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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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Harrassment and Disruption is not cool. 50 points.
Aranfan said:
1. Virtue Ethics is nowhere near as inherently anti-paternalist as you claim, see Aristotle using them to justify slavery.

2. Deontology is clearly the most superior ethical option anyway, so she could be ignoring the virtue ethics in favor of another system.

3. Due to the goal oriented nature of quests, most quest protagonists are implicitly consequentialists of some sort, since that's the moral system with the greatest affinity with goal oriented motivations.

4. Until a legit moral quandary comes up none of this is relevant, and deciding to play matchmaker or not isn't commonly considered a moral quandary worthy of bringing actual fully fledged moral systems into it.
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1. Yes he did. But this is a modern virtue ethicist. And almost all modern virtue ethicists and deontologists believe in some degree of moral autonomy. Sabrina in particular is an emotional person- it's unlikely she'd reject the idea of moral autonomy.

2. AuraTwilight has insisted on several ocassions that Sabrina is more of a virtue ethicist. I do think deontology makes more sense, but because everyone else attacked me for it I decided to make a new proposal on the premise she was a virtue ethicist.

If Sabrina was a deontologist, we should have been acting considerably different than we have.

3. Sabrina isn't a consequentialist, as we've repeatedly refused to be efficient for the sake of results.

4. We're hurting Homura (at least in the short term), and are trying to pressure her into an unpleasant situation. IF (and this is what I was trying to confirm in the first place) Sabrina believes a version of virtue ethics with a concept of a moral right to freedom, she should be smart enough to put two and two together.
 
PhantomFractions said:
Though, speaking of rushes, does anyone know about Walpurgis yet? And if not, when do we think would be the best time to bring it up?
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I don't think so, no. Homura and us are the only two people who know about the Uberwitch right now, unless Mami found out about it through the same way she did during the first timeline, whatever that is. Frankly, I think we should leave revealing Walpurgisnacht to Homura's descretion. We don't want to raise more suspicions by revealing information we have no explicable way of knowing, and frankly, Walpurgisnacht is really that big of a deal with us around. Sure, she is a uberwitch, but even the strongest witch isn't going to be a significant threat to us.

Anyway, voting:
[X] Cook
-[X] Maybe something Italian?
[X] Talk to Homura
-[X] COOKING!
-[X] Get Mami involved. You must hatch a plan to make Homura healthier and not noodly and stuff!
[X] Telepathy Mami
-[X] Ask how she's holding up.
[X] Talk to everyone:
- [x] Subtly mention Oriko's secret warehouse of stuff. Gauge their reactions.

Edit: changed vote
 
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Well, if we're cooking with Mumi, maybe we should use Kokonuts instead? Or are we waiting a few days before we bring that up with Mami? :V
 
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Cannongerbil said:
I don't think so, no. Homura and us are the only two people who know about the Uberwitch right now, unless Mami found out about it through the same way she did during the first timeline, whatever that is. Frankly, I think we should leave revealing Walpurgisnacht to Homura's descretion. We don't want to raise more suspicions by revealing information we have no explicable way of knowing, and frankly, Walpurgisnacht is really that big of a deal with us around. Sure, she is a uberwitch, but even the strongest witch isn't going to be a significant threat to us.

Anyway, voting:
[X] Cook
-[X] Maybe something Italian?
[X] Talk to Homura
-[X] COOKING!
-[X] Get Mami involved. You must hatch a plan to make Homura healthier and not noodly and stuff!
[X] Telepathy Mami
-[X] Ask how she's holding up.
[X] Talk to everyone:
- [x] Subtly mention Oriko's secret warehouse of stuff. Gauge their reactions.
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Wouldn't it be a good thing if we could reveal how much Meta knowledge we have to the whole group? We'd have plenty of time to assure Madoka before the stress of Walpurgisnacht, and we could 'put our heads together' with the others about strategy a lot more easily.

As a side-effect, Madoka knowing about the timelines making shipping much easier. I don't see any downside, assuming we can persuade the group of the truth of what we say, of 'spilling all'.
 
Carinthium said:
If Sabrina was a deontologist, we should have been acting considerably different than we have.
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Not necessarily. Sabrina could just be shit at actually going through with morality. If Sabrina was a morally perfect deontology bot she'd be acting considerably differently, but I think a plausible case could be made for Sabrina trying to follow a deontological path and failing due to various moral imperfections. (I actually don't think Sabrina is a deontologist, see my next point)

This is, of course, assuming that she's actually trying to follow a particular morality. This isn't a sure bet considering that she's had no time to actually think through this shit since she appeared dying in the alley.

Carinthium said:
3. Sabrina isn't a consequentialist, as we've repeatedly refused to be efficient for the sake of results.
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Efficient at what? There is no generic efficiency, what is efficient at killing Walmartnight is not going to be wwhat's efficient at keeping our social circle alive and emotionally stable. Keeping our social circle alive and emotionally stable seems to be the goal Sabrina is chasing after, and I think a very strong case could be made that Sabrina is implicitly a consequentialist who is judging things by that metric. (But I'm not going to make that case because this entire conversation is at best tangentially related to the topic.)

And again, we need to control for SV being shit at execution, just because Sabrina is trying to do something doesn't mean she's succeeding.

Carinthium said:
4. We're hurting Homura (at least in the short term), and are trying to pressure her into an unpleasant situation. IF (and this is what I was trying to confirm in the first place) Sabrina believes a version of virtue ethics with a concept of a moral right to freedom, she should be smart enough to put two and two together.
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Sabrina had no idea playing matchmaker would be painful for Homura, especially since Homura and Madoka so obviously make an adorable couple and the emotional dedication is clearly there on Homura's end.

I'll reiterate, playing matchmaker is not what is commonly considered a big deal in the moral realm.
 
Carinthium said:
I don't see any downside, assuming we can persuade the group of the truth of what we say, of 'spilling all'.
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The downside of spilling all the metaknowledge is that we don't know how we got that knowledge, and more pertinently, we can't explain how we got that knowledge to others in a believable way. Considering that amongst those bits of knowledge are: intimate details of the girl's daily lives, knowledge of things that haven't happened yet, and the names and nature of witches, revealing that we know those things is just going to raise their suspicions.
 
ARANFAN:

On Deontology and Consequentialism: I'm going on an Archive Binge so I can properly scrutinise your arguments.

-Noting that Sabrina has lied before. This is a point in favour of her being a Consequentialist or Virtue Ethicist and against Deontology.


On Matchmaker:
Prior to the incident, your defence upgrades the action from clearly wrong to dubious on my best approximation of virtue ethics. On a deontological basis, I suppose it could be fine but see my arguments on that.

That being said, post-incident things have changed. We know this is painful for Homura and that we are putting her through it against her will. If we believe she has a right to make decisions for herself, then who are we to try and get rid of that right?

Followup: Admittedly I'd be arrogant to say this was definitely so, but IF I could assume that Sabrina had read the arguments between Preference and Hedonistic Utilitarians and the relevance of Nozick's Experience Machine to those arguments, it would be a decisive argument in my favor.

CANNONGERBIL:
Mami Tomoe and Akemi Homura will most definitely defend Sabrina given what we have done in the thread for each of them. Madoka is highly trusting. This leaves Sayaka as potentially being suspicious. We can supplement this by emotional pleading that we honestly don't know how we know these things.

Alternately, we could go for a 'TV show theory'. This would be a lie rather than Fourth Wall breaking, but we claim we had watched an anime where these exact events played out, which is how we knew so much in advance. We could then use facts from our real world knowledge to supplement this lie and make it work. There isn't a single anomaly anyone can call us on.
 
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Watching you guys arguing with him is a bit sad a painful. For the simple fact that you guys are clearly not having fun with that and are probably getting pissed off.

Is this really what you want to spend time doing?
 
Carinthium, I don't think you are quite getting why you were banned in the first place, so let me spell it out as clearly as I can for you. Nobody in this thread is interested in arguing ethics or moral systems. Everyone who came into this thread is here because they are a fan of PMMM, enjoys quests, think Firn is a pretty good writer, or some combination of the above. That why they participated in this thread, and is what this topic is about, which is why you bringing in ethics is considered Thread Derailing, IE talking about stuff that is of no relevance to the thread.

Now, in and of itself, that isn't a serious offence. Just about everyone in this thread have gone off topic at one point or another (Microwaved tea, Ugomura, kokonuts, etc), but everyone is fine with that because those derails are enjoyable and do not disrupt the discussion. You, on the other hand, in your infinite wisdom, chose to continue to persist in your thread derailment despite EVERY SINGLE PERSON in this thread telling you repeatedly to stop, ruining the enjoyment of the thread's participants. Your points may have value, or they might not, it doesn't matter, because this thread is not the place to be discussing those things.

Now couple that with your condescending attitude, the refusal to admit that you are wrong in any way, your dedication to pursuing the argument no one wants to have until you get a result that satisfies you, and you understand why everyone in this thread seems to hate your guts.
 
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ComCom III 15.4; disrupting the thread with incessant off-topic posts
Garlak- I don't know about eveyrone else, but for my part I am trying to explain myself in the hope that at least some others will see the light about at least some of what I say, thus supporting my further objective of helping give Sabrina rational battle strategies.

Don't forget that it was blind luck that SV beat Oriko. If not for that, it would have been a close call and we could easily have lost.

Cannongerbil said:
Carinthium, I don't think you are quite getting why you were banned in the first place, so let me spell it out as clearly as I can for you. Nobody in this thread is interested in arguing ethics or moral systems. Everyone who came into this thread is here because they are a fan of PMMM, enjoys quests, think Firn is a pretty good writer, or some combination of the above. That why they participated in this thread, and is what this topic is about, which is why you bringing in ethics is considered Thread Derailing, IE talking about stuff that is of no relevance to the thread.

Now, in and of itself, that isn't a serious offence. Just about everyone in this thread have gone off topic at one point or another (Microwaved tea, Ugomura, kokonuts, etc), but everyone is fine with that because they are enjoying it and those derails do not disrupt the discussion. You, on the other hand, in your infinite wisdom, chose to continue to persist in your thread derailment despite EVERY SINGLE PERSON in this thread telling you repeatedly to stop, ruining the enjoyment of the thread's participants. Your points may have value, or they might not, it doesn't matter, because this thread is not the place to be discussing those things.

Now couple that with your condescending attitude, the refusal to admit that you are wrong in any way, your dedication to pursuing the argument no one wants to have until you get a result that satisfies you, and you understand the extreme hate for you in this thread.
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It's inconsistent for people to say something like that and at the same time attack my proposals for being immoral (remember what was said with my Sayaka Miki plan)? The only way to have a discussion about morality is through philosophical ethics or having it be a purely feelings-based debate, which is futile and useless.

When I make a suggestion, there is always a chain of reasoning behind it. Metaphorically speaking, it could be compared to a tree- the root is my conclusion, the ends of the branches are my starting points, and they all reach towards the conclusion. It is quite impossible for me to explain myself when I resort to serious reasoning without using such complicated points as ethics and Bayesian probability. The alternative is to not explain why I believe things, which really would be arbitrary and arrogant.

"Every single person" is a clear argument ad populum. That's been known be a fallacy since Aristotle's day.

EDIT: Finally, say I want to attack a SPECIFIC ACTION SABRINA MAKES IN THIS THREAD. The only place I can do that is THIS THREAD, or I am being OFF TOPIC, even in an Ethics thread!
 
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@Carinthium
I don't care. This is a debate about playing matchmaker between Homura and Madoka. This is not a big deal. This is not Rochelle needing to eat sapients or near sapients to survive and where do Dolphins fall in that line anyway (Witch Quest). This is not Sayaka needing to kill people to protect her territory (Sayaka Quest). This isn't about what to do with Hildegard (a more pressing moral question in this very quest). This isn't even Homura's grand act of Paternalism (you know what I'm talking about if you've seen Rebellion).

The stakes are so low that anyone who isn't a morally perfect robot won't care. Any moral failing in this case is well within acceptable bounds of error for a fallible human like Sabrina.
 
Carinthium said:
Various things
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So, before we continue, do you have an actual vote for this update? Many things keep happening and all I see is somethingsomethingmoralitysomething without any discussion on a specific course of action. As has been noted, if you're here purely for the ethics debate, then you are in the wrong place and please leave, it's cluttering the thread. I came here for questing, not three pages of Deontology. If you have something specific to the update you want to discuss, then fine, but you do a fairly terrible job at presentation. I see much jargon in paragraphs that don't seem to lead anywhere, there's no unification behind your points that I can detect, and, in general, tendency to argue against things rather than provide a cogent vote for the current situation.

The first two just mean you need practice writing, which is fine, nobody expects the thread to consist of god-tier writers who can present their arguments well. The last one is substantially more problematic, as discussion and argumentation without a plan of action is meaningless words.

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Re: Vote:

So... there's been a lot of Cute lately....

Is anyone else starting to get paranoid vibes that something bad is about to happen?

[X] Cook
-[X] Maybe something Italian?
[X] Talk to Homura
-[X] COOKING!
-[X] Get Mami involved. You must hatch a plan to make Homura healthier and not noodly and stuff!
[X] Telepathy Mami
-[X] Ask how she's holding up.
[X] Talk to everyone:
- [x] Subtly mention Oriko's secret warehouse of stuff. Gauge their reactions.
 
IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN.

@Everyone else, why not just do what Firn say and just don't reply to him? Stubborn people like him simple refuse to lose (or don't understand the concept of backing down) and I'm more interested in the quest and what's going on.

Also, what the hell does ethics have to do with anything right now? IC-Sabrina was talking about how to ship Homu with Mado for god sake!

Anyway, on topic: Right now we're kinda divided between two votes, one with Coconuts (and silly vote overall) and one that's less silly. I'm going with less silly, because well, silly vote is silly. Just an FYI for those who was busy skipping condescending wall of text post like I did.

-[] Maybe something Italian?
[] Talk to Homura
-[] COOKING!
-[] Get Mami involved. You must hatch a plan to make Homura healthier and not noodly and stuff! Maybe something involving coconuts. Coconuts? Coconuts. Coconuts.
[] Telepathy Mami
-[] Ask how she's holding up.
[] Movie night!
[] Wonder out loud about the FUTURE known as Microwavable tea.

[X] Cook
-[X] Maybe something Italian?
[X] Talk to Homura
-[X] COOKING!
-[X] Get Mami involved. You must hatch a plan to make Homura healthier and not noodly and stuff!
[X] Telepathy Mami
-[X] Ask how she's holding up.
[X] Talk to everyone:
- [X] Subtly mention Oriko's secret warehouse of stuff. Gauge their reactions.
Crasian01 said:
Is anyone else starting to get paranoid vibes that something bad is about to happen?
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I'll be shocked if feces does not hit the rotary object sometime over the next few updates.
 
Crasian01 said:
So, before we continue, do you have an actual vote for this update? Many things keep happening and all I see is somethingsomethingmoralitysomething without any discussion on a specific course of action. As has been noted, if you're here purely for the ethics debate, then you are in the wrong place and please leave, it's cluttering the thread. I came here for questing, not three pages of Deontology. If you have something specific to the update you want to discuss, then fine, but you do a fairly terrible job at presentation. I see much jargon in paragraphs that don't seem to lead anywhere, there's no unification behind your points that I can detect, and, in general, tendency to argue against things rather than provide a cogent vote for the current situation.

The first two just mean you need practice writing, which is fine, nobody expects the thread to consist of god-tier writers who can present their arguments well. The last one is substantially more problematic, as discussion and argumentation without a plan of action is meaningless words.

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Re: Vote:

So... there's been a lot of Cute lately....

Is anyone else starting to get paranoid vibes that something bad is about to happen?

[X] Cook
-[X] Maybe something Italian?
[X] Talk to Homura
-[X] COOKING!
-[X] Get Mami involved. You must hatch a plan to make Homura healthier and not noodly and stuff!
[X] Telepathy Mami
-[X] Ask how she's holding up.
[X] Talk to everyone:
- [x] Subtly mention Oriko's secret warehouse of stuff. Gauge their reactions.
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The Cute Gods have blessed us with healing and healing is what the thread relishes in.
 
AranFan- Even somebody like Sabrina, assuming she has knowledge of Virtue Ethics, should see the problem because even the most basic philosophical training should demonstrate it. If she was aware of the problem and somehow rationalised it, I would consider that acceptable as long as the rationalisation was good enough, whether or not it stands up to good reasoning. The problem is that she hasn't even thought of this.

Still trying to thread binge but distracted by Alerts.

Crasion01- I voted earlier, so now I'm just adding proposals to try and persuade others which matter for the long term, not the short term. The problem is that these are all issues which 'pivot' around complex questions. The reasoning behind my earlier Sayaka plan was dependent both upon Bayesian probability and the Amoralist Challenge. The reasoning behind my current plan is based on the posit that Sabrina knows virtue ethics. I am trying to attack the idea that our matchmaker plan is morally acceptable behaviour, which must be acceptable given people attacked my plans on moral grounds.

RazorBlaxe- If people have a moral right to make their own decisions, then we are infringing upon that right in the story's scenario. Homura does not want our help. The way Sabrina is being played, we aren't going to take no for an answer. How is this not a violation of her right to her own decisions?
 
Carinthium said:
Crasion01- I voted earlier, so now I'm just adding proposals to try and persuade others which matter for the long term, not the short term. The problem is that these are all issues which 'pivot' around complex questions. The reasoning behind my earlier Sayaka plan was dependent both upon Bayesian probability and the Amoralist Challenge. The reasoning behind my current plan is based on the posit that Sabrina knows virtue ethics. I am trying to attack the idea that our matchmaker plan is morally acceptable behaviour, which must be acceptable given people attacked my plans on moral grounds.
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Your argumentation is meaningless.

We have no capacity to predict the future, and the behaviour of humans is inherently chaotic. Attempting to form plans based on perceived constants of behaviour is inevitably doomed to failure. Among other things, this is why it is critical to deal only with the current update.
 
Carinthium said:
"Every single person" is a clear argument ad populum. That's been known be a fallacy since Aristotle's day.
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Statement: You continue to perpetuate an argument nobody wants to have
Therefore: Everyone in the thread hates you

This is not argumentum ad populum. That rveryone in this thread dislikes you is a fact. I am postulating the reason for that, in the vain hope that this will cause you to reflect on your actions and better understand what you are doing wrong. Alas, I can see now that this is a futile endeavour.
 
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Carinthium said:
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Goddammit can't you just say what you want us to do or not do like everyone else? I can't even figure out what this is about. We don't need an "in character reason" not to do something, we just need to "not vote to do it". Which raises the implication that you're trying to use "Sabrina would consider this to be morally wrong" as a bludgeon to force the GM to make the character do or not do something contrary to the majority vote.

If you have a plan, then you need to convince people to follow it, not argue that their other plans are somehow out of character for the main character. Especially by being so obtuse that no-one even knows what plan you're objecting to.
 
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Crasion01-
That's not entirely true even for ordinary humans. Many a general in history has been able to suceed because he anticipated the enemy's plans, often through knowledge of their psyche. With only ordinary knowledge there are limits, but Otto Von Bismarck and Cavour the Savoyard politician are proof long term plans can be created through a knowledge of the situation and the major players. Both of them had long term plans towards their goal- they suffered setbacks at times, but were able to adjust based on a long term plan.

Ours isn't an ordinary situation, however. Watching PMMM gives us a much better understanding of these girls than an ordinary person could ever have of another person. As Ugolino pointed out, we have had a front row seat to Sayaka's breakdown. We've seen how all of these girls behave under stress. We've even seen their internal thought processes!

In addition, we have Akemi Homura. Homura has gone through hundreds of timelines, and so should be able to predict these people even better. Being fourteen she doesn't have a collective brain as good as ours, but she has a lot more knowledge than we do. If we'd coordinated and swapped notes as it were, we would be in a much better posistion.

Also noting you haven't adressed the fact I think the matchmaker plot is morally henious according to the very virtue ethics Sabrina follows.

Cannongerbil-
I don't back down when I'm right (o.k if the stakes was something like execution I would, but that's a different matter). And I'm willing to accept being hated as a price of this. Therefore you have no rational argument against what I'm doing.

Random832-
If I were to simply state my conclusions, you would have no idea why I wanted to do what I wanted to do. If I were to try and give simplistic reasoning, I would be disrespecting you people by flat out lying about my motivation. For clarification, at this point, what I am advocating is simple: Put a stop to the plan to set up Madoka Kaname and Homura Akemi. Why is a lot more complicated, but basically I'm claiming it morally wrong.

People attacked my earlier plans as being OOC for Sabrina, so I'm using that same standard to attack them for something which logically should be OOC if Sabrina knows Virtue Ethics. I'm not trying to bludgeon the GM- I'm trying to persuade the players. I'm not going to attack the GM for writing out the player vote no matter how OOC it is- just the players who voted for it.

---------------------------------------------------

To help Random832 out, I'm going to try and simplify my argument as much as I can. I divide my argument into two parts.

ARGUMENT A: Noting this is an argument which should be clear enough someone like myself, linkhyrule5, or AuraTwilight MUST be able to comprehend it. Assuming we are trying to apply virtue ethics or deontology to a situation, we would most DEFINITELY think of it.
Premise: Human beings have a right to make their own decisions about their love lives.
Premise: By trying to set up Homura Akemi with Madoka Kaname, we are going against how she wants her to behave in a matter of her own love life.
Conclusion: We are violating her rights.

ARGUMENT B:
Premise: Sabrina knows everything the thread knows
Premise: AuraTwilight and linkhyrule5, as well as myself, are members of this thread.
Premise: We would be aware of Argument A. (we all appear to have some degree of philosophical training, so it boggles the mind to think any of us would fail to see it if trying to apply virtue ethics or deontology)
Conclusion: Sabrina would realise Argument A.
 
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