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[BloodBird]

So, 'Fascism' is not a word that should be native to EVE. Perhaps it isn't and players should be less eager to use it in it's IRL negative context. I agree. In the universe of EVE however, all characters will be tarnished by their IRL player bias, and this will reflect on their actions and words. And their words WILL be something we make sense of IRL, because, again, there is not one native English speaker in the EVE-O lore. Likely not a single Italian speaker either, or even French, as we know it.

Here is another word that carries the bias of negative association: Slavery.

100% legal, standard, day-to-day normal and even respectable in the Amarrian Empire. A slave is about as normal and standard in the Empire as an educated office-worker is anywhere, IRL. Amarrians should not cause much of a fuss over this.

Players don't give a fuck.

In the world of EVE, there roams a large pack of night un-dying, lethal demigods all tarred with the opinions of minds partially foreign to their universe and EVE RP is reflective of this. Most non-Amarr and even a load of Amarr toons will have opinions on slavery that reflect their IRL bias - there is even a large number of anti-slavery defectors/rebels/moral reformers among the Amarr that make a far bigger deal about slavery than one would think, based on PF.

In another tread on this site Ava laments that the majority of Minmatar Role-Players do the 'I R glorious Freedom Fighter, die ebil slaver scum' maneuver usually without any subtlety or debt or originality, with those who dig deeper than that and explore all the other facets of Matari RP being in the minority. This is mostly true, too.

So the word 'slaver' and all it's equals are generally considered a badthing(tm), even if the majority of EVE's population supposedly don't agree and those who do are far from a universal constant. Same for fascists, even those (relatively few, when all is considered) who can be accurately referred to as such are better described by other, perhaps less IRL-negatively-biased terms. But the word itself is used as an insulting, loaded description for specific groups, accurate or not, exactly due to that negative implication. Might as well just call them Nazis, even if that's considerably more inaccurate. Even a person with fascist ideals today are highly unlikely to be an actual Nazi. (Neo-Nazi in this case, but you get my point, I hope.)

Bottom line is: Players will use whatever words they please to describe, in a positive or negative light, whatever they want. They will be biased by their OOC beliefs and will usually utilize English words for this. Because no language of today exists in the EVE PF we have to go by the idea that the auto-translator tech that all player-toons have simply translate all different languages for us. Ofc, this becomes problematic for non-English speaking players but that hurdle is a completely different topic.

*MY* opinion on this topic was simply that I felt that Seri needlessly utilized a negative-bias word for a faction in-game and I believe this might reinforce said negative-bias towards said faction on the OOC level, and I do not approve of that, for whatever that's worth. Just like the topic of Slavery is forever colored by this as well I don't want people to OOC'ly think of the SDII as such without serious PF evidence to support the claim.

A tad hypocritical ofc considering I've had similar ideas about the CPD and Heth's personal troops. I'll have to deal with this and try not to let my own bias shine through too much, but again, subject for another time and place.

[Lyn Farel]

On the topic of slavery relativism, maybe going to derail a little the thread but today, reading a chapter of the 5th game of thrones from G. Martin, I couldnt help but think that this very passage with Tyrion's insight on slavery illustrates very well how our own bias can get in our way in a very different universe filled with different ethics and morals :

The fat man's slaves ate better than many peasants back in the seven kingdoms and were less like to starve to death come winter. Slaves were chattel, aye. They could be bought and sold, whipped and branded, used for the carnal pleasure of their owners, bred to make more slaves. In that sense they were no more than dogs or horses. But most lords treated their dogs and horses well enough. Proud men might shout that they would sooner die free than live as slaves, but pride was cheap. When the steel struck the flint, such men were rare as dragon's teeth; elsewise the world would not have been so full of slaves. There has never been a slave who did not choose to be a slave, the dwarf reflected. Their choice may be between bondage and death, but the choice is always there.

Found it interesting enough how it was expressed to share it here.

[Lithium Flower]

All these democracies, fascisms, communisms are not evil, not negative, but counterwise, they are ideals, goals and solutions how to make humans happy. Unfortunately, human nature is flawed, and flawed seriously, and no one counts these flaws. Democracy, fascism and communism become negative, only because peoples are negative. There are no universally constant values, and no constant evils. Just conflicts of interests of different peoples. Collisions of powers. And in these conflicts winners are always right.

This slavery, that you took as an example, is a negative association only because it is not acceptible in our society, no more and no less. But in different time and place, back in ancient Roman Empire, slavery was a common state of affairs, without negative and positive associations. And if you will take a closer look, even from modern humanitarian point of view, to even more ancient times, you will see, that slavery, actually, was a positive development: it saved numerous lives.

Everything is relative and we should try to abstract from modern and common points of view when we roleplay different universe, that missed many events of our history. There weren't any Hitlers, Mussolini, Trumans, Bushes, Stalins and other known to us peoples who committed crimes against humanity.

We must fight numbness of our own minds, and overcome ourselves to try to think in different categories, in different planes and universes, trying to analyze the situation from above, like a bird flying over a horde of mice.

But this is not easy, and many peoples are not ready for this, it needs more development, more intelligence, more self-control, more studying, and simply thinking (or meditating on a subject), it requires hard work. And by speaking with characters, we should make this easier, not harder!

Again, your example of slavery, IMHO is a bad example. You see, it is not just a word, it is a concept, and there are many different words for slavery in different languages. You may try to find synonyms, like "owning of peoples", but concept and association remains.

And fascism is a whole different story. The word gained negative associations, because fascists were associated with nazi, and because in some countries they were associated as ideological enemies of communists (and thus enemies of the peoples), they are associated with peoples who commited war crimes and crimes against humanity even without majority of them being fascists.

And, moreover, unlike slavery, there are many ways of describing system without using the word 'fascism', and putting such strong negative bias, that is very wrong.

I will give you an easy example. Imagine yourself building a dream society and starting to tell auditory about its properties. Someone stands up and says: "But this is fascism!" You have to admit, that it is fascism, but you thing about properties, and everyone in auditory think about crimes. They all shout to you, that it is bad.
Can you prove otherwise?
I don't think so, because they won't hear you, because they won't understand you.

It is a stalemate, when peoples think about different things and name it with one word. This is an ice wall that is very hard to break. And it is in our mutual interests to avoid such situations.

[Seriphyn]

Was meant to be a discussion about FIO/FedNav live events, but I'm not exactly innocent of derailing threads myself.

[Silver Night]

You could try reposting with a title people are more able to resist fixating on. I thought about cleaning the thread, but there's nothing else here but the discussion about the title.

[Syagrius]

I try to warn him but he never listens....  I foresee a nasty audit followed by sensational discoveries regarding his daughters business dealings... should these slanders about FIO continue. <.< >.>

[BloodBird]

Was meant to be a discussion about FIO/FedNav live events, but I'm not exactly innocent of derailing threads myself.

I'd love to add to the ACTUAL tread topic, but I was not there for the event(s) and don't know a thing about what was actually done, so I'd love it if you would provide a description on what exactly happened and how the loggs here fit in with it - right now all I know is some FIO agent made noise in local and was bitched at by edgy and cool immortal kiddies for his trouble, including a former pro-FIO toon.

In other words; I've got nothing to converse about. Help me out?

[Lithium Flower]

my bad