Comic for June the 20th, 2020

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Bellhead
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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#31 Post by Bellhead »

aitaituo wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 3:29 am
Bellhead wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 11:17 am
Warrl wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 5:37 am I don't like the alleged short lifespan either, even though their childhood is (or was as of 2017 our time) significantly shorter than ours.

snip

The basic problem is that, compared to basitins or humans, the keidran simply don't live long enough to acquire advanced skills and knowledge - in any field.
Are we assuming their learning abilities while young are similar to ours? With a shorter lifespan, or would be plausible to have skills and training take less time, and have information sink in a bit faster. Or, in contrast, humans and basitin have longer training and slower learning abilities, because their lives are so long.

Maybe?
Actually, a lot of studies have found that the peak value years of a laborer are in their late 40's to mid 60's. It varies by how physically strenuous and skilled the job is. A crop picker peaks pretty early. An office manager peaks pretty late. But in the (semi-)skilled professions, a laborer can seamlessly transition from the value of their own work to the value of managing or training less experienced workers. One wonders if in the medieval era this effect was further exaggerated by the higher mortality rate and by the overall lower percentage of the population engaged in non-farm labor. Regardless of the particulars, it's hard to imagine that keidran could ever catch up to humans without, you know, increasing the human mortality rate. Plus, human enslavement of keidran is not only a brain drain on the keidran, but frees up more humans for skilled professions.
Again, that's assuming their mental development and acquiring of skills happens at roughly the same rate. My theory is that, with a naturally shorter lifespan, they may learn techniques and skills more easily. Magic that would take a human 3 years to learn, a keidran might pickup in less than 1, for instance. A keidran worker's peak value age would of course be lower, but I think its possible that the curve is steeper as well.

Given identical living conditions and education, who would learn faster?
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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#32 Post by Warrl »

So far I've seen no evidence that keidran are quicker learners than humans...

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Tetrahedron
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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#33 Post by Tetrahedron »

Well I'm also on the longer livespan side.
Even if Keidren learn faster, you have a problem, in my opinion. You can learn only fast, if you have fast input.
Just an example: I make wine from grapes, other fruits and honey. My first wine was a complete mess. I learned a lot. But to make the next wine, I had to wait a year, because new fruits and grapes take this time to grow.
So I needed some years to get somehow good in this. That's nothing you can do in a rush.

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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#34 Post by SpottedKitty »

Rafe wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 5:39 pm As far as what Trace has just discovered, I guess we'll have to wait to see.
I'm (slightly) reassured by the last few pages that my initial guess seems to be mistaken.

That the room has an... erm... occupant. :shock:
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Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#35 Post by Rafe »

Tetrahedron wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 7:58 pm ... I make wine from grapes, other fruits and honey. My first wine was a complete mess. I learned a lot. But to make the next wine, I had to wait a year, because new fruits and grapes take this time to grow.
So I needed some years to get somehow good in this. That's nothing you can do in a rush.
No need to wait so long if you use your imagination when selecting grapes.
[Sits back and pours a glass of Chateau de Krogér Red Seedless]

aitaituo
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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#36 Post by aitaituo »

Bellhead wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 8:51 am Again, that's assuming their mental development and acquiring of skills happens at roughly the same rate. My theory is that, with a naturally shorter lifespan, they may learn techniques and skills more easily. Magic that would take a human 3 years to learn, a keidran might pickup in less than 1, for instance. A keidran worker's peak value age would of course be lower, but I think its possible that the curve is steeper as well.

Given identical living conditions and education, who would learn faster?
Well, let's estimate. Say a human starts learning their career skills at 14, pretty normal in the medieval era, and peaks at 50 on average. That's 36 years to achieve peak mastery/value. Based on the Maeve age chart, Keidran could start at age 7 and let's say 28 is their peak and equal to the human peak, which I think is being generous. That's 21 years to achieve peak mastery. For that to work, a keidran has to learn at 1.71 the rate of a human (36/21). Not bad!

So why is that generous? Well the human peak of 50 is a guessed average of all professions. The higher skilled, less strenuous professions are going to peak closer to 65, which would make the keidran learning speed 2.43 to be able to match humans. Past 65, a human is in decline just due to biology. Your brain and body start to slow down significantly, erasing any potential gains. With the idea that keidran rapidly decline in their late 20's, I assumed 28 would be the point were keidran begin to deteriorate. The human can still be productive for some time, depending on career. The keidran apparently becomes geriatric pretty quickly. Beyond the mean averages, humans have a lot of wiggle room. Part of the reason less skilled and more strenuous professions have an earlier peak is because the wear on the body makes you unproductive by causing chronic health problems/injuries. Are keidran relative impervious to back problems? I dunno. Furthermore, if you reduce the keidran peak age by just two years, the estimated relative learning rates increase to 1.89 and 2.68 respectively. Their lifespans are so short, a small difference in assumptions is a big difference in outcomes.

Lastly, as Warrl said, there isn't clear evidence that keidran are that much smarter than humans. Intelligence is really complicated and there's no good measure. The mean number of times you have to be trained before it's remembered in the first place, long term memory retention, ability to understand verbal instructions, ability to focus on one thing for long periods, interest in the subject matter, these are things that make up learning speed. You can be pretty darn dumb in many ways and still be perceived as quite intelligent by your peers if you have significantly above average ratings in those skills. Keidran aren't widely perceived as much smarter than humans by either species. It's a rough approximation, but a keidran who was really that much better at learning than a human would probably have obvious signs of being more knowledgeable and cleverer and less easily distracted. I seem to recall Flora getting totally distracted by a butterfly and both her and Natani saying, "Huh?" more than once in response to something not especially complicated or confusing. IQ is not a great measure of intelligence, but someone at 130 IQ really is clearly smarter than the average bear. I'm not good enough at math to even begin to attempt to translate a relative learning speed of 1.71 to relative IQ, but how I'm imagining the signs of such learning speed would probably be roughly similar to 130 IQ. About 3% of people score 130 or higher. Unless I'm way off in my assumptions, which is very possible, it would be really hard not to notice such a difference in intelligence even if practically it was only in learning speed. Also, it's not clear that such a high learning speed wouldn't translate into other intellectual abilities just by the nature of how brains work.

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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#37 Post by BigNorseWolf »

Am I the only one wondering if Rose and Saria were never seen in a room together?

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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#38 Post by Cosmacelf »

Could it be that in the last panel, Trace Is remembering what his evil plan is for Maren? Now that would be an Oh [censored] moment.

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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#39 Post by Ddraig »

BigNorseWolf wrote: Tue Jun 23, 2020 12:32 pm Am I the only one wondering if Rose and Saria were never seen in a room together?
In the side comic Dragon Masquerade, they are shown together. It also shows how they knew each other
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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#40 Post by Warrl »

Greater intelligence does not help you gain experience faster if you're dependent on physical processes.

A stronger blacksmith can maybe swing a hammer faster - a smarter one can't.

Neither a stronger nor a smarter farmer can make the livestock reproduce faster, not speed up the changing of the weather or the turning of the seasons.

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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#41 Post by Tetrahedron »

Warrl wrote: Tue Jun 23, 2020 8:22 pm Greater intelligence does not help you gain experience faster if you're dependent on physical processes.

A stronger blacksmith can maybe swing a hammer faster - a smarter one can't.

Neither a stronger nor a smarter farmer can make the livestock reproduce faster, not speed up the changing of the weather or the turning of the seasons.
Thanks. That's a more sophisticated way to say, what I mean with this:
Rafe wrote: Tue Jun 23, 2020 4:10 am
Tetrahedron wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 7:58 pm ... I make wine from grapes, other fruits and honey. My first wine was a complete mess. I learned a lot. But to make the next wine, I had to wait a year, because new fruits and grapes take this time to grow.
So I needed some years to get somehow good in this. That's nothing you can do in a rush.
No need to wait so long if you use your imagination when selecting grapes.
[Sits back and pours a glass of Chateau de Krogér Red Seedless]
This is an example for an profession you really need decades for. Creating Champagne from three dozens of various different grapes, terror,... If you would be this intelligent, to predict the taste for the next year without tasting, you would certainly not care about such things.

To learn, you often have to make errors. To make errors, you need time. Time you don't have with a 20 year Keidren lifespan.
Why do humans produce more knowledge today and not 8000 bc? Because then, 99 percent of the people were busy not dying the next winter.

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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#42 Post by Bellhead »

These are all valid points, but it brings to mind their actual strengths as a species in relation to the Masks' game. I'll also add that Keith and Natani had "White Wolf Wine" their first night in the Estate, and I doubt it was sub-par.

That said, there's a reason that even in medieval times, certain swordsmiths had far better reputations. Not for their experience, but for their skills acquired over generations. While physical skill and muscle memory cannot be accelerated, knowledge and wisdom can be and typically are, especially by a mentor or family member, and keidran are usually raised by an entire village built on teamwork rather than competition. So there's that, too.
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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#43 Post by Yastreb »

Dadrobit wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 11:41 am Aye, I personally am from the same camp. I don't care if it's "legal" (and yeah, that "joke" REALLY didn't age well) or not. I don't particularly care if the body is "mature" or not. The fact of the matter is that a person who is only 11 years old is someone who still only has 11 years of life experience. They are mentally still just an 11 year old. Regardless of how much their matured body might push them towards sex, it's still inevitably an icky scenario.
Age of consent is not just about life experience. Human brain is still developing when you are 11 and there are major changes that happen over the teenage years. Keidran brain presumably matures faster, reaching its adult state at ~9 instead of ~20. Mentally an 11-year-old Keidran is nothing like a human child of same age.

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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#44 Post by Dadrobit »

Yastreb wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 3:18 pm
Dadrobit wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 11:41 am Aye, I personally am from the same camp. I don't care if it's "legal" (and yeah, that "joke" REALLY didn't age well) or not. I don't particularly care if the body is "mature" or not. The fact of the matter is that a person who is only 11 years old is someone who still only has 11 years of life experience. They are mentally still just an 11 year old. Regardless of how much their matured body might push them towards sex, it's still inevitably an icky scenario.
Age of consent is not just about life experience. Human brain is still developing when you are 11 and there are major changes that happen over the teenage years. Keidran brain presumably matures faster, reaching its adult state at ~9 instead of ~20. Mentally an 11-year-old Keidran is nothing like a human child of same age.
The age of consent is very very heavily reliant on life experience. Being a consenting individual relies not just on how developed a brain is, it's reliant on the individual being able to make an informed decision through understanding the position that they're in based on the information they have gathered throughout their life. Having a developed brain does not make a person inherently equally mature or well reasoned when their actual access to everything life has to offer is less than half of another person with the same brain maturity and twice the age. This is the source of ick.

Certainly age does not ALWAYS beget wisdom, but the exception does not make the rule.
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Re: Comic for June the 20th, 2020

#45 Post by Warrl »

Dadrobit wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 8:57 pm The age of consent is very very heavily reliant on life experience. Being a consenting individual relies not just on how developed a brain is, it's reliant on the individual being able to make an informed decision through understanding the position that they're in based on the information they have gathered throughout their life. Having a developed brain does not make a person inherently equally mature or well reasoned when their actual access to everything life has to offer is less than half of another person with the same brain maturity and twice the age. This is the source of ick.

Certainly age does not ALWAYS beget wisdom, but the exception does not make the rule.
If the age of consent were based on brain development and the ability to understand and weigh consequences, it would probably be about 26.

And the human species would probably go extinct.

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