[OT] The Art of Winning Games

[Puke]

i didnt say people were evil. i dont even believe in good and bad. i said that people are more reliable when you are counting on them to be more base. everyone has certain fundamental animal instincts, such as greed, lust, selfishness, cowardace, etc.

yes, those are ugly words, but they refer to universal evolutionary qualities. society progresses because of the individual desire to acquire and achieve - those that direct their energies towards the benefit of a group, do so because it is their best bet for gain - and because someone is leading that group and encouraging them to do so on their behalf. people have an evolutionary desire to procreate, people have basic fight / fight / posture / submit instincts that dictate their behavior in stressfull situations, and in pack relationships.

you can count on all these things. people are reliable when you expect animal behavior out of them. people are not so reliable, when you expect chivalry and courage, persistance and extra effort, charity and grace. sure there are individuals that have these qualities, but their ultimate motives can usually be deconstructed down to evolutionary imparatives, as well. and even if not, they are the exception rather than the rule. people as a whole dont act that way. except maybe in Canada.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

people as a whole dont act that way. except maybe in Canada.

why thank you. i was already sure we where the Last hope for civilization.

however, good and evil don't go along clear lines of instinct and higher traits. the urge to procreate can lead to well-adjusted children. the urge to be persistent can lead one into situations one shouldn't have gotten into. in my opinion, good is when all emotions and thoughts that are good and usefull are in there proper places and balance. evil starts occurring when one or more are stronger or weaker than they should be, or are used when they shouldn't be. evil can be being to cynical towards other people, or even, in my opinion, being so nice your blind to other's faults, which tends to make them worse.

[Narratio]

I don't think that there is such a thing as "good" or "evil". It's just points of view. Hitler didn't think that slaughting multi millions was a bad thing, he thought he was doing a service to the Arayan race. From his point of vew he was "good". Genghis Khan took his lads for a stroll across Europe for perfectly good reasons in his opinion. The people being raped, looted and killed would have called him evil, he didn't think so, neither did his supporters.

Also, the concepts of "good" and "evil" change with time. Slavery these days is considered a moral outrage (EVIL) by the western media and intelligentisia (not neccesarily the mass of people though). But it was a fine idea to the Aztecs, Inca, most west African kingdoms through the 1900's, Roman Empire, various Chinese dynasties and modern day arab governments. All of whom think it's neccesary. Cannibalism is held to be evil by our western cultures, the cannibal cultures think there is a reason for it though, otherwise they wouldn't do it. For them it's not evil, it's a religious experience and thus "good".

So "Good" and "Evil" appear to be viewpoints with no set values positive or negative except those of the people involved. It appears to become worse with the pasing of time. Individual "W" who, during their life was a loved / respected / disliked / hated person (as everyone else) becomes, over time, an icon for something or other "good" (Washington and truth). Then they get revisited and they change into things to be reviled (Washington and slavery), which again changes to be something else (Washington and his illegitimate children perhaps?).

So, no good, no evil, just viewpoints up close and personal or 1,000 years later in a "standardised" school text book.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

my other opinion is that people who argue that there isn't good or evil need to be hit on the head with a hammer. but that would be evil.

[Fyron]

Moral relativism only goes so far...

[Puke]

Originally posted by Narratio:
Cannibalism is held to be evil by our western cultures, the cannibal cultures think there is a reason for it though, otherwise they wouldn't do it. For them it's not evil, it's a religious experience and thus "good".

im behind you 110%, but i just thought i would offer some edification on canibalism for everyone. it was predominantly found on island cultures in the pacific, prior to the New Zeland natives (forgot what they were called) conquering most of them and baning canibalism.

when you are on a very small scrap of land, with limited resources, and you lack contraceptive technology, you are going to quickly have population problems. New Zeland had enough land and resources to develop an agrarian culture, and keep their population down throug warfare. most other islanders could never develop that far, because they lacked the land and resources to do so.

they had two options to save themselves from overpopulation and the resulting famine: infanticide, or canibalism. it was one of the two, and various island cultures went either way. religious ideas about it cropped up after the fact, in order to maintain it as a sociological institution.

oh yeah, except for the Aztecs. they had plenty of land and resources. those guys were just sick ****s.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

there's another option for population control: self-control.

i'm still a virgin. it wasn't that hard. it just takes a lot of self-control. my opinion is, your self-control should at least match that of your worse vice. perferably, it should be half again as strong. mine matches my anger, but barely when it peaks.

and on a side note, there's the possibility that with our technology, our supply of food can actually rise faster than our population. asteriod farming, among other things.

and P, just because someone beleive's something doesn't make it right or wrong. i see no reason to respect a beleif just because someone beleives it. i do respect the right of other people to choose what they beleive, but if someone chooses to murder random passerby, if i have a gun, i'm going to choose to shoot the murderer. that's called discrimination - used right, a good thing, no matter what the media says.

[ December 11, 2003, 07:39: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]