Worm Morality Debate Thread

[greendoor]

But again, it's still basically ignoring/sweeping crimes right under the rug to the point that said laws might as well not exist.

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No, i'm saying the good things pay back for the crimes. That's not sweeping them under the Rug.

Don't start backpedaling here. YOU said that participating in said fights, it counts as redemption. But now you're saying when the threat is over, said villains aren't necessary anymore? Which is it?
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People can't have multiple motivations for something? Part of the reason I think the Undersiders should be left alone is because their useful, partially because I think they've mostly or totally made up for their crimes. When they stop being useful, if they start making trouble again, by all means, arrest them. If they don't, I see no reason to go after them.

What if the cop was your father? What if the cop didn't die, but was permanently disabled? What if the bank takes so much damage and loss that they have to recoup their losses by giving out layoffs, ruining more lives in the process? What if the money stolen exchanges hands towards people who either intentionally or even unintentionally fuck up a lot of lives?

There's seriously a lot of underlying factors you're ignoring here..

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Well, if the cop was my father, then my opinion is worth less because i'd be biased from the start. And if you can add arbitrary additions, so can I. What if the guy used the bank's money to help feed his family? What if the cops were using excessive force? What if the bank is corrupt?

Try putting it this way.

You're part of a unit made for keeping peace in a city. And one day this new gang starts doing all sorts of crap, unable to be caught and generally get a lot of power in the underworld. One day, a bigger criminal rolls in and said gang comes in and says they want to help. Even if you needed the help, what makes you think for one second you can actually TRUST them? (This is actually something i HATED from the story, Taylor clearly keeps doing untrustworthy things and then turns around saying the Heroes should be the ones to offer trust)

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If this gang doesn't have a reputation for being murderous assholes and have helped multiple times against previous bigger threats, i'd be inclined to give a little trust if the threat is real.

If we're talking from an universal perspective, a single, insignificant blue planet means nothing.

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Ok, again, stop putting words in my mouth. It's fairly obvious from context that by in universe perspective I am talking about from the perspective of the actual society in the Wormverse, not some bullshit abstract universe wide perspective.

 

[Leila Hann]

Fine. Get rid of the PRT/Protectorate altogether then. Clearly just have Taylor follow through on her threat when she turned herself in and just expose them all and let them die out as an organization altogether. Let the villains run everything since clearly the law is nothing more then a hindrance.

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Better option would have been a non-corrupt PRT and Protectorate, created by a more competent Cauldron, headed by almost anyone besides Doctor Mother.

But since we don't have that, we're forced to pick the least bad choice.

 

[SeptimusMagisto]

The problem with a 'less corrupt' PRT is that it really narrows your candidate pool. They wouldn't have been able to accept people like Shadow Stalker or Armsmaster, much less someone like Skitter. You work with the tools you're given, you know?

 

[Leila Hann]

The problem with a 'less corrupt' PRT is that it really narrows your candidate pool. They wouldn't have been able to accept people like Shadow Stalker or Armsmaster, much less someone like Skitter. You work with the tools you're given, you know?

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If it hadn't been for people like Armsmaster and Shadow Stalker in the Protectorate, more people like Skitter and Grue would have probably joined them instead of turning villain.

 

[Thrice.Great]

One reason Worm morality is hard to debate, is any application of our current understanding of the subject is inaccurate because we don't have superpowers.

We can draw really inaccurate parallels, but there are no laws against mind control in our real world (I just googled that exact subject... there are a lot of crazy people out there), and there are no Endbringers.

If there were Endbringers, literal kaiju that showed up every three months and killed fucking everybody in a geographical area, would I want villains to have an incentive to help out? I'm going to say yes; I want more soldiers fighting against the unkillable god-monsters.

Will all villains participate out of a sense of decency? No, they're fucking villains, why would they suddenly be altruistic?

What can villains be offered as an incentive? Money? They can just steal that. Prestige? In whose eyes, the law? Psht.

Clemency. Ah, now that works. If I know you'll let me get away with lesser crimes for helping with Endbringers, then I totally will commit myself to that task. I'm of course also protecting my investment by saving the location of my operations, but that's almost secondary; I can move my gang elsewhere and still succeed (see: The Teeth).

So I agree with the people that say Wormverse legal issues are a question of pragmatism: How can we not get water-murdered by Leviathan? Throw more cannon fodder at him. Is the Worm world less ethical than ours? No, not really, because it's a subjective question and you can't put things on a ethic-o-meter and get hard data.

So, to sum up. Ethics and Morals are social constructs. They have no weight other than what the society they originate in give them. Wormverse societies care more about living through January than locking up supervillains. Supervillains can fight Endbringers. Society is fine with moving the line for what is considered Birdcage worthy if society benefits in the process. Not being Behemoth'd will benefit society.

I'm more interested in the Yang Ban. Are state conscripted super-soldiers an effective choice? If the US PRT could infallibly mind control every cape (villain and hero) into a single synergistic force, should they/would they?

 

[Leila Hann]

I'm more interested in the Yang Ban. Are state conscripted super-soldiers an effective choice? If the US PRT could infallibly mind control every cape (villain and hero) into a single synergistic force, should they/would they?

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In-universe, I'd say no.

Knowing as I do that "superheroes" are actually infected by mind-controlling Lovecraft monsters that are planning to eat us all eventually? Not sure.

 

[Polokun]

See, I hear all this talk about paying back from crimes and clemency, and it constantly reminds me of this scenario I read in a webcomic once.

There was a doctor who was quite possibly on the brink of curing cancer. The problem? He was also a serial child molester and murderer. His assistant found out and was on the brink of telling, but then the Doctor held over his head that his wife was dying of cancer. The doctor was basically cackling evil, basically stating that either the assistant lets him continue his sick perversion, or let his wife die.

Now yes, I admit this situation is very specific and extreme, but I wanted it to serve two points:

1: If you're willing to turn a blind eye to a crime you fully know of and could stop, does that not mean you're now just as guilty for letting it happen?

2: If its clearly only about numbers/society at large, then how many crimes do said villain have to do before it becomes "wrong"?

See, this is the problem when it comes to basing a villains crimes simply by numbers and pragmatism: What if the Slaughterhouse 9 decided to fight Endbringers, but STILL continued to do their fucked up crimes around the world in between? Would that mean that their crimes would be ignored as well?

 

[Leila Hann]

See, I hear all this talk about paying back from crimes and clemency, and it constantly reminds me of this scenario I read in a webcomic once.

There was a doctor who was quite possibly on the brink of curing cancer. The problem? He was also a serial child molester and murderer. His assistant found out and was on the brink of telling, but then the Doctor held over his head that his wife was dying of cancer. The doctor was basically cackling evil, basically stating that either the assistant lets him continue his sick perversion, or let his wife die.

Now yes, I admit this situation is very specific and extreme, but I wanted it to serve two points:

1: If you're willing to turn a blind eye to a crime you fully know of and could stop, does that not mean you're now just as guilty for letting it happen?

2: If its clearly only about numbers/society at large, then how many crimes do said villain have to do before it becomes "wrong"?

See, this is the problem when it comes to basing a villains crimes simply by numbers and pragmatism: What if the Slaughterhouse 9 decided to fight Endbringers, but STILL continued to do their fucked up crimes around the world in between? Would that mean that their crimes would be ignored as well?

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In this case, you could easily imprison the doctor and force him to finish his cure in captivity.

That's not true of getting supervilains to fight endbringers.

 

[Polokun]

In this case, you could easily imprison the doctor and force him to finish his cure in captivity.

That's not true of getting supervilains to fight endbringers.

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I mean, let's say there was supposed out and out evil psychotic villain who gets his jollies killing, maiming,torturing, raping etc. across countries, but if his crimes are calculated as being under what an Endbringer could do and he fights them all the time, it's basically a "Get Out Of Jail Free" Card that he can lord over all of them.

Hell, he could outright brag to other heroes about how he did horrible things to their loved ones again and again and again, or even DO said crimes right blatantly in front of them, but because of pragmatism? His crimes might as well have not occurred at all. It basically reduces ethics/morality to something that can be objectively measured and weighed like money.

 

[Leila Hann]

I mean, let's say there was supposed out and out evil psychotic villain who gets his jollies killing, maiming,torturing, raping etc. across countries, but if his crimes are calculated as being under what an Endbringer could do and he fights them all the time, it's basically a "Get Out Of Jail Free" Card that he can lord over all of them.

Hell, he could outright brag to other heroes about how he did horrible things to their loved ones again and again and again, or even DO said crimes right blatantly in front of them, but because of pragmatism? His crimes might as well have not occurred at all. It basically reduces ethics/morality to something that can be objectively measured and weighed like money.

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Except that explicitly isn't what the heroes do. Case in point: the Slaughterhouse Nine.

There's a line that villains can cross that makes them kill-on-sight. Sure, that line isn't drawn consistently, or fairly, but it does exist.

 

[Arcman]

King Stannis is the absolute worst person to cite here, because King Stannis has no problem getting away with blatantly shady shit like condemning people to be burned alive in accordance to some psycho religion he barely even believes in because some zealot tells him it might benefit his fight.

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Stannis only burns criminals, like cannibals, rapists, and murderers. In the books at least.

He had Cortnay Penrose assassinated so he can have his brother's son sacrificed for fucks sake. Stannis's sense of justice only applies when it happens to other people.

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No, he didn't. He had Contnay Penrose assassinated because he needed Storms End taken before he made his assault on Kings Landing. He wasn't going to burn his Brother's bastard, despite being asked to do it by Mel and all her supporters. He was resisting to do so till Davos had him ferried away.

 

[Polokun]

Except that explicitly isn't what the heroes do. Case in point: the Slaughterhouse Nine.

There's a line that villains can cross that makes them kill-on-sight. Sure, that line isn't drawn consistently, or fairly, but it does exist.

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The problem is, that line could be defined as "They don't fight the Endbringers."

Well what if they did? What if they did fight the Endbringers, but STILL do their horrific crimes in between? From a logical, pragmatic outlook, the amount of deaths they cause is still technically less then the Endbringers. So why would you stop them? You could easily argue that by stopping them in that case, you'd be causing more deaths that they could invariably prevent.

 

[Leila Hann]

The problem is, that line could be defined as "They don't fight the Endbringers."

Well what if they did? What if they did fight the Endbringers, but STILL do their horrific crimes in between? From a logical, pragmatic outlook, the amount of deaths they cause is still technically less then the Endbringers. So why would you stop them? You could easily argue that by stopping them in that case, you'd be causing more deaths that they could invariably prevent.

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Because hard utilitarianism only works for mindless robots and not people?

 

[Polokun]

Because hard utilitarianism only works for mindless robots and not people?

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It's exactly the same thing as greendoor and Thrice.Great have been espousing, just on a more serious scale.

 

[Leila Hann]

It's exactly the same thing as greendoor and Thrice.Great have been espousing, just on a more serious scale.

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There's a line that has to be drawn somewhere. Where the line should be drawn is a matter of opinion.

Besides which, you need to take into account that sending more capes against the Endbringers just reduces the amount of damage they cause, it doesn't eliminate it. So, would the slaughterhouse 9 fighting the endbringers REDUCE the kill count of their rampages by a greater number than the s9 will murder in the meantime? Even if I was a pure-utilitarian robot who only cared about headcounts, I doubt they would break even.

 

[Polokun]

There's a line that has to be drawn somewhere. Where the line should be drawn is a matter of opinion.

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To quote Thrice:

So, to sum up. Ethics and Morals are social constructs. They have no weight other than what the society they originate in give them. Wormverse societies care more about living through January than locking up supervillains. Supervillains can fight Endbringers. Society is fine with moving the line for what is considered Birdcage worthy if society benefits in the process. Not being Behemoth'd will benefit society.

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So really, the supposed "line" wouldn't be worth anything compared to an Endbringer.

 

[Leila Hann]

To quote Thrice:



So really, the supposed "line" wouldn't be worth anything compared to an Endbringer.

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Can you rephrase this? I don't think I follow.

 

[Leila Hann]

Also, edited my post that you quoted.

 

[TreeFrogSoup]

The problem is, that line could be defined as "They don't fight the Endbringers."

Well what if they did? What if they did fight the Endbringers, but STILL do their horrific crimes in between? From a logical, pragmatic outlook, the amount of deaths they cause is still technically less then the Endbringers. So why would you stop them? You could easily argue that by stopping them in that case, you'd be causing more deaths that they could invariably prevent.

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Because the Endbringers stomp hundreds of heroes each time? Because even top tier capes like Alexandria, Eidolon and Legend can only hold them off for seconds?

Because there's hundreds more capes fighting?

You don't wager is as and X or Y scenario. There's bits added to need to consider. What if they are useless? What if they die? What if they don't show up often while being useful?

Hell, they are arguably allies with the Endbringers considering some of their members. Stopping them is basically stopping any Simurgh timebomb.

 

[Leila Hann]

There's also the social contract to consider. Even if, from a strictly rational perspective, any given person is at greater risk from the endbringers than they are from supervillains (which might not even be true), if villains can go around raping and killing at will, people lose all faith in the government and society totally collapses. Then the endbringers have really won.

Even from a soullessly pragmatic viewpoint, the line has to be drawn before that point.

 

[Polokun]

Can you rephrase this? I don't think I follow.

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Let's say a hero captures a villain who's known for a lot of sick twisted crap on multiple people, but basically is only in the triple digits. His superiors tell him however that instead of killing him, his sentence would be "commuted" if he fights the Enbringer that's expected to come soon. Said villain agrees and not only helps out majorly, but even helps save some heroes in the process.

The week after, the hero comes home to find his wife dead and mutilated horribly on the floor, the villain sitting in a chair gloating. The hero is on the brink of killing the villain, but the villain merely points out that in the process, he'd also end up killing all the heroes that would have died in the next Endbringer attack, he boasts proudly how this "one, insignificant life" he snuffed out is nothing compared to his contribution to said attacks. And that finally, by letting him go and fight in the first place, said hero is just as guilty for his wife's death.

Because the Endbringers stomp hundreds of heroes each time? Because even top tier capes like Alexandria, Eidolon and Legend can only hold them off for seconds?

Because there's hundreds more capes fighting?

You don't wager is as and X or Y scenario. There's bits added to need to consider. What if they are useless? What if they die? What if they don't show up often while being useful?

Hell, they are arguably allies with the Endbringers considering some of their members. Stopping them is basically stopping any Simurgh timebomb.

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You're still missing the point. What's stopping the S9 from contributing in Endbringer fights, just to get their crimes constantly overlooked?

There's also the social contract to consider. Even if, from a strictly rational perspective, any given person is at greater risk from the endbringers than they are from supervillains (which might not even be true), if villains can go around raping and killing at will, people lose all faith in the government and society totally collapses. Then the endbringers have really won.

Even from a soullessly pragmatic viewpoint, the line has to be drawn before that point.

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From a pragmatic POV, worrying about people's opinions of view is an irrational and purely social-made concept that wouldn't be seen as more important as saving lives.

 

[Leila Hann]

Let's say a hero captures a villain who's known for a lot of sick twisted crap on multiple people, but basically is only in the triple digits. His superiors tell him however that instead of killing him, his sentence would be "commuted" if he fights the Enbringer that's expected to come soon. Said villain agrees and not only helps out majorly, but even helps save some heroes in the process.

The week after, the hero comes home to find his wife dead and mutilated horribly on the floor, the villain sitting in a chair gloating. The hero is on the brink of killing the villain, but the villain merely points out that in the process, he'd also end up killing all the heroes that would have died in the next Endbringer attack, he boasts proudly how this "one, insignificant life" he snuffed out is nothing compared to his contribution to said attacks. And that finally, by letting him go and fight in the first place, said hero is just as guilty for his wife's death.

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Reduce the villain's kill count some, and that's something that might actually happen in the Wormverse. Good fanfic idea, you should write it.

To refute your intended point though,

From a pragmatic POV, worrying about people's opinions of view is an irrational and purely social-made concept that wouldn't be seen as more important as saving lives.

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People's views might be irrational, but it is NOT irrational to take the repurcussions of those views into account.

If people like Jack Slash were allowed to go free because he was effective against the Endbringers, people would openly rise against the government. Infrastructure would collapse. Organizations like the Protectorate would completely fall apart without funding. There'd be anarchy and civil war everywhere, and the endbringers would stomp through the chaos unopposed.

The Powers That Be in the wormverse already went too far in that direction, imo, letting people like Kaiser operate. His victims being mostly black probably had something to do with that decision.

 

[Thrice.Great]

Let's say a hero captures a villain who's known for a lot of sick twisted crap on multiple people, but basically is only in the triple digits. His superiors tell him however that instead of killing him, his sentence would be "commuted" if he fights the Enbringer that's expected to come soon. Said villain agrees and not only helps out majorly, but even helps save some heroes in the process.

The week after, the hero comes home to find his wife dead and mutilated horribly on the floor, the villain sitting in a chair gloating. The hero is on the brink of killing the villain, but the villain merely points out that in the process, he'd also end up killing all the heroes that would have died in the next Endbringer attack, he boasts proudly how this "one, insignificant life" he snuffed out is nothing compared to his contribution to said attacks. And that finally, by letting him go and fight in the first place, said hero is just as guilty for his wife's death.



You're still missing the point. What's stopping the S9 from contributing in Endbringer fights, just to get their crimes overlooked

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Well despite your Appeal to Consequences argument, the hero could just kill the villain anyway and make use of the exact same loophole the villain did to escape punishment.

we can also construct this same argument in reverse: the villain dies and the next endbringer fight results in untold casualties that the villain could have prevented. I mean, that's why your argument is unsound: it depends on "what if" scenarios you write in emotionally upsetting ways to convince people you're right.

It's exactly the same thing as greendoor and Thrice.Great have been espousing, just on a more absurd scale.

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Serious in there didn't work. You were writing an Appeal to Ridicule.

what is your point anyway? Villains should be punished with equal severity regardless of the nature of their crimes? Comparing the Undersiders to the S9 is a strange comparison.

 

[VolantRedX]

Also a lot of the argument against the Warlords is based on the idea that the previous authorities behaved a lot better.

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No the argument against Warlordism is that it tends far more towards corruption and abuse than democratic governments. It's also terrible at force projection. The reason the Undersiders were so effective at disaster relief was that they only had to focus on Brockton Bay instead of the entire US. And hilariously they were totally dependent on the US government any way. All the money they use to fix things, food, power? All that is only possible because the government still deals with them. What if in response to them playing warlord the President declared that Brockton Bay was no longer a part of the US? There goes all the power they use since the grid belongs to the US. The money they use for the reconstruction? Now just useless paper. The Undersiders did a lot of good let's not discount that, but they were very dependent on the system.

 

[Polokun]

Reduce the villain's kill count some, and that's something that might actually happen in the Wormverse. Good fanfic idea, you should write it.

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I actually was thinking of going into much longer and much greater detail over three points in time, but I figured that'd take too long.

People's views might be irrational, but it is NOT irrational to take the repurcussions of those views into account.

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One of the big reasons Taylor hated the heroes in the first place was specifically because they had Sophia on their team, yet directly overlooked the shit she'd do. Even Wildbow himself said that if Taylor had joined and found out, the superiors would have just told her to "Get over it".

If people like Jack Slash were allowed to go free because he was effective against the Endbringers, people would openly rise against the government. Infrastructure would collapse. Organizations like the Protectorate would completely fall apart without funding. There'd be anarchy and civil war everywhere, and the endbringers would stomp through the chaos unopposed.

The Powers That Be in the wormverse already went too far in that direction, imo, letting people like Kaiser operate. His victims being mostly black probably had something to do with that decision.

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What's better, a nation that doesn't trust it's government, or a dead nation?

Well dexpire your Appeal to Consequences argument, the hero could just kill the villain anyway and make use of the exact same loophole the villain did to escape punishment.

we can also construct this same argument in reverse: the villain dies and the next endbringer fight results in untold casualties that the villain could have prevented. I mean, that's why your argument is unsound: it depends on "what if" scenarios you write in emotionally upsetting ways to convince people you're right.

Serious in there didn't work. You were writing an Appeal to Ridicule.

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Cute. Completely ignore what I said just to claim its absurd, when all it is is your exact argument espousing pragmatism and ethics being a social contract to it's logical conclusion. Your own conclusions is based on "What Ifs" as well concerning villains and Endbringer fights. The only difference being that what I suggested was a more serious crime.