Can we stop conceding with one move to go?

[MarkSteere]

What about the harm caused to me by the excruciatingly boring process of mindlessly making moves in a non-game that's already been won essentially? For me, this is psychological torture. Amid all this emphasis on harm, somehow you've totally overlooked my harm.

You seem to be assuming there's some implied moral obligation to play a game to the bitter end. There isn't. There's an option to concede, which implies that players have the moral option to concede.

The artist is presumably working alone and not imposing an onerous burden on anyone to complete their work.

A better analogy would be a baby in a highchair pushing his sippy cup off his food tray onto the floor. An adult picks it up and puts it back on the tray, whereupon the baby immediately pushes it off again. After a few rounds of this, the adult walks away, and the baby starts screaming and crying. Is the adult "harming" the baby?

[nik592]

My contention here is that conceding is too great a harm to just be allowed. Some people here seem to disagree, seemingly because they don’t want to acknowledge the intensity of that harm, or want to downplay it.

However, your point about aesthetics is pretty good and gets to much of the heart of what this is about. It is strange, then, that you go on to say that it’s okay to just ruin this passion that some people have, knowing that the concern of time wasting is a small thing in comparison.

You keep saying that time wasting in a "small thing" in comparison to your perceived "too great a harm" of conceding. I haven't seen anyone in this thread except you arguing that conceding (mid-game, not on the last move) is a significant harm to them. I am one who doesn't like any conceding, including mid-game, but even I would argue that an opponent wasting my time by disappearing mid-game without explanation would be a greater harm to me. If I had the time to play a RT game (pretty rare for me), and my opponent asked if I was ok to let the game play later, I might agree to switch to TB, depending on the game. Some games just don't work well at TB - in those cases, I'd suggest we should abandon, and go find another game. If they just disappeared, I normally give them about 5 minutes grace, and then I would kick them, and red thumb them, and go find another game and hope my window of RT playtime has not been wasted that maybe I can find another game that might actually get finished.

Yes, that's just the way I see it, and you obviously see it differently, but despite several people telling you that they see it similarly to me (time wasting harm > concession harm), you continue to insist that conceding causes an objectively greater harm than having one's time wasted. This is a pretty small sample, but I suspect you're in a significant minority with having that point of view. The fact (as Ceaseless has mentioned) that leaving your games to run out is a bannable offense on other platforms also seems to put you in a minority.

You can continue to feel that way, but you're (almost certainly) not arguing for the masses when you say that conceding is a better option than just walking away and leaving the game running, and that's what people should be doing in all circumstances.

[Trailblazer23]

I haven't heard a rational explanation for how conceding actually "harms" you. Or why I should endure an onerous burden to spare you from this fake "harm."

I feel let down, abandoned, and rejected when a game is conceded on the last play because last-minute rejection causes intense emotional and physical pain because it triggers the same brain regions as physical injury (the anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex), activating a "social survival" panic response that threatens core psychological needs for belonging and self-esteem. I know I need to reframe the narrative and depersonalize it, recognizing that the opponents rejection is often about the opponent's fears and limitations and is not a reflection of my own worth. However, it would be easier to skip all of this if the conceder just played the last move.

[tbhp]

Yes, that's just the way I see it, and you obviously see it differently, but despite several people telling you that they see it similarly to me (time wasting harm > concession harm), you continue to insist that conceding causes an objectively greater harm than having one's time wasted.

Your logic is flawed.

I am, like most everyone, negatively affected by time wasting. I also happen to be affected to a much greater degree by conceding. Therefore, I’m in a position to say in an objective manner that the worst instances of conceding are worse than the worst instances of time wasting.

People like you can’t make that comparison, because you evidently don’t know what it’s like to be deeply affected by conceding. If you did, you would never suggest that time wasting is worse. So, it’s arguing about something you don’t know.

The only way my logic doesn’t work is if you can show that there exists people for who time wasting is worse than conceding is for me. But that’s a ludicrous notion that no one would be prepared to make. No one is that deeply affected by time wasting. It’s an inconvenience, that’s it. It’s not something anyone will lose sleep over, will remember as a profound loss that changed their life for the worse. They probably won’t even remember the circumstances of it very well a week later.

My claim is not that my solution benefits the masses, it’s that it avoids the worst outcome. I have no qualms bothering a majority who will be hurt by me not conceding, if that means I get to avoid the terrible possibility of conceding on someone who hates it.

It’s like, if you had the choice between a medicine that has a 99% chance of giving someone a cough, and one that has a 1% chance of killing them, which one would you give them? Any sensible person would choose to give them a cough.

So, it doesn’t matter how low the odds might be. I’m never taking that risk when the alternative is something as trivial as time wasting.

[nik592]

The only way my logic doesn’t work is if you can show that there exists people for who time wasting is worse than conceding is for me. But that’s a ludicrous notion that no one would be prepared to make. No one is that deeply affected by time wasting. It’s an inconvenience, that’s it. It’s not something anyone will lose sleep over, will remember as a profound loss that changed their life for the worse. They probably won’t even remember the circumstances of it very well a week later.

I mean, that is what I said - "an opponent wasting my time by disappearing mid-game without explanation would be a greater harm to me [than conceding mid-game]". You seem to think you're uniquely qualified to know the best way here and your opinion is more right than others. I can't argue with that, not because you're right, but because you don't think the opinions of others is ever valid. I'm out.

[FrankJones]

I just want to make sure we're all on the same page here:

1) Conceding at 50% (or whatever progression actually corresponds to halfway through the game) saves time for both players, and although I'm not a big fan of it, it doesn't bother me too much because it's basically a non-game anyway.

2) Conceding when the game is nearly over doesn't save much time, sometimes none, and actually wastes time compared to conceding earlier. And, being that the game is nearly complete, it means a near-complete game is having the stats, score, and end-game state wiped away.

I think we all agree on those two?

Whether that means we think it's "okay" or "sportsmanlike" or unsportsmanlike" to concede near end-game is obviously subjective.

I think we would agree on that.

Personally, I feel that once the game is near complete anyway, the polite and respectful and sportsmanlike action is to finish the game at that point, and I feel that the reasons for not doing so are likely rooted in pettiness or selfishness while not taking into consideration how others might view sacrificing those end-game effects just to save a small (perhaps negligible) amount of time.

Some (especially one loud and abrasive person) may deride the value of the end-game state or score or stats. But those thins DO have value and have been used to great benefit of the gaming community.

It would be a loss to the community and to the specific opponent if people made a habit of needlessly conceding during the final move or two of a game.

This negative effect is mitigated only by the fact that it is rarely done (meaning, the vats majority of players recognize that it is, to some extent, not cool to do so).

To use that as a reason/excuse - meaning, to say, "Well, so what if I do it, one game's stats or end-game state is meaningless in a large sample size" is to utilize the politeness and consideration of others to justify selfish and potentially negative behavior. It would be akin to littering by saying, "well, who cares, what's one piece of discarded trash when 95% of other people throw their trash away properly? Why should I waste 30 seconds throwing my trash in a trash can?"

If a negative or harmful act is mitigated only by the fact that most other people do not do it, that's all the more reason for any individual NOT to do it.

It's like constantly changing lanes in traffic or cutting in front of other drivers to gain a car length or two. If one person in a large group of cars does it, no big deal. But only because most drivers do not. If several drivers decided to do those things, we would have collisions, accidents, road rage, and other consequences.

Same with cutting in line at a supermarket checkout. One person does it? No big deal. But only because most people do not.

[tbhp]

The only way my logic doesn’t work is if you can show that there exists people for who time wasting is worse than conceding is for me. But that’s a ludicrous notion that no one would be prepared to make. No one is that deeply affected by time wasting. It’s an inconvenience, that’s it. It’s not something anyone will lose sleep over, will remember as a profound loss that changed their life for the worse. They probably won’t even remember the circumstances of it very well a week later.

I mean, that is what I said - "an opponent wasting my time by disappearing mid-game without explanation would be a greater harm to me [than conceding mid-game]". You seem to think you're uniquely qualified to know the best way here and your opinion is more right than others. I can't argue with that, not because you're right, but because you don't think the opinions of others is ever valid. I'm out.

You are the one who isn’t taking other people into account.

The comparison is not about which alternative is worse for you. It’s about how the worst instances of conceding compare to your experience of time wasting.

You are only thinking about yourself when you tell me what you think is worse, in your own experience. You aren’t thinking about the worst outcome, which we all should try to avoid when making moral decisions.

If I were playing against you, conceding would be the ethical choice. But I have no way to know if the person playing against me is more like you or more like me. So I should never take the risk of conceding. A discussion would have to happen first.

I thought the logic of my previous post was simple to understand, with the medicine example and all that, but it feels like you just read past it. You are still making it all about yourself and your experiences, instead of including all possible human experiences in your moral framework.

[FrankJones]

The only way my logic doesn’t work is if you can show that there exists people for who time wasting is worse than conceding is for me. But that’s a ludicrous notion that no one would be prepared to make. No one is that deeply affected by time wasting. It’s an inconvenience, that’s it. It’s not something anyone will lose sleep over, will remember as a profound loss that changed their life for the worse. They probably won’t even remember the circumstances of it very well a week later.

I mean, that is what I said - "an opponent wasting my time by disappearing mid-game without explanation would be a greater harm to me [than conceding mid-game]". You seem to think you're uniquely qualified to know the best way here and your opinion is more right than others. I can't argue with that, not because you're right, but because you don't think the opinions of others is ever valid. I'm out.

I think what tbhp is saying is, "When a player's clock [Edited for typo] runs out, the benefit of the doubt can be given that some sort of emergency occurred. We cannot expect people to waste any time in an emergency by worrying about clicking concede. But when someone concedes at end-game, and then often starts a new game right away, that's a non-emergency situation that could have been avoided."

I think that's what tbhp is conveying. Apologies if I misrepresented.

[tbhp]

FrankJones, I’m not saying not conceding is okay because the person may not have had the time to click concede. I’m saying it’s the only moral choice because you have no way to know how deeply affected your opponent will be if you concede.

Leaving someone hanging is operating in known territory, like giving someone a cough. You know it will be inconvenient, but it’s never very serious and they will recover quickly.

Conceding is like taking a shot in the dark. Maybe it will have no negative consequence, but you would never take that risk.

[Ceaseless]

The only way my logic doesn’t work is if you can show that there exists people for who time wasting is worse than conceding is for me. But that’s a ludicrous notion that no one would be prepared to make. No one is that deeply affected by time wasting. It’s an inconvenience, that’s it. It’s not something anyone will lose sleep over, will remember as a profound loss that changed their life for the worse. They probably won’t even remember the circumstances of it very well a week later.

I mean, that is what I said - "an opponent wasting my time by disappearing mid-game without explanation would be a greater harm to me [than conceding mid-game]". You seem to think you're uniquely qualified to know the best way here and your opinion is more right than others. I can't argue with that, not because you're right, but because you don't think the opinions of others is ever valid. I'm out.

I think what tbhp is saying is, "When a player's cock runs out, the benefit of the doubt can be given that some sort of emergency occurred. We cannot expect people to waste any time in an emergency by worrying about clicking concede. But when someone concedes at end-game, and then often starts a new game right away, that's a non-emergency situation that could have been avoided."

I think that's what tbhp is conveying. Apologies if I misrepresented.

Typos aside, it's not and you did.