2587: For the Sake of Simplicity - Revision history

FaviFake: added Category:Comics edited after their publication using HotCat

2025-03-24T16:10:08Z

added Category:Comics edited after their publication using HotCat

FaviFake: /* Trivia */

2025-03-24T16:09:52Z

‎Trivia

162.158.166.185: /* Explanation */

2022-09-07T07:13:08Z

‎Explanation

Jacky720: rv

2022-05-04T21:09:46Z

Show changes

Ex Kay Cee Dee at 20:18, 4 May 2022

2022-05-04T20:18:42Z

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Davidy22: Reverted edits by X. K. C. D. (talk) to last revision by 172.69.33.91

2022-05-04T02:11:41Z

Reverted edits by X. K. C. D. (talk) to last revision by 172.69.33.91

Show changes

X. K. C. D. at 23:32, 3 May 2022

2022-05-03T23:32:12Z

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172.69.33.91: /* Explanation */ done

2022-04-16T07:25:28Z

‎Explanation: done

172.70.211.26: /* Trivia */ language

2022-03-16T04:03:12Z

‎Trivia: language

108.162.250.122: /* Explanation */ Insert 'citation needed' tag where a citation obviously is needed

2022-03-05T00:01:00Z

‎Explanation: Insert 'citation needed' tag where a citation obviously is needed

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:10, 24 March 2025
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	[[Category:Language]]		[[Category:Language]]
		+	[[Category:Comics edited after their publication]]

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 ==Trivia==
-*When the comic was [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/5/52/20220301065450%21for_the_sake_of_simplicity.png first published], the third paragraph said "stamina scores".
+In the [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/5/52/20220301065450%21for_the_sake_of_simplicity.png original version of the comic], the third paragraph said "stamina scores" instead of "cardio scores". This was later fixed.
 {{comic discussion}}

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 ==Explanation==
-[[Cueball]] appears to be explaining a gardening-related board game to [[Ponytail]] and [[White Hat]]. The game mechanics being employed are ridiculously overcomplicated for a game that seems to be about gardening &mdash; the cardiovascular health of the gardeners is tracked, for example. However, Cueball uses the refrain "for the sake of simplicity" to imply that the rules could be ''even more complicated''. For example, the walking speed &mdash; already a surprisingly complex element &mdash; is constant instead of varying based on conditions, and the cardio scores &mdash; inherited matrilineally, requiring players to keep track of their gardeners' lineage &mdash; at least does not require players to calculate a random combination of many ancestors.
+[[Cueball]] appears to be explaining a gardening-related board game to [[Ponytail]] and [[White Hat]]. As he describes the game mechanics he states that many things have been made more convenient "for the sake of simplicity" &mdash; but as his mechanics are revealed to be incredibly complex ''after'' simplification, the refrain "for the sake of simplicity" instead comes across as a warning that the rules could be ''even more complicated''.
 It's shown pretty quickly that Cueball's mechanics are needlessly intricate, and his definition of "simplicity" is not nearly simple enough: the lore of the game says gardeners may tend to secondary plots no more than "a 30-minute walk from their home plot", but where most games would simply state an arbitrary number of tiles a gardener token may walk, Cueball expects his players to calculate how far an adult human actually walks in 1800 seconds. This immediately spirals into the game tracking far more variables than necessary such as height and "cardio score", or even things like the curvature of spacetime in the area, and the direct inheritance of a single "cardio score" which requires tracking the gardener's matrilineal line &mdash; instead of factors more typical to games such as weather or terrain.

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:25, 16 April 2022
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	==Explanation==		==Explanation==
−
−	~~{{incomplete\|Created, '''for the sake of complexity''', by a SCHWARZSCHILD CHILD (HIS NAME IS NOT SCHWARZ) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}~~
	[[Cueball]] appears to be explaining a gardening-related board game to [[Ponytail]] and [[White Hat]]. The game mechanics being employed are ridiculously overcomplicated for a game that seems to be about gardening — the cardiovascular health of the gardeners is tracked, for example. However, Cueball uses the refrain "for the sake of simplicity" to imply that the rules could be ''even more complicated''. For example, the walking speed — already a surprisingly complex element — is constant instead of varying based on conditions, and the cardio scores — inherited matrilineally, requiring players to keep track of their gardeners' lineage — at least does not require players to calculate a random combination of many ancestors.		[[Cueball]] appears to be explaining a gardening-related board game to [[Ponytail]] and [[White Hat]]. The game mechanics being employed are ridiculously overcomplicated for a game that seems to be about gardening — the cardiovascular health of the gardeners is tracked, for example. However, Cueball uses the refrain "for the sake of simplicity" to imply that the rules could be ''even more complicated''. For example, the walking speed — already a surprisingly complex element — is constant instead of varying based on conditions, and the cardio scores — inherited matrilineally, requiring players to keep track of their gardeners' lineage — at least does not require players to calculate a random combination of many ancestors.

← Older revision		Revision as of 04:03, 16 March 2022
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	[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]		[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
	[[Category:Board games]]		[[Category:Board games]]
		+	[[Category:Language]]

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 * The presence of particular species of flora that can warp {{w|space-time}}
-As gardening is itself an oddly mundane premise for a board game, it is entirely possible that gardening is just a minor element of a much broader game.
+As gardening is itself an oddly mundane premise for a board game,{{Citation needed}} it is entirely possible that gardening is just a minor element of a much broader game.
 The title text mentions that the space is assumed to be {{w|Euclidean_Geometry|Euclidean}}, which is what most people would assume since it corresponds to our normal experience, so this is not something that normally needs to be explained. But then it says that this isn't true in the vicinity of a Schwarzschild Orchid. An {{w|orchid}} is a type of flowering plant, which is relevant to a gardening game, but Schwarzschild refers to {{w|Karl Schwarzschild}}, a physicist who solved equations related to {{w|general relativity}}; the {{w|Schwarzschild radius}} is the boundary of a {{w|black hole}}, and spacetime is severely warped in this vicinity, so Euclidean geometry and {{w|Newton's Laws}} don't describe motion here well. Most boardgames that even care about Euclidean principles only apply them to the 2D planar playing-surface, it seems possible that Cueball has already accounted for the slight (but non-zero) effects of the curvature of the Earth and/or changes in elevation across the apparently detailed simulation within the game environment, through 3D Euclidean space. And, further, the title text implies he actually sat down to calculate the distortion of general relativity upon the walking speed of an adult human, then later used these equations for an entire game mechanic — albeit one that players can mercifully skip when there are no gardeners in proximity of Schwarzschild Orchids.