Posted by Bookrat on December 13, 1999 at 13:31:47:
In Reply to: Re: THE LIGHT posted by Pico(IMM) on December 10, 1999 at 19:51:05:
Twist wrote: > You seem to be one who thinks that law & order I beg to differ, but perhaps we're coming at it from If a mugger is robbing an old lady, he feels This is the state that I think is being decried; > One just needs to reason with A: Mister evil fighter, please come help me kill this dragon. I know you won't do it out of the goodness of your heart, but I'll pay you 5000 gold. Yeah, okay, A is stupid... but the point is that you The Law is the Moral code. It is Again, I differ - note the above point. Evil and good will > Do you mean to say that evils live more by the The point of Mohandas Ghandi was to make *non-evil* people see > > Respectfully, the Imms have over-emphasized the pacifistic nature of good. While compassion and generosity are all well and good, hardcore evil needs to be fought, not pampered and cuddled. This is why Knights failed, since their Honor allowed themselves to be taken advantage of, and this is why Dawn is considered to be such a non-factor as a force against evil. Not only does it have pacifistic leanings but its powers are laughably poor, some would say the worse of any cabal next to troupe. How can they aid the light if they can’t even stay alive? > > Evil flourishes in Thera because it has absolutely nothing to fear. You’re not going to stop that Necro from ranking on balator orphans by asking him nicely, you have to put the fear of retribution and judgement into him. Dawn can take all the moral high ground it wants, but that won’t stop those 6 Imperial Heroes or that Scarabite Lich from raping Thera at will. > Evil has almost always flourished in Thera. I can't argue with this point, so I won't. In my opinion,
> is inherently a morally good institution and
> that all evil must be anarchic. In fact you
> can reason with evil people. If someone is
> mugging a helpless old lady for her $50 and
> I offer the hoodlum $500, in most cases he'll
> stop.
different perspectives.
confident doing so because he has little fear
of the (immediate) consequences. She can't hurt
him, he gets her $50. If I walk up to the mugger
and offer him $500 to stop, then unless I'm
willing to fight, there is nothing to prevent
him from just taking her $50 and my $500. There
must be an unspoken 'or else' to my offer of $500;
if not, it's meaningless.
there is no "or else" for the lightwalkers. They
can talk until they're blue in the face; if they're
pacifists, what are their other options? How does
it benefit me to change my ways? Why not just burn
that orphanage in Balator, then kill you and take your
stuff too?
> an evil person differently since they have
> different goals and priorities.
B: (kills A, takes his gold and his stuff, and doesn't have to fight a dragon.)
can't reason with someone whose word means little or
nothing when there's immediate personal gain to be had.
> As for evil only obeying laws due to fear of
> punishment (you mystify my about adhering to
> moral codes due to fear since, by definition
> evils do not follow moral codes),
a codification of the morals of the society in
which the Evil (and good and neutral) people live.
For a good person to abide by it should not be (as)
difficult, because it puts down in writing how honest,
decent, just people *should* act.
> they follow
> laws for almost the same reason goods do. The
follow meaningless laws (speeding, jaywalking, littering)
for the same reasons -- fear of punishment. They will follow
'greater' laws (rape, burglary, murder) because the good person
was brought up to know that those things are wrong, and because
the good person has empathy for the other. Evil people have
little or no empathy, and do whatever they can to push themselves
ahead, even at the expense of others.
> > For a RL example, look at the appeasement strategy that the Allies employed with Germany prior to WW2. By giving the Nazis what they wanted, this just encouraged them to seek more and take advantage of the Allies generosity. Eventually, when WW2 started, the Allies, though they were morally in the right, had to resort to brutal, total, unrestrained warfare to defeat the evil, genocidal empires of Germany and Japan.
> code of the Iron Fist than goods? Maybe you're
> right, maybe you're wrong. I guess it depends
> if you are out of the mold of Theodore Roosevelt
> or Mohandas Ghandi.
how what they had been doing was oppressing another populace of
*non-evil* people. (Unless you think that Imperial Britain was
by definition Evil, in which case that's a different argument.)
His actions also brought the attention of the world to the situation,
who then put political pressure on England to change. In Thera, there
*is* no outside force that can cause the Empire to change, and even
if there were, would they care? They are convinced that they are right,
and that running the world their way is the best results. There is no
arguing with the boot of a dictator. Ther is compliance, or there is
resistance.
> Why? I think the answer is fairly simple --
> it's easier to play an evil character (or
> especially a neutral-aligned character that
> tends toward evil) than it is to play a good
> aligned character. No PK restrictions, no
> need to worry about going all-out for the
> best set of eq you can get, can kill any mob
> for exp, don't have to go out of your way
> to help people, etc., etc.
it strikes at the heart of the matter, and is the greatest
single reason for the 'tilted scales' -- people are
intrinsically lazy, and it's too much effort to make a
Lightwalker than a neutral/evil Imperial.