Re: MPJ and Adaptation

["Benjamin R. Bates" <bbates2@richmond.edu>]

Jason L. Jarvis writes:
>In fairness i recognize that Ben was seeking a middle ground. Personally 
>I am waiting for the compelling arguments against mutual preference. If 
>these are they, then I simply do not understand people's fear of mutually 
>preferred judging.

Tom Jewell writes:
>I don't think we need the compromise.  There are still no viable reasons
>to reject MPJ.  MUTUALLY preferred juding.  Mutually PREFERRED judging.
>MUTUALLY PREFERRED judging.

You are both absolutely right, there have not been many truly compelling
arguments made against MPJ.  THere may be some unexplained fear of MPJ that
some people have that they haven't told us.  There might not be any viable
reason to keep MPJ out of the national tournament.

THe reason that I think some kind of trial period at nationals or a
compromise is needed is that there is too much inertia in our activity to
bring about a massive change.  While there are plenty of people who think
MPJ is the greatest thing since cheese in a can and there are plenty of
people (like me) who really don't care what system we use, so long as it is
equitable, there are also many people who think that MPJ is more evil than
the Emporer from Star Wars.  These people will stand in the way of reform if
they feel that they will lose out completely.  By giving them some part of
the old system and using piecemeal reforms to show them that MPJ can work,
we might be able to bring about change in the systm.

While slow reform might not benefit the people who are in the activity as
competitors immediately, it will bring a better and more lasting change that
will alienate fewer people in the long run.  If we make no change, the
people who like MPJ will be unhappy.  If we change completely to MPJ, the
people who like the way things are now will be unhappy.  If we make a
partial change, with an eye towards complete change in the future after
everyone learns about the MPJ system and the way it works, then everyone
will be a little happy and a little less unhappy about the way things are.

People who want MPJ or nothing risk getting nothing.  People who want our
system as it is now or nothing risk getting nothing.  Unless a middle ground
is reached, somebody will get nothing.  If we take the time to show people
that MPJ can work at the antional tournament on a small scale, perhaps they
will approve of expanding it to the whole tournament in the future.  Unless
we try, we will continue to be at loggerheads as nothing is reformed in any
way or form or have complete reform and seriously piss off half of the
community.

Inertia is a real and powerful force in any kind of policy change at any
level, we can see it in our own activity.  A body at rest will tend to stay
at rest UNLESS a powerful enough force is acting upon it.  The inertia right
now is too great, I think a piecemeal reform is what might be needed to get
the ball rolling.

BEN
tyrant (reformed)
Benjamin R. Bates		Memory says, "I did that."
University of Richmond		Pride replies, "I could not have done that."
bbates2@richmond.edu		Eventually, memory yields.
http://www.student.richmond.	Friedrich Nietzsche 
   edu/~bbates2/sae/		Beyond Good and Evil

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