5e highlights reel?

[...You Lost Me]

In other news, fectin cannot read:

No number of copper coins is going to be accepted as a fair exchange. Nor should it.

What kind of coin is commonly associated with copper?

[fectin]

If you write "World War 2 was due magical space dolphins!" people might criticize you. No amount of evidence proving the existence of WW2 will address that.
If you write that people don't like being paid in pennies because of some diminishing marginal value of cash, people might criticize you. No amount of evidence proving that people don't like to be paid in pennies will address that.

[...You Lost Me]

So, to clarify, you shifted your goalpost from defending FatR for being wrong (because he was wrong when he thought coins = any kind of cash), and you are now instead saying that cash doesn't actually lose value when presented in quantities too large for it to be reliably secured or counted outside of a bank.

So you have shifted goalposts, but you are just as wrong now as you were before.

[fectin]

I've been on the negative side the entire time. I haven't even had to establish any goalposts of my own, just said that various people haven't scored on the goals which they defined.
So, moving goalposts is an especially odd accusation.

[DSMatticus]

Fectin, you are being an epic dumbass.

Frank claimed that in order to make large purchases you need a portable and convenient way to store an adequately large value to make the purchase. Specifically, in the context of purchasing a house he described "cheques or bank transfers or some other kind of portable form of large value" as acceptable, and described "copper coins" as unacceptable.

FatR responded by calling Frank a moron and talking about the time his family bought some property with a pile of cash. Let's play a multiple choice game, Fectin. I'm going to give you two options, and I want you to pick the one that you think best describes a stack of hundred dollar bills:
A) copper coins
B) a kind of portable form of large value
Now, we obviously don't know the amount that was paid or the denominations of bills used. If his family bought a million dollar home in one dollar bills, that would be noteworthy. If his family bought a thousand dollars worth of former hazardous waste dumping ground in hundred dollar bills, that wouldn't be.

Animea called FatR (or his family, whatever) an idiot for carrying around piles of cash large enough to buy property. You responded with some weird "but now they own a house. Do stupid people own houses?" bullshit. Yes, stupid people do own houses. Many of those stupid people bought their houses using mediums of exchange offered by a bank which are a bajillion times more secure and less risky than carrying around piles of cash, making those stupid people less stupid than FatR's family.

A bunch of people called you an idiot for defending FatR and criticizing Animea, and now you have done (at least) two very dishonest things:

1) You moved the goalposts. The original argument was about whether or not the time FatR's family bought property using a pile of cash is a counterexample to Frank's claim that in order to buy a house you need "some kind of portable form of large value" (and specifically not copper coins, for completeness' sake). The argument you are trying to have now is whether or not people not wanting to be paid in pennies is evidence of the claim that large volumes of individual units of currency have diminishing marginal value ("If you write that people don't like being paid in pennies because of some diminishing marginal value of cash, people might criticize you. No amount of evidence proving that people don't like to be paid in pennies will address that."). These are different arguments. You are wrong in both cases, but they are distinct cases.

2) You strawmanned animea ("animea's "having a bunch of cash indicates retardism" point"). Seriously, that's fucking obvious and you should be goddamn ashamed of yourself. You are aware that mediums of exchange other than handing piles of cash back and forth exist, and you are aware that animea is criticizing their decision to use cash for this purchase. Not only are you aware of those things and have zero fucking excuses to begin with, Voss specifically pointed it out to you ("So do many people [own houses]. But they also understand how to use a checkbook or bank draft. Paying for a house in cash has no practical benefit...").

So... you have obviously been wrong about basically everything up until now. And you are also wrong about the new argument you are trying to have. Because the fact that people don't want large volumes of pennies is exactly the evidence you would provide that large volumes of individual units of currency have diminishing marginal value. Counting, storing, and transporting physical things costs resources, and all else being equal a transaction with less discrete units of currency has less overhead costs than (even if those costs are measured in personal frustration and time because it's just two dudes making a private transaction on a Friday night) is preferable to one with more discrete units of currency. And that's fucking obvious.

Here: you're selling your car for a thousand dollars. Person A offers you 100,000 pennies. Person B offers you 10 hundred dollar bills. Which offer do you accept?

[Avoraciopoctules]

Here: you're selling your car for a thousand dollars. Person A offers you 100,000 pennies. Person B offers you 10 hundred dollar bills. Which offer do you accept?

Are these the pennies that each contain a quantity of copper worth slightly more than one cent? If I'm a creepy recycling enthusiast, the choice is less clear-cut than you might think.

But yeah, I am totally supportive of the many ways modern society has developed to transfer large amounts of money without security risks. If someone wants to to pay me with briefcases of cash instead of bank transfers, my first reaction is probably going to be "are they a gangster or something? This is suspicious."

[TiaC]

Here: you're selling your car for a thousand dollars. Person A offers you 100,000 pennies. Person B offers you 10 hundred dollar bills. Which offer do you accept?

Are these the pennies that each contain a quantity of copper worth slightly more than one cent? If I'm a creepy recycling enthusiast, the choice is less clear-cut than you might think.

If they are pre-1982 pennies, then 100,000 of them are worth $2,078.30. That's a pretty big difference. Of course, they weigh 685 pounds, so perhaps it's not such a good idea...

[Rawbeard]

seriously... like... what the fuck? although this is more interesting than 5e, nevermind, continue.

[fectin]

Ugh. This has been a non-stop tour of bad arguments, each different from the last.

Ho-kay.

Frank claimed that in order to make large purchases you need a portable and convenient way to store an adequately large value to make the purchase. Specifically, in the context of purchasing a house he described "cheques or bank transfers or some other kind of portable form of large value" as acceptable, and described "copper coins" as unacceptable.

No. He said, explicitly, several things:
a) Physical currency stops being linearly additive after a point (i.e., currency has a diminishing marginal value).
b) The value of a house is past that point.
c) "the inconvenience is pretty noticeabe when the piles are merely large enough that you can't quickly enumerate how much is in them."

Then he claimed that this must be true, because no-one likes being paid in pennies. (I guess you could argue that the last two sentences are totally unrelated to the rest of that paragraph, but I'm going to assume that you are not literally brain-damaged, and are not making that argument.)

So. (A) might, possibly, be true, but (b) is empirically not, per FatR. (C) is obviously not true, and also empirically not true.

pick the one that you think best describes a stack of hundred dollar bills:
A) copper coins
B) a kind of portable form of large value

False dichotomy. In this case, the correct answer is "physical currency." In case you missed it, that's the thing Frank actually wrote about.

Now, we obviously don't know the amount that was paid or the denominations of bills used...

However, because we're not completely foolish, we can assume he used the most convenient form possible (hundreds), and that his house was priced like a normal house (more than $50,000). That's still 500 pieces of currency, which is still a pile "large enough that you can't quickly enumerate how much is in them." Your equivocation here is just that: equivocation.

A bunch of people Voss and Kaelik called you an idiot for defending FatR and criticizing Animea, and now you have done (at least) two very dishonest things:

1) You moved the goalposts.

Oh, bullshit. I've responded to four different non-sequiturs now. That each was independently wrong in a new and exciting way can't honestly be laid at my feet. Yes, I've responded to different arguments, and yes those arguments are unrelated. Unsurprisingly, that means my counterarguments have been unrelated. Quel surprise.

The original argument was about whether or not the time FatR's family bought property using a pile of cash is a counterexample to Frank's claim that in order to buy a house you need "some kind of portable form of large value" (and specifically not copper coins, for completeness' sake).

That is simply false. The original argument was whether FatR's family buying with cash was foolish ("retarded," specifically, but in context it was obviously colloquial. More on that two paragraphs down).
I admit, I did skip responding to Voss's "if you carry cash, the gub'ment will get you!"
(specifically, "Paying for a house in cash has no practical benefit and also can attract attention that isn't positive, including from the government and employers, which often start asking question when large sums of cash get thrown about in a way that is a matter of record.")

Kaelik jumped in with a ridiculous strawman, then doubled down with both bad facts and bad logic, wrapped in a complete non-sequitur. However, his points are only even that coherent if you pretend that the conversation for the past page has been about intelligence.

That brings us to Frank's arrival, and the first actual example of goalpost shifting: having previously written against physical currency, he would now like to instead talk only about buying houses with pennies.
Go look, the original is right here: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=405312#405312.

Finally, YLM jumped in with yet another new argument. Honestly, I no longer know what point he thought he was making; at the time it sure looked like a version of 'If the result is correct, the logic is correct' (affirming the consequent, though in an oddly meta version). Then he accused me of shifting goalposts, based on two different things I didn't actually say. I haven't shifted any goalposts. I haven;t even established any goalposts. I have responded to multiple bad arguments, which, incidentally, is what you so triumphantly capitulate by saying:

These are different arguments. You are wrong in both cases, but they are distinct cases.

Sigh.

2) You strawmanned animea ("animea's "having a bunch of cash indicates retardism" point").

Wait, who did that? Go look again, and see who brought up intelligence. (hint)
As you said, it's fucking obvious and you should be goddamn ashamed of yourself.

[unsubstantiated snark removed]Because the fact that people don't want large volumes of pennies is exactly the evidence you would provide that large volumes of individual units of currency have diminishing marginal value.

If you have a proof that "diminishing marginal value" is the same as "less than nominal value", you should publish it. That would be revolutionary, and I would be very impressed. Otherwise, the thing you said here is pretty dumb.

Here: you're selling your car for a thousand dollars. Person A offers you 100,000 pennies. Person B offers you 10 hundred dollar bills. Which offer do you accept?

This is actually a really insightful question. If physical currency really had a diminishing marginal value, the correct answer would be neither, because they would each be less valuable than $1000.

[NineInchNall]

Holy fuck. The level of dumb in this thread ... It's ...

It's ...

It's beautiful.

Please, continue.

[...You Lost Me]

Oh my god fectin, you can't actually tell what the arguments are. You honestly don't think Frank, DSM, and I have been telling you the same thing. Then again, you also think being paid in pennies isn't inconvenient to the point of losing you money. I'm just impressed with the level of willful ignorance going on here.

[Username17]

I for one would be fascinated to hear what fectin thinks the difference is between things being less valuable per unit when in large piles and reduced marginal value is. Truly fascinated.

-Username17

[Avoraciopoctules]

Holy fuck. The level of dumb in this thread ... It's ...

It's ...

It's beautiful.

Please, continue.

Given the choice of 10 hundred dollar bills or 600+ pounds of pennies, it's a lot easier to forge hundred dollar bills. Take the pennies, because you can't trust that the bills are genuine.

[Rawbeard]

you can also sell the pennies as scrap metal and make a nice profit,

[TiaC]

you can also sell the pennies as scrap metal and make a nice profit,

Only if they're 32+ years old.

[DSMatticus]

Frank claimed that in order to make large purchases you need a portable and convenient way to store an adequately large value to make the purchase. Specifically, in the context of purchasing a house he described "cheques or bank transfers or some other kind of portable form of large value" as acceptable, and described "copper coins" as unacceptable.

No. He said, explicitly, several things:
a) Physical currency stops being linearly additive after a point (i.e., currency has a diminishing marginal value).
b) The value of a house is past that point.
c) "the inconvenience is pretty noticeabe when the piles are merely large enough that you can't quickly enumerate how much is in them."

Then he claimed that this must be true, because no-one likes being paid in pennies. (I guess you could argue that the last two sentences are totally unrelated to the rest of that paragraph, but I'm going to assume that you are not literally brain-damaged, and are not making that argument.)

So. (A) might, possibly, be true, but (b) is empirically not, per FatR. (C) is obviously not true, and also empirically not true.

pick the one that you think best describes a stack of hundred dollar bills:
A) copper coins
B) a kind of portable form of large value

False dichotomy. In this case, the correct answer is "physical currency." In case you missed it, that's the thing Frank actually wrote about.

You are a very clever liar. I am genuinely impressed. But your summary of Frank's post... isn't.

Let's take point C, for example. Frank actually said: "The inconvenience of having piles of it stops being negligible when you can no longer see over the piles. Hell, the inconvenience is pretty noticeabe when the piles are merely large enough that you can't quickly enumerate how much is in them." You quoted that as "Hell, the inconvenience is pretty noticeabe when the piles are merely large enough that you can't quickly enumerate how much is in them." By shaving off the first sentence, you've subtly strengthened Frank's claim without changing its substance. It's exactly the sort of sleight of hand that's easy to miss, yet incredibly beneficial to your position.

B isn't much better. In context, the only physical currencies directly mentioned in Frank's post are small value coinage. But by focusing in on the term physical currency absent that context, you are able to insinuate that it is being used in a broader sense that allows for no distinction between pennies and hundred dollar bills. Of course, that's fucking stupid - the extent to which hundred dollar bills are a more convenient store of large values than pennies is absolutely meaningful to the underlying argument about the convenience of different stores of value. But hey, even though it's obviously bullshit, isn't it nice how it set you up to dodge my rhetorical multiple choice question with the answer "physical currency," as though there's no meaningful distinction between pennies and hundred dollar bills? Funny how that worked out for you.

Now, we obviously don't know the amount that was paid or the denominations of bills used...

However, because we're not completely foolish, we can assume he used the most convenient form possible (hundreds), and that his house was priced like a normal house (more than $50,000). That's still 500 pieces of currency, which is still a pile "large enough that you can't quickly enumerate how much is in them." Your equivocation here is just that: equivocation.

1) FatR did not actually say house. He said property. Frank pointed this out to you already, with bolding and everything. Not only can you not assume anything about the price of the house, you can't even assume that a house exists. FatR is welcome to clarify, but empty land can sell for as a cheaply as 500 bucks an acre (or maybe less, it obviously depends very much on where the land is).

2) Remember at the start of my post when I called you on the fact that C was a subtle misquotation of Frank that made his position easier to attack than it actually is? Well, here we see you putting that little bit of dishonesty to use in your favor.

3) This is basically moot, but you should know that quickly is not specific. There is no set time in which you must accomplish a task before it can be said to have been performed quickly. It's a word that only ever means something in context, and in the context of buying a house it would not be a stretch to describe counting five hundred items as being achievable quickly, even though trying to pay with five hundred pennies in line at the grocery store would not be described as quick.

If you have a proof that "diminishing marginal value" is the same as "less than nominal value", you should publish it. That would be revolutionary, and I would be very impressed. Otherwise, the thing you said here is pretty dumb.

I had the hardest time figuring out what the fuck spawned this bit of stupidity, but then I realized that you're not actually trying to address my argument and are instead being snarky about the fact that I said "large volumes of individual units of currency have diminishing marginal value" instead of "in large volumes, individual units of currency have diminishing marginal value."

For future reference, I'm not posting these because I want them proofread. You should address errors in substance, not in presentation.

Here: you're selling your car for a thousand dollars. Person A offers you 100,000 pennies. Person B offers you 10 hundred dollar bills. Which offer do you accept?

This is actually a really insightful question. If physical currency really had a diminishing marginal value, the correct answer would be neither, because they would each be less valuable than $1000.

1) You are assuming that diminishing marginal value implies a marginal value which decreases on all intervals. Consider a marginal value function which has the following outputs (x is the units of currency being exchanged in a particular transaction, f(x) is the marginal real value of an additional unit of currency as a percentage of its nominal value):
f(0<=x<10) = 1
f(10<=x) = 0

This hypothetical marginal value function describes someone who for whatever reason cannot leave the transaction with more than ten units of currency. Apparently our pennies and hundred dollar bills have both been replaced with giant rocks, some of which are very valuable and some of which aren't. In this extreme and contrived example, both currencies have a diminishing marginal utility (a very sharply diminishing marginal utility), and yet there is a correct answer all the same.

More realistically: nobody fucking cares about having to count and transport 10 hundred dollar bills, but they do care about having to count and transport 100,000 pennies.

2) Even if you had been successful in dodging the hypothetical in this particular manner, do you think that would have gotten you anywhere with respect to addressing the underlying point, or even made it difficult to adjust the hypothetical in such a way to drag you right back to it? What's the end game here? Between this and the "technically, you meant to say..." you are starting to come off as a pedantic twat who is trying to win the argument by being as obnoxiously useless as possible. Or are you actually going to argue that pennies don't have diminishing marginal value, piles of pennies just have a real value less than their nominal value once they get large enough?

[infected slut princess]

None of you welfare bums even have money so why do you care?

[Dogbert]

I've sold some, so yes, people have bitten. I haven't looked through it myself, though.

What are you waiting for? I need to know how much changed since the last beta to know how much of this thread I should consider.

[Koumei]

Are these the pennies that each contain a quantity of copper worth slightly more than one cent? If I'm a creepy recycling enthusiast, the choice is less clear-cut than you might think.

Is that not a criminal offence of some description?

[deaddmwalking]

It is.

Selling currency for scrap is illegal, especially if you export it for that purpose.

$0.01 is a very small amount of money, and it's hard to create anything worth less than that - unless you make it entirely out of belly-button lint.

According to this site, it currently costs 1.83 cents to make a penny worth 1 cent.

[Kaelik]

Kaelik jumped in with a ridiculous strawman, then doubled down with both bad facts and bad logic, wrapped in a complete non-sequitur. However, his points are only even that coherent if you pretend that the conversation for the past page has been about intelligence.

I was legitimately confused, because I did not realize you were that fucking stupid.

Fatr said "Haha, those guys are retarded." You responded "Those retards have a house. So how retarded are they?"

And you are now trying to tell me that you believe that conversation was not about intelligence? Really?

I mean, I love th part where you expect me to prove the lack of causation instead of offering any evidence of any kind for your (apparent) belief intelligence really is correlated with money. But you really genuinely think the conversation that started with "Haha, what retards" isn't about the intelligence of the people who are being called retards?

[Rawbeard]

Browsing the PHB I just found a bit explaining how to describe hitpoint damage (above 50% no visible effect, below 50% cuts and bruises, below 0 actual injury). Personal pet peeve of mine, so this part alone makes up for a lot of bullshit this edition did to piss me off. I don't want to think about how many GMs did "he impales you with his sword, you take 4 points of damage" with a straight face...

[Deathfork]

Browsing the PHB I just found a bit explaining how to describe hitpoint damage (above 50% no visible effect, below 50% cuts and bruises, below 0 actual injury).

Yet another feature of 4th that Mearls was too chickenshit to call the thing it is. There's even a fighter feature that only works if you're "not bloodied"

[Rawbeard]

HAHAHA. I don't mind it not being called what it is, makes it easier to explain to people without them going blank because "that's so like WoW". Whitout that making any god damn sense. People... what a bunch of bastards.

[Rawbeard]

Contnued browsing revealed that sneak attack and similar bonus damage gets multiplied on critical hit. How you actually score a critical hit I have no idea. This book is like reading the 2e PHB clusterfuck all over again.

Mission Accomplished!

[edit] Found it a few pages prior. As expected it's the nat 20.