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[Nicoletta Mithra]

Thank you Samira for that elucidating pots. Okay, so the idea there might be that they just seem to be better, because they are the underdogs. Still, I have troubles with getting that together with the claim:

On a more serious note though, cases can be made for each of the empires to be good guys/bad guys (except for the Empire which is just flat out bads).

So, if I take that serious, the Matari must be better in some sense than the Amarr, else the Amarr wouldn't be the only ones of which one can make no case to be 'good guys'.

Also, I think the RL examples of politics supporting underdogs that are arguably bad people goes along the lines of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' and 'they may be bastard, but they are our basterads' then: 'Ahw, the poor underdogs'. Else there'd be much more support for third world countires that are underdogs and not doing that bad, actually.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Thinking along these lines, I might have found an interpretation of Miz position as put into writing here, that is another than the understanding I had so far:

It'd be that people aren't open to arguments which are about the Amarr being in whatever respect 'good guys', because slavery is so widely accepted as reviling.

I'd have problems with that view as well, though: First it would mean that people are utterly closed to rational argument if they are convinced that something is really an evil thing. Second, it would mean that if bad/evil behavior is justified in a likewise irrational way, (like, for example, if people agreed with the seperation of a certain group of people in ghettoes or camps and even their extermination, because they are irrationally convinced that this group of people is so utterly evil,) then we couldn't possibly change that position.

Once we held a belief in a way that it wasn't anymore open to rational questioning, we would be stuck with it: For better or worse.

That, as well, would be quite the horrifying situation. Luckily, I don't see any reason that people, in the entirety, get so stuck on a position that they entirely close down to reasonable debate and rational discourse and arguments.

[Vizage]

Gonna step in here only because in seeing two things that just aren't sitting to we'll with me here.

First is the idea that people are somehow "closed" to rational debate when slavery is involved. This is simply untrue. The debate of slavery ended arguably before the American Civil war did. Calling it bad and walking away there, is closer to an act of simple time saving than it is being rationally closed minded. (Cold Blooded murder is bad, refusing to debate it's potential merits is not close mindedness, for example.)

The second issue I have is the incredibly slippery slope of comparing "calling Amarrian's bad,"  with the ghettoization and eventual mass elimination of Jewish people (Aka 'The Holocaust'.)  Granted you didn't exactly name, names here but I think we'd all be kidding ourselves if we thought you were talking about something else.

Generally speaking though I' do have to agree with Stannis of this one (he being the true king and all.)  Individual acts either good or bad should be judged individually. Tallying everything up is not only philosophically dangerous, but also nearly impossible.

In short.

Slavery = Bad

Amarrian's = People (capable of both good and bad but cannot completely represent inherently one or the other.)

[Samira Kernher]

Also, I think the RL examples of politics supporting underdogs that are arguably bad people goes along the lines of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' and 'they may be bastard, but they are our basterads' then: 'Ahw, the poor underdogs'. Else there'd be much more support for third world countires that are underdogs and not doing that bad, actually.

That may be the case in the people at the top who know better. But for the common person? "Our bastards" becomes "our friends" becomes "the side of right and good and freedom."

[spoiler][/spoiler]

In WW2 when the west was allied with the Soviet Union they were presented very highly in western propaganda. Roosevelt and Churchill encouraged positive depictions and refused to act on information that would have depicted the Soviets negatively (the Katyn massacre as one example). The average person on the ally side believed the Soviet Union were good guys because they were fighting against the Nazis, and the governments made sure to encourage them to believe that.

I'm less up to speed on the Cold War stuff but as I understand it was a similar case in the American people believing that the non-communist governments supported by the US were better than the "evil" communist governments supported by the USSR, regardless of which was actually the more moral government.

First is the idea that people are somehow "closed" to rational debate when slavery is involved. This is simply untrue. The debate of slavery ended arguably before the American Civil war did. Calling it bad and walking away there, is closer to an act of simple time saving than it is being rationally closed minded. (Cold Blooded murder is bad, refusing to debate it's potential merits is not close mindedness, for example.)

The debate of slavery ended in the west around that time. It hadn't even started in the Middle East, and never really did until western pressuring in the 20th century.

[Vizage]

The debate of slavery ended in the west around that time. It hadn't even started in the Middle East, and never really did until western pressuring in the 20th century.

This is a bit of a misnomer Samira. While it's true the middle east was the last to get on board with the negative notion of slavery.

It is not on anyway because they had anything of merit to say on the subject.

They simply clung to archaic religious notions (like Islam's and the Caste System to name another) longer than than other parts of this world did.

This is partly due to the regions relative isolation to Western philosophy. Turkey being the only nation in the region to really interact and trade with Western discourses, and this is of course after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Which previously clung deeply to the notion of a Caliphate and the supremacy of the Muslim man.

It is of course also due to religious interpretation in the region, which is used to this very day across the globe to justify all sorts of manic acts.

TLDR: Using the last horse to the stall (The Middle East) as an example of contemporary debate around slavery. Isn't representative of the majority but rather the ethically slowest of us all.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Gonna step in here only because in seeing two things that just aren't sitting to we'll with me here.

First is the idea that people are somehow "closed" to rational debate when slavery is involved. This is simply untrue. The debate of slavery ended arguably before the American Civil war did. Calling it bad and walking away there, is closer to an act of simple time saving than it is being rationally closed minded. (Cold Blooded murder is bad, refusing to debate it's potential merits is not close mindedness, for example.)

I would ageree with you there. In my opinion people that refuse to debate whether slavery can be justified and if so, in which forms, are not entirely closed to rational arguments, they usually simply safe time by choosing not to in certain, specific circumstances (with which I want to say: the don't debate it in everyday circumstances).

That is exactly why I think that from people acting like that it doesn't follow that there is no questioning possible of whether slavery is in fact bad. Mizhara seems to be pretty comitted to the view that one can't possibly question whether slavery is bad or not, that it is a 'simple matter of fact' that it is wrong and that you don't skip rational arguments about it because of time constraints, but rather because they are not needed.

I on the other hand would say that you don't need to debate all the time whether slavery is bad or not, exactly because there are rational/reasonable arguments against slavery.

The second issue I have is the incredibly slippery slope of comparing "calling Amarrian's bad,"  with the ghettoization and eventual mass elimination of Jewish people (Aka 'The Holocaust'.)  Granted you didn't exactly name, names here but I think we'd all be kidding ourselves if we thought you were talking about something else.

That's not what I meant, there: What I meant is, if you don't allow for rational argument to be the thing that decides what to view as acceptable and what not, but say that if something is without rational argument viewed as acceptable or not and say that rational argument is unnecessary, then you have a strategy of justifing things as acceptable that immunizes it from rational critique and which then can be used to justify even things that are obviously evil to us -and arguably, by all reasonable standard should be.

It's not about comparing "Amarr are bad" to anything, it is about how any way of determining what is morally/ethically acceptable or unacceptable that is immune to being rationally questioned is a potential strategy to justify horrendous acts and immunize them from rational critique: And that therefore that we shouldn't employ such strategies at all.

Generally speaking though I' do have to agree with Stannis of this one (he being the true king and all.)  Individual acts either good or bad should be judged individually. Tallying everything up is not only philosophically dangerous, but also nearly impossible.

That is the core of my point, trying to bring this to bear against the position of Mizhara, which seems to be one that allows for tallying up bad against good - unless it is about slavery, in which case the one practicing it is evil for all intents and purposes.

In short.

Slavery = Bad

Amarrian's = People (capable of both good and bad but cannot completely represent inherently one or the other.)

Exactly what I was trying to argue for!

[Anyanka Funk]

Some of us (me) would actually like to have slaves irl but we can't. So we play a game that lets us. Some of us (me and most people imo) would like to kill people irl but we can't. So we play a game that lets us.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

I would like to kill some people as well, at times. And there are people around of which my first impulse is to think that it'd be better for them and all others if someone else would be eligible to make all their decisions for them, at times.

That doesn't mean, though, that I succumb to those impulses: I have the ability to consider those matters reasonably and entertain rational arguments about such cases. I also have the ability of impulse control. If rational, reasoned argument can be made that murder is not to be done in any case and that under no circmstances is the autonomy of moral agents to be taken away from them, then we should control our impulses and do the (reasonably and rationally) right thing.

If playing such scenarios helps you with real life impulse control, though, that is all fine by me!

[Vizage]

Some of us (me) would actually like to have slaves irl but we can't. So we play a game that lets us. Some of us (me and most people imo) would like to kill people irl but we can't. So we play a game that lets us.

Thread delivers.......

/thread

[kalaratiri]

Some of us (me) would actually like to have slaves irl but we can't. So we play a game that lets us. Some of us (me and most people imo) would like to kill people irl but we can't. So we play a game that lets us.

Thread delivers.......

/thread

[Samira Kernher]

It is of course also due to religious interpretation in the region, which is used to this very day across the globe to justify all sorts of manic acts.

The same can be said for extremists from any religion.

TLDR: Using the last horse to the stall (The Middle East) as an example of contemporary debate around slavery. Isn't representative of the majority but rather the ethically slowest of us all.

Considering the fact that Islam was far ahead of the west on several areas of human rights, including treatment of slaves, for a significant part of history, I wouldn't be so quick to call the Middle East the 'ethically slowest of us all' just because they abolished it later.

[Vizage]

It is of course also due to religious interpretation in the region, which is used to this very day across the globe to justify all sorts of manic acts.

The same can be said for extremists from many religions.

TLDR: Using the last horse to the stall (The Middle East) as an example of contemporary debate around slavery. Isn't representative of the majority but rather the ethically slowest of us all.

Considering the fact that Islam was far ahead of the west on several areas of human rights, including treatment of slaves, for a significant part of history, I wouldn't be so quick to call the Middle East the 'ethically slowest of us all' just because they abolished it later.

I'm sorry but I'm not quite convinced the Islamic Golden Age is a viable excuse to forgive years of ethical barbarism because they got it right for 100 years of the how many years they've been around for.

The point I made and the point that still stands is the Islam has not contributed anything of merit to the world in the discourse of ethic's in centuries.

Consider that fact of female genital mutilation for just a moment and then get back to me about the sagely wisdom bestowed upon us nearly a half millennium ago by the Islamic Golden Age.  (Which did a lot more for mathematics than ethics BTW.)

[Lyn Farel]

Luckily, I don't see any reason that people, in the entirety, get so stuck on a position that they entirely close down to reasonable debate and rational discourse and arguments.

You are an optimist one aren't you ?

Gonna step in here only because in seeing two things that just aren't sitting to we'll with me here.

First is the idea that people are somehow "closed" to rational debate when slavery is involved. This is simply untrue. The debate of slavery ended arguably before the American Civil war did. Calling it bad and walking away there, is closer to an act of simple time saving than it is being rationally closed minded. (Cold Blooded murder is bad, refusing to debate it's potential merits is not close mindedness, for example.)

I quite strongly disagree with that statement.

Cold murder, as cold murder between two civilians as I suppose you refer to, is not "bad" because bad (it doesn't mean anything at all ffs), but bad for most societies and civilizations for obvious reasons. However if you meant cold murder of some kind of people (enemy leaders ? Would you prefer that we hadn't assassinated Ben Laden for example ? Difficult question no ? Doesn't seem obvious to me as an answer), even the worst criminals, can be argued as a necessity or even good depending on the people arguing for it. I mean, look at all those nations that still practice the death sentence. That's cold murder, institutionalized. Let's call a cat a cat, it's legal cold murder. I personally don't agree with it, but i'm a minority in the world.

As for slavery, it can't even be described as necessarily bad for society per se. Just bad for our model of society, our values, and ideals that put a great emphasis on empathy and human rights. "All are born equal in rights yada yada". Dates back to 1789. Foundation of a lot of things in western culture.

[Samira Kernher]

I'm bouncing out of this thread now.

[Vizage]

Luckily, I don't see any reason that people, in the entirety, get so stuck on a position that they entirely close down to reasonable debate and rational discourse and arguments.

You are an optimist one aren't you ?

Gonna step in here only because in seeing two things that just aren't sitting to we'll with me here.

First is the idea that people are somehow "closed" to rational debate when slavery is involved. This is simply untrue. The debate of slavery ended arguably before the American Civil war did. Calling it bad and walking away there, is closer to an act of simple time saving than it is being rationally closed minded. (Cold Blooded murder is bad, refusing to debate it's potential merits is not close mindedness, for example.)

I quite strongly disagree with that statement.

Cold murder, as cold murder between two civilians as I suppose you refer to, is not "bad" because bad (it doesn't mean anything at all ffs), but bad for most societies and civilizations for obvious reasons. However if you meant cold murder of some kind of people (enemy leaders ? Would you prefer that we hadn't assassinated Ben Laden for example ? Difficult question no ? Doesn't seem obvious to me as an answer), even the worst criminals, can be argued as a necessity or even good depending on the people arguing for it. I mean, look at all those nations that still practice the death sentence. That's cold murder, institutionalized. Let's call a cat a cat, it's legal cold murder. I personally don't agree with it, but i'm a minority in the world.

As for slavery, it can't even be described as necessarily bad for society per se. Just bad for our model of society, our values, and ideals that put a great emphasis on empathy and human rights. "All are born equal in rights yada yada". Dates back to 1789. Foundation of a lot of things in western culture.

You clearly don't understand what cold blooded murder is.


To murder in cold blood is to murder without reason. Without motive or cause.  To simply murder.  I. E.  Walk up to a stranger and execute them on the very spot for absolutely zero reason.  A senseless/thoughtless act in the very literal sense of the word.

In this sense. There is Zero ethical debate about cold blooded murder it is the antithesis of morality and the human condition. It is wrong.