"I have some time to do something else on Warzone rather than playing the game."

what is this other thing?

I agree that philosophy is not a hard science. Actually I do not think we can categorize it as a science at all. My question, though, can we have science without philosophy? Can we have philosophy without science?

I don't think we can answer it scientifically, so need to use philosophy instead. By all means give your reason if you disagree with that.

Cheers...

I agree with you. In essence, mathematics and science are two sides of the same coin. Especially in the old age, philosophers were scientists and mathematicians, and the other way around. Both fields deal with axioms, truths that must be assumed to be able to proof other things. Even in mathematics, these axioms are far from trivial.

One example that I like to give, is that in geometry, there is an axiom that says that through two points, you can only fit a unique straight line. While this makes intuitive sense, it's not as obvious as it seems in the first place. Because what is straight truly in our world? The surface of earth is curved and even if there would be no natural barriers, you cannot truly travel in a "straight line" without digging a trench. And if you use the surface curvature as "straight", a perfectly reasonable practical assumption, then there are points for which there are not only more than one straight line connecting them, but even in some cases of the same distance (e.g. if your point are on the opposite side of earth, you could travel eastwards or westwards and cover the exact same distance).

Now my question to you would then be: in the reasoning above, are we doing mathematics, philosophy, or both?
The way we do science itself, is built upon principles of philosophy. The concept of proof through reasoning, usually inductive or deductive in science, the scientific method of experimentation and observing, those all originated in philosophy. So I personally do believe that philosophy, just like mathematics, is a core building block of science, even when not science itself.

And while we could have philosophy without science in theory, that would be a weird world in which people were just thinking about abstract concepts of how to observe, how to do things, reason about them, but never putting their ideas in practice.
That luckily only happens in the confines of math and philosophy departments, as even babies already experiment and apply a very crude form of association building without thinking about the theoretical concepts behind the fact that if they reach out for mommy, they are more likely to be picked up and cuddled, or given food.

What are your plan(s) for Halloween?
The day is coming up, people are getting ready for it, decorations, trick-or-treat, etc.

Halloween was never a thing in my country in my youth, so I didn't really know or understand the concept when growing up.
Now, it's slowly making its way into society, but my neighbourhood has had very few trick or treaters the last few years, so it's not really something that I'm thinking about actively.

We have some spare bags of candy in the house for when people come to trick and treat, and if truly necessary, I do have some outfits that I could wear myself, basically leftovers from carnival, which is pretty big in (former) catholic countries. So no decorations, I'm a tad to old to trick-or-treat myself, but I will give some candy and maybe a scare to trick-or-treaters if I feel like it on the day itself.

My actual plans as far as I have them, consist of resting and sleeping late as the next day, November 1st, is a bank holiday in my country (to remember the dead), so most people take the 31st off as well, meaning it'll be a very calm beginning of the week.

Also, thanks for reminding me how time flies. In my head, it was still early October, with September feeling like it was yesterday!

"I have some time to do something else on Warzone rather than playing the game."

what is this other thing?

It was implied that this other thing was creating, and answering to questions in this topic.

However, good catch, I am also doing other things on Warzone still, like every now and then reading some other topics on the forum, and on my mobile device opening Idle every 6 hours while my armies auto-conquer whichever level I'm doing (or not, when I forgot to tick it on, or ticked it off to manually go get the first market and then use the market strat combined with the increased mercenaries to finish the level manually).
Also, to preemptively answer the question before it's asked: I'm personally not a big fan of Idle games anymore (I used to play them in the past, but got bored with them), but within the genre and compared to the games that I played in the past, I do think that Warzone Idle is pretty cool and probably the best Idle game that I played. However, I'm not a specialist of the genre at all, and this is just my subjective opinion.

Where do you see the future of Statisticians

What do you prefer?

Waffles, Chocolate, Beer or Fries?

What is your favourite animal? It doesn't seem to be the wolf from what you described earlier.

Where do you see the future of Statisticians

By far the hardest question so far.

Statisticians was started because I saw there were 99 clans and I wanted clan ID number 100. When thinking about what a clan could be about, already the previous days, I was inching towards something different. I'm not good enough to lead a clan of competitive players, nor was I really looking into having a close friend group. However, around that time, there had been quite some people doing analysis of all things Warzone, sometimes pretty advanced, sometimes very descriptive. So I thought it would be good to have a clan with people who know a thing or two about statistical data-analysis, as sort of a quality label if we commented on such topics, or proposed analyses ourselves. And, at that time, I still hoped and assumed I'd have the time to do some of such analyses myself (alas, the next few years would turn out to be very busy for me).

The clan has been stable with relatively few members for quite a while and doesn't need to be (much) more than that. Ideally, we'd all be a little more active, but it does make sense that if you collect a group of professionals in a field for which there is massive demand that everyone is quite busy with other things instead.

The "problem" started a bit when we joined Clan League. Having enough people willing to fill all slots has been a challenge every single season, and last season my own performance was especially poor due to time constraints. So I feel that as a clan, we're in perfectly fine shape as we are, but when it comes to joining Clan League, we miss 2 or 3 additional motivated people that we can count on every season to really be comfortable and that makes me a bit uncomfortable.

For this season, I haven't even contacted my clan mates yet. This is due to having been very busy again myself and combined with the disappointment of last season, especially in my own performance. We anticipated that the addition of one season of Arrow (thank you!) would bring us in a good position for promotion, but instead we needed all his points to save us from relegation.

Which brings me to the future. Statisticians is recruiting! No, seriously, we are always recruiting in a sense, but never active. Now however, may be a bit of a critical point with that regard. If a few people with an interest in statistics and playing Clan League for us join, we may be good for another few years, just a laidback clan of likeminded people who do not have much contact with each other really, but who do enjoy playing together every once in a while, and mainly in Clan League.

If we don't however, it's not sure if we will play Clan League, and it's also not sure how much longer that I will stick around playing very actively myself (although I do see myself playing the next few seasonals at minimum, which is a low time investment). The most likely outcome here is that the clan will just continue to exist as it did before Clan League, a few people with a clan symbol next to their name but no real activities, but there is also a small risk of it slowly dissolving over time as everyone moves on and only visits Warzone once in a blue moon.
However, there is no chance of major drama ever, as the clan has always been and will remain a "democratic dictatorship" in the sense that I am and plan to remain the only manager, but I happily consider other people's input in which activities we invest in (e.g. joining Clan League was originally an idea of another member).

What do you prefer?

Waffles, Chocolate, Beer or Fries?

I love waffles, I love chocolate, I don't care for beer and I love fries. So it's a hard choice between three of those four.

I think ultimately it comes to imagining a life where I could have only one of the three, and which one it would be. And then the choice becomes pretty obvious: chocolate. Unlike waffles and fries, there is something truly unique about chocolate where I don't feel anything else comes really close. In fact, I eat a lot of chocolate, I sometimes put it on a sandwich, I may eat it out of hand as a snack, but most often I eat it in combination with cookies. There are so many different cookies with chocolate, one even more delicious than the next.

Waffles are delicious as well, although I don't like them (much) more than other types of similar snacks, like pancakes, or certain soft cookies. Personally, I do love Liege waffles better than Brussels waffles, although both are very tasty. The advantage of Liege waffles is of course that you can also eat them cold and they can be bought in the supermarket.

When it comes to alcoholic drinks, I'm more into whiskey/whisky, or bourbon, and other strong drinks: rum, jenever, gin, vodka, ... or cocktails (I love gin fizz and gin sour for example). Beer itself I do not find very tasty usually and I usually get sick from it before I get drunk, so why bother. One exception is our own Belgian beer Duvel, which is both pretty strong and quite tasty.

Fries, when done well, are amazing as well, and my favourite way of eating potatoes. Although contrary to most Belgians, I won't add mayonaise, but instead just some salt and eat it with a snack on the side.

What is your favourite animal? It doesn't seem to be the wolf from what you described earlier.

It depends on the interpretation and setting. When it's purely from an appreciation point of view, I do like some of the larger predators, but I'd rather not come in close contact with them. The brown bear is impressive, as is the black panther or the snow leopard. I also really appreciate some aquatic mammals like the orca/killer whale, dolphins and sea lions.

When it comes to being in close contact to animals, I'd rather have one that is less likely to kill or hurt me nearby. Rabbits for example are truly cute.

But all in all, if I have to really name favourites, my top 3 would be animals that are peculiar and interesting. Number 1 would be the platypus, which I saw once in an Australian zoo and it's both cute and weird. Number 2 is another Australian native, the wombat. Did you know that its feces are actually cubes? Number 3 would be the beluga whale.
A honorable mention goes to the sloth, which is truly interesting as well, although not particularly impressive.

The US has considerably higher GDP per capita than most of its Western peers, even after adjusting for PPP. For example, the GDP per capita of the wealthier parts of most European countries lags behind mid-tier or even low-tier US states like Oklahoma, Ohio, and West Virginia.

Yet our quality of life does not seem to reflect this. In life expectancy, we lag behind. In HDI, we underperform. Curiously, inequality alone doesn't explain much: while we have high inequality, the lower deciles in the US still tend to have higher income and consumption than their European peers.

What is your best hypothesis as to this discrepancy? Is there a measurement or methodological error with GDP, a misapplication of GDP, some disconnect between GDP and quality of life, inequality issues, or something else? Is there even a discrepancy or are the pains of the US overblown relative to the problems experienced by our peers?

meaning of life? personal opinion

That was an excellent answer

The US has considerably higher GDP per capita than most of its Western peers, even after adjusting for PPP. For example, the GDP per capita of the wealthier parts of most European countries lags behind mid-tier or even low-tier US states like Oklahoma, Ohio, and West Virginia.

Yet our quality of life does not seem to reflect this. In life expectancy, we lag behind. In HDI, we underperform. Curiously, inequality alone doesn't explain much: while we have high inequality, the lower deciles in the US still tend to have higher income and consumption than their European peers.

What is your best hypothesis as to this discrepancy? Is there a measurement or methodological error with GDP, a misapplication of GDP, some disconnect between GDP and quality of life, inequality issues, or something else? Is there even a discrepancy or are the pains of the US overblown relative to the problems experienced by our peers?

What a question!
As a reference, while I had some education in economics and econometrics next to a healthy curiosity to inform myself about things like these, I am by no means an expert. So my answer will be more opinion than facts, sadly.

First of all, I do know for a fact that GDP has a lot of limitations. The main question here is what GDP actually measures versus what we want it or expect it to measure.
In essence, we are interested here in measuring the unknown or latent variable how "rich" a country and its people are. GDP is one of the most used observed/calculated variables to quantify this unknown variable.
Inequality definitely does play a role in that as GDP, through its construction, is in essence an average/mean, which is much more subject to outliers and skewed distributions than for example a median. And indeed, income, wealth, or basically almost any economic variable is very much right skewed. Simplified, the GDP of a country with 1 billionaire and 9 poor people would be higher than that of a country with 10 people with moderate, middle-class type of wealth.
That is by no means a methodological error, as there is indeed more wealth in the first country than the second. Life expectancy on the other hand may indeed be lower in the first country as that variable tends to be a lot less skewed and the impact of the 9 poor people on its estimate will be larger than the impact of the single billionaire.
PPP and other "solutions" to make GDP more linked to average purchasing power do not correct for this inequality.

So, inequality plays a role, but, as you neatly explain yourself, it doesn't explain it all.
The kicker according to me is that in the other measures that you mention, HDI & life expectancy, it's not about money of course. As the saying goes: "you can't buy good health". I have an acquaintance who works in health care and who did one year of their post-doc in the US. Their experience more or less confirmed what I had heard already through indirect sources as well: the American health care system is an absolute mess. The US has the best health care and the best specialists, but only for those who can afford it. Prices compared to Europe are easily ten-fold, if not more for the highest quality health care.

So to me, it looks like the inequality is not just an economical inequality. One of the advantages of Europe, is that basic, good quality healthcare is available for almost everyone at very reasonable rates. In Belgium, you can now see a general practictioner for 4 dollar, the obligatory and very affordable health insurance that every inhabitant has pays the rest (and even that "rest" is only about 15 dollars). For more complex issues, including operations or expensive treatment, there are usually strict rules about the maximum that doctors and hospitals can charge you under some restrictions (e.g. in Belgium you pay a lot more if you request a single room as then doctors do not need to abide to that maximum. But they can never force you to take a single room - even if they give you one, if you indicated that you were fine with a common room, you'll be charged the price of a common room.)

I singled out health care here, but the same could be said about many other things, such as education for example. Primary education is free in theory (some costs for materials apply), secundary education has a price maximum that schools can charge for materials per year that is pretty low. Getting a higher education degree will cost you less than 1000 dollar in tuition fees per year, although housing, if necessary, is not always cheap.
One of the problems of the US that I see, is that the very high quality of the top, be it health care, education, innovation, anything really, is only available for a limited subset of its people, while Europe is much more inclusive in that regard. The result is that on metrics that take these into account, directly, or indirectly, people in the lower income deciles will score better in Europe than in the US.

There may also be economical factors at play that are hidden behind the numbers. E.g. taxes are higher in Europe, and also invested more to the people (infrastructure, health care, social security) rather than to sources that often do not have a direct measurable benefit to individuals (e.g. tax deducations for companies, military, ...). Note that this is an observation and not a judgement. The result is that certain measures, like net income of families, look as if they are lower in Europe. The cost of living may at the same time not look higher in the US either (gas is cheaper in the US, food is similarly prices, ...), until you take into account what it costs to get your education, health care, ...

Another interesting possibility that could be further explored is survivorship bias. In Europe, everyone is counted, usually having IDs given out by the state. Social security and affordable health care make sure that even the most poor remain alive and get counted every year again. In the US on the other hand, IDs are not given to everyone, people may stop being counted in a census once they live in their car or on the streets, and the lack of proper social security and health care may actually cause excess deaths in this group. This would be reflected in a lower HDI and life expectancy, but once someone has died, they are not counted anymore for the purpose of GDP, PPP, and your lower deciles of income can shift upwards towards those still alive.

Finally, GDP and other economic measures usually talk about money that is being spent, whether it "exists"or not.
I believe Europe has a history of savings and using debit to pay for goods and services, while the US has a history of less savings and using credit to pay for goods and services.
Naturally, money on savings accounts exists, but it's not counted when it's just there, not being used. However, when a person gets into financial trouble, or grows old and is in need of expensive health care, having savings is the difference between not having to sell your house, if you even own one, or your car, and you know, getting to live another year versus whatever it is that people in the US have to do when confronted with such situation. From what I understand, usually the answer would be not seeking proper health care, which answers your question.

Now, for your last statement: the US has a much larger visibility on "our" internet, so their problems do get more attentions compared to European countries. The situation is obviously considerably worse elsewhere. In Africa, all indices score lower, yet their problems do not get the attention that they truly deserve.
Nevertheless, what you point out, is real, not a figment of imagination or Americans being overanalysing their own situation. From an outsider perspective, it is sad to see how a very rich country is not able to use its wealth effectively to take care of some of the basic needs of their citizens. While the systems in Europe are far from perfect, I do believe we historically did a much better job at that, and it saddens me to see that there is a gradual push towards more of an American system here as well these days.

meaning of life? personal opinion

None.

Well, I do not believe that we as humans overall have "a purpose" on this earth. I'm going to stay away from discussing religion, not allowed under the ToS unless in dedicated topics I believe, just mentioning that I personally do not use religion to give my own life meaning, or project meaning onto the lives of others.

Factually/scientifically speaking, there is no indication that our meaning in life is anything other than just procreating and then dying.
However, that does not mean that we each separately cannot give our own life meaning.
My life has meaning in several ways, some too personal to discuss here, others more at a professional level.

As a statistician in a field where statistical expertise is very much lacking, I do find meaning into improving the skill of junior colleagues and students, as proper statistical data-analysis is an invaluable tool in science and medicine. If I can help improve the critical thinking of these people, I do feel that I put a small drop in the bucket of advancing science and medicine in a meaningful manner.

At the more personal level, without going into detail, I find my own life has meaning through having a positive impact on others around me, those that I am most close to. If I can make them happy or help them in whichever way that makes them a better human, that gives purpose to my life as well.

And finally, a bit of hedonism. Life doesn't always need a meaning or goal, we shouldn't forget to live in the now every now and then.

If If you find yourself getting sent to the office because your teacher is worried about “mental health and sanity” what should you do?

what's your 5 favourite maps and why?
What things would you like to see inproved in these maps?

Ive known many high ranking people who could speak for 2 days. Why do people speak for so long?

If If you find yourself getting sent to the office because your teacher is worried about “mental health and sanity” what should you do?

This situation is a broad description of many possible situations which each would require a very different approach, mainly by the teacher and office, but also for the student, from whose perspective the question is asked in this case.

Now, the first thing that I did, was checking the flag on your profile. As mentioned in my answer to knyte, the health care and education system are very different in the US versus Europe, which does limit your options.
While I do not know your age, the phrasing of your question, and age limit of Warzone, implies that it's likely at the middle school or high school level. Going through puberty is quite hard in our society, because it often doesn't allow people to freely develop themselves with sensible checks and balances rather than forcing them from an early age in a quite rigid framework where often underpaid caretakers (teachers and the occasional school psychologist) are left unsupervised but also not properly trained to handle mental problems.

If the statement of the teacher is true up to a certain degree, and you do have mental problems, it is worthwhile to talk about it and seek help. Sadly, seeking proper help by itself is very hard in the US (and because of the Covid-19 epidemic, increasingly elsewhere as well). Mental health has quite the stigma still, which is understandable, but it's still important to seek help. You do not leave a broken leg to be fixed by itself either, do you? Even if you do, chances are it'll heal badly and you may have pain or difficulty walking the rest of your life. It is in esssence the same with mental health.

The age between 12 and 18, where most people hit puberty, is hard on almost everyone and it's natural to feel isolated at one point or another. The Covid-19 pandemic made this much worse and some specialists are warning that we may have a whole generation of teens with mental problems as a result. This is not something to be taken light, sucked up, or quantified in simplistic statements.
Usually, people don't act out "just for the fun of it". While it certainly exists and some trolls are just bored and having their kind of fun, in most cases, it's a compensation for other things that happen in the outside world where they don't have control over. Acting out, creating the narrative yourself is a defense mechanism to "have control".
The question is whether this is truly a mental health issue or compensation for more mundane problems. Every teen acts out once in a while and not every teen has mental health problems. A teacher is usually not in a position to know the difference from their limited interaction, although they obviously observed something is off.

So how to react as the student in such case? First of all, try to have a hard, but healthy look at yourself. Are you struggling? The answer is almost always yes, we all struggle with something. The next question is: with what? What gives your stress, what makes you upset, what makes you angry? Finally, it's time to look for help or find solutions. Can you handle these problems on your own? Do you have a friend, peers, anyone to help you with them or at least listen to you?
And then finally, to what extend do you trust the people of "the office" to help you. If it's just to dish out punishment, your best course of action would obviously be to make a genuine sounding excuse and lay low for a bit afterwards. If there is at minimum a willingness to help you and they guarantee you that information is treated confidential, your best course of action would be to open up to them and talk about why you behave in a certain way that makes your teacher think this way. Their answer could be unhelpful or generic, but with a bit of luck, who knows, they actually give you a nudge in the right direction.

Finally, I want to share a few videos about mental health by the gamers from Viva La Dirt League that I truly appreciated. They are more for an adult audience (e.g. adults struggling rather than teenagers), but still very relevant I believe. I like a lot how they pose their message. There are more, but these two are my favourites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P51yWUeHKJo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8if3TZJfcY

If your question was personal, good luck either way!

what's your 5 favourite maps and why?
What things would you like to see inproved in these maps?

I didn't know by heart, so I had to go check which maps that I voted high. It also reminds me that I did forget to vote on many maps that I played recently.
I gave 37 maps the maximum of 5 stars it seems, so I started from those to make my selection. It turned out to be quite easy as there were 4 maps that immediately jumped out as deserving a mention.

1. "Issander's New Strategic System: Africa" by Issander
https://www.warzone.com/SinglePlayer?PreviewMap=59413
The map itself is beautifully made, but it's of course the innovative new system that spawned many successors that makes this my favourite map. I still like the original over the newer versions although there are some issues where the boundaries are not clear.
I think the newer versions of this map lost some of the charm of the original, so the only improvement I wanted to see in this map is just the borders between bonuses of the same type being slightly more clear (thicker line or something like that)

2. "Dead Frontier" by Tenemide
https://www.warzone.com/SinglePlayer?PreviewMap=62320
I love the human vs. zombie concept of this map. E.g. as a human, having to go for food and water first, then tools, etc, while as a zombie, you control some of the outskirts and otherwise try to confront and block the humans. I like how it's neatly done with the different colours and icons and I am strangely appreciative of the coordinates type of system to indicate locations.
Interestingly, this map won the first unofficial map of the week competition, where a few players together discussed and rated maps, before Fizzer implemented this concept as an official feature.
What could be improved here is the language. The map creator is not a native speaker and there are some spelling errors throughout.

3. "Fall of Jerusalem - The Crusades" by Incaman
https://www.warzone.com/SinglePlayer?PreviewMap=24843
One of the first maps in which the creator started to use different types of background (rather than just black) and put in effort to make the whole map a visually nice experience. Incaman was a trendsetter in that regard, and has some of the best maps on Warzone throughout. Much respect.
I'm not sure if anything could truly be improved on this map. Maybe a tiny detail here or there, but this is a map where it feels that the creator thought every detail through, a truly marvelous job.

4. "Final Earth" by RA
https://www.warzone.com/SinglePlayer?PreviewMap=34519
Maybe less special than the first three, but nevertheless a favourite of mine because of the changes that came with it. It was a major improvement for the 2v2 ladder, and the n-2 bonus system has since also gained a lot in popularity. The simple yet effective style makes for a top quality strategic map.
What could be improved here? From a strategic point of view, I find the Madagascar - Sri Lanka connection a bit weird, and having Sri Lanka + Singapore being there but no bonus a bit unfortunate. Add the Maldives or Seychelles to those 2 for a +1 bonus, and have Madagascar connect to that instead of directly to Sri Lanka would make more sense from a strategic point of view and be more realistic as well.

For fifth, I'm going to cheat and just say "a map by Ranek or Lionheart", as I find both map creators made many beautiful and innovative maps.

My list includes mainly old maps, often trendsetters for quality that is now much more prevalent. The level of map making has increased drastically and you, among a few others, have really turned map making into an art.

As a shoutout for your maps, I only played 12 of your 48 maps at the time of this post: The Age of Númenor, Landria, Timid Land, Europa Magna, Land of Bork, Gotham City, Yorkshire and the Humber, Earth Map (Landria bonus system), Master Mania, Far Land, Small Earth Board Map, The World of Tor.
My three favourites among them are Gotham City, Landria and Far Land.
Gotham City is nicely done and a great addition to the INSS genre.
While I'm personally not great at Landria, I want to specifically mention it because I have much respect for the development of a very interesting new strategic bonus system.
Finally, Far Land is a beautiful map, and I like the way you drew the roads running through it all. It does give a very nice roleplaying vibe.

Ive known many high ranking people who could speak for 2 days. Why do people speak for so long?

I assume that you are referring to the filibuster practice?

The filibuster is a political tactic used to delay or block certain policy goals that one opposes. In many countries and other levels of government, there are rules about giving every member of a political body (e.g. a chamber of representatives, a senate, a council, ...) the chance to speak their mind on specific topics, like budgetting. People abuse this rule by speaking about complete nonsense often just to delay the procedures or in certain cases block the vote.

I personally find it bad practice, whether or not it's done to block policy that I (disagree) with. In a democracy, there is the right to be heard, but a minority should not abuse the rules to block policy in this manner.

> Waffles, Chocolate, Beer or Fries?
Beer, but don't stop there, breakfast stouts are great, so you can have the chocolate in the beer....maybe the waffles too, but that's a bit of a stretch.