, that is a quick road to unhappiness. Conclusion: mafia is not a waste of time because playing makes people happy. The pursuit of 100% perfect productivity would result in a very unhappy life. (2) Downtime Zarro's only response to this argument is that if you are mentally exhausted, you should watch documentaries or go to sleep instead. However, Zarro never proves that mafia is mentally fatiguing. She never answers her *own source*, which said that if we find a task fun, we don't find it fatiguing. If you work for 8 hours per day and get mentally fatigued every day after work, it would seem wasteful to sleep for 16 hours every day or to veg-out in front of the History Channel for 8 hours per day. Compared to Zarro's own recommendations, mafia is comparatively a better use of downtime. In contrast, most of her other proposed tasks are not downtime. Working out is not downtime. Writing a novel is not downtime. Going on a date is stressful and not downtime. Cleaning, checking finances, and looking for business opportunities are not downtime. Conclusion: Downtime is necessary to resupply stores of motivation and neuro-chemicals necessary for long-term memory formation. Studies prove that students who get to play games during recess have better test scores than students who don't get such downtime. Because I win that downtime is necessary to proper brain functioning, the only relevant tasks in today's debate that can be compared to playing mafia are ones that can also be considered downtime, which only leaves Zarro with television and sleeping an excessive amount. I can easily show mafia is a better use of downtime than those options. (3) Playing mafia improves cognitive ability A. EQ Zarro argues that mafia does not improve EQ because you cannot convey emotion via text. But (1) EQ is about more than reading emotions; it is about understanding where people are coming from (i.e. alternate viewpoints), and (2) of course you can convey emotions via text. If you couldn't, the very idea of a "love letter" would be incoherent. Mafia improves EQ because you do learn to read and play off people's feelings. For example, if someone seems genuinely upset of being accused of being scum, that is generally a good way to town-read someone. It is undeniable that the game involves reading the other players, and I personally have gotten better at doing so over time due to playing mafia. B. Lie detection Again, Zarro says mafia does not teach lie detection because it is text-based. However, (1) her definition was *descriptive*, not exhaustive. Mafia is a game played on the forums of DDO, but that is not the only place it is played. It is also played via text on other websites (e.g. MafiaScum) and in-person via Google Hangouts. A descriptive definition gives an example of something that falls within the definition, but does not attempt to define the entire scope of the term. If I defined "debate" as "an activity often done on DDO via text," I don't think anyone would think that my definition was intended to be exclusive of all other types of debate. The game of "mafia" is also played via Google Hangouts, which does involve reading body language. (2) Reading body language is not the only lie detection skill. Another recognized technique for catching someone in a lie is asking a series of quick questions to attempt to make them slip up. [1] This technique is used frequently in forum mafia. C. Advanced prediction skills Zarro's only response is that only the mod gains this training, but players take turns modding so everyone gets a chance. And if you mess up and the game isn't balanced, the players will offer you feedback after the game is over so you can improve. You are learning a form of game theory. Zarro never really contests this. D. Other cognitive benefits Zarro drops the study proving that engaging games, like Portal 2, improve *general* cognitive abilities. Playing mafia just makes you smarter in general. Conclusion: I easily prove that mafia is a better use of downtime than watching TV or sleeping excessive amounts. (4) Not mutually exclusive Zarro says she doesn't need to prove that any of the tasks she lists are mutually exclusive with playing mafia because playing mafia is still a waste of time if there is a "better" task. However, this is nonsensical. If the "better" task you could be doing is exercising and you have *already* exercised that day, then Zarro cannot use "exercise" to show that mafia is a waste of time. In particular, exercise and sleep are two terrible examples because most people exercise and sleep every day and still have time for other things. Zarro had the BOP to show that mafia prevents people from doing other very important tasks, so she had the BOP to prove mutual exclusivity. If she didn't have to prove mutual exclusivity, then *everything* in life would be a "waste of time" because sleep is comparatively more important than anything else. Conclusion: Zarro's claim that she doesn't need to prove mutual exclusivity is untrue, and this argument costs her the debate. (5) Subjectivity Zarro claims that sleep and exercise are "objectively" better than playing mafia. Ironically, these are the two tasks that are *clearly* not mutually exclusive with playing mafia. All the other tasks (e.g. reading, writing a novel, watching documentaries, going on a date) are inherently subjective in terms of how "worthwhile" different people would consider them to be. Zarro never responds to the argument that if someone has nothing he or she would rather do than play mafia, it cannot be a waste of time. People have different ambitions and likes and dislikes. Zarro's list of better tasks is only a list of things *she* finds more worthwhile. Conclusion: reject the notion that you can value for someone else what tasks are "more worthwhile." (6) Infinite regress Zarro claims this is irrelevant and she has listed "objectively" better tasks. However, (1) she never *ranks* her alternatives. If tasks could be objectively better than each other, she could say which task was #1 most productive, which was #2, etc. But she can't; doing so would be absurd. (2) She drops this argument entirely because "infinite regress" was different from my "subjectivity" point, and Zarro answers only with "objectivity." Conclusion: reject the notion that something can be a "waste of time" merely because there is something slightly better you could be doing. The pursuit of 100% perfect productivity is impossible because it results in an infinite regress of always searching for a slightly better task. You'd spend all your time planning, and no time doing. (7) Stress Zarro drops my impact turn that stress is good because it improves learning. She disagrees with the level of stress, but this doesn't matter. A lot of things are stressful, including a bunch of things on Zarro's list (e.g. working out, checking finances, going on a date). Even playing video games (like Portal 2) can be stressful. A certain amount of stress improves learning, which turns Zarro's examples of learning by reading books or watching documentaries (which involve zero stress). Zarro also drops why applied learning is better (e.g. in employment); she merely misrepresents my argument as "you cannot learn anything from books." It's not that you can't learn anything, but you learn a lot faster and better by *doing.* Conclusion: mafia is a better way to learn about sub-communication and detecting lying than is merely reading a book on it. (8) Regret This argument is completely worthless because Zarro's argument is that people will regret wasting their time on mafia, so she has to win the debate itself ["mafia is a waste of time"] as a threshold issue to proving people will have regrets. Conclusion: this argument merely begs the question and is not an independent reason to vote Pro. For all of the above reasons, Vote Con. [1] David Lieberman, Never Be Lied to Again