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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
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- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard open voting
I feel like I'm in an elementary ethics class, but of course the issue is that it's almost never that black and white. It's easy to paint a ticking time bomb scenario where "else your entire family will die" and say that justifies anything, but the more common scenario is a "a slightly increased chance that things will go badly for some of your entire family with them all dying being an extreme outlier possibility". How do you balance an innocent person's life against that?
It doesn't surprise me at all that young adults who have been taught their entire lives that killing to protect clan secrets is absolutely necessary will push back against the notion that it's not acceptable. Of course they're going to trot out some trite reasons why the horrible shit they're peddling makes perfect sense. To change their minds will require some sustained pressure and walking the walk.
- Location
- Poland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Now imagine the Hyuuga Hiashi's Master Plan, except it's Nara's plan. Just think on it.
I don't think I will sleep well tonight...
Quick question on account of that political training with Mari: did we see it? Or was it off-screen?
Because if it was the latter, did it at least give some bonus to diplomacy/deception? Clearly it didn't affect the forums, at least not enough.
At this point I am deleting a seventh iteration of a post complaining/asking/pleading/raging on the topic of social failures this Quest is prone to.
So let me ask a question and be done with it:
Is there some sort of big post, wiki page or something that tries to discuss at length the constant failings from lack of social and basic ninja knowledge?
I know it was discussed many, many times. Which is why I want to know if there's a post of greater significance, especially one that links to others?
@Velorien @eaglejarl @OliWhail
Something that would help if you'd clarify. You label this a "rational quest" where people are supposed to act in ways that make sense by real world logic and not carry "idiot balls" and "dumb plans that make no sense" and other stuff from works of fiction. I get that. But human beings in the real world are anything but rational. We rationalize, we attempt to find a narrative that explains our own actions, and we try not to make plans that a four year old can see the flaw in, but that doesn't make us rational. So when a character in the story makes a calm, well-reasoned argument for why something is totally necessary I at least don't take that to mean that what they're saying is necessarily true. It just means that they've managed to ascend to a real world level of finding logical reasons to support something they believe for entirely illogical reasons.
So I guess my question is, should we take this "killing to protect clan secrets is the right thing to do" as the opinion of the questmasters as to what is only logical and reasonable in this world, and we have to argue with you about it if we disagree? Or should we just take it as the opinion of the characters, not to be confused with being endorsed the questmasters.
Or more broadly, despite this being a rational quest do you still deliberately write many characters as believing things that even you think are total horse shit, as long as you can find some chain of reasoning that would allow them to plausibly rationalize it?
Something that would help if you'd clarify. You label this a "rational quest" where people are supposed to act in ways that make sense by real world logic and not carry "idiot balls" and "dumb plans that make no sense" and other stuff from works of fiction. I get that. But human beings in the real world are anything but rational. We rationalize, we attempt to find a narrative that explains our own actions, and we try not to make plans that a four year old can see the flaw in, but that doesn't make us rational. So when a character in the story makes a calm, well-reasoned argument for why something is totally necessary I at least don't take that to mean that what they're saying is necessarily true. It just means that they've managed to ascend to a real world level of finding logical reasons to support something they believe for entirely illogical reasons.
So I guess my question is, should we take this "killing to protect clan secrets is the right thing to do" as the opinion of the questmasters as to what is only logical and reasonable in this world, and we have to argue with you about it if we disagree? Or should we just take it as the opinion of the characters, not to be confused with being endorsed the questmasters.
Or more broadly, despite this being a rational quest do you still deliberately write many characters as believing things that even you think are total horse shit, as long as you can find some chain of reasoning that would allow them to plausibly rationalize it?
Reminder: Hazou is still in the hotseat for the mist-drain screw-up. That should probably be addressed sooner than later.
I think that one was mine, actually.
-but, I suppose the rest of the group can borrow it.
I remain unsatisfied. While she certainly hammered him, she only hammered him on the consequences of his decisions. Trying to reprogram him example-by-example isn't practical, though hopefully a course of therapeutic treatment will help. What he needed to be broken on over this was his betrayal. He made a stupid decisions, but more importantly he deliberately took that decision away from everybody else just because he thought he knew better. He broke trust.
The takeaway here guys, is to continually trigger Kagome to keep earning that XP per half hour.
I think that one was mine, actually.
-but, I suppose the rest of the group can borrow it.
I remain unsatisfied. While she certainly hammered him, she only hammered him on the consequences of his decisions. Trying to reprogram him example-by-example isn't practical, though hopefully a course of therapeutic treatment will help. What he needed to be broken on over this was his betrayal. He made a stupid decisions, but more importantly he deliberately took that decision away from everybody else just because he thought he knew better. He broke trust.
Vecht
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Snarksville, Snarkland
I just want to say, that while I really dislike your general snootiness, you aren't wrong. I endorse your reasoning here, if not your delivery.
Jello_Raptor
(Confirmed Jelly)
- Location
- Left of Center
Huh, if she used her bloodline to help she just did something that shouldn't be possible. If she didn't, then she's gone from being profoundly uncomfortable in vaguely social situations to being the sort of person who can defuse a human bomb with a few carefully chosen words.
No matter how you cut it that's impressive.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Yes, but how much goodwill are we burning through here with our "Fuck the system" attitude?
How about we go a few dozen updates without accidentally signing up one or more of our teammates/friends for the metaphorical Hangman's Noose before we stubbornly double down on beliefs that drastically conflict with years of social conditioning they've had?
Shit has gone pretty FUBAR in setting, until things calm down and we alleviate much of the danger I don't think the Batman route is a viable option. We're gonna have to crawl through some pretty bloody battlefield dirt to get to the point we can change the world for the better, in that sense.
Edit: Basically what Briefvoice said, as well
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Dissonance
Luna's Luna
- Location
- Ginnungagap.
- Pronouns
- S/H/T
A godawful PITA to read.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
The most diabolical and interesting Fanon interpretation of Hiashis character that is presented in the most unattractive image format possible.
Dissonance
Luna's Luna
- Location
- Ginnungagap.
- Pronouns
- S/H/T
I mean, yes, but I've inured myself to that after years of browsing chan archives.
Vecht
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Snarksville, Snarkland
Strongly disagree that we're doing our friends any favors by not confronting them on their fucked up beliefs. WRT ninja society at large, we aren't ninja jesus with protag protection and a "beat them into being good" bloodline, so that part makes sense at least. Indeed, I didn't advocate otherwise.
So, I actually already agree with you. Of course most circumstances aren't actually going to be "kill someone or else your family dies", and in most circumstances killing people to keep secrets won't be necessary or even acceptable. I stated things a bit poorly, so I can understand why you thought I might not understand that. However, this thread is, in general, made up of relatively well-educated people. They're bright enough that it can be assumed that they already understand basics like "everything's probabilistic" or "it's not black and white". In general, if something can be assumed to be either shockingly ignorant or hyperbole, read it as hyperbole. Give people the benefit of the doubt, at least on simple things.
On a more practical level, I don't think pointing out that that it's just a risk of their family members dying would actually change the way that they think, and I think they themselves already understand the point you made. Our teammates aren't idiots. There's even some suggestion that Keiko has been educated in statistics. Kagome would happily kill 100 innocents to decrease our chance of dying by 10%, and I don't think he's susceptible to being argued out of it. At least not the way we went about it this update. Everyone on our team is intelligent enough to understand that the secret getting out to one innocent does not guarantee the destruction of the clan, or even the death of anyone in it. That's sufficiently obvious that it should just be assumed that everyone understands it.
EDIT: Of course, there is going to be the occasional situation where it is very nearly that black and white. Not often, but occasionally. Eventually some poor Hyuga is going to figure something out and a Minami will have to choose between that innocent and their clan. Eventually some genin will figure out exactly what the Iron Nerve means for sealmaking, and some Kurosawa is going to have to choose between killing that genin and letting the Mizukage turn the Kurosawa into sealing slaves. I expect our teammates would point that out to us if we tried to push the point, maybe even mention that something like that has already happened. Even though killing to keep secrets won't always be necessary, occasionally the destruction of your clan won't be an outlier possibility. What do you do then?
Given what Keiko said in the pre-retcon version of the last update she understood that it wasn't actually necessary to kill Minami to keep this particular secret. They weren't pushing back against a particular instance of killing to keep secrets, they were pushing back against the idea that it was never okay to kill an innocent to keep a secret. And that's actually a pretty easy point to push back against. Yes, in most situations it won't be acceptable, and acting as though that occasional outlier case is the norm would be weaseling out of things. But they were correct to argue against Hazou's naive point that it is never acceptable or necessary to kill an innocent to keep a secret. You are also correct that the situation wherein it is acceptable is an outlier, and it most cases that won't hold.
Explaining that might work, actually. Divide things into secrets worth killing over, and situations wherein that might be necessary, and those secrets that should be kept but aren't worth an innocent's life. Our allies' points only really hold if you imagine the only options are "kill to keep clan secrets" and "don't kill to keep clan secrets" rather than "tailor your response to the particular situation and secret" being on the table. Arguing for that instead of just murdering anyone who knows anything we'd prefer they not know seems like a viable way to persuade our clan of our viewpoint.
Characters being irrational is not at all out of line with rational fiction. In fact, it would be weird if they weren't, nobody's actually perfectly rational. They're just not going to be idiotic in ways that don't make sense in the context of their environment and personality.
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The sealmistress already did.
Speaking of which, what is grief-wrought J having her do to all those corpses he hauled back with him while there's nobody in position to question him?
Dissonance
Luna's Luna
- Location
- Ginnungagap.
- Pronouns
- S/H/T
Are we assuming that she's stuffed in a sealing workshop somewhere; that T&I hasn't reduced her to a gibbering mess while the Yamanaka skullfuck her out of her knowledge?
I'm more concerned that somebody is going to decide that they want Papa Sarutobi back.
Dissonance
Luna's Luna
- Location
- Ginnungagap.
- Pronouns
- S/H/T
We don't know much about that, [tinfoil hat] but I suspect that Sarutobi's death was just the Sage deciding to get rid of that identity once it got back to him that it was compromised.
[/tinfoil]
- Location
- UK
You've got yourself trapped in a ruse, where you're answering a question that looks like the right one, but actually has no relevance at all to the underlying problem, like when people ask how long someone deserves to be in jail or your boss asks how many lines of code you wrote last week.
If I fell for this ruse, I'd probably make a comparison to the claim "as long as my allies don't spoil the secret, my ability to drain through mist is safe", which is equally easily disproven. But I'd much rather ask why you're talking about such absolutes at all! The question we should be asking, and the question I'd hope Kagome would be asking, is what is the risk of Minami knowing this secret? Not "is it feasible to keep this secret?", since that affects neither the risk nor the method of "fixing" the risk. Not "how many people know about this ability?", since killing Minami clearly doesn't fix that Mist already knows about mist drain.
Ask the right question and the answer is readily apparent. Minami knowing Keiko is the pangolin summoner is vastly more dangerous than, yet has exactly the same "solution" as, her knowing Noburi can drain through mist.
It's good for stopping Hazō stealing your seals. Think how many times in the story things would have had to be changed if it was known Hazō could copy seals. I struggle to think of a single time where mist drain being widely known would have made a difference.
Yet another good example of extremely important information we shared freely.
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Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
But that's the thing: They aren't fucked up beliefs. It's only fucked up ethically from our perspective because (1)we don't live in the Murderverse that is MfD Naruto and (2) we as 21st century humans place a large amount of value on the generic human life.
Attempting to argue with teammates at this point in time would cause more disunity and give them more suspicions regarding our sanity.
I agree that this is something that needs to be done eventually , but i think it's a fools gamble to attempt to persuade them otherwise when
(1) We have not given them reason to trust us explocitly to that extent and
(2) We have gone on record a few times as having the collective social capability of soggy Toast (which says nothing of everyone's individual ability here , just to be clear ).
Until we are more consistent in our successes and have more street cred in making good decisions I do not think this is a profitable venture either in the short or long term.
- Location
- how about no
'I feel like I'm in elementary ninja class, but of course the issue is that it's almost never that black and white. It's easy to imagine a utopia scenario where "everyone can live peacefully" and say that justifies pipe dreams, but the more common scenario is that "slightly improving the security of your friends and family sometimes necessitates killing problematic people since in this world every small advantage matters". How do you justify endangering your family, your clan by neglect against that?
It doesn't surprise me at all that young civilians and non-clan ninja who have been taught their entire lives that true peace is achievable will reject the notion that such killings are not acceptable. Of course they're going to trot out some trite reasons why the naive shit they're peddling makes perfect sense. To change their minds will require some sustained pressure and walking the walk.'
This was an exercise to highlight how Hazou's recent outburst amounts to nothing more than an opinion, no matter how we feel about it. There were no arguments made about the inherent worth of an individual's life, nor any other justification beyond stating absolutes like "killing is wrong". This is an effort to highlight the thread's flawed reasoning so that we can do better than a 1 XP reward next update. The initial quote just encapsulated what I believe needs to be addressed and is not intended as an ad hominem attack.
Now to emphasize the point, here's the same structure as the previous quote and altered version, but now about a topic no one probably really cares about:
'I feel like I'm in elementary culinary class, but of course the issue is that it's almost never as simple as salt and pepper. It's easy to point out that chocolate is the best flavor of ice cream because of it's inherently sweet/savory yet earthy taste and say that justifies the belief that all of the best deserts are made out of or with chocolate, but the real answer is that strawberry is the best flavor for ice cream since it has a light and refreshing taste. How can you compare chocolate against that?
It doesn't surprise me at all that young chefs who have been taught their entire lives that chocolate is the best ingredient for deserts will reject that strawberry is a superior flavor for ice cream. Of course they're going to trot out some trite reasons why the horrible shit they're serving makes perfect sense. To change their minds will require some sustained pressure and walking the walk.'
Does this make you want to try strawberry ice cream rather than chocolate ice cream?
So to @Briefvoice or anyone else who wants to convince our little murderous NPC friends that killing innocents is wrong, I'm willing to act as a "ninja's" advocate. I'll play the part of a ruthless yet rational ninja who believes that killing said innocents can be justified under most circumstances but who is also willing to change his/her mind in regards to that belief given sufficient arguments and reasoning.
I do however want to express my concern over the last line in the quote. I do not believe that any rational ninja will sincerely change their beliefs under coercion; as soon as the "pressure" lets up they will simply go back to doing what they were doing previously. It's possible you could convince people that your beliefs are superior by showing the fruits of your labor, but that doesn't explain why you are doing them in the first place.
As of the latest update we know that Kagome responds to logical arguments and essentially ignores emotional tantrums. Minami also seems fairly level-headed, all things considered. The mission isn't over and Kagome hasn't been carted off to a gulag yet. We still might be able to salvage this situation.
Vecht
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Snarksville, Snarkland
The update took like 20 minutes, so I don't think this is valid
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Something for those writing plans to consider for the next bit - I believe Wind/Sand is our next destination, and it may be a good idea to go entirely on foot for that leg of the journey. As a desert Sand will not have a lot of clouds around to hide us, and they also have aerial scouts using gliders. For the purpose of OPSEC going on foot will preserve the secrets of Skytowers and Skywalkers.
Also, they'd probably have a border patrol escort us to the village anyways.
Also, they'd probably have a border patrol escort us to the village anyways.
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
Right, let me give a crack at it.
"Frankly, the largest problem with trying murder as a means of information control is that one mistake will lead to the entire trail of corpses being essentially worthless, thus nulling all your previous effort. Even without making a single mistake on the tactical level and assassinating everybody who could possibly know about your secret leads to a giant trail of bodies that bumps your threat rating up a level or reveals to your opponents some other critical information. As a means of information control, loads and loads of misinformation is far better, because revealing your secret into an environment where a grand total of everything is complete and utter horseshit means that your mistake costs you essentially nothing. For a masterful example of this, look no farther than the Uchiha clan, who have so many rumors said about their Sharingan that nobody believes any of it except the part where they're more dangerous ninja for it.
The second problem with killing civilians left and right to preserve your secrets is that the amount of murder you'll end up committing will make you more likely to default towards violence, rather than more peaceful solutions. For extreme edge cases, look at missing-nin who have survived a long time. They're practically a walking disaster area, because decades of reflexes towards violence makes them attack first, ask questions never. All ninja suffer from this to an extent, which is why peace is usually so fragile and war always inevitable. Leaf's economy is better for precisely this reason, because peace and thought out solutions are considered before maximum exploitation, which usually results in crashed economies."
Man I wish we were talking to our team for this hypothetical exercise, because for the second paragraph I could point to Chapter 20 where everyone got rich and no one was hurt (cept the douchebag merchant, he earned that) and for dangers of autoviolence point to Kagome.
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