BC
07-13-2004, 05:07 PM
Sleeper’s Diary:
Introduction:
I have asked two people to “peer review this”, since I was afraid it might, at times, make me look paranoid, delusional, megalomaniacal, or otherwise insane. Keep in mind that these were my thoughts at the time, and are largely unedited. I have added a postscript (edited slightly since the last review), two small edits for clarity, and this introduction.
One thing that I should mention off the bat – both people who looked at this are people I know IRL and who post on this board. One shall remain nameless, unless he chooses to step forward; the other is 4Sigma. We knew each other many, many years back, and “found” each other about a year ago on the RF when he mentioned a unique incident that probably no one else on the board would be aware of. He is the one who got me involved in the game, and this is why I have been supportive of him leading the ghost forum since day 1. He even mentioned that my “quick vote” to lynch him might have cast unjust suspicion in my direction, and gave me permission to mention our friendship; at the time, I passed on this, more to protect his anonymity than my own. However, you will see his “name” often, and he thought you might want to know why I keep mentioning him so favorably.
Day 1: Wednesday, June 16:
I visited the forum and was greeted with a PM from Mr. Penguin with “wake up” in the subject heading. So apparently the first EC is gone and I can’t cheer… In my response, I said “DEATH TO THE STUDENTS”; he laughed and said, drily, “Nice change of heart.” I am probably putting too much stock in the “mathematical model” but I thought it was odd that the EC killed 4Sigma, who wanted to run the ghost forum, and left me alive if they were trying to spike the model. [This is the change for clarity. I mentioned in another post that I had thought, wrongly, that fear of my model is what had motivated the EC to kill 4Sigma instead of me. I later realized that if this was true and I was NOT the sleeper, it would make more sense for them to kill me, since I would not be a strong ghost leader (it being my first game) and therefore the death of 4Sigma, for purposes of killing the model, was suboptimal UNLESS I WAS THE SLEEPER]. I even voiced that suspicion via PM in a roundabout way to 4Sigma, subtly suggesting that I might be the sleeper, since it seems logical that they should have killed me instead [As Mulan pointed out, I probably should have shouted it from the rooftops; I chose to be roundabout because I kind of had the idea by then that even 4Sigma was tired of hearing about the model, and the “advice” I gave was appropriate to anyone – basically to look for anyone the EC seems to have not hit that they logically SHOULD have hit]. Maybe, maybe not, but even a blind squirrel gets a nut sometimes. I’ll have to ask my compatriots about that later. My fellow living EC makes a case for Gandalf, and it being my first day, I go along happily. Perhaps I should have been more skeptical, but hey, it seems like a good idea. My goal from here on is to preserve the “persona” that I’ve established – pretty easy, since it’s pretty much me anyway. I’m not out to analyze people’s personalities, other people can do that better. I’m going to try to strategize logically, bend my will to the ghosts, and put everything in as mathematical terms as possible WITHOUT DRAWING SUSPICION TO MYSELF.
Rocky tried to provoke me. I’m going to ignore it.
I have previous alliances, of course. I have been in regular contact with a ghost. That will have to continue. Also, Mulan has suspected Will Durant (WD) as EC pretty much since day 1, and I’ve promised to jump on the bandwagon if she gets it rolling. Granted, that was a few rounds ago, but if I don’t it will look odd. Which is unfortunate, for obvious reasons.
Cubedbee (CB) sends me a PM saying we can cast suspicion on RedSoxFan for having been in a chess forum. I point out that that would make me suspicious, since I rarely post to the chess threads. WD agrees and posts the suspicion instead.
We’d like to get rid of Mulan, of course, since she’s the only one with a real thing for lynching WD. For the most part, I’ve flown under the radar; of course, I haven’t been EC for long. Also, while I’ve provided the students with only marginal help, it’s help that no one else on the forum is likely to have come up with, so that at least makes me look like I’m not EC. As long as I can keep the disguise up, I’ll be fine.
I promised Mr. P. that if WD is killed before I am, I’ll taunt the students to put some life back into the game. I think I can disguise my writing style; I plan to start by using a mixture of Captain Morgan’s “ALL CAPS” rant-style and Video Pancake’s “Non-sense Stream of Consciousness” style. I have to be careful of emoticon use; there are a few I’ve never used, so I’ll probably throw in a few of those. I also think I overuse “hedging” words, semi-colons, ellipses, and the word “however”. Additionally, I’m verbose. I tend to (see, there’s a hedging phrase – “tend to” – that wasn’t even planned – oh, there’s another one, I’m trying to convince you I’m not planning this) have long sentences which while generally (hedge) having the correct sentence structure, are also hard to decrypt. Finally, I will need to post when BC is not expected. I’ve tentatively decided on 9pm Central Time each night or every other night. I’ll have to avoid creating suspicion over certain things, like bridge night on Thursdays, any vacations my wife and I might take, etc. Of course, assuming randomness, there’s less than a 50/50 chance this will matter; sometimes both WD and I will survive, and half the rest of the time I die first, so I may not need to worry about this.
Day 2: Thursday, June 17:
I jumped on the Avi bandwagon; jumping on the EK bandwagon would be more useful (and fun) because he actually claims to suspect me. Of course, no one is taking him seriously yet. Nonetheless, I’ve started an Avi avalanche. This is a good thing. He’s a few votes from being lynched and I realize I’ve posted in another thread recently (the “strange news” thread) and that in order to preserve my persona, I need to try to stop the bandwagon. This is unfortunate. Maybe he’ll be lynched anyway. Maybe this will draw suspicion to me. I hope not. I’d like him to be next to go, if for no other reason than that I know Avi is not EC. But if I allow him to die without at least trying to pay lip-service to the ghosts getting influence, it might be suspicious, especially since I did that for Gandalf earlier in the game. I was happy to go along with lynching him, but I PM’ed a ghost that he was nearing a quota of votes and if they wanted to protect him they had better hurry. Of course, I didn’t actually go as far as “unvoting” him. I suppose “unvoting” Avi might have been overdoing it, but I could always argue later that “it’s more crucial than ever to protect our slayer, so I wanted to make sure the ghosts have proper input.” We’ll see. I hope my fellow EC are not upset with me. I also hope my fellow students are not upset with me. It’s hard, because I think I’m far less “exposed” than WD is, so I may have to help jettison him at some point to protect myself.
We’ll see.
A quick check of the forum suggests that the “unvote Avi” gambit has worked for now. Snafu is backing me up on exactly the points I had hoped to IMPLY without actually stating them (after all, stating too emphatically that one is working with the students is a means of casting suspicion on oneself). I think I have convinced the ghosts that I am innocent; perhaps even better, I think I have convinced them that I have nothing to offer in the way of analyzing people’s posts and personalities. The one thing that WOULD be useless to them is a Turing machine. As long as they think I’m useless dead, not EC, and slightly useful alive, they probably won’t finger me. I hope. Ironically, earlier in the game I volunteered via PM to 4Sigma to join the ghosts – I said I wouldn’t mind joining the ghost forum since it would allow us to continue work on the model. I still have to provide the occasional result from the model, and perhaps even spout about it on the board, but the marginal utility of the strategy that I’m losing can’t cost me more than the marginal utility of making myself look less suspicious.
Unless I’m wrong, and they do suspect me.
EK doesn’t seem to be so much upset with me as he is resigned to the purity/sincerity of my motives, which differ from his. And that’s fine by me.
As an aside, I had come up with a pretty good death scene if the EC killed me. I may be able to adapt it later. Basically, it grafted an old game-theory puzzle from Scientific American (probably created by Martin Gardner) and the surprise ending to a short story I loved in Junior High called “Burnt Toast”. Given 13 glasses of wine, 1 of which has poison (for which – another grammatical structure to avoid, the word “which” and worrying about sentences ending with prepositions - EC1 and EC2 have a tolerance), I and an EC member take turns telling the other to drink either one glass or two adjacent glasses. EC goes first. Obviously, taking the center glass puts me in a downward spiral of symmetric losing positions, but EC1 miscounts and takes glass #6 instead of glass #7. From there, there’s an interesting sequence of moves which don’t become symmetric to the very end (and thus tough to analyze mentally – but my mathematical intuition saves me and I win). As I’m planning to reveal the EC to the students, however, I’m also talking about how to model the game, and EC2 says, “there’s one factor you haven’t mentioned in your model.” “What are you talking about?” “I never said the poison acted instantaneously.” THEN I fall down dead at my keyboard, just a moment shy of exposing the EC.
>>>>>
I’m glad that my profile has me “not visible” when I’m on the forum. It makes it a lot easier to keep abreast of things in the game while “I’m away from the game doing work”. I have to be careful, however, to make sure I don’t post ANYWHERE if I’m going to use that excuse…
Another thing I’m glad I established is a dislike of chat. Sunny was right, 4Sigma and I were present while EC1 was chatting with her – and now we know that Sunny and 4Sigma were/are innocent students and I was innocent at the time. I went in a few other times when a few RF’ers who shall remain nameless were chatting rather suggestively. I don’t know that they were having cybersex, but it certainly seemed like that was the direction it was heading, and I really don’t like the idea of having that on my monitor at work. So BC can stay out of chat and not have a good reason to go in. However, if necessary, I can actually establish “bona fides” again, since I happen to have 2 computers at work. It might be a little dicey to try to use both at once, but luckily I type very fast for an actuary, so I can probably pull it off, at least for short stretches of time, once or twice. We’ll see if that becomes a useful tool.
WD gave me access to EC1 and EC2 ID’s, but I haven’t used either one yet. I don’t intend to for awhile, although it might be useful to check out the PMs in those accounts if any.
Another thought: While for most intents and purposes, WD and I are teammates, here, there IS a stapler involved. I don’t know which of us wins the tiebreaker if we’re both alive at the end of the game. Which means that if I win the tiebreaker, WD may at some point jettison me to make himself look good AND increase his odds of winning the stapler, while at some point it might be in my own interests to jettison him. That isn’t a concern right now, of course, since we’re still heavy underdogs, but it might be something to consider down the line.
I also need to start studying who the ghosts have “protected” vs. who they have “fingered”, on the theory that restricted choice may help us find the slayer. I discussed the restricted choice idea with Gandalf and 4Sigma before I was “awakened”. They kind of dismissed the idea. They were probably right. But I want to look at it. Killing Gandalf may have worked in our favor, since (at least according to the ghosts) it made them “more necessary to protect the slayer”. Which is true, I suppose – a bandwagon gathered, it was stopped by the ghosts, next thing you know Gandalf is killed by EC. Could the same thing have happened to Avi (or the slayer in a later round)? Quite possibly.
>>>>>
I see that mention is being made of emoticon use. They really shouldn’t be sharing these things in public. Of course, as it happens I thought of it myself independently, but still…
I think if it gets to the taunting stage I should use words like “moran”, “looser”, and “Thanks!” While these might peg me as someone who haunts political, I think the usage is a bit broader. I’ll have to think on it awhile.
It also occurred to me that while EVERYONE in chat is visible, the EC1 and EC2 identities may not be hidden. I’m asking WD, and if they aren’t hidden, I’ll ask CB if he can make them hidden.
Hmm… at first I thought EK’s swipe at “ivory tower” types was a subtle jab at me, but now I think it was a not-so-subtle jab at 4Sigma. I’m glad I didn’t react. I might have seemed paranoid.
Random thoughts at lunchtime: If I taunt, I might want to take a “flirty/suggestive/sexual” stance toward Sunny and Mulan. This is rather different from my online persona (and my offline self), so that might divert a bit of suspicion. Of course, it might also make people think the remaining EC is a male…
I’m sure a lot of the others have made a LOT of PMs to each other. But at least a few people know that I PM “important” things and leave unimportant things to posting. For example, Kenshiro and Mulan posted strategy ideas. Since 4Sigma practically had to restrain me from posting ideas about the model before I was awakened, I mentioned this to them. Kenshiro conveyed the thought that the model had made him suspicious of me, originally. The reason 4Sigma didn’t want me to post more ideas about the model? He didn’t want the EC to be thinking strategically. In retrospect, the irony of THAT is delicious.
I am wondering if EK is the slayer… by continually putting down the ghost forum, which is the best way to avoid having the students lynch a slayer, he may be trying to draw EC suspicion about the possibility of him being a slayer away from himself. Of course, this kind of circular logic probably leads nowhere, but I’m going to PM this to WD and see what he thinks. It’s nice having a closed circle of three. Of course, I need to finish my latest work on the model for 4Sigma before I go on my brief anniversary vacation.
Oh, great, Karma Police has asked about the model. I should probably answer it. I’ll do it later.
>>>>>
Thinking about the taunts: I should probably include pop culture references that my persona would never use in real life, like South Park. I’ve only seen an episode or two, but it might work. I might want to pick up something like rap lyrics (gee, wonder where I can find some J) also, a musical reference that is WAY far away from what I actually listen to. Avoid anything that sounds country, Christian, Republican, or anything that I might actually watch or listen to regularly.
I have learned that it’s different to try to deceive a crowd that knows you shallowly than to fool an individual who knows you well. If you need to fool an individual, you need to change EVERYTHING about yourself. NO detail is too small to overlook. If you’re trying to fool a crowd, you have to make sure that the big things are changed, but you can let the little ones slide a little, because for every person who correctly suspects who you are, there are three others who suspect someone else. In this case, I’m going to try to do both.
I’ll tell the story of trying to fool individuals. My brother arranged to have a friend from work over to our house for dinner. What my folks didn’t know was that my brother was picking up “Scott” (a real coworker) from across town, but from the 6 o’clock train from Chicago. I planned this months ahead. I did a head-to-toe makeover. Grew a beard. Dyed my hair, let it grow long. Changed to a “gangster-style” look. Changed my voice. Changed my handedness (I’m not too far from being ambidextrous). Wore sunglasses. A few other details.
The moment I walked in the house I was identified. By the family dog. So much for using after-shave on my ankles to throw off her scent. Mom welcomed me into the house as my brother’s guest; we chatted briefly; “Our dog usually doesn’t like men.” “It must be my aftershave” (Oh, crap!!!) “I know, it sounds weird to wear after-shave when you have a beard.” (I hope that’s a decent recovery) “Oh, my husband does the same thing.” (I didn’t know he wore after-shave with the beard – boy did I luck out!) “Oh, your husband has a beard?”…. Then my brother and I went to the dining room to play cards. Dad came home, recognized me instantly. Mom wondered why he was joking around with us when he should be leaving my brother to enjoy time with his friend. Dad went out to the living room with Mom and managed to arrange that “Scott” could stay for supper. During the meal mom is studying me. Later she tells me her thoughts were alternating between “He looks a lot like BC. But BC would never wear that. He sounds like BC. But BC eats so fast, and Scott is eating so slowly.” I’d been home for over an hour when my mom decided how she could be sure. She mouthed to my brother “Does Dad know?” If Bob mouths back either “yes” or “no”, she’s got me pegged, but if he mouths back “Does Dad know what?” she’s going to have to study me for awhile longer. He mouths back “yes”, and after playing along for a few more minutes, Mom lets us know the jig is up.
>>>>>
Anyway, back to the EC game. I found that EC_Slayer has made 4 posts. I copied them down, looked for anything that stood out as possibly revealing, and forwarded the data to CB and WD. Of course, if EC_Slayer is crafty, then this effort will probably be wasted, but it doesn’t hurt to look for anomalies. By searching on words “suffice”, “stronger”, and “moreover”, it is most strongly suggested that Karma Police is the slayer. However, since he’s already been lynched and not outed as being a slayer, this is impossible. However, other possibilities on the radar screen are Avi, Sunny, and Mulan. Strategically, it might be useful to kill Avi next so that the students think we’re reading a lot into their “tilting”. EK is also a possibility, but as WD pointed out, he’s likely to get himself killed anyway. Sunny is a dark horse because of an odd PM – and the fact that she knows KP IRL suggests she may have had him help her compose the posts she made as slayer. Of course, this could also be a complete waste of time, and I haven’t gotten to look for “emoticon” irregularities yet. Also, the ghosts actually suggested Sunny to be slain. Of course, protection isn’t as important when there are two living EC left, so that might have been a ruse. If so, it was VERY clever. 4Sigma ISN’T a Turing machine, after all.
>>>>>
I berated CB in a PM for using the word “their” in a post, referring to his compatriots. That tends to suggest a sleeper is active. This is NOT something I want the students to know. Tough luck. I might be able to salvage something from this, though. I intend to PM the ghosts about it – they might not have noticed – with caveats (gender-neutral pronoun, attempt to mislead) so that the ghosts give me credit for providing some useful “evidence” – which will be especially helpful to me if I’m the only one who caught it. Okay, the odds on that aren’t good, but at least some of the people playing this game didn’t catch it because they’d have posted a retort, “exposing” the existence of a sleeper.
I’ve been monitoring the forum most of the day. I need to start my afternoon posting soon. I’ve decided to tell Karma Police I didn’t do that model, even though I was able to modify it this afternoon. It took about 10 minutes, but I can blame it on a busy day at work. That should get me out of working on it until at least Wednesday, and I’ve already given some useful results to 4Sigma anyway. I’ll pass along my observations on CB’s potential mistake. Gandalf and 4Sigma have unintentionally given me a good reason not to expose many of the model’s results (and perhaps to not even work on it any longer) – that of not helping the EC figure out how to strategize.
Once more into the breach…
>>>>>
Day 3: Friday, June 18
Today, it looks like I’m going to have to actually WORK, so I probably won’t get much done in the game. I suggested to 4Sigma that the reason CB used “their” is using a gender-neutral pronoun might have been because CB’s partner is a woman. It might mislead them somewhat, and it’s a reasonable interpretation, so it’s unlikely to cast suspicion on me (except suspicion that I’m not too bright when it comes to this game, which isn’t a bad suspicion for the others to have. Unless it’s justified, of course.) I also asked Mr. P. if the three EC could meet on “The Math Underground” bulletin board and use their chat room. Hardly anyone from the RF is there (it’s a small board) and I can create 3 fake ids for us, so we can talk more efficiently than using these PMs. I also tried to plant suspicion for Avi with a few people that have PM’ed me in the past, but suggested that we wait and see if the EC kills him – the reason being that we could lynch Avi next round. I also suggested to WD that we kill Sunny (if she’s alive then) next round and let the students lynch Avi.
I posted my little dissertation on “the object of the game.” This is related to the incident that inflamed me so much against Gandalf (before I discovered I was the sleeper). Gandalf and 4Sigma were the “peer review” of the model and it was nearly complete. Then Gandalf judged (correctly as it turned out) that while it had interesting strategic implications, the value to the students would only be marginal, his game-time could probably be better spent doing other things. While this was probably true, I reacted emotionally as if he’d said “your work isn’t important.” (I got over it.) To ME, its value was high – even it if turned out to have NO strategic value whatsoever. Then 4Sigma was killed just after I’d sent off my final results for him to audit, and as far as I was concerned, that was the last straw – I became a bit paranoid (as I have been prone to do in this game) and decided Gandalf must have decided to “spike” my model by cutting me off from any help. Quite incorrectly, as it turned out.
I still haven’t asked WD and CB if the model had anything to do with their decision to kill 4Sigma.
There is a website called “The Math Underground.” It’s a forum like www.actuary.ca, but much younger (and smaller) with very little traffic. I have gotten “EC1” as an ID. I have suggested to WD and CB that they get “EC2” and “EC3” so that we can “chat” safely there. That will be much more efficient than PM’ing all the time. Of course, it might also draw attention to me if anyone else finds out we’re there. Oops, I just thought of that… Mel-o-Rama and ZeroVektor are two RF’ers who post there, but they aren’t following the game. I hope I haven’t just made a MASSIVE error… I had better try to fix it. Drat, I can’t access the account to delete it until I get home… Well, at least I warned WD and CB not to make the same mistake I did. Pride goeth before destruction, and all that.
I hope to “study” posts made by EC2 next week, briefly, as I did the slayer. If I can find a distinctive word or three, and find out who used that word most often, and it isn’t WD, I can present those results to the ghosts, making me look ever less suspicious.
>>>>>
I can’t believe that I went home over lunch to access my yahoo account so I could ask Travis to get rid of the EC identity. I am really getting obsessed with this game. WD has created two new identities to go along with the new one I created (Huey) so we can start “meeting” there if it seems safe.
I also made a slip in my recent post, saying that I hoped “EK dies before I do.” I probably should have said “I hope I live at least as long as EK.” Ah, well, the mild animosity between us was already established before I became the sleeper. My rebuttal, if anyone notices and calls me on it: “Perhaps you underestimate the degree to which Mr. EK has managed to get under my skin.”
Mulan’s offer to commit seppuku (hara-kiri) is interesting, although perhaps not particularly informative.
>>>>>
I went back to The Math Underground, and the EC1 ID is gone. Thanks, Travis! So it was up less than 2 ½ hours. Hopefully no one noticed. If I survive for another 2 rounds, I think I can feel safe that this particular mistake isn’t going to be fatal.
>>>>>
I just realized that our slayer retired earlier in the game, to be replaced. Which means any inferences I draw from the first three posts is wasted. Now I suppose this is all well and good, since (I assume, which may not be safe here) the final post came from the new slayer and most of my inferences were drawn from that post. I’m not particularly keen on the ghost committee offering up Sunny on a platter… while this may be a daring feint, it makes me suspect that she isn’t the slayer. Which could be the purpose… I’m going in circles again. I could try voting for her to try to smoke out this potential bluff, but I’m probably better off keeping silent for now.
At some point I’m going to take a crack at the ghosts’ codes, but I doubt that they’re breakable. 4Sigma is too smart for that.
>>>>>
Another gambit: Just before I went on my anniversary getaway, I asked Sunny to be my proxy vote, just in case it was needed. It won’t be, I don’t think, but she’ll be dead before she gets to use it. “Why on earth would the EC kill Sunny? She wants to die. She has been fingered twice by the ghost committee. How could the EC think she was the slayer? How could my choice have been ANY safer – I mean, aside from the risk of assigning the vote to an EC member, what should I have been expecting to go wrong?”
Day 4: Wednesday, June 23
At first, I thought the “Sunny gambit” was a brilliant play – 4Sigma went and told everyone that the EC could hit 2 votes for the price of 1, thus giving the EC a good motive to hit her. Then a few other people asked for proxies, so it looked like not such a good idea. Butters was slain, Sunny killed, Avi lynched, and now I’m back. However, I at least got an excuse to explain to Sunny why I DIDN’T think she was the slayer, and that I’m looking out for the good of the students. My proxy of course wasn’t needed. As expected, Avi was the next lynchee.
I’m becoming more and more convinced that Karma Police wrote the final slayer post, so any guesses we may have with regard to the slayer are useless. Still, it can’t hurt to keep doing what we’re doing. We’re meeting at lunch at The Math Underground to chat, I think. If I survive another full round I’ll assume I haven’t made a fatal mistake to this point.
CB pointed out that, given that a slayer victory and sleeper victory are NOT mutually exclusive (which I already knew) I could sell WD to the slayer in exchange for helping me to kill the students, and we might both get staplers. It’s a brilliant idea. I suppose it might even not be considered unethical. But I am not going do it, although of course fingering WD to protect myself later on might not be a bad idea. I THINK I am about as far “above suspicion” as anyone else right now. I just need to stay that way.
>>>>>
I suggested to WD and CB that we want to keep the ghost forum at 51% support (including us) so that they can’t afford to recommend we be lynched without risking losing power with no return on investment, as it were. If support for the GF goes too low, we can’t predict or control what will happen quite as well, while if support for the GF goes too high, they may decide they can afford to suggest lynching a few of their more suspicious supporters. I also asked if we had any useful PMs from the Slayer to perform additional “linguistic analyses” on. PMs are unlikely to be faked or created by another player (like Karma Police) and the style of the PM response I received from the Slayer was similar to the one in the 4th EC_Slayer post.
I am trying to put Kenshiro on the block, using the fact that he appointed Sunny his proxy the day after 4Sigma painted a bullseye on her back. After all, who could have anticipated 4Sigma’s post BEFORE it happened, right? I told Sunny via PM that I had thought of the 2-for-1 EC gambit, and had picked her because I was sure she wasn’t the slayer. Which is a lie, of course. Of course, I forgot to consider the “and if you were EC” case in my initial PM, so that might look suspicious… Like I said, if I last through the next 2 slayings, I suspect that I’ve managed to float above suspicion. For now, anyway. I made the list like the ghosts asked for, and made sure it was relatively unhelpful. WD is not in the bottom group of suspicious people but he is near it. We should probably get Mulan not next round, but perhaps one of the two rounds after that, to help protect him.
We met on The Math Underground, and Travis came snooping around. We decided to trust him, and in return he gave us a “super-secret” forum to play in – so we won’t be “exposed” like we are in chat.
Day 5: Thursday, June 24
Not much happening. We’re all waiting for the slayer to move. Since this is probably going through Mr. P and he isn’t here today, it’s likely not much will happen.
I have posted a brief bit of info on the Pigeonhole Principle. I PM’ed 4Sigma and Sunny that I thought the assumed probability that the sleeper had been killed prior to the first EC slaying should be raised from 7/31 to 7/28. I suggested to WD that we should plan our killings ahead of time so that Mr. P would be the bottleneck, instead of us, which would conceal the times we were on the forum. It also would speed up the game, make it more fun, and discourage people from volunteering to kill themselves.
Tomorrow I intend to PM 4Sigma and Sunny an “adjusted” probability – adjusted for the fact that no EC has been killed since the first, an event which would be less likely had there been an active sleeper – a sort of “restricted choice” argument.
Day 6: Friday, June 25
I did indeed send a PM to 4Sigma explaining my restricted choice sleeper argument. I didn’t send it to Sunny, since I didn’t think she would be interested. I also jumped on a “suggest Ebenezer Kohl” bandwagon, which I hope will either get him lynched or else provide cover for us to kill him next round, and Mulan the round after that if she’s still alive. Keeping low for now. I was pleased to see the slayer get Kenshiro, since I put him at the top of my list. I suggested to WD that we want to keep the ghost forum at about a 51% support level – we both need to support it but keep it a low enough support so that they can’t afford to suggest either of us without risking losing their power for no good reason, but enough support to avoid the “lynch mob mentality” that might sweep either of us up for no good reason. We already demonstrated this with Gandalf and Avi – and both times I was the one who “included” the ghosts’ participation, so I should be seen as an avid supporter. WD posted in support of EK – I think that was risky, but if EK is the slayer and we take him out next round, it will make him look good.
I used a variation of the model to determine the probability that EC win and I’m still alive. I think I get the tiebreaker against WD at this point. Anyway, I’m at 18.95% chance of winning the stapler. Of course, in theory the best chance I have is if WD and I both survive until near the very end, he dies, because then I don’t have to worry about the tiebreaker going against me.
Day 7: Monday, June 28
Not much happened today. Jables got lynched. We haven’t seen a death scene yet, but I presume he is not the slayer. WD and I changed our kill vote – WD really thought Jables was the slayer, so we put him first. Our second choice was Mulan, and our third choice was Ebenezer Kohl. I am making a list of people the ghosts have suggested that are still alive, in the hopes of eliminating them from the potential slayer pool. Hopefully, by killing Sunny after she was offered up to the students will help keep the “offerings” from being potential slayers. That would eliminate Ebenezer Kohl, Jables, Traina, and Werewolf. So that increases our chance of getting a lucky hit. I’m almost certain Karma Police wrote the original “final” EC_Slayer post. I’ve been keeping up with the random math/philosophy comments; added one on probability today.
A few ideas for “threads” I can’t safely post:
BtPotEC: What to do with a pair of GC in your pocket
BtPotEC: Thinning the herd
BtPotEC: The Sleeper Diaries
BtPotEC: Casting suspicion on other players
BtPotEC: Check-Raising the Slayer
Incidentally, I sent the slayer my ordered picks, including Kenshiro at the top of the list. Guess who the slayer killed? Cool beans.
I hope the slayer doesn’t kill Mulan, since that will leave us the task of killing Ebenezer Kohl, and (A) he probably isn’t the slayer, and (B) he’s kind of useful. Of course, I also hope the slayer doesn’t get WD or myself, which is even a higher priority…
Day 8: Tuesday, June 29
The game is getting dull. I responded to a few CB taunts and threatened Ebenezer Kohl with a few Bible verses. Still waiting on the slayer. Jadzia said her vote came in late because she’s taking classes and is busy at work. It looks likely that Mulan will be the EC’s next kill. I certainly hope so… if it’s EK, I look a lot more suspicious. On the other hand, if EK gets lynched next round, WD looks more innocent because he defended him, the ghost forum gets weaker and needs to depend more than ever on its supporters (my little dig will go a bit towards encouraging the ghost forum to finger EK), and the attention might shift from people who are vocal toward people who are quiet.
Postscript:
Well, a lot of time has passed… I got sick right after the last entry and was lynched shortly thereafter. Most of what I wanted to say post-game about the lynching has already been said. It’s been fun, I wish we’d won, but there are 34 players and 1 team that has to lose, and this time I’m in both categories. So it goes. As I mentioned, 4Sigma said it was okay for me to tell people we knew each other, since it seemed I was unjustly being suspected for my quick vote. In retrospect, that might have helped. But it still would have been the wrong thing to do, although when I was sick I had a weak moment and suggested WD ask me why I was so supportive of the ghost forum, intending to answer “I refuse to answer that question”. I thought that might keep 4Sigma, and by extension the ghosts, from recommending me. I’m glad I didn’t follow through on that.
Introduction:
I have asked two people to “peer review this”, since I was afraid it might, at times, make me look paranoid, delusional, megalomaniacal, or otherwise insane. Keep in mind that these were my thoughts at the time, and are largely unedited. I have added a postscript (edited slightly since the last review), two small edits for clarity, and this introduction.
One thing that I should mention off the bat – both people who looked at this are people I know IRL and who post on this board. One shall remain nameless, unless he chooses to step forward; the other is 4Sigma. We knew each other many, many years back, and “found” each other about a year ago on the RF when he mentioned a unique incident that probably no one else on the board would be aware of. He is the one who got me involved in the game, and this is why I have been supportive of him leading the ghost forum since day 1. He even mentioned that my “quick vote” to lynch him might have cast unjust suspicion in my direction, and gave me permission to mention our friendship; at the time, I passed on this, more to protect his anonymity than my own. However, you will see his “name” often, and he thought you might want to know why I keep mentioning him so favorably.
Day 1: Wednesday, June 16:
I visited the forum and was greeted with a PM from Mr. Penguin with “wake up” in the subject heading. So apparently the first EC is gone and I can’t cheer… In my response, I said “DEATH TO THE STUDENTS”; he laughed and said, drily, “Nice change of heart.” I am probably putting too much stock in the “mathematical model” but I thought it was odd that the EC killed 4Sigma, who wanted to run the ghost forum, and left me alive if they were trying to spike the model. [This is the change for clarity. I mentioned in another post that I had thought, wrongly, that fear of my model is what had motivated the EC to kill 4Sigma instead of me. I later realized that if this was true and I was NOT the sleeper, it would make more sense for them to kill me, since I would not be a strong ghost leader (it being my first game) and therefore the death of 4Sigma, for purposes of killing the model, was suboptimal UNLESS I WAS THE SLEEPER]. I even voiced that suspicion via PM in a roundabout way to 4Sigma, subtly suggesting that I might be the sleeper, since it seems logical that they should have killed me instead [As Mulan pointed out, I probably should have shouted it from the rooftops; I chose to be roundabout because I kind of had the idea by then that even 4Sigma was tired of hearing about the model, and the “advice” I gave was appropriate to anyone – basically to look for anyone the EC seems to have not hit that they logically SHOULD have hit]. Maybe, maybe not, but even a blind squirrel gets a nut sometimes. I’ll have to ask my compatriots about that later. My fellow living EC makes a case for Gandalf, and it being my first day, I go along happily. Perhaps I should have been more skeptical, but hey, it seems like a good idea. My goal from here on is to preserve the “persona” that I’ve established – pretty easy, since it’s pretty much me anyway. I’m not out to analyze people’s personalities, other people can do that better. I’m going to try to strategize logically, bend my will to the ghosts, and put everything in as mathematical terms as possible WITHOUT DRAWING SUSPICION TO MYSELF.
Rocky tried to provoke me. I’m going to ignore it.
I have previous alliances, of course. I have been in regular contact with a ghost. That will have to continue. Also, Mulan has suspected Will Durant (WD) as EC pretty much since day 1, and I’ve promised to jump on the bandwagon if she gets it rolling. Granted, that was a few rounds ago, but if I don’t it will look odd. Which is unfortunate, for obvious reasons.
Cubedbee (CB) sends me a PM saying we can cast suspicion on RedSoxFan for having been in a chess forum. I point out that that would make me suspicious, since I rarely post to the chess threads. WD agrees and posts the suspicion instead.
We’d like to get rid of Mulan, of course, since she’s the only one with a real thing for lynching WD. For the most part, I’ve flown under the radar; of course, I haven’t been EC for long. Also, while I’ve provided the students with only marginal help, it’s help that no one else on the forum is likely to have come up with, so that at least makes me look like I’m not EC. As long as I can keep the disguise up, I’ll be fine.
I promised Mr. P. that if WD is killed before I am, I’ll taunt the students to put some life back into the game. I think I can disguise my writing style; I plan to start by using a mixture of Captain Morgan’s “ALL CAPS” rant-style and Video Pancake’s “Non-sense Stream of Consciousness” style. I have to be careful of emoticon use; there are a few I’ve never used, so I’ll probably throw in a few of those. I also think I overuse “hedging” words, semi-colons, ellipses, and the word “however”. Additionally, I’m verbose. I tend to (see, there’s a hedging phrase – “tend to” – that wasn’t even planned – oh, there’s another one, I’m trying to convince you I’m not planning this) have long sentences which while generally (hedge) having the correct sentence structure, are also hard to decrypt. Finally, I will need to post when BC is not expected. I’ve tentatively decided on 9pm Central Time each night or every other night. I’ll have to avoid creating suspicion over certain things, like bridge night on Thursdays, any vacations my wife and I might take, etc. Of course, assuming randomness, there’s less than a 50/50 chance this will matter; sometimes both WD and I will survive, and half the rest of the time I die first, so I may not need to worry about this.
Day 2: Thursday, June 17:
I jumped on the Avi bandwagon; jumping on the EK bandwagon would be more useful (and fun) because he actually claims to suspect me. Of course, no one is taking him seriously yet. Nonetheless, I’ve started an Avi avalanche. This is a good thing. He’s a few votes from being lynched and I realize I’ve posted in another thread recently (the “strange news” thread) and that in order to preserve my persona, I need to try to stop the bandwagon. This is unfortunate. Maybe he’ll be lynched anyway. Maybe this will draw suspicion to me. I hope not. I’d like him to be next to go, if for no other reason than that I know Avi is not EC. But if I allow him to die without at least trying to pay lip-service to the ghosts getting influence, it might be suspicious, especially since I did that for Gandalf earlier in the game. I was happy to go along with lynching him, but I PM’ed a ghost that he was nearing a quota of votes and if they wanted to protect him they had better hurry. Of course, I didn’t actually go as far as “unvoting” him. I suppose “unvoting” Avi might have been overdoing it, but I could always argue later that “it’s more crucial than ever to protect our slayer, so I wanted to make sure the ghosts have proper input.” We’ll see. I hope my fellow EC are not upset with me. I also hope my fellow students are not upset with me. It’s hard, because I think I’m far less “exposed” than WD is, so I may have to help jettison him at some point to protect myself.
We’ll see.
A quick check of the forum suggests that the “unvote Avi” gambit has worked for now. Snafu is backing me up on exactly the points I had hoped to IMPLY without actually stating them (after all, stating too emphatically that one is working with the students is a means of casting suspicion on oneself). I think I have convinced the ghosts that I am innocent; perhaps even better, I think I have convinced them that I have nothing to offer in the way of analyzing people’s posts and personalities. The one thing that WOULD be useless to them is a Turing machine. As long as they think I’m useless dead, not EC, and slightly useful alive, they probably won’t finger me. I hope. Ironically, earlier in the game I volunteered via PM to 4Sigma to join the ghosts – I said I wouldn’t mind joining the ghost forum since it would allow us to continue work on the model. I still have to provide the occasional result from the model, and perhaps even spout about it on the board, but the marginal utility of the strategy that I’m losing can’t cost me more than the marginal utility of making myself look less suspicious.
Unless I’m wrong, and they do suspect me.
EK doesn’t seem to be so much upset with me as he is resigned to the purity/sincerity of my motives, which differ from his. And that’s fine by me.
As an aside, I had come up with a pretty good death scene if the EC killed me. I may be able to adapt it later. Basically, it grafted an old game-theory puzzle from Scientific American (probably created by Martin Gardner) and the surprise ending to a short story I loved in Junior High called “Burnt Toast”. Given 13 glasses of wine, 1 of which has poison (for which – another grammatical structure to avoid, the word “which” and worrying about sentences ending with prepositions - EC1 and EC2 have a tolerance), I and an EC member take turns telling the other to drink either one glass or two adjacent glasses. EC goes first. Obviously, taking the center glass puts me in a downward spiral of symmetric losing positions, but EC1 miscounts and takes glass #6 instead of glass #7. From there, there’s an interesting sequence of moves which don’t become symmetric to the very end (and thus tough to analyze mentally – but my mathematical intuition saves me and I win). As I’m planning to reveal the EC to the students, however, I’m also talking about how to model the game, and EC2 says, “there’s one factor you haven’t mentioned in your model.” “What are you talking about?” “I never said the poison acted instantaneously.” THEN I fall down dead at my keyboard, just a moment shy of exposing the EC.
>>>>>
I’m glad that my profile has me “not visible” when I’m on the forum. It makes it a lot easier to keep abreast of things in the game while “I’m away from the game doing work”. I have to be careful, however, to make sure I don’t post ANYWHERE if I’m going to use that excuse…
Another thing I’m glad I established is a dislike of chat. Sunny was right, 4Sigma and I were present while EC1 was chatting with her – and now we know that Sunny and 4Sigma were/are innocent students and I was innocent at the time. I went in a few other times when a few RF’ers who shall remain nameless were chatting rather suggestively. I don’t know that they were having cybersex, but it certainly seemed like that was the direction it was heading, and I really don’t like the idea of having that on my monitor at work. So BC can stay out of chat and not have a good reason to go in. However, if necessary, I can actually establish “bona fides” again, since I happen to have 2 computers at work. It might be a little dicey to try to use both at once, but luckily I type very fast for an actuary, so I can probably pull it off, at least for short stretches of time, once or twice. We’ll see if that becomes a useful tool.
WD gave me access to EC1 and EC2 ID’s, but I haven’t used either one yet. I don’t intend to for awhile, although it might be useful to check out the PMs in those accounts if any.
Another thought: While for most intents and purposes, WD and I are teammates, here, there IS a stapler involved. I don’t know which of us wins the tiebreaker if we’re both alive at the end of the game. Which means that if I win the tiebreaker, WD may at some point jettison me to make himself look good AND increase his odds of winning the stapler, while at some point it might be in my own interests to jettison him. That isn’t a concern right now, of course, since we’re still heavy underdogs, but it might be something to consider down the line.
I also need to start studying who the ghosts have “protected” vs. who they have “fingered”, on the theory that restricted choice may help us find the slayer. I discussed the restricted choice idea with Gandalf and 4Sigma before I was “awakened”. They kind of dismissed the idea. They were probably right. But I want to look at it. Killing Gandalf may have worked in our favor, since (at least according to the ghosts) it made them “more necessary to protect the slayer”. Which is true, I suppose – a bandwagon gathered, it was stopped by the ghosts, next thing you know Gandalf is killed by EC. Could the same thing have happened to Avi (or the slayer in a later round)? Quite possibly.
>>>>>
I see that mention is being made of emoticon use. They really shouldn’t be sharing these things in public. Of course, as it happens I thought of it myself independently, but still…
I think if it gets to the taunting stage I should use words like “moran”, “looser”, and “Thanks!” While these might peg me as someone who haunts political, I think the usage is a bit broader. I’ll have to think on it awhile.
It also occurred to me that while EVERYONE in chat is visible, the EC1 and EC2 identities may not be hidden. I’m asking WD, and if they aren’t hidden, I’ll ask CB if he can make them hidden.
Hmm… at first I thought EK’s swipe at “ivory tower” types was a subtle jab at me, but now I think it was a not-so-subtle jab at 4Sigma. I’m glad I didn’t react. I might have seemed paranoid.
Random thoughts at lunchtime: If I taunt, I might want to take a “flirty/suggestive/sexual” stance toward Sunny and Mulan. This is rather different from my online persona (and my offline self), so that might divert a bit of suspicion. Of course, it might also make people think the remaining EC is a male…
I’m sure a lot of the others have made a LOT of PMs to each other. But at least a few people know that I PM “important” things and leave unimportant things to posting. For example, Kenshiro and Mulan posted strategy ideas. Since 4Sigma practically had to restrain me from posting ideas about the model before I was awakened, I mentioned this to them. Kenshiro conveyed the thought that the model had made him suspicious of me, originally. The reason 4Sigma didn’t want me to post more ideas about the model? He didn’t want the EC to be thinking strategically. In retrospect, the irony of THAT is delicious.
I am wondering if EK is the slayer… by continually putting down the ghost forum, which is the best way to avoid having the students lynch a slayer, he may be trying to draw EC suspicion about the possibility of him being a slayer away from himself. Of course, this kind of circular logic probably leads nowhere, but I’m going to PM this to WD and see what he thinks. It’s nice having a closed circle of three. Of course, I need to finish my latest work on the model for 4Sigma before I go on my brief anniversary vacation.
Oh, great, Karma Police has asked about the model. I should probably answer it. I’ll do it later.
>>>>>
Thinking about the taunts: I should probably include pop culture references that my persona would never use in real life, like South Park. I’ve only seen an episode or two, but it might work. I might want to pick up something like rap lyrics (gee, wonder where I can find some J) also, a musical reference that is WAY far away from what I actually listen to. Avoid anything that sounds country, Christian, Republican, or anything that I might actually watch or listen to regularly.
I have learned that it’s different to try to deceive a crowd that knows you shallowly than to fool an individual who knows you well. If you need to fool an individual, you need to change EVERYTHING about yourself. NO detail is too small to overlook. If you’re trying to fool a crowd, you have to make sure that the big things are changed, but you can let the little ones slide a little, because for every person who correctly suspects who you are, there are three others who suspect someone else. In this case, I’m going to try to do both.
I’ll tell the story of trying to fool individuals. My brother arranged to have a friend from work over to our house for dinner. What my folks didn’t know was that my brother was picking up “Scott” (a real coworker) from across town, but from the 6 o’clock train from Chicago. I planned this months ahead. I did a head-to-toe makeover. Grew a beard. Dyed my hair, let it grow long. Changed to a “gangster-style” look. Changed my voice. Changed my handedness (I’m not too far from being ambidextrous). Wore sunglasses. A few other details.
The moment I walked in the house I was identified. By the family dog. So much for using after-shave on my ankles to throw off her scent. Mom welcomed me into the house as my brother’s guest; we chatted briefly; “Our dog usually doesn’t like men.” “It must be my aftershave” (Oh, crap!!!) “I know, it sounds weird to wear after-shave when you have a beard.” (I hope that’s a decent recovery) “Oh, my husband does the same thing.” (I didn’t know he wore after-shave with the beard – boy did I luck out!) “Oh, your husband has a beard?”…. Then my brother and I went to the dining room to play cards. Dad came home, recognized me instantly. Mom wondered why he was joking around with us when he should be leaving my brother to enjoy time with his friend. Dad went out to the living room with Mom and managed to arrange that “Scott” could stay for supper. During the meal mom is studying me. Later she tells me her thoughts were alternating between “He looks a lot like BC. But BC would never wear that. He sounds like BC. But BC eats so fast, and Scott is eating so slowly.” I’d been home for over an hour when my mom decided how she could be sure. She mouthed to my brother “Does Dad know?” If Bob mouths back either “yes” or “no”, she’s got me pegged, but if he mouths back “Does Dad know what?” she’s going to have to study me for awhile longer. He mouths back “yes”, and after playing along for a few more minutes, Mom lets us know the jig is up.
>>>>>
Anyway, back to the EC game. I found that EC_Slayer has made 4 posts. I copied them down, looked for anything that stood out as possibly revealing, and forwarded the data to CB and WD. Of course, if EC_Slayer is crafty, then this effort will probably be wasted, but it doesn’t hurt to look for anomalies. By searching on words “suffice”, “stronger”, and “moreover”, it is most strongly suggested that Karma Police is the slayer. However, since he’s already been lynched and not outed as being a slayer, this is impossible. However, other possibilities on the radar screen are Avi, Sunny, and Mulan. Strategically, it might be useful to kill Avi next so that the students think we’re reading a lot into their “tilting”. EK is also a possibility, but as WD pointed out, he’s likely to get himself killed anyway. Sunny is a dark horse because of an odd PM – and the fact that she knows KP IRL suggests she may have had him help her compose the posts she made as slayer. Of course, this could also be a complete waste of time, and I haven’t gotten to look for “emoticon” irregularities yet. Also, the ghosts actually suggested Sunny to be slain. Of course, protection isn’t as important when there are two living EC left, so that might have been a ruse. If so, it was VERY clever. 4Sigma ISN’T a Turing machine, after all.
>>>>>
I berated CB in a PM for using the word “their” in a post, referring to his compatriots. That tends to suggest a sleeper is active. This is NOT something I want the students to know. Tough luck. I might be able to salvage something from this, though. I intend to PM the ghosts about it – they might not have noticed – with caveats (gender-neutral pronoun, attempt to mislead) so that the ghosts give me credit for providing some useful “evidence” – which will be especially helpful to me if I’m the only one who caught it. Okay, the odds on that aren’t good, but at least some of the people playing this game didn’t catch it because they’d have posted a retort, “exposing” the existence of a sleeper.
I’ve been monitoring the forum most of the day. I need to start my afternoon posting soon. I’ve decided to tell Karma Police I didn’t do that model, even though I was able to modify it this afternoon. It took about 10 minutes, but I can blame it on a busy day at work. That should get me out of working on it until at least Wednesday, and I’ve already given some useful results to 4Sigma anyway. I’ll pass along my observations on CB’s potential mistake. Gandalf and 4Sigma have unintentionally given me a good reason not to expose many of the model’s results (and perhaps to not even work on it any longer) – that of not helping the EC figure out how to strategize.
Once more into the breach…
>>>>>
Day 3: Friday, June 18
Today, it looks like I’m going to have to actually WORK, so I probably won’t get much done in the game. I suggested to 4Sigma that the reason CB used “their” is using a gender-neutral pronoun might have been because CB’s partner is a woman. It might mislead them somewhat, and it’s a reasonable interpretation, so it’s unlikely to cast suspicion on me (except suspicion that I’m not too bright when it comes to this game, which isn’t a bad suspicion for the others to have. Unless it’s justified, of course.) I also asked Mr. P. if the three EC could meet on “The Math Underground” bulletin board and use their chat room. Hardly anyone from the RF is there (it’s a small board) and I can create 3 fake ids for us, so we can talk more efficiently than using these PMs. I also tried to plant suspicion for Avi with a few people that have PM’ed me in the past, but suggested that we wait and see if the EC kills him – the reason being that we could lynch Avi next round. I also suggested to WD that we kill Sunny (if she’s alive then) next round and let the students lynch Avi.
I posted my little dissertation on “the object of the game.” This is related to the incident that inflamed me so much against Gandalf (before I discovered I was the sleeper). Gandalf and 4Sigma were the “peer review” of the model and it was nearly complete. Then Gandalf judged (correctly as it turned out) that while it had interesting strategic implications, the value to the students would only be marginal, his game-time could probably be better spent doing other things. While this was probably true, I reacted emotionally as if he’d said “your work isn’t important.” (I got over it.) To ME, its value was high – even it if turned out to have NO strategic value whatsoever. Then 4Sigma was killed just after I’d sent off my final results for him to audit, and as far as I was concerned, that was the last straw – I became a bit paranoid (as I have been prone to do in this game) and decided Gandalf must have decided to “spike” my model by cutting me off from any help. Quite incorrectly, as it turned out.
I still haven’t asked WD and CB if the model had anything to do with their decision to kill 4Sigma.
There is a website called “The Math Underground.” It’s a forum like www.actuary.ca, but much younger (and smaller) with very little traffic. I have gotten “EC1” as an ID. I have suggested to WD and CB that they get “EC2” and “EC3” so that we can “chat” safely there. That will be much more efficient than PM’ing all the time. Of course, it might also draw attention to me if anyone else finds out we’re there. Oops, I just thought of that… Mel-o-Rama and ZeroVektor are two RF’ers who post there, but they aren’t following the game. I hope I haven’t just made a MASSIVE error… I had better try to fix it. Drat, I can’t access the account to delete it until I get home… Well, at least I warned WD and CB not to make the same mistake I did. Pride goeth before destruction, and all that.
I hope to “study” posts made by EC2 next week, briefly, as I did the slayer. If I can find a distinctive word or three, and find out who used that word most often, and it isn’t WD, I can present those results to the ghosts, making me look ever less suspicious.
>>>>>
I can’t believe that I went home over lunch to access my yahoo account so I could ask Travis to get rid of the EC identity. I am really getting obsessed with this game. WD has created two new identities to go along with the new one I created (Huey) so we can start “meeting” there if it seems safe.
I also made a slip in my recent post, saying that I hoped “EK dies before I do.” I probably should have said “I hope I live at least as long as EK.” Ah, well, the mild animosity between us was already established before I became the sleeper. My rebuttal, if anyone notices and calls me on it: “Perhaps you underestimate the degree to which Mr. EK has managed to get under my skin.”
Mulan’s offer to commit seppuku (hara-kiri) is interesting, although perhaps not particularly informative.
>>>>>
I went back to The Math Underground, and the EC1 ID is gone. Thanks, Travis! So it was up less than 2 ½ hours. Hopefully no one noticed. If I survive for another 2 rounds, I think I can feel safe that this particular mistake isn’t going to be fatal.
>>>>>
I just realized that our slayer retired earlier in the game, to be replaced. Which means any inferences I draw from the first three posts is wasted. Now I suppose this is all well and good, since (I assume, which may not be safe here) the final post came from the new slayer and most of my inferences were drawn from that post. I’m not particularly keen on the ghost committee offering up Sunny on a platter… while this may be a daring feint, it makes me suspect that she isn’t the slayer. Which could be the purpose… I’m going in circles again. I could try voting for her to try to smoke out this potential bluff, but I’m probably better off keeping silent for now.
At some point I’m going to take a crack at the ghosts’ codes, but I doubt that they’re breakable. 4Sigma is too smart for that.
>>>>>
Another gambit: Just before I went on my anniversary getaway, I asked Sunny to be my proxy vote, just in case it was needed. It won’t be, I don’t think, but she’ll be dead before she gets to use it. “Why on earth would the EC kill Sunny? She wants to die. She has been fingered twice by the ghost committee. How could the EC think she was the slayer? How could my choice have been ANY safer – I mean, aside from the risk of assigning the vote to an EC member, what should I have been expecting to go wrong?”
Day 4: Wednesday, June 23
At first, I thought the “Sunny gambit” was a brilliant play – 4Sigma went and told everyone that the EC could hit 2 votes for the price of 1, thus giving the EC a good motive to hit her. Then a few other people asked for proxies, so it looked like not such a good idea. Butters was slain, Sunny killed, Avi lynched, and now I’m back. However, I at least got an excuse to explain to Sunny why I DIDN’T think she was the slayer, and that I’m looking out for the good of the students. My proxy of course wasn’t needed. As expected, Avi was the next lynchee.
I’m becoming more and more convinced that Karma Police wrote the final slayer post, so any guesses we may have with regard to the slayer are useless. Still, it can’t hurt to keep doing what we’re doing. We’re meeting at lunch at The Math Underground to chat, I think. If I survive another full round I’ll assume I haven’t made a fatal mistake to this point.
CB pointed out that, given that a slayer victory and sleeper victory are NOT mutually exclusive (which I already knew) I could sell WD to the slayer in exchange for helping me to kill the students, and we might both get staplers. It’s a brilliant idea. I suppose it might even not be considered unethical. But I am not going do it, although of course fingering WD to protect myself later on might not be a bad idea. I THINK I am about as far “above suspicion” as anyone else right now. I just need to stay that way.
>>>>>
I suggested to WD and CB that we want to keep the ghost forum at 51% support (including us) so that they can’t afford to recommend we be lynched without risking losing power with no return on investment, as it were. If support for the GF goes too low, we can’t predict or control what will happen quite as well, while if support for the GF goes too high, they may decide they can afford to suggest lynching a few of their more suspicious supporters. I also asked if we had any useful PMs from the Slayer to perform additional “linguistic analyses” on. PMs are unlikely to be faked or created by another player (like Karma Police) and the style of the PM response I received from the Slayer was similar to the one in the 4th EC_Slayer post.
I am trying to put Kenshiro on the block, using the fact that he appointed Sunny his proxy the day after 4Sigma painted a bullseye on her back. After all, who could have anticipated 4Sigma’s post BEFORE it happened, right? I told Sunny via PM that I had thought of the 2-for-1 EC gambit, and had picked her because I was sure she wasn’t the slayer. Which is a lie, of course. Of course, I forgot to consider the “and if you were EC” case in my initial PM, so that might look suspicious… Like I said, if I last through the next 2 slayings, I suspect that I’ve managed to float above suspicion. For now, anyway. I made the list like the ghosts asked for, and made sure it was relatively unhelpful. WD is not in the bottom group of suspicious people but he is near it. We should probably get Mulan not next round, but perhaps one of the two rounds after that, to help protect him.
We met on The Math Underground, and Travis came snooping around. We decided to trust him, and in return he gave us a “super-secret” forum to play in – so we won’t be “exposed” like we are in chat.
Day 5: Thursday, June 24
Not much happening. We’re all waiting for the slayer to move. Since this is probably going through Mr. P and he isn’t here today, it’s likely not much will happen.
I have posted a brief bit of info on the Pigeonhole Principle. I PM’ed 4Sigma and Sunny that I thought the assumed probability that the sleeper had been killed prior to the first EC slaying should be raised from 7/31 to 7/28. I suggested to WD that we should plan our killings ahead of time so that Mr. P would be the bottleneck, instead of us, which would conceal the times we were on the forum. It also would speed up the game, make it more fun, and discourage people from volunteering to kill themselves.
Tomorrow I intend to PM 4Sigma and Sunny an “adjusted” probability – adjusted for the fact that no EC has been killed since the first, an event which would be less likely had there been an active sleeper – a sort of “restricted choice” argument.
Day 6: Friday, June 25
I did indeed send a PM to 4Sigma explaining my restricted choice sleeper argument. I didn’t send it to Sunny, since I didn’t think she would be interested. I also jumped on a “suggest Ebenezer Kohl” bandwagon, which I hope will either get him lynched or else provide cover for us to kill him next round, and Mulan the round after that if she’s still alive. Keeping low for now. I was pleased to see the slayer get Kenshiro, since I put him at the top of my list. I suggested to WD that we want to keep the ghost forum at about a 51% support level – we both need to support it but keep it a low enough support so that they can’t afford to suggest either of us without risking losing their power for no good reason, but enough support to avoid the “lynch mob mentality” that might sweep either of us up for no good reason. We already demonstrated this with Gandalf and Avi – and both times I was the one who “included” the ghosts’ participation, so I should be seen as an avid supporter. WD posted in support of EK – I think that was risky, but if EK is the slayer and we take him out next round, it will make him look good.
I used a variation of the model to determine the probability that EC win and I’m still alive. I think I get the tiebreaker against WD at this point. Anyway, I’m at 18.95% chance of winning the stapler. Of course, in theory the best chance I have is if WD and I both survive until near the very end, he dies, because then I don’t have to worry about the tiebreaker going against me.
Day 7: Monday, June 28
Not much happened today. Jables got lynched. We haven’t seen a death scene yet, but I presume he is not the slayer. WD and I changed our kill vote – WD really thought Jables was the slayer, so we put him first. Our second choice was Mulan, and our third choice was Ebenezer Kohl. I am making a list of people the ghosts have suggested that are still alive, in the hopes of eliminating them from the potential slayer pool. Hopefully, by killing Sunny after she was offered up to the students will help keep the “offerings” from being potential slayers. That would eliminate Ebenezer Kohl, Jables, Traina, and Werewolf. So that increases our chance of getting a lucky hit. I’m almost certain Karma Police wrote the original “final” EC_Slayer post. I’ve been keeping up with the random math/philosophy comments; added one on probability today.
A few ideas for “threads” I can’t safely post:
BtPotEC: What to do with a pair of GC in your pocket
BtPotEC: Thinning the herd
BtPotEC: The Sleeper Diaries
BtPotEC: Casting suspicion on other players
BtPotEC: Check-Raising the Slayer
Incidentally, I sent the slayer my ordered picks, including Kenshiro at the top of the list. Guess who the slayer killed? Cool beans.
I hope the slayer doesn’t kill Mulan, since that will leave us the task of killing Ebenezer Kohl, and (A) he probably isn’t the slayer, and (B) he’s kind of useful. Of course, I also hope the slayer doesn’t get WD or myself, which is even a higher priority…
Day 8: Tuesday, June 29
The game is getting dull. I responded to a few CB taunts and threatened Ebenezer Kohl with a few Bible verses. Still waiting on the slayer. Jadzia said her vote came in late because she’s taking classes and is busy at work. It looks likely that Mulan will be the EC’s next kill. I certainly hope so… if it’s EK, I look a lot more suspicious. On the other hand, if EK gets lynched next round, WD looks more innocent because he defended him, the ghost forum gets weaker and needs to depend more than ever on its supporters (my little dig will go a bit towards encouraging the ghost forum to finger EK), and the attention might shift from people who are vocal toward people who are quiet.
Postscript:
Well, a lot of time has passed… I got sick right after the last entry and was lynched shortly thereafter. Most of what I wanted to say post-game about the lynching has already been said. It’s been fun, I wish we’d won, but there are 34 players and 1 team that has to lose, and this time I’m in both categories. So it goes. As I mentioned, 4Sigma said it was okay for me to tell people we knew each other, since it seemed I was unjustly being suspected for my quick vote. In retrospect, that might have helped. But it still would have been the wrong thing to do, although when I was sick I had a weak moment and suggested WD ask me why I was so supportive of the ghost forum, intending to answer “I refuse to answer that question”. I thought that might keep 4Sigma, and by extension the ghosts, from recommending me. I’m glad I didn’t follow through on that.