I don't like giving away money especially given the current economic uncertainty and I don't see the benefit if Asuma gives us free reign on land clearing.
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- Tags
- 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
I don't like giving away money especially given the current economic uncertainty and I don't see the benefit if Asuma gives us free reign on land clearing.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It doesn't matter where power comes from, it only matters how it's used.
Also, the statement is trivially true, but not true once you add the word "only".
Raxner
The most dangerous man in an empty room
- Location
- Israel
That's a great point. If our goal is to Uplift, then the more people that are Uplifting the better. If our goal is to maximize our power and wealth, that's a different story...but we're Team Uplift, aren't we?
I disagree. If you acquire power by monstrous means, even if some abstract logic could justify it, you become a monster. You will use it in monstrous fashion. I'm having trouble thinking of anyone in human history that gained power monstrously and then used it decently.
The problem is that it's easy--and wrong--to assume that the you that has used such means to gain power will still be the same you that wanted to improve the world. Your actions change you.
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- Location
- USA
- Location
- NY
It took a lot of gun barrels to stop Hitler in Europe.
It also took a lot of gun barrels to stop Mao in Korea.
Raxner
The most dangerous man in an empty room
- Location
- Israel
True, it absolutely did. There's a big difference between using violence to stop monsters (like fighting Hitler and Mao in Europe and Korea) and using it to gain power (like Hitler and Mao did). Even in the former case, you become a worse person than you would've been in the alternate history where violence wasn't necessary, but in the latter case you become a monster.
Everything has its price. An important part of the price of violence is the way that it corrupts the one who uses it, and especially the one who uses it aggressively.
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Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
I disagree wholly with your conclusions here. It does not make you a worse person. It makes you a better person for being willing to put yourself out there to stop things.
I don't think someone who stops a serial murderer by shooting them is made a worse person by shooting them than they would be in another world where it didn't happen and they didn't have to. They were just tested differently by the constraints of the world they were put in.
Raxner
The most dangerous man in an empty room
- Location
- Israel
I agree that it is not morally wrong to kill a would-be murderer, if that's the only way to stop him from committing murder. However, though the action is not morally wrong, it still has a corrupting effect on the one that does it--he has still become a killer. That is now one of the things that he sees himself as able to do.
- Location
- NY
Political power, unfortunately, is a zero-sum game, because political power by its very nature is relative. The fact of the matter is that "we" live in kung-fu wizard death world where they don't actually seem to get the difference between diplomacy and espionage.
To put things in concrete, in-game terms, look at Hiashi's little speech on Hyuga and general clan superiority to Pain. This is the man who very well could become military dictator of the pre-eminent military power on the continent. What do you think he'll do with it?
Now, what are we trading for that? A couple dozen kids having their genetic father in their lives? A dozen women not having to deal with the health problems caused by back-to-back-to-back pregnancies? Keeping our hands clean of Hiashi's blood?
This is something I think everyone in this thread could do with thinking upon. Does our immediate moral superiority justify a greater probability of Generalissimo Fuhrer General Secretary Dear Leader Emperor Hyuga Hiashi, bearing in mind exactly what he views as the ideal society as he expressed in his speech to Pain?
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah we are trading money for political power.
Raxner
The most dangerous man in an empty room
- Location
- Israel
Within Leaf, they actually have peaceful means to compete for power. They have elections (with admittedly a very limited voting population), they have laws. If we use force (like the Rasengan) to seize power and impose our preferred laws, then we will have become the thing we claim to hate.
As for Hiashi, if he is a Hitler-like monster, then killing him to stop him from destroying everything would not be wrong, just like using force to break Hitler's power was not wrong. Using the Rasengan to seize power for ourselves and compel the adoption of laws that are convenient to us is still wrong. It's the difference between using force to stop monsters and using it to gain power.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
I'm not really super comfortable personally throwing away our morals just to stop Hiashi from maybe becoming the worst dictator ever.
Fortunately, there are a pile of folks we can just hire to do that for us!
I bet they'd be pretty down for it, might even offer us a family discount.
- Location
- NY
Read his mini-manifesto to Pain. Sure, he's not literally "create living space for Fire out of Lightning", I grant you that, but that is a low, low bar.
As for power, again, political power is by its very nature zero-sum. If he has more, we have less, and vice versa. Note also that we are not living in a world where forcing our will through does much damage to independent political institutions, because there are none to speak of. Yes, there are "elections", in the sense that the clan heads get together and decide who they want to be Hokage. You'll note that each Hokage has also been enough of a powerhouse to put any number of clan heads in the ground permanently.
I'm gonna assume that's a joke, because I don't model you as the sort of person who thinks acting through a proxy absolves you of moral consequences
Raxner
The most dangerous man in an empty room
- Location
- Israel
I'm not sure why you think that this responds to me at all.
I acknowledged that Hiashi might well be a monster against whom force is justified, if there is no alternative.
I'm not concerned with damaging independent political institutions. I'm concerned with us becoming people that are all about gaining power by whatever means. I'm afraid (confident) that if we go down that path, we'll use whatever power we gain in a self-serving and society-destroying way.
I would like to know why Lenin or the Khmer Rouge couldn't have made the exact same arguments you're making now, and why you're confident that your regime, once you establish it, will be any better than theirs were.
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- Location
- NY
My point is that acting against Hiashi (who I have no doubt is a monster, ref. again to his statements on bloodline superiority) will inherently gain us power in Leaf. It is not sensible to try and differentiate the two. If we gain power, we are acting against Hiashi by reducing his. If we reduce Hiashi's power, we have increased our relative power.
Raxner
The most dangerous man in an empty room
- Location
- Israel
This whole discussion started when you said this:
I read that to mean "Whenever there's a law that stops us from doing what we want, let's just use force to cow everyone." That's nothing to do with stopping Hiashi from instituting his preferred slave-society, and everything to do with naked violent power.
In fact, that's essentially Hiashi's idea in that speech you keep referring to. "I've got so much inherent magic power, surely it's only right and proper that I should rule everyone."
Did I misread you? If so, what did you actually mean?
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Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
I'm gonna assume that's a joke, because I don't model you as the sort of person who thinks acting through a proxy absolves you of moral consequences
Oh, moral consequences? Not the legal ones?
Those are the ones you're supposed to feel deep down inside you and stuff right? Or something like that?
I totally have those.
So theres stuff on the docket what needs doing. We need to meet with:
- Ino
- Offer condolences, ask her how shes doing, offer the support of what frayed sanity we have left, invite to the harem, etc.
- Chouza
- Mostly the above. Ask for advice. How does he feel about a memorial for the fallen?
- Asuma
- We appreciate you doing this sir. Hiashi would be an unpleasant pick for us. All of our confidence etc etc.
- Work the Minami?
- Shino
- Flip this man like a 3am game of flip cup at a summertime frat house party.
- Hiashi poses a significant danger to Leaf's internal polifics. Should he get the Hat, he would have enough room to run circles around all the teenage clan heirs without breaking a sweat. Including the Aburame. Leaf will be Hyuuga owned within the next two decades.
- On the flipside: Asuma is almost as much of a straight shooter as Hazou is, and is good people to boot. Also far more neutral and leas likely to start rocking the boat or performing a hostile takeover.
- Minori
- Thanks for your service captain.
- If you wouldn't mind telling us what you can remember, exactly as you remember it. We would be beyond grateful.
- Hiashi WHAT?!?!
- Minami
- Before we talk shop: How have you been since we last spoke ma'am?
- Hiashi is the worstest, vote Sarutobi!
- Location
- Academy City
- Pronouns
- They
Honestly, I agree with the text of the quote "power flows from the barrel of a gun," but I think it is used wrong, and the idea that Mao intended to convey is equally so. Power flows from the barrel of a gun, sure, but it doesn't start or stop there. It comes from the trucks and cars and trains that brought the man and his gun there, and comes there from the industry that made the trucks and trains and guns and bullets, and flows to there from the workers that toiled in the factories and the leaders that decided to build those and the scientists and engineers that designed this industry, from the society that these people came. And it doesn't stop at the barrel of the gun, either; it goes to the hands of those with the choice to cooperate or refuse or to fight back, to those who are fired on and give up, losing their nerve, alongside those who do not, and all of the other myriad responses.
And it doesn't flow in just that one direction, either; those guns can capture factories and land that can feed and clothe people, to give a trivial example.
Power is the ability to do something. No less, but also no more. Power does not only flow from the barrel of the gun, nor do all kinds flow from it.
It's foolish to limit your understanding of power down to that of a direct martial conflict.
And it doesn't flow in just that one direction, either; those guns can capture factories and land that can feed and clothe people, to give a trivial example.
Power is the ability to do something. No less, but also no more. Power does not only flow from the barrel of the gun, nor do all kinds flow from it.
It's foolish to limit your understanding of power down to that of a direct martial conflict.
Implemented the joke a while ago. Any idea?
Raxner
The most dangerous man in an empty room
- Location
- Israel
Sure, I agree with you. I'm holding up Mao's statement to criticize it. I understand him to be saying that power is self-justifying. We (his "we" being, of course, the Communist Party of China) have the guns to rule you, and need no further justification for it than that. You cannot resist our power, and so you must endure it. Might makes right.
- Location
- Yes.
Isn't the entire harem joke in violation of the "Don't blurt out OPSEC sensitive info like Goketsu's maneuvers for the hat"?
Also, the whole idea of Ino joining Hazou's harem...maybe it's just me, but I don't see Ino finding it in good taste. I dunno.
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
She'll be pretty pissed, as a mild reaction
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
Agreed.
But I do think we should share some info about what we have been doing. Not the specifics, but the clans we think we turned.
Removed.