Daily Strip Discussion

[Kasaii]

I'd even go so far as to say Lockdown deserves the villain marker more than Ecchs.

Oh, hell, yes she does.



For all that he's constantly plotting to take over the city, hold things to ransom, and what have you, Ecchs is basically still following the rules that the Heroes and Villains laid out. Lockdown is going around killing people that violate her idea of what the world should look like.


The trick here is that just because evil is understandable shouldn't make it acceptable. I've always believed that having a villain whose motives make sense does not have to mean that you start supporting them. If the Antiheroes wanted to make a proper difference against the Villains, the appropriate thing to do would have been to remain in the government, and fight for change. Dudeman is proof enough that not all heroes like the current situation.

[Tinkerbell]

Y'know, it was only the use of the term 'half-baked' that set me off... In philosophy, 'half-baked' is a term generally used for the theories of wannabes who haven't thought their positions through enough. Generally, it means people who talk big but whose actual arguments make no sense. I just wanted to make sure we weren't dismissing Lockdown's position too much (which clearly we're not, so never mind).

But I don't think Lockdown's evil (evil is such an overused word). I think she (it is she, right?) is tragically misguided and self-delusional, but I don't like applying the word 'evil' to anything other than causing suffering for one of the following; personal gain, personal pleasure and suffering's sake. I don't count Lockdown's goals as personal gain (she believes she's acting as a philanthropist so her conscious goal isn't selfish). It's not personal pleasure (again, consciously, she doesn't believe she likes killing so she either doesn't or fights against taking pleasure from what she does), and she definitely doesn't worship suffering as a concept.

Ecchs on other hand is motivated out of personal greed, but doesn't actually cause much suffering due to being quite ineffective. I think he *is* evil, though, because his ineffectiveness depends on the actions of others. If the Champions weren't around, his plans would work and he'd be causing suffering for personal gain, therefore he'd be succesful evil (can we have a notion of unsuccessful evil? Or are we just talking about everyone else being lucky?).

On an entirely unrelated note, who is/was Skyscraper and what is his/her relationship to Timebender? Enough with the ominous!

Tink

[Juron Pilo]

Ahh. But that would be making the case that Egoism is evil while Vigilantism and Ego-centricism are not.

I'm making an important personal distinction here.

Egoism, reworded here to make a point, is the idea that one's primary priority should be oneself. Actually, according to definition here, its not just the primary goal, its the only goal(I'd argue that the definition needs to be changed in this respect). I don't know why, but Wikipedia has chosen to erase all entries for egocentricism and every definition I see for egoism would better represent egocentricism. Egh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_egoism

At any rate Egoism's opposite is Altruism. Or placing others above oneself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism

I, personally, do not feel egoism is necessarily evil, except in the extreme form there-in. In fact, I practice it, in a form. My thoughts on the subject are to state it as priorities:

1. My needs for living
2. Other's needs for living
3. Maintaining my standards of living
4. Maintaining other's standards of living
5. Whatever else I need to be comfortable
6. Whatever else others need to be comfortable

I usually do not get to priority 6 unless the task involved has little or no cost to me(something I percieve as worthless or little value to myself). When I don't make human mistakes or fall prey to impulses anyways. Hey I'm only human .

However, self-centered complete lack of concern for others is a different matter entirely. Vigilantism is essentially saying that you ARE the law. That you know everything about whats right. Essentially, vigilantism is ego-centric, and I associate ego-centric thinking with the concept of evil. My problem with vigilantism is Judge Dredd. Think about it, the primary difference between the two is that Judge Dredd enforcement officers are an organization of people that hold this opinion about eachother, instead of an individual. Its the logical next step of the concept of Vigilantism. Thus, its evil in the same sense that FF villains are evil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilantism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Dredd

So, and no offense, I DO kind of feel that vigilantism is half-baked. I accept that you feel otherwise, but I think I have good reasons. After all, most villains want to CONTROL the world, not destroy it, right?

edit: AHAH! What I'm looking for is not Ego-centricism but Egotism. That helps. Egoism and Egotism. Sounds good to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egotism

edit2: I swear the philosophy section for Wikipedia used to be so much better, but someone went through and reorganized it, and now it sucks.

I should also point out that evil and good are poor concepts anyways. Point being that if we accepted those concepts, evil would be egotism(of which vigilantism is a subset), not egoism.

[Tinkerbell]

I didn't say that acting in your own self-interest is evil, I said causing suffering for your own self-interest is evil. There's an important difference there.

That Wikipedia article on Egotism doesn't seem to make much sense. When it's talking about values, it links to a definition of 'value' that doesn't have anything to do with the argument in question. Does it mean 'things of value'/'valuables'?

I'm very dubious about Egoism as well, at least as you've stated it. Are you saying that there's no situation where you'd put someone else's life above your own? What about the lives of a group of people? It seems a little inflexible.

What do you mean by 'good and evil are poor concepts'?

On the subject of believing you 'are' the law, here's my position: When you do something, by doing that action, you state implicitly 'I think this is the best action a person of my abilities could perform in this situation' and therefore, simultaneously, 'If anyone else of roughly similar abilities was in this situation, this is what I think they should do'. In that sense, I do believe that people are 'the law' - it's just a version of 'do unto others as you would have done unto you'. If you don't believe your actions are right, you do something else. I'm immediately suspicious of anyone who says 'I shouldn't be doing this' - as far as I'm concerned, that's somebody denying their own morality, often to do something I consider wrong.

I'll agree vigilantism is a case of imposing your own morality on the world, but take this case; a vigilante kills a murderer. By that action, the vigilante declares 'it's okay to kill people who kill people', probably even 'it's a moral obligation to kill people who kill people', and so has established a moral principle he himself is subject to. Actually, in this case the vigilante does fit my definition of 'half-baked', as he's failed to spot the infinite regress in his moral principle; someone's gotta kill him, then in turn be killed by someone who has to be killed for killing the guy who killed the vigilante and so ad infinitum.

On the subject of Wikipedia's philosophy section not being as good as it used to be, that's probably a good thing. In areas like philosophy, Wikipedia is far too open to abuse and agenda-driven writing to serve as a good source. All too often, the internet is full of crackpots and hard-liners of one kind or another. This discussion's been a nice surprise, actually (I'm used to philosophical debates on the net quickly dissolving into flaming and personal insults).

Just a thought,

Tink

[Juron Pilo]

Using good and evil, although very concrete terms actually, lead to a very black and white way of looking at the world that I feel is very innacurate to the way things really are. Far more often than not, the middle path is better than the extremes when we get down to the details.

edit: This is why I used the priority system. Good and evil are not spatially quantifiable, but they are RELATIONALLY quantifiable, or at least within the context of a specific set of principles and beliefs. We can definately say that "X is more good than Y". Of course, some actions are both good and evil, and that makes things more complicated.

Also rationalization DOES have some justification. I'm hesitant to get into the concepts of dualism, monism, and skepticism and such forth, as I believe we'd be encroaching on the grounds where personal opinion is paramount, but suffice to say I have some very complex and unusual views on the subject of the mind.

Point being that what we think does not have to match what we do. We can make logical mistakes(which you can prove everytime you write down the wrong answer to a math problem). Intent is a basic component of law. As for law itself, eh government feels like a quasi-necessary evil. I've heard some good arguments and examples about how the government may not be as necessary as we think(hey, check the internet itself), or at least not one as extensive as we have.

edit: As to the merits of Wikipedia, its a good a source of information as any other. Crackpots are everywhere, and even well intended organizations can have them slip in and manipulate things with dogma and weasel words. You just have to use the same tools as you do with any other source: Your own logic and reason, as well double checking the sources cited(which Wikipedia does now in its up-to-date articles, legacy articles may of course not follow this rule). I'm not a fan of the excuse that is expert opinion though. Either you've explained it well enough that anyone with comprehension can understand, or you havn't explained it at all. This also happens to be how I feel about some of the advanced sciences. They use some trickery and hoop jumping to avoid having to explain definition fallacies sometimes, I think.

[Tinkerbell]

Using good and evil, although very concrete terms actually, lead to a very black and white way of looking at the world that I feel is very innacurate to the way things really are. Far more often than not, the middle path is better than the extremes when we get down to the details.

I don't think it's fair to say that using words like 'good' and 'evil' create a 'black and white' way of looking at the world; that's like saying using words like 'black' and 'white' define a 'black and white' way of looking at colours. You've gotta have words for the concepts at either end of the scale to recognise that there *is* a scale there in the first place. That said, I agree that no action is ever entirely at one or other extreme.

Also rationalization DOES have some justification. I'm hesitant to get into the concepts of dualism, monism, and skepticism and such forth, as I believe we'd be encroaching on the grounds where personal opinion is paramount, but suffice to say I have some very complex and unusual views on the subject of the mind.

What do you mean by rationalisation? I have some pretty obscure views on mind as well (I'm a phenomenalist), but I believe I have a rational, systematic argument for them; it's not just my opinion (though my acceptance of said argument is, of course, ultimately a matter of opinion since there's no way to get objective evidence one way or the other).

Point being that what we think does not have to match what we do. We can make logical mistakes(which you can prove everytime you write down the wrong answer to a math problem).

I agree that what we *think* doesn't have to match what we do. Thought is generally too random and uncontrollable to be subject to objective analysis. However I believe that what we believe - a given person's value set and principles - are defined by what they do; a person can only be said to hold a belief if he or she can be seen to be acting upon it. I believe that action is the only yardstick we have as far as judging other people go (I do include in 'actions' things like speaking, but I'd put less emphasis on what people say as it's a lot easier to lie with your mouth than your body).

Intent is a basic component of law. As for law itself, eh government feels like a quasi-necessary evil. I've heard some good arguments and examples about how the government may not be as necessary as we think(hey, check the internet itself), or at least not one as extensive as we have.

I'm not a great fan of the government, but to paraphrase Churchill, it's the worst form of running a country apart from all the others that have been tried. The problem with countries is that they don't run themselves and it's pretty much impossible to run them. No group of people that large can be sensible managed.

edit: As to the merits of Wikipedia, its a good a source of information as any other. Crackpots are everywhere, and even well intended organizations can have them slip in and manipulate things with dogma and weasel words. You just have to use the same tools as you do with any other source: Your own logic and reason, as well double checking the sources cited(which Wikipedia does now in its up-to-date articles, legacy articles may of course not follow this rule). I'm not a fan of the excuse that is expert opinion though. Either you've explained it well enough that anyone with comprehension can understand, or you havn't explained it at all. This also happens to be how I feel about some of the advanced sciences. They use some trickery and hoop jumping to avoid having to explain definition fallacies sometimes, I think.

What I meant was that I feel it's better to rely on hardcopy-published material in philosophy, as the checks and analysis carried out by journals and publishers are far more rigorous than on the internet (they have to be; financially these organisations lead such marginal lives that if they didn't have work of the highest quality they'd quickly go under, whereas anyone can afford a website these days). I'm not saying that 'expert opinion' is a yardstick, except that established professionals in a given field are far more likely to have the training necessary to perform quality analysis than any random Joe with a loud enough voice.

Just a thought,

Tink

[Juron Pilo]

Thats the thing, would it be better expressed by seperate-non-negative values that sum, or a priority chart.

by rationalization I basically meant induction and other forms of assumption like hypothesis, as well as things like probability. Also, my base arguments in Scientific Skepticism. Fully outlining and plotting my personal form of skepticism it myself has lead to no significant variation in conclusions, even if their presentation SUCKS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_skepticism

Placing body language over words is nonsense. Its not universal, and you'll easily make mistakes. I place a premium on questions being in my language, and you can't ask a question in body language.

edit: also know this post is somewhat summarized.
sorry, thought I'd post it before closing my browser windows but apparently not, my bad.

edit2:
phenominalism is a sound theory and all and an excellent application of Occam's razor. My only quibble is that it raises some interesting questions. If the universe is a collection of data, then I assume there's also process data(instruction code), and if there's process data, whats doing the processing?

Of course, this is similiar to asking about God and creation...

edit3:
This is somewhat(read: even more) off topic, but I've just realized something about a paper I'm doing(somewhat spurred by arecent complaint by my new teacher). Basically, I don't believe thesises are ethical. Or rather, the thesis should not be your conclusion but your subject, and maybe a summary of the topics your going to discuss(which should really just be called a summary). A CONCLUSION is your inference. There's strictly nothing wrong with letting your opponent know what your conclusion is going to be I suppose, but it seems like license for prejudice to require it.

It'd be like saying

"
thus B
A
A implies B
thus B by modus ponens
"

when we should be saying:

"
introducing modus ponens as
A
A implies B
thus b
closure.
"

or, if summarized using symbols and spatial breaks(blank carraige returns often used where I am using quotes to show something is being introduced and closed):

"
Modus Ponens:
A
A implies B
thus b
"

So an essay might be so long that people forget the subject, so you'd probably mention it again at the end, or even at other critical points in the essay.

Yeah, so there.

edit: Hehe, classic. Hey robot zombies with armor suits are pretty good.

[Artificer-urza]

as if I didn't get enough of discreet math at school...

[Tinkerbell]

Jeez, I go away for a few days (okay, weeks)...

I don't think it's right to view the people reading your essay as opponents. Sure, they often will be, but if you start of by treating them as opponents you get off on the wrong foot. On the subject of the correct structure for modus ponens in essays, have you ever read any Hume? He's a great one for *not* stating his conclusion first, and it often makes his work very hard to understand - you spend two thirds of every *very long* paragraph wondering what the hell he's on about, and only find out in the last few lines . It can actually be quite frustrating and distracting if you don't know what someone's arguing for when they argue it.

I like the whole monster-tree-turned-good thing, Friv! It's kinda cute...

Tink

[Kasaii]

I tend to be a person who believes in good and evil; I don't believe in absolute good and evil, though. There are people who believe that they are doing good, people who can be considered to be doing good from certain lights, people who are clearly doing good, and people who clearly aren't.

The reason to use your conclusion as your thesis statement is that people have a nasty tendancy to look at later information based entirely on the initial information that they get. By making your conclusion the first thing they read, you predispose them to believe it. (Sneaky, isn't it?)


And yeah, I like Ash. He'll be a recurring minor character.

[Artificer-urza]

Well... the whole supervillain thing is just a hobby to him.

[Kasaii]

Well... the whole supervillain thing is just a hobby to him.

Technically, it's also his profession.

Man, more supervillains need to be happy-go-lucky about the whole thing. That's all I'm saying.

[Artificer-urza]

So they all saw that? What was that, like a future premonition or something?

[Juron Pilo]

Whats lockdown doing there then? I'm suspicious of either illusions, psychic projections, or actual distortion of reality, because temporal answers don't seem to cut it. We ARE expecting an attack by the anti-heroes.

[Tinkerbell]

I got shared premonition... Mayfly's suit turning out to have a few more tricks than originally thought?

Tink

[Juron Pilo]

Again, if its a premonition, then why Lockdown? I mean I guess Lockdown could have been revived some how, but that seems implausible. If its temporal it could be multiple time periods coexisting or something. Still makes no sense.

[Artificer-urza]

Well, it might not be lockdown, it could be just someone who looks like lockdown. it's not exactly easy to create sprites with a completely unque look you know.

[Kasaii]

No, it's Lockdown.


A partial answer will come tommorow.

[Artificer-urza]

Well, it's not like heros and villains haven't been ressurected before.

[Artificer-urza]

So it's not time that's gone ker-plunk, it's reality... oh hell that's going to be confusing.