wow another sensible person ^^ whooo
Is it wrong to prey on the weak??
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wow another sensible person ^^ whooo
If you were an animal, and you were higher up in the food chain, then your prey would usually be weaker than you.
However, the distinguishing feature that humans have over animals is that they exhibit conscious thought, and empathy for other humans - at least most humans do, otherwise there'd be constant chaos and mayhem on the streets. We are mostly civil creatures we humans. Mostly.
Humans who exhibit behaviour demonstrating a lack of empathy for their fellow human beings, are usually thought of as being not quite human, perhaps as being down at the level of animals. Those ones are often captured and brought to some form of justice depending on the severity of the crime commited, whether it be fines, a custodial sentence, or - depending on the country - even death.
Which type of creature do you wish to be? One who shows empathy for their fellow human being, or do you wish to be considered as no more than an animal?
Entirely up to you.
Now these are interesting statements. I love them.
However, it makes you think;
Watching the news and reading the papers quickly reveal the vast number of human beings actually acting like the above defined animals these days.
So maybe we are just fooling ourselves into thinking that we are better than animals...? Maybe we even are worse, since we do have analytical thinking and define our own moral.
After all: animals hunt and kill for survival. And very few prey on their own species even then.
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You seem to be saying that the only way anyone can have any real understanding of human nature is if they've read books about it? Is that what you mean?
I mean obviously you wouldn't want to discuss Machiavelli, Rousseau, Aristotle, Socrates, Tocqueville, Madison, Bentham, Schumpeter, Dahl, Whitman, Emerson with someone who hadn't read them. That would be pointless.
But the idea that the only way someone can have any understanding of "human nature" is from reading books seems odd.
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So what's your point? The fact that players doing what OP said is indeed extreme means I cannot use the same word to describe your statement?
Repped for truth.
The OP's remarks to those who commented unfavorably about his actions shows he was not looking for an answer. Rather he was seeking approval.
Amazing how people think they can hide behind punctuation......
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If the bounties were higher they might attract more interest from bounty hunters. Another solution is, as Wicz said, local law enforcement. A fast and lethal response from local authority vessels should happen in cases where people are attacked in "safe" systems. Not instant, but certainly quick.
In searching for solutions and trying to look at the morals of this we should remember that this is a roleplaying game. In Star Wars, when Han shot first, he obviously had a dark streak to him. Not long prior to seeing Han gun down a man holding him at blasterpoint we saw Obi Wan slice off another mans arm in what was a bar-room brawl. Later we see Tarkin destroy an entire planet and everyone on it just to make a point. Do we find sociopathic, violent, and even genocidal tendencies in Harrison Ford, Alec Guiness, and Peter Cushing? No we don't, because it was just a story.
If someone ganks other players merely to irritate the person on the other side of the screen they're being a proper ass about things. But if they're roleplaying as Josh Mahoobob the one-eye, the crazy guy who cracked up after spending 10 years in an imperial prison, killing half his guards Riddick style before stealing a Viper and flying off into anarchy space then they're just building their own story. And that story is part of the lore of this game.
<Shudder> You just sent me back to my childhood with that one. My Mom was a wooden spoon Ninja,,,,,,,
There's the problem right there, and its one that keeps coming up again and again: the boundaries are far too wide.
Those of us old enough to remember the original Elite and Frontier, those who immersed themselves in the lore both official and fan-created, those who Kickstarted this project as an update to that universe, and especially those who pledged significant sums to write officially licensed fiction with much narrower boundaries than the game currently permits, all understand this. Those who don't have that attachment to the legacy don't understand it, while some who are aware of it choose to ignore it because the current implementation better fits the way they've always want to play.
Nobody can blame anyone for playing a game in a way they enjoy, and which is permitted by the implementation. You can wish they wouldn't, and you can even appeal to their better nature with varying degrees of success, but you can't blame them.
The blame for the current situation lies squarely with Frontier Developments who continue, for reasons known only to them, to ignore three decades of lore both old and new in favour of a galaxy-wide free-for-all with constraints so weak as to be more or less non-existent. Until they pull their collective fingers out and implement functional, sensible and lore-canonical rules for criminality and punishment in supposedly high security systems then nothing will change and these arguments will just continue to orbit each other until the heat-death of the universe.
Powerplay may include a step towards this, or it may not. Only time will tell. The ball is totally in Frontier's court, as it has been all along, but until now they've seemed stubbornly reluctant to play a shot. I would love to know why.
"Necessary evil" is what sometimes must be done for survival. Enjoyment of it is NEVER right or proper.
If you are assuming that people are equally competent as Tocqueville speaks of the individualism. Then you must realize how dangerous a thing that is. We established threshold and standards in this society for a reason. We reference old texts for the precise reason to maintain culture and traditions. If you want to dismiss or degrade those figures, you are in denial of the very society that influenced you to become the person you are today.
As Maudlin puts it, counterfactuals have no transitivity, but are imperatives.
On the other hand, I agree that there are intelligent individuals capable of having a competent grasp of human nature without surveying said authors and their works. However, if that is the case, they will also be able to support their position and reasoning competently without using said materials.
However, the post I replied to gave no support to his/her hollow statement, which I shall dismiss as incompetent and incomplete.
I used Machiavelli due to his stand in terms of how the a system that fosters only human nature is better than pursuing an universal truth, such as Christian values. Which agrees with Nietzsche (that you brought up). As a more modern philosopher, of course Nietzsche has better accuracy than the ancient authors. However, denying the ancient philosophers of their significance in their contribution to our culture is quite an insult.
Further more, Machiavelli was not a bootlicker. "The Prince" was a work of sarcasm, evidently by his status when he was removed from power and exiled. Then you can infer from "The Discourse," that he wanted to establish a republic. Yet, that republic was unrealistic, therefore allowing us to see how "The Prince" is the reality that we live in, despite being in disguise of a "republic" that he envisioned.
How can you kill other players? From my experience they just jump away or log off. Also, what is the profit in killing other players? Were they wanted?
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