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Worm Morality Debate Thread

fallendruid said:
...These prejudices and other little nudges have what effect exactly? They would change the sentence passed down how? The prejudices remain constant. In all cases, the Judge in question passes the sentence. In the Starks case, they would only pass the sentence if they're willing to carry it out themselves, which, in my primitive worldview, means it's -less- likely that they would sentence one to death. Not more.
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Or, being feudal lords who have a large degree of freedom in their land they could go to the edge and wimp out.And they could wimp out because of prejudices and nudges.

Or they could wimp out at sentencing time because those prejudices and nudges bias them. For example: I know people that would be seriously squeamish about sentencing a woman to death because then they'd have to hurt that woman. There's nothing just about this prejudice. At all.

There's a difference between passing a sentence knowing it's done and passing a sentence having to carry it out and I'm not convinced that the effect is necessarily positive.And I'm not taking cues from a bunch of medieval nobles.

Yes. If I'm willing to call the thing a crime and immoral, I am willing to carry out a sentence I consider moral.
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Well, there we go.
 
Polokun said:
What if other people disagree with you that it's ethical?
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Then we get to have a debate on ethics and morality. And since I'm a Stark, it's short and to the point.

Cunuroi said:
Or, being feudal lords who have a large degree of freedom in their land they could go to the edge and wimp out.And they could wimp out because of prejudices and nudges.
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I'm a Stark. We don't wimp out.

Or they could wimp out at sentencing time because those prejudices and nudges bias them. For example: I know people that would be seriously squeamish about sentencing a woman to death because then they'd have to hurt that woman. There's nothing just about this prejudice. At all.
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And yet even today, women tend to get lighter jail sentences than men do for the same offenses.

Also, I'm not talking about some random them or they. I'm talking about me. fallendruid. And you. Cunuroi. And you. Polokun. Very specific, very limited.

If you feel you have prejudices and bias that are antithetical to fair judgement, recuse yourself.

There's a difference between passing a sentence knowing it's done and passing a sentence having to carry it out and I'm not convinced that the effect is necessarily positive.And I'm not taking cues from a bunch of medieval nobles.
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Why? Medieval feudalism works quite well for the first couple generations, typically. As do Dictatorships and autocracies.
And for the most part, I believe it would be positive. There may be some negative sides...but perfection is a thing to be sought, not obtained.
 
fallendruid said:
Why? Medieval feudalism works quite well for the first couple generations, typically. As do Dictatorships and autocracies.
And for the most part, I believe it would be positive. There may be some negative sides...but perfection is a thing to be sought, not obtained.
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Wait... you think it would be MORE moral if people lived in dictatorships?
 
Polokun said:
Wait... you think it would be MORE moral if people lived in dictatorships?
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That's an interesting distortion of what I said.

But I will take your question on its face.

Dictatorships, taken alone, can be moral. It's a good to very good small scale subsistence level governing system and has upsides, short term, for survival purposes in emergencies.

Democratic processes -do not work- in a situation where you need all hands on deck 100% of the time doing the objectively best thing to increase the chance of survival.

We do not take a vote to determine what crops to plant. We do not vote on who's in charge of the subcommittee on agricultural development. In fact, we don't have sub committees. We have a guy who knows how to farm. And you're all going to listen to him, or we are going to starve to death. We are not going to starve to death. Is that clear?

Now, once you're past survival/subsistence level, past small scale governance, or into multi-generation dictatorships, things start going downhill -fast.- At that point, you're better off going to a constitutional monarchy, or if your population of jerkass retards is low enough, you can try a constitutional republic. You might also try a direct democracy, but that tends to drop to the lowest common denominator and then start death spiraling, especially once people figure out they can vote themselves benefits.
 
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fallendruid said:
That's an interesting distortion of what I said.

But I will take your question on its face.

Dictatorships, taken alone, can be moral. It's a good to very good small scale subsistence level governing system and has upsides, short term, for survival purposes in emergencies.

Democratic processes -do not work- in a situation where you need all hands on deck 100% of the time doing the objectively best thing to increase the chance of survival.

We do not take a vote to determine what crops to plant. We do not vote on who's in charge of the subcommittee on agricultural development. In fact, we don't have sub committees. We have a guy who knows how to farm. And you're all going to listen to him, or we are going to starve to death. We are not going to starve to death. Is that clear?

Now, once you're past survival/subsistence level, past small scale governance, or into multi-generation dictatorships, things start going downhill -fast.- At that point, you're better off going to a constitutional monarchy, or if your population of jerkass retards is low enough, you can try a constitutional republic. You might also try a direct democracy, but that tends to drop to the lowest common denominator and then start death spiraling, especially once people figure out they can vote themselves benefits.
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Just wow..................Jeez.:facepalm::facepalm:
 
fallendruid said:
Thank you for your educated, informative argument about how dictatorships are always immoral.
Always a pleasure to debate.

Your words have changed my views on the subject.
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Except that ignores how the world actually works at a fundamental level. Subsistence level, early human gatherings were not dictatorships. They were more along the line of tribal councils in which, yes, there was voting and consensus making and any sort of 'Tribal leader' was so by the consensus of the governed and had power merely by his ability to convince others.

Your actual scenario literally fits nothing we know of human history or existence, and grossly simplifies the way things worked. In point of fact, dictatorships grew *more* likely and possible once you actually moved past subsistence levels, whereas before that everyone was desperate and poor enough, relatively, that everyone had to cooperate and no one person took more than a certain amount of power because there wasn't that ability.

Dictatorships in other words, being applied to the examples you are using are silly and ahistorical and ignore the nature of dictatorships. You must have abundence for there to be enough resources for one person to hoard them without everyone else dying.
 
The Laurent said:
Dictatorships in other words, being applied to the examples you are using are silly and ahistorical and ignore the nature of dictatorships. You must have abundence for there to be enough resources for one person to hoard them without everyone else dying.
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You're assuming that the nature of dictatorships is that one person hoards resources. While i'm not denying that this is in fact possible - see my comment about how dictatorships tend to go downhill - it is not inherent to the nature of dictatorships. rather, it's endemic to humans.

And yes, it was a gross oversimplification in response to Polokun's leading question. I don't think this is the right forum for a full discussion of that topic.

Though, admittedly, it does lead into parahuman feudalism.
 
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fallendruid said:
You're assuming that the nature of dictatorships is that one person hoards resources. While i'm not denying that this is in fact possible - see my comment about how dictatorships tend to go downhill - it is not inherent to the nature of dictatorships. rather, it's endemic to humans.
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And you're not addressing the fact that in the subsistence examples that actually exist, governments *weren't* dictatorships. Let's say we take your 'guy knows how to farm' thing. And let's pretend this is somehow sacred secret knowledge that this one farming-lord knows and thus he gets to make farming decisions. Does he know how to make baskets and clothes? How is his cooking? Can he gather berries and hunt? Tribal councils often wind up being a collection of experts and elders who have specific knowledge in a wide variety of fields for a reason. The priest who has mystic knowledge, the woman who knows how to help injuries, the hunter, the fisher, the weaver and craftspeople...so on and so forth.

Which, notably, is not a dictatorship.

There's someone who is nominally in charge at least at the moment, but it's a pretty bare-bones definition of dictatorship if you define it as 'Any time one guy is in charge.'

Fair enough, didn't even know Polokun had asked a question, was just responding to what I saw as some errors in your thinking in general. *goes back to check Polokun's question.*
 
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The Laurent said:
And you're not addressing the fact that in the subsistence examples that actually exist, governments *weren't* dictatorships. Let's say we take your 'guy knows how to farm' thing. And let's pretend this is somehow sacred secret knowledge that this one farming-lord knows and thus he gets to make farming decisions. Does he know how to make baskets and clothes? How is his cooking? Can he gather berries and hunt? Tribal councils often wind up being a collection of experts and elders who have specific knowledge in a wide variety of fields for a reason. The priest who has mystic knowledge, the woman who knows how to help injuries, the hunter, the fisher, the weaver and craftspeople...so on and so forth.

Which, notably, is not a dictatorship.

There's someone who is nominally in charge at least at the moment, but it's a pretty bare-bones definition of dictatorship if you define it as 'Any time one guy is in charge.'
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dictatorship, form of government in which one person or a small group possesses absolute power without effective constitutional limitations

The example was more in line with a survival scenario, in which a group of educated first worlders are stranded and must survive. And again. Oversimplified.

Why would the farming lord make decisions about basket weaving? That's for the basket weaver to do.

Why would people listen to the farming lord or the basket lord? Because the guy with the big hat says to do it.

Dictatorships in the scenario I described don't tend to last long -because- they break down into the kind of government you describe, or they collapse in a steaming pile of fetid corruption.
 
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fallendruid said:
Then we get to have a debate on ethics and morality. And since I'm a Stark, it's short and to the point.


I'm a Stark. We don't wimp out.



And yet even today, women tend to get lighter jail sentences than men do for the same offenses.

Also, I'm not talking about some random them or they. I'm talking about me. fallendruid. And you. Cunuroi. And you. Polokun. Very specific, very limited.

If you feel you have prejudices and bias that are antithetical to fair judgement, recuse yourself.


Why? Medieval feudalism works quite well for the first couple generations, typically. As do Dictatorships and autocracies.
And for the most part, I believe it would be positive. There may be some negative sides...but perfection is a thing to be sought, not obtained.
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Okay, having read back in the conversation, I think that Parahuman feudalism is a shit idea for several historical reasons. First, just to point out, nobody's defined feudalism yet and that'd be fun to watch since every definition of feudalism I've seen has had an asterix and twenty footnotes point out how every single aspect of this might not apply in "Feudalistic" society.

But, first, define "worked' seeing as I know the middle ages. And another thing to understand is education level. The nobility tended to be the most educated, other than the priests. That didn't mean they weren't utter shit at economics and politics and everything because everyone sorta was, sure. But nobility had advantages on top of having swords and horses and sworn knights and the like.

In Parahuman Feudalism, since this is a take on the modern day, this isn't so. The superhero is not necessarily any smarter or more educated or in any way having any advantages over any other random guy. Imagine if we chose our presidents based on their ability to bench the most weight? That'd be what Parahuman Feudalism would get us. "Captain Punch'em" becomes High Lord of X because he's basically Alexandria but dumber, and then runs it into the ground because he has no qualifications whatsoever.

Whereas during the "Middle ages" we can at least say that, overall, the nobility were better educated than the peasants.
 
The Laurent said:
Okay, having read back in the conversation, I think that Parahuman feudalism is a shit idea for several historical reasons. First, just to point out, nobody's defined feudalism yet and that'd be fun to watch since every definition of feudalism I've seen has had an asterix and twenty footnotes point out how every single aspect of this might not apply in "Feudalistic" society.

But, first, define "worked' seeing as I know the middle ages. And another thing to understand is education level. The nobility tended to be the most educated, other than the priests. That didn't mean they weren't utter shit at economics and politics and everything because everyone sorta was, sure. But nobility had advantages on top of having swords and horses and sworn knights and the like.

In Parahuman Feudalism, since this is a take on the modern day, this isn't so. The superhero is not necessarily any smarter or more educated or in any way having any advantages over any other random guy. Imagine if we chose our presidents based on their ability to bench the most weight? That'd be what Parahuman Feudalism would get us. "Captain Punch'em" becomes High Lord of X because he's basically Alexandria but dumber, and then runs it into the ground because he has no qualifications whatsoever.

Whereas during the "Middle ages" we can at least say that, overall, the nobility were better educated than the peasants.
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What about Thinkers? We can say that in many cases they have a definitive advantage over baseline humans in terms of raw processing power.

Like, Accord would be a great feudal lord, right? I mean, dude solved world hunger during his off hours. Imagine him doing city planning, or regulating the economy. I, for one, welcome our parahuman overlords.
 
The Laurent said:
Okay, having read back in the conversation, I think that Parahuman feudalism is a shit idea for several historical reasons. First, just to point out, nobody's defined feudalism yet and that'd be fun to watch since every definition of feudalism I've seen has had an asterix and twenty footnotes point out how every single aspect of this might not apply in "Feudalistic" society.
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Groovy. I agree with you in large part.

But, first, define "worked' seeing as I know the middle ages. And another thing to understand is education level. The nobility tended to be the most educated, other than the priests. That didn't mean they weren't utter shit at economics and politics and everything because everyone sorta was, sure. But nobility had advantages on top of having swords and horses and sworn knights and the like.
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Worked: Most people survived, there was a culture, and it hasn't collapsed into a steaming fetid pile of corruption. Yet.

In Parahuman Feudalism, since this is a take on the modern day, this isn't so. The superhero is not necessarily any smarter or more educated or in any way having any advantages over any other random guy. Imagine if we chose our presidents based on their ability to bench the most weight? That'd be what Parahuman Feudalism would get us. "Captain Punch'em" becomes High Lord of X because he's basically Alexandria but dumber, and then runs it into the ground because he has no qualifications whatsoever.

Whereas during the "Middle ages" we can at least say that, overall, the nobility were better educated than the peasants.
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Sounds about right. The best we could really hope for is that Captain Hammer realizes he's an idiot, finds good advisors (that aren't completely corrupt), listens to them, and refrains from doing anythign except punching Dr. Horrible from the next feudal citystate over in the face.
 
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The Laurent said:
Okay, having read back in the conversation, I think that Parahuman feudalism is a shit idea for several historical reasons. First, just to point out, nobody's defined feudalism yet and that'd be fun to watch since every definition of feudalism I've seen has had an asterix and twenty footnotes point out how every single aspect of this might not apply in "Feudalistic" society.

But, first, define "worked' seeing as I know the middle ages. And another thing to understand is education level. The nobility tended to be the most educated, other than the priests. That didn't mean they weren't utter shit at economics and politics and everything because everyone sorta was, sure. But nobility had advantages on top of having swords and horses and sworn knights and the like.

In Parahuman Feudalism, since this is a take on the modern day, this isn't so. The superhero is not necessarily any smarter or more educated or in any way having any advantages over any other random guy. Imagine if we chose our presidents based on their ability to bench the most weight? That'd be what Parahuman Feudalism would get us. "Captain Punch'em" becomes High Lord of X because he's basically Alexandria but dumber, and then runs it into the ground because he has no qualifications whatsoever.

Whereas during the "Middle ages" we can at least say that, overall, the nobility were better educated than the peasants.
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And "Captain Punch'em" will likely select adviser's or people to handle the day to day running since he'll be the equivalent of their military to prevent them from being conquered by another parahuman-lead "nation" and the equivalent of monopoly of force to keep people in line and not raping and pillaging (at least not with his say so).
 
Thrice.Great said:
What about Thinkers? We can say that in many cases they have a definitive advantage over baseline humans in terms of raw processing power.

Like, Accord would be a great feudal lord, right? I mean, dude solved world hunger during his off hours. Imagine him doing city planning, or regulating the economy. I, for one, welcome our parahuman overlords.
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You're joking, right? Accord's a pretty good example of why even Thinkers make bad overlords. He was unstable, his power sabotaged him at every corner, he was ruthless and not always efficiently so, and was a great big ball of neurosis.

This is ignoring the ultimate problem with Parahuman feudalism in that it's completely random and despite some of the 'second gen' cape stuff, mostly outside of heredity or grooming for the next position.
 
The Laurent said:
You're joking, right? Accord's a pretty good example of why even Thinkers make bad overlords. He was unstable, his power sabotaged him at every corner, he was ruthless and not always efficiently so, and was a great big ball of neurosis.
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Really? I'm sure the PRT must have been completely shocked after firing him when they opened his file closet to clean it out and discovered all those missing coworkers corpses in there.
 
The Laurent said:
You're joking, right? Accord's a pretty good example of why even Thinkers make bad overlords. He was unstable, his power sabotaged him at every corner, he was ruthless and not always efficiently so, and was a great big ball of neurosis.

This is ignoring the ultimate problem with Parahuman feudalism in that it's completely random and despite some of the 'second gen' cape stuff, mostly outside of heredity or grooming for the next position.
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And you guys were wondering why I had problems with having Capes as being in charge of themselves.
 
Polokun said:
And you guys were wondering why I had problems with having Capes as being in charge of themselves.
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I mean, let me clarify, I don't think there should be some magic 'Capes are not people, shun them' stuff going on. Like, I'd be fine with someone being elected President and happening to have superpowers at the same time. I don't think we should keep Capes from ever being in any position of power ever.

I'm merely saying that the idea that they, as a class, not as individual cases where "Yeah, I guess he'd make a good senator" deserve to or would do a good job as a ruling class is a bit...unlikely.
 
The Laurent said:
I mean, let me clarify, I don't think there should be some magic 'Capes are not people, shun them' stuff going on. Like, I'd be fine with someone being elected President and happening to have superpowers at the same time. I don't think we should keep Capes from ever being in any position of power ever.

I'm merely saying that the idea that they, as a class, not as individual cases where "Yeah, I guess he'd make a good senator" deserve to or would do a good job as a ruling class is a bit...unlikely.
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It's basically the equivalent of electing someone to a position of power in America who's suffering from a severe case of PTSD.
 
The Laurent said:
I mean, let me clarify, I don't think there should be some magic 'Capes are not people, shun them' stuff going on. Like, I'd be fine with someone being elected President and happening to have superpowers at the same time. I don't think we should keep Capes from ever being in any position of power ever.

I'm merely saying that the idea that they, as a class, not as individual cases where "Yeah, I guess he'd make a good senator" deserve to or would do a good job as a ruling class is a bit...unlikely.
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Well its the ONLY option because Democracy relies on everyone being equal and the Government having monopoly of force which isn't true after GM. Hell even if the Wardens support a democratic government it would still be "parahuman feudalism" due to them being the only reason it can exist.
Polokun said:
It's basically the equivalent of electing someone to a position of power in America who's suffering from a severe case of PTSD.
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So? When has that ever stopped people from electing someone? It's a freacking popularity contest not a meritocracy.
 
The Laurent said:
I mean, let me clarify, I don't think there should be some magic 'Capes are not people, shun them' stuff going on. Like, I'd be fine with someone being elected President and happening to have superpowers at the same time. I don't think we should keep Capes from ever being in any position of power ever.

I'm merely saying that the idea that they, as a class, not as individual cases where "Yeah, I guess he'd make a good senator" deserve to or would do a good job as a ruling class is a bit...unlikely.
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You can delete 'para' from the 'parahumans' bit and still have a perfectly logical case.
 
1986ctcel said:
So? When has that ever stopped people from electing someone? It's a freacking popularity contest not a meritocracy.
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Never said it hasnt happened, just that I think it's a seriously bad idea.

The Laurent said:
And I don't think we should exclude people from being elected or having a position of authority if they have PTSD. Do you? I mean, it sounds as if you are which is a pretty...troubling policy as a whole.
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Yeah I would be for a police like that. People in position of power IMO should be of sufficient mental health to do so.
 
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