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[Samira Kernher]

Apparently thread has exploded.

I most certainly apply it to real life nations that employed it, but there is a mitigating factor there in that they didn't have quite a few thousand years more of development and time to get to grips with such questions of ethics and morality. Every nation that actively engage in slavery goes beyond the pale. This includes human trafficking and in certain respects I'd even include the way certain penal systems are designed practically as for-profit slave labor. They are inexcusable failures of ethics and morality, no matter what society we're talking about and does overshadow any "good" sides. The Empire in Eve makes every real life example look positively saintly by comparison.

It definitely is an opinion I hold strongly and I'd seriously question the ethical and moral capacities of those who do not.

I consider it a bit complicated because I can't personally see it in a binary capacity, as different people treat slaves differently. The big issue with it is that the person at the top has largely free reign over what they can do to the slave, and so ill treatment or positive treatment is variable. In the Empire you have examples of such horrible things as breeding facilities, vitoc, TCMCs, HEP, slave soldiers, and serious corporal punishment, while also having descriptions of slaves who are treated better and have more opportunities than commoners. The former is evil, but the latter is more complex an issue. In many cases RL slavery was a step up from absolute poverty or better; see the Mamluks where free Egyptians would sell themselves into slavery just to be a Mamluk because of how prestigious their positions were, and the Mamluks themselves took pride in their slave backgrounds. Things like that can make the issue a lot more complicated for me--is it still a bad thing if the slave has a better life in slavery than out? I think the answer to that can only ever subjective, since it is based on how much a person values independence. For me, I would not mind being owned by someone if I was treated well, but I certainly would mind if I was treated poorly. It is poor actions that I consider morally repugnant (and why I for example consider war and murder to be worse things than slavery. Sadly, unlike slavery these things still remain legitimate institutions in most societies). Slavery's worst issue, in my mind, is that it gives people of potential low moral character a position of unregulated power over others. In this it is not unique and I would point to Amarr's feudal structure as just as bad even if commoners are technically not slaves (assuming you don't define serfdom as slavery) as the structure gives Holders nearly as much power over them as they have over slaves. I expect commoners likely have it even worse off in many areas, due to lacking the social services that slaves get.

As far as making other examples "look saintly" goes, I'd again say that it's too variable to say. If you look at "The Lottery", you see something entirely unjustifiable and wholly evil. If you look at "Chained to the Sky", you see something almost equivalent to a free life. As a whole, I'd say that from what I've read I would consider American slavery by far the worst implementation of the institution, with Amarr comparing better with Islamic, Roman, or Greek due to the imposition of moral guidelines and granting of some basic rights and opportunities to the slave, which did not exist in the American system. Within EVE itself, Amarr are certainly the most moral of the slaver organizations, and if we start looking at other fictional universes we'll find almost all are far worse than Amarr (Tevinter in Dragon Age being one that pops to mind. An entire empire of Naupliuses).


Also, I really don't get where all these comparisons to voluvals are coming from? Or how people could consider them slavery? There's negative and positive aspects about the voluval ritual and it's something that could fill out a thread all on its own, but I wouldn't consider it a form of or valid comparison against slavery. They're two very different topics.

Just a random update on the original topic. After a lot of thinking, pondering, rereading of my old fiction, going through all of my accounts and looking at characters, creating some new character concepts, I realized there is really only one thing I have never done - taken my Minnie characters for a real ride and explored that faction. So I think that will be my solution for the time being - going to put Jace on ice once a few skills are completed, bring my Minnie out of mothballs and go that route. And also try to learn some of the aspects of EVE that I have never bothered to over the past seven years because I was too busy trading/hauling. The character itself is set perfectly for a dramatic change in his own story that will allow me to bring him back.

I'm excited.

*pushes Jace towards Havo and Miz*

They don't bite.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Also, I really don't get where all these comparisons to voluvals are coming from? Or how people could consider them slavery? There's negative and positive aspects about the voluval ritual and it's something that could fill out a thread all on its own, but I wouldn't consider it a form of or valid comparison against slavery. They're two very different topics.

The entire point is not to compare the voluval ritual with slavery. The point is that they are in fact two different topics, that need to be evaluated independently: And the bad sides of the voluval aren't mitigated by the fact that Matari culture is comitted against slavery.

The thing many people here have a problem with is that Miz claimed that slavery has a special status in regard to 'evilness' that other evils don't share. Apparently he is espousing a standpoint by which you can somehow take the 'good things' that happen in a society as positive value and then substract the 'bad things' from that to get a result that determines whether a culture is 'good' or 'bad' by whether the result is positive or negative.

And - though the people objecting found that already absurd enough as an evil doesn't stop to be an evil because you have also a good (and because societies/nation states aren't the proper subjects to be predicated as 'good' or 'evil', as they aren't moral agents) - he topped that by claiming further that while you can count good against evil in all cases, you can't do so with slavery. Slavery is in his system like the big Veto: The second you practice it, all is done: You are evil, unforgivably so and whatever good you do looses all meaning and value.

So, the point in bringing up the voluval ritual is to make a case that even though the Minmatar are comitted against slavery (As far as it is regarding those they consider 'their people'. Matari culture has in general no problem with the Ealur being slaves or with the odd Amarr that found the way into slavery.) they are still capable of and do commit actions that are by all reasonable modern standards quite appaling, immoral, wrong, yes - even evil. It doesn't get any better or more forgiveable that Matari accept and do such things, just because they are opposed to slavery.

So the argument is: First, evil actions are evil actions, they shouldn't be done and they don't get justified or offset through doing good things. Second, even if one accepts - for the sake of argument - that bad actions can be offset by good actions in some way, then there still is no good reason to think that comitting slavery can't be compensated for by good actions and even less reason to think that comitting slavery somehow negates also, miraculously, the value of all the good things one has done.

[Mizhara]

Wow you're good at inventing a lot of stuff people never said. I'm starting to recognize this as a pattern with you.

[Samira Kernher]

Second, even if one accepts - for the sake of argument - that bad actions can be offset by good actions in some way, then there still is no good reason to think that comitting slavery can't be compensated for by good actions and even less reason to think that comitting slavery somehow negates also, miraculously, the value of all the good things one has done.

I feel obligated to post this:

[Jace]

This was the last place on the internet I could avoid GoT. Dammit, anyway.

[Morwen Lagann]

This was the last place on the internet I could avoid GoT. Dammit, anyway.

Either you're blind as a bat or weren't looking hard enough. There's GoT references all over Backstage.

[Jace]

This was the last place on the internet I could avoid GoT. Dammit, anyway.

Either you're blind as a bat or weren't looking hard enough. There's GoT references all over Backstage.

Let me keep my denial. Ssshhhh.

[Lyn Farel]

You know nothing, Jace Snow.

[Jace]

You know nothing, Jace Snow.

...

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Wow you're good at inventing a lot of stuff people never said. I'm starting to recognize this as a pattern with you.

Well, if you think that paraphrasing and interpreting what people say is 'inventing stuff people never said', then yes, I'm inventing stuff. Otherwise I of course might be good at inventing stuff people never said, but I don't see how this has a bearing on the debate at hand - and I will simply take it a s a compliment.

That said: Having communicated with people about this discussion outside of the bords I am quite sure I'm not the only one who understood what you wrote (with some deviation, sure) the way I described it above. So, I'm can't see where I supposedly could have invented stuff people said. If you feel like 'I invented stuff you never said', ascribing it to you, then I must have misinterpreted what you wrote here, for I can assure you at least that I didn't mean to misrepresent.

I feel saddened though, that your first reaction here is to blame me with making stuff up, rather than taking into consideration that there might be a misunderstanding. After all I tried to make clear that I was giving an account of how I understood your position by starting with "Apparently he is espousing a standpoint..."

So, if you can point out where you get the feeling that 'I made stuff up', we can maybe sort out the misunderstanding?

[Mizhara]

It's 01.30 at night here so I'm not particularly interested in rewording seven pages of an argument, no. All I can recommend is reading the posts again and maybe take them as written. I know I haven't made any such claims in this thread so far, so that's pretty much the end of it as far as I'm concerned.

[Kala]

All I can recommend is reading the posts again and maybe take them as written.

In fairness, that's very difficult to do conclusively.  Words are often ambiguous, and more so when strung into sentences.  Even more when into paragraphs etc.  There's always a few different ways something can be taken, however carefully you phrase things.

Which is not to say deliberately misinterpreting an argument and arguing with that, instead of the argument at hand, doesn't actually happen (i.e strawman) - it's just ungenerous to assume they are doing this deliberately rather than genuinely misunderstanding the point you were trying to make.

I get this all the time, from both ends (um, so to speak  )

I get misinterpreted often, because generally, I'm more interested in exploring ideas and different points of view, so my method of expression starts off a bit...tentative and fractured, maybe.  That view tends to harden when people (inevitably) misunderstand what I'm saying or where I'm coming from, as it forces me to clarify.  (Or if I've had the same exchange more than once, which gives me time to solidify my thought process) Which is actually helpful, as it allows me to interrogate and understand better my own view point as I'm having it (if that makes sense).

(Which is also why a friend plays Devil's Advocate, which drives me to absolute distraction  )

I also misinterpret what others say, as I'm trying to understand their points and arguments which are often contrary to how I think and see the world - i.e it's not a point of view that comes naturally to me, so it does not immediately make sense, as it does to them. So when I say something like "but if I've understood you correctly, you're saying this, and I disagree because this" I sometimes get hostile responses, as they believe I've deliberately misinterpreted them (because I'm responding to an argument they feel they haven't made), when I'm actually trying to understand what it is they are arguing.

It's largely, I think, a problem with the internet and text speech, where expression, tone and body language might clear up some of that ambiguity between meaning of words and add some kind of meta-textual meaning that we're entirely missing.

On-topic though (er, or where the topic has gone, anyways):

Amarr sux and Minmatar victor 

[Nicoletta Mithra]

It's 01.30 at night here so I'm not particularly interested in rewording seven pages of an argument, no. All I can recommend is reading the posts again and maybe take them as written. I know I haven't made any such claims in this thread so far, so that's pretty much the end of it as far as I'm concerned.

First, I agree with Kala on the point that "Words are often ambiguous, and more so when strung into sentences.  Even more when into paragraphs etc.  There's always a few different ways something can be taken, however carefully you phrase things. "

Second, I never expected you to reword 7 pages of an argument at 1:30 am: A forum has the advantage of allowing you to respond when you have time. Also, I asked you to point out where you think I made things up you never said, ascribing them to you in that post that you criticized because I supposedly did so. That's not, at all, rephrasing 7 sides of argument. And lastly, if I take all your post in this thread and put them into a word document, then that's a  bit less than three pages, with a good page of that being posts that have nothing to do with the argument we discuss here and quotes of others you made.

That said: I don't see where you have actually argued for your position, in fact you said that you wouldn't give an argument for your position in this thread:

I have actually gone through the arguments time and time again, particularly after Eve. It's just not an argument I'm willing to start going over in this thread, yet again.

So it seems to me that first you assure that there is an argument for your position, but you are neither willing to give it here, nor to link to where you have given it in another thread. And then you accuse me of attributing stuff to 'people' which they never said, without even being willing to point out where exactly I did so. This, to me, isn't the way how one does engage one another in dialogue: I hope you reconsider your position on the latter, at least.

But as you insisted, I went through what you wrote again and tried to see what you meant there. Just let me give the spots which I can hardly interprete any way that makes sense of the words and doesn't end up the way I outlined it above:

The interesting thing about the Republic to me is that they're only good guys by dint of getting abused and fucked over by worse bad guys (Empire/Federation).

So, I can't bring myself to understand this in any way that is not saying: The Minmatar are to be understood as 'good guys' because they have been the victims of even 'worse guys'. And I can't see the logic here that would make that argument valid, unless you implicate a premise of the type "something bad turns good, if you have something worse to compare it to" or "if you have someone comitting a bad action, that bad action stops to count if he turns up the victim of a worse action".

Well, oh yeah... and that tiny little thing where they turn people into belongings and can't see what's wrong with that. Having good sides (I'd argue against "for Purity" being one of them) does not make up for the faction being entirely and utterly a bad guy when there's something that horrifyingly wrong with them. There is no way to mitigate something as horrifying as that.

(bold emphasis by me)

Again, I have difficulty to interprete that any way that doesn't imply that the Amarr are the worst of the four factions because they a) practice slavery and b) slavery can't be compensated by anything good: Which also implies that the wrongs other factions commit must be mitigable, as else they would commit evils as bad as the Amarr, which would mean they ended up on the exact same spot on the god-evil spectrum as the Amarr.

Every "good side" sprinkled on top is like pissing in a black hole and hoping that'll turn it shining white somehow.

Now this is quite poetic language here, but taken in the context of what you previously wrote (see the quote above), it seems to me that you here liken slavery to a 'black hole' which is swallowing all 'good sides' a culture may have (the 'piss' in your analogy), meaning there is no hope to ever have any mitigating factors in regard to slavery.

Every nation that actively engage in slavery goes beyond the pale. This includes human trafficking and in certain respects I'd even include the way certain penal systems are designed practically as for-profit slave labor. They are inexcusable failures of ethics and morality, no matter what society we're talking about and does overshadow any "good" sides.

Again, I can't see how to interprete this any other way than saying that there isn't anything that can excuse slavery and that it is because of that that slavery is so much worse than other moral/ethical wrongs. Which implies that other moral wrongs must be excusable in some sense.

The voluval has the mitigating factor that it's supposedly an actual representation of a type of person. An exile mark is a mark of a person that would be a threat or a significant detriment to society, after the voluval ritual read the person (through genetics, neurology, whatever. Who really knows?) and tagged him/her as such. Whether or not that'd actually work, who knows? If we could accurately identify and screen out murderers, sociopaths etc, we quite probably would. It's not a lottery, it's a screening. It's also hardly "forcing" anyone but the exiles, as everyone else are still entirely free to make their own choices.

I can't see, by the best of my abilities, how you can not make a similar argument for slavery in the Empire. I merely have to change a few words to make that work:

Amarr slavery has the mitigating factor that it's supposedly an actual representation of a type of person (e.g. there are 'slaves by nature', just as the voluval assumes there are 'criminals by nature'). An enslaved person is a person that would be a threat or a significant detriment to society, after a comittee of experts examined the person or his/her culture (through genetics, neurology, sociology, theology, penal system, etc. pp.) and tagged him/her as such. Whether or not that'd actually work, who knows? If we could accurately identify and screen out murderers, sociopaths etc and put them in a position where they are productive members of society we quite probably would. It's not bad luck to end up as slaves, it's because slaves have habits that are detrimental to society and must be reeducated. It's also hardly "forcing" anyone but the slaves, as everyone else are still entirely free to make their own choices.

I think, by the way, both the argument you have given and I quoted above as well as the variant of it above actually fail to show that the wrongs comitted are in any way mitigated in each of the cases.

Anyway, it seems to show to me that you feel that the wrongs comitted by the Matari are mitigable, while for some reason - while one can give quite similar, if not the same arguments that can be brought to bear on exiling people to Vo'shun - Amarr slavery can't be mitigated or compensated for.

(...)there is really no need to formulate some formal argument against slavery at this point. It's that universally recognized as utterly bad.

It is in fact so bad that none of the other factions in Eve can compare in the "bad guy" contest, unless you count some of the pirate factions. Some of them.

So, I can't bring myself to read this any other way then saying that the Empire is 'simply utterly evil' because it practices slavery and that at that point anything else is better: No matter how bad the atrocities that are comitted actually are. The only irredeemable evil - it seems to me says that passage - is slavery.

Again: That is how I understood what you wrote there and though I say that I can't see any way of interpreting those passages any other way, I don't want to say that is is how you meant them (the latter being a precondition for a 'straw men' fallacy, by the way).

So, if you want to make a point that deviates largely from what I gave as interpretation of your words above, then it would be in fact helpful if you put some effeort into rephrasing your point or point out at which parts I got something wrong and why.

[Samira Kernher]

The interesting thing about the Republic to me is that they're only good guys by dint of getting abused and fucked over by worse bad guys (Empire/Federation).

So, I can't bring myself to understand this in any way that is not saying: The Minmatar are to be understood as 'good guys' because they have been the victims of even 'worse guys'. And I can't see the logic here that would make that argument valid, unless you implicate a premise of the type "something bad turns good, if you have something worse to compare it to" or "if you have someone comitting a bad action, that bad action stops to count if he turns up the victim of a worse action".

As I interpret this, it's not saying 'Republic are good guys because they are fucked over by ostensibly worse bad guys'. It's saying, 'Republic are bad guys, but in people's minds they appear better because of being fucked over by ostensibly worse bad guys.' In other words, the victim here is still bad on their own merits, but because they are a victim to something else, something usually viewed as worse, people tend to put on the white knight hat and give them more sympathy than they would otherwise get.

AKA, underdog status. People tend to sympathize with the little guy, even if the little guy will bite you in the shin and pull your pants down when you don't give him what he wants.

I'd point to RL examples where governments will provide arms, funding, and aid to otherwise really awful groups because those groups are fighting something that is viewed as worse. See the Soviet union in WW2, the Cold War, or many situations in the Middle East. In these examples the groups getting the aid tend to get propped up in propaganda, the media, and in people's minds as the good guys because they're "our friends". These formerly "valued allies" then end up becoming hugely problematic once they get in power and people start wondering "wtf, weren't they the good guys?" when it was obvious that they never were. This is something that is coming across very clearly with the Republic's recent actions. Honestly I love the Republic arc for this reason. It's got that failed intervensionism angle going. Easy-to-control pro-intervener puppet government gets installed in the beginning, but gets overthrown by militant radicals who don't like the foreign influences. The people, by and large, support the radicals, because the puppet government was, well, a puppet government, too easily swayed by foreign interests, while the radicals promise national pride and progress as a strong, independent nation. These radicals don't care about previous relations, and will bite the hand of the original intervener just as much as anyone else if they get in their way, because the only thing that matters is the homeland.

[Kala]

Mm.  Rooting for the underdog is why I originally rolled Minmatar, as well as a punk aesthetic.  Seemed cool as shit, quite frankly 

Tear off the chains and stamp on the oppressors. STAMP, STAMP, STAMP.

WE WILL DEFEAT YOU WITH SHIPS MADE OF DUCT-TAPE, RUST AND BAKED BEAN TINS.

Granted, I'm at the shallower end of the rp pool >.>