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Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, July 25 2007 14:01 Profile Homepage #295
A parent knows better than a five-year-old child, which is why the parent compels the child to obey. That's not why the child obeys, though, unless the child acknowledges that. Mostly children obey out of love and respect for and fear of their parents. The proportions vary, but those are the two causes, mostly.

If you love God, of course you obey. If God is threatening hellfire, of course you obey. If you aren't threatened, you're likely to obey God much of the time but disobey to some extent, much like children. And there's no negative consequence, which as any child-rearer will tell you is likely to result in more disobedience.

Your morality argument seems to make some pretty big leaps. God creates everything but immorality. Okay. God creates us with the ability to act as we want. Okay. Acting against God creates disharmony. Harmony is undefined, but, let's define it as making the world go against God's plan. Fine. Now how is that the same as immorality unless you define morality as acting as God wishes, which makes the definition meaningless here? Being able to go with or against a plan is not the same as being moral or immoral and does not make the planner any reliable arbiter. There are plenty of incompetent managers (cf. Dilbert, Office Space, The Office, etc.) to disprove that.

—Alorael, who finds an eternal universe easier to comprehend than an eternal entity that predates the universe, really. And he finds all other "theories," notably religion, too contrived and too fixated on logical pretzels and navel-gazing to be convincing.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Life on Europa in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, July 25 2007 13:50 Profile Homepage #61
Once again I must accuse you of imposing your own structure, perhaps even your own why, on those who think very differently. Why isn't a meaningful question except in the sense of the causes that leads to an effect. You can ask why to inquire about motivations from an intelligent entity, but you can't ask why of the universe. It's not an intelligent entity.

—Alorael, who now wonders why you seem to think it's so absolutely necessary for everyone to care about first motivations and moral causes. Many people are perfectly happy without them.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, July 24 2007 13:43 Profile Homepage #277
That raises another question, I think, although it's really one as old as religion. Why exactly should one endeavor to behave as God wishes? God is presumably the one everyone should want to please, but let's say you don't. What incentive do you have if there's no everlasting torment awaiting you?

—Alorael, who can see temporary torment as an acceptable but odd answer. Spiritual time-out for bad behavior just seems odd from a supreme being. This whole afterlife thing is hard to make sense of.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Images in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, July 24 2007 13:37 Profile Homepage #6
Freudian jokes aside, it's no good to complain about URLs. Good image hosting isn't so common that you can pic and choose.

—Alorael, who speaks on behalf of everything seeking its own level. In this case, it's the lowest level. The absolute lowest.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Life on Europa in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, July 24 2007 13:29 Profile Homepage #59
I think you're projecting. Space is vast and mysterious, but it's only mysterious because it's hard to know much about it. The more we see, the more space tends to be just more space. Finding something dramatically different is much more interesting than finding more rocks floating in conic sections around prolongued nuclear explosions.

—Alorael, who can at least agree with hoping to find answers that can't be found here. That is, of course, the entire point of science in space. It's just that the questions are probably much less mystical than you envision.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Harry Potter in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, July 24 2007 13:25 Profile Homepage #67
And you had to share that, didn't you? Now you can share the bleach. Thanks.

—Alorael, who sees himself as a dead-on match for Dudley. Pass the knobbly stick, please!
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Is illegal downloading such a bad thing? in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Monday, July 23 2007 19:52 Profile Homepage #32
quote:
Originally written by The Almighty Do-er of Stuff:

quote:
Originally written by This is not a moniker.:

you have no right to happiness you can't afford.
I'm sure millions of starving African children would disagree with that statement.

It's a hard line to draw, really.
And Thuryl left this one alone? I'm disappointed.

I have two responses to this, though. You have a right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, as you pointed out. There's really nothing inalienable about these rights except that we refuse to allow them to be alienated, but let's work with that. Food for starving children is life. That's a right. Fancy food for starving children? Forget it. Being needy doesn't give you a right to anything but getting your basic needs met.

And that leads into point two: this "right" is also questionable. Why is there a human right not to starve? I think it's because we don't think it's right in the sense of correct. We don't like to let children starve. Most rights are like that. While there's an order of magnitude difference between starvation and taking programs without paying for them, I think some of the same reasoning applies. It's wrong to take the program because we have decided societally that it's wrong. Pirates who think it's not wrong are only wrong in our eyes, not by any absolute moral truth. It used to be okay to let the serfs starve to death, and maybe one day it will be okay to let the programmers' kids go hungry.

—Alorael, who thinks the reasoning behind programming can be applied to books, and he thinks there's a reason why great books have always been written but many more books, ranging from schlock to great, are written now. If you're independently wealthy and/or have a day job you can afford a Great Work. If you're strapped for cash, it's really nice to get paid for that Great Work. Patronage works, but perhaps not as well as getting money from the masses.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Life on Europa in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Monday, July 23 2007 16:12 Profile Homepage #57
If life elsewhere were exactly like life here, the conspiracy theorists would go nuts and scientists would suddenly start getting big grants to hypothesize wildly. If it were extremely similar, perhaps with obviously analogous species that weren't able to interbreed with Earth counterparts, it would just be taken as support for a common chain of evolution.

—Alorael, who thinks something like shared DNA might be good evidence of panspermia. Space cows would be a little beyond that.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Is illegal downloading such a bad thing? in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Monday, July 23 2007 16:08 Profile Homepage #26
Except we've already discovered the wonderful system of micropatronage. With a little more work and some legal trickery I can see it supporting plenty of entertainers of various kinds. Not stably, perhaps, but acceptably.

—Alorael, who doesn't like calling software or music piracy theft. You're not taking someone's money, after all. On the other hand, calling it a crime without a victim is disingenuous. Someone is not getting the money you owe. It's not Evil, but it's wrong. Justifications don't change that, and you have no right to happiness you can't afford.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Tower Ogre Quest in Avernum 4
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Monday, July 23 2007 15:48 Profile Homepage #1
It's not a broken quest as far as I've ever heard or experienced. Are you absolutely sure you killed the right ogres, and are you absolutely sure that Kelner is the one who handles the quest?

—Alorael, who isn't sure what the ogre's name is. Ugluk the Uruk is an orc in LotR, though. But really, all those gutteral names sound the same.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Message Board in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Sunday, July 22 2007 10:57 Profile Homepage #64
Light blue on light blue that highlights to bluish purple. All on darker blue. Genius!

—Alorael, who in all serious thinks that this individual who created boards for no reason, with no target audience, and no friends willing to join needs to give up. And you need to give him that little push by giving up first. It's for the best.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Avernum Saave Copy in Avernum 4
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, July 21 2007 18:36 Profile Homepage #5
Windows probably puts saves in some other folder, then. Check "My Documents" for any Avernum 4 folders, and then look through any likely repositories.

—Alorael, who thinks it's about time for a Windows user to step in. And that's really not something he relishes saying, nor is it something he even thinks very often.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Avernum Saave Copy in Avernum 4
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, July 21 2007 14:56 Profile Homepage #3
As Randomizer said, but in slightly more detail at the end: on a Mac: In the "Avernum 4 Files" folder in the "Avernum 4" folder there are folders called "Save0" and so on. Copy all 20 of them, Save0 through Save19, and replace the folders on the laptop that doesn't have the saved games you want with those save folders. They need to go back in "Avernum 4 Files" of course.

—Alorael, who is sure the process is very similar on Windows. He's also pretty sure he can't give any more detailed help than that.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Sci Fi Spidweb. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, July 20 2007 16:26 Profile Homepage #24
I'll unlock! Creation versus creator, with no one sure exactly who is whom!

—Alorael, who can see a new era dawning on these forums. The age of conspiracies is over, and now only epic battle can determine the fate of the internets and excessive melodrama. Also italics.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
The Future in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, July 20 2007 15:59 Profile Homepage #22
It would be fairly interesting to see an RPG set in the real modern day. No hidden magic. No aliens. No sci-fi technology masquerading as CIA secrets. Just plain ol' modern life.

—Alorael, who is aware that that isn't much of a game concept. It's also unlikely to sell well. But it would be very unique!
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Happy Birthday.... in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, July 20 2007 13:28 Profile Homepage #7
Happy birthday *King, and happy birthday Aran! May you both receive amusement from Alex sometime soon.

—Alorael, who recommends plugging your birthday in advance somewhere in another topic. That way people can be subtly nudged to start the celebration for you.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Sci Fi Spidweb. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, July 20 2007 13:25 Profile Homepage #21
Out of curiosity, and I think I'll regret it, why would you lock this topic?

Let the record show that discussions of one's own intelligence never, ever end well. Discussions of the semantics of geeks and nerds never end well either, but unlike intelligence discussions they sometimes end neutrally.

—Alorael, who would like to ask everyone to stop baiting Iffy. You know what the result is. It's not particularly amusing and a more satisfactory outcome can be achieved by ignoring occasional lapses into painful inanity. Be the better person, people!
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, July 19 2007 13:18 Profile Homepage #202
Explicit explanation time!

Humans banded together in social groups tens of thousands of years ago. Or maybe millions, if you'll accept that our social impulses evolved from the herd behavior of other animals (which you won't, I know). Rationally, we're better off with agreements not to murder each other. We don't usually function rationally, however. Fortunately, sociopathic behavior tends not to be evolutionarily advantageous, while earning the trust of your neighbors does. Thus, those who produced more offsprings with their genes and memes were the ones who had sympathy, empathy, and all those other lovely traits. The result: a world in which most people are hard-wired to be nice to each other. Sort of.

Note that there's no morality in that hard-wiring. It happened because it was to everyone's advantage. We can call it moral now because we all believe it's moral, but there's nothing inherently right about it. Plenty of groups have and continue to show empathy towards members of the group but little or none towards members of other groups. Thus, we get ethnic cleansing. The Holocaust. Darfur. If they go against our hard-wiring, why do they happen?

—Alorael, who thinks Thuryl's theory is quite simple. It has nothing to do with forgiveness and everything to do with awareness. If nobody ever becomes aware that you have committed a crime, would you feel guilty? Would you feel less guilty than if others knew what you did? If you answer no, you're either a liar or hard-wired differently.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, July 18 2007 20:30 Profile Homepage #177
quote:
Originally written by Stillness:

Animals are important, but not as important as humans. We’re both made by God, but humans are made in God’s image. We’re also made to rule them... [etc.]
Says the Christian. There is no a priori reason why this should be true and Jainist beliefs should be false. In fact, if they're right your beliefs and mine are rather impractical, to say nothing of evil.

quote:
You can’t judge another moral code if you assume that there is no absolute morality. If there is then you can judge. Other “senses” help, such as fairness and empathy.
Thuryl's got this one, but you seem to be missing the obvious here. You can't judge because the existence of absolute morality in no way conveys access to absolute morality. We've only got our own personal moralities, and they're very obviously not universal (cf. any other culture of your choosing).

quote:
Let’s say you are a noble. Hammurabi grants you lighter judgment for a crime. That works out fine for you. In fact it’s all you know so you accept it. Now let’s say I tell you, “Imagine that you were not a noble. How would you feel about a law that discriminates by class? Did you know there is a law code that does not make such a distinction?” You can become enlightened and recognize that your culture’s code is not the most moral because it’s not the most fair.
Let's say you're a peasant. You live under a legal system that gives no advantages to the wealthy and noble. Everyone's equal! Now let’s say I tell you, “Imagine that you were a noble. How would you feel about a law that discriminates by class? Did you know there is a law code that makes such a distinction?” You would be forced to concede that as a noble such a system would be desirable.

What's the difference between this example and yours except our inclination towards egalitarianism? That impulse is certainly not universal, and it's very new as moral ideas go.

quote:
[b]I agree about stable relationships, if by stable you mean healthy lifelong commitment. It provides a sense of security for both mates and any children. That’s effectively what marriage is though. The difference being that one is legally recognized as marriage and the other is not. A mate may wonder why you don’t want your union legally recognized as such as may children and others in the community. That would raise some doubt as to commitment. So legal marriage is better in that sense. Of course amicable divorce is better than a bitter one, but a preserved and healthy marriage is best.
[/b]

Again, why? Maybe the concept of marriage itself is damaging to society because it is a necessary precondition for broken marriages. Being able to drift into and out of relationships, to deepen them and then withdraw from them to whatever degree at whatever time, might be more stabilizing.

There's no evidence for it. It's nearly impossible to collect any. But it's possible. And I maintain that relationships and partnerships can be as deep and meaningful without marriage as with it, but the dissolution of such relationships is rarely as acrimonious as the end of a marriage. Marriage leads to evil.

quote:
You mention that secular humanism does not allow hitting without good reason. The Bible does not either. You also mention discrimination as being excluded in secular humanism. Does that mean there can be only unisex bathrooms? Can we have a WNBA by secular humanist standards? Would babies be expected to earn a living and pay taxes? Why or why not?
Secular humanism is not, in fact, a set code of ethics, so all I can do is throw out the answers I myself would give.

Is there any good reason not to have unisex bathrooms? I'm all for them, personally.

Sports by sex are an interesting problem. The fact of different physical abilities gives a justification, in a way, but not a strong one. To be honest, I don't care very much about athletic competition, with or without gender.

Yes, babies are required to pay taxes. Also you are obligated to cease all thought or thought-like processes. More seriously, personal and societal responsibility to raise children makes turning them into fiscal assets wrong.

quote:
Good religion is never amoral.
Good religion is, I think, an oxymoron.

[Edit: Killed a tag.]

—Alorael, who thinks you can get a good idea of what secular humanism leads to by looking at America or much of Europe. Yes, there's religious background there, but the Church and the churches aren't running the show and things are fine. Well, or not; you seem to deny it. Irreconciliable differences have already been cited.

[ Wednesday, July 18, 2007 20:35: Message edited by: Subpar Prismatic Spray ]
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, July 18 2007 17:19 Profile Homepage #174
It might be optimal to condition everyone to accept as right and good Thuryl's callous suggestions. Maybe the benefit of doing so would exceed the cost. It's not possible to be a strict utilitarian, though. We've all got pre-existing morals. It's not feasible to work out what would be best in the absence of morals, and it's not really feasible to work out whether it would be best to quash morals.

—Alorael, who thinks of himself as a loose utilitiarian. Given a number of options, the one with highest utility should be chosen. It's not always necessary or even good (useful?) to find the optimal choice, just a good one.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
The Future in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, July 18 2007 13:44 Profile Homepage #13
Posting a game idea all but guarantees that it will not be used. Jeff doesn't want our ideas anyway, but he definitely doesn't want our legal hassles.

—Alorael, who expects Jeff will come up with something interesting and exciting. Also moral ambiguities and hard choices. Oh, and plenty of towns to depopulate more or less at will once you're high level.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Harry Potter in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, July 18 2007 13:41 Profile Homepage #10
I don't think Harry Potter is any less popular among intellectuals than among the great unwashed. Everyone seems to love the books.

—Alorael, who finished book four and never managed to obtain any of the sequels. He has a bet with himself on how long it will take for the salient details of the last book to be spoiled for him.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, July 18 2007 13:34 Profile Homepage #170
Your "sense of right and wrong" can only functio by applying your moral code, so you can't use it to judge any moral code. In fact, we are all wholly unable to provide disinterested judgment of various moral codes. Of course Mosaic law seems more "right" than the Code of Hammurabi. We're living in a culture built up in many layers over Mosaic law. Utilitarianism is the only possible filter through which one could even attempt to judge morality, but it's not one I'd choose: as Thuryl has pointed out, it leads to uncomfortable conclusions.

You keep claiming that religion provides stable marriages and stable marriages provide stable civilization. I'm unconvinced. Stable relationships are good, but marriage is unnecessary. It's also quite possible that amicable separation/divorce is fine if handled well.

And finally, your claim that Biblical values are good works to an extent, but by the same reasoning secular humanist values are even better. People wouldn't hit each other (without good reason) if everyone were secularly moral, and people wouldn't discriminate based on gender or sexuality.

—Alorael, whose innate sense of right and wrong tells him that all religions have many elements of good moral guidance wrapped around a core that is fundamentally amoral and its best and evil at its very frequent worst.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00

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