And so you jump to replying to me as if I want to murder babies. Got to say, that's super abrasive.
I don't think power without accountability can be sustainable good. I don't think accountibility can be maintained if the polity is divided into 'us' and 'them' groups- 'we' will act against 'them' in defense of group, without reference to ideals or facts. (This is why I do strongly believe in "we is everybody".) I think the seperation into 'immortal' automatically creates a group of at least one, and so I do think all supernatural immortals will trend towards tyranny in power. (Ulthan might be a good example of this leading up to the was of the beard.) I think the good ones know this and that's why you have kings and emperors ruling rather than the gods and ancestors and good dragons.
So, no, I don't have a problem with vampires as citizens, if the law enforcement is in a position to dectect and punish crimes. I DO have a problem with vampires in long-term positions of authority.
I actually do agree with everything said here, apart from the very first line that puts words on my mouths that I never implied. So, apologies for hanging on to that, but I want to show my original quote to clear the waters
In a world where all power is extrinsic (economical, political etc) you may be right.
But when we talk about powers intrinsic to the person's being (magic, superpowers, vampirism, super training) things become a lot more iffy. It suddenly gains the unfortunate implication that all people born with a power should be killed as babies... or at least that they should never train it, never actualise it, never use it to help, sacrifice a part of their being cuz it does not conform. You can see why even people from the political left may see that as something fully undesirable. When parables aren't 1:1 such problems are created, but what can you do.
I also am too much on the political left to not advocate rehabilitation based punishment when/if the need of self defense or defense of another or defense of another or righteous revolution is extinct, so there is that too.
Let us see how many ways I did NOT act as if anyone here said that we should murder babies. Honestly, context adds a lot of qualifiers to that eye-popping sentence.
I pointed out that this logic is sound in real life, but it creates unforeseen problems when powers are intrinsic. This implies that I do understand where its coming from and normally agree, just that intristic powers create an unforeseen variable to that problem. I then pointed out that variable: babies would in such a scenario be strongmen,something that does not happen in rl and, as thus, is logically overlooked. In other words, I pointed out how that logic works in a world with intristic power, I did not say that anyone here supported murdering babies,I just pointed out how that logic leads to that when powers are intristic. Such a blind spot is logical and everyone, including me, could have made it, because people usually do not live in a world where powers are intristic, so I merely pointed out its existence so that it could be taken into account and the logic could e reexamined in the constraints of a fantasy universe.
I also added an alternative final result, assuming people would want to eliminate the strength instead of the strongman, showing how that logic would not lead solely to murdering babies, just that it was one place where it could lead in such a universe, so no, I did not even call proponents of such logic in intristic power universes baby killers.
I apologize if I am a tiny bit irate, but when people take the bit I used to add context to how that logic would work in another universe and use it to claim that I made a major accusation, just because the phrase I used was eye-popping, by using the most extreme of my examples no less, in order to disregard the rest of my argument and attack my character it feels just a tad unjust to me
Maybe a pretention of an imagined moral high-ground does not outstrip the lives of innocent people in terms of priority.
A pretention of an imagined moral high-ground does not outstrip the lives of innocent people in terms of priority.
Edit: may have crossed a line here by bringing up political stuff as examples, so erasing my point here.
Morality is complicated for people, not everything people disagree on is grandstanding, and it is my opinion that it shouldn't be dismissed as such.
