Intergalactic Summit

Am I? Very well, what if we withdraw the word 'justified' and - for the sake of semantics - replace it with something like 'the outcomes of slavery might be regarded in a positive light within a selective cohort'?

The juxtaposition that's of interest is still there - how do you as an individual process contrasting internal opinion on something which you believe to be 'absolutely morally wrong' (and in some cases 'morally indefensible' not to act against) but which you also recognize can be worthwhile for some of those directly affected by it?

I found your example - where you talked about it depending on the pilot - to be too specific to be of much use in understanding where and how you draw a line as it was quite a black and white situation. In my experience, where decisions based on morality and value judgement become slippery are in circumstances a few shades grayer than your scenario accounts for.

You really don't know how to open your mouth without saying something stupid, do you Kim?

In case you're not aware, so far as we can tell, the only culture in all of New Eden never to practice any kind of slavery at any time in its history would be the Caldari. The Gallente used to practice it, the Minmatar used to. The Intaki, the Jin-Mei, the Achura... The ethnic Caldari never did.

Oh, sure, people pull out this apologist explanation how that's only because we focus on the practical downsides rather than the morality of freedom, but given that greatest-common-good practicality is a Caldari moral principle, it follows that anything impractical is also immoral according to Caldari ethics. After all, we're under no obligation to agree with foreign powers that slavery is immoral for what they define as "the right reasons".

All I said was that in my opinion, slavery is immoral. I never explained WHY I think it's immoral.



Pay closer attention to what I DO say, please, rather than what you would prefer me to be saying. What I specifically said was that in my view it's morally indefensible not to act when the slave transport in question is being flown by Nauplius, or somebody like him. I accept that a slave's life is not automatically so terrible that death is always going to be preferable.

Please also note that I didn't say "worthwhile"; I said "Not automatically terrible and potentially quite pleasant". Those are NOT the same thing. Happiness is not, all by itself, the secret to a worthwhile life. There IS no one simple glib secret to that. Emotional fulfilment is one factor in a worthwhile life, certainly. but by no means even close to being the whole thing. There's Heiian, aspiration, accomplishment, improvement, legacy, contribution and mindfulness all playing their role as well as countless others, and some of those can be quite unpleasant. Some of the most worthwhile lives have also been the most tortured.

The point is, you don't know how much a person can accomplish with their life when their course has been charted by another, who'll shoot them for straying from it. Which is why I'm opposed to slavery

/thread

As a general reminder to those who need reminders:

The Reclaimed of the Empire (and Kingdom) is in the care of their Holder and, so, it is expected -- in fact a necessity -- for them to be fed, clothed, and recieve medical care during the time of their learning. The abuse of slaves is an exception in the Empire. It is not a norm. It is not encouraged. It is not 'cool' - as they'd say in the Fed. It's abhorrent.

It is not uncommon for free citizens of Empire and Kingdom - not uncommon *at all* -- to be jobless, live homless, starve to death, suffer greatly without necessary healthcare. There is no super-special safety net in the Empire because you are, as it is Written, "Chosen", same as there is no safety nets everywhere else in the cluster as a norm. This is shown by the kingdom poor commiting crimes horrific enough to be punished by sentences of slavery - at least then they will eat. At least then they will recieve medical care. At least then they will ave a roof over their head. For the common man 'at least I am Chosen, at least I am free' will not put food on the table. Everyone in every part of the Cluster is a "slave" to something. Duty. Honor. The grumbling of their stomach.

But as usual, like hungry dogs, the contents of every smelly refuse can tastes better than the regular dog food, and so to the garbage we go, for over 10 pages. Shock and awe news with flashy holo-headlines and extremism and has more appeal, especially to this segment of the population who is, on average, barely ruffled by acts and activities what would horrify the average baseliner into a permanent case of PTSD. That would be us -- the ones who rationalize that we 'risk as few crew as possible' - but keep flying in combat-risk scenarios anyway, over and over and over. Accept the truth and let go of the security blankets of "at least I"s. Lying to yourselves until something feels like the truth does not and never has made it true. Just accept what you are and stop trying to pretend you're still a planetside baseliner horrified by the evening news.

As another reminder: Naupilius is not a Holder, nor has he been trained since birth on how to handle the weighty responsiblity of defending those under their charge from the wrath of the Lord as those of the Holder castes. Those who are not Holders are not even entrusted to care for land, much less human lives, for this is how it is Written to be - each to our place. Those who overstep their place risk the wrath of God.

Also. The Lord does not "show mercy" and it doesn't matter how "sorry" you are. How is it this that this constant misconception that the Amarr God is this benevolent father figure and we Amarrians are naughty children saying "I'm sorry" and having all "forgiven" by the Lord still managing to exist? That's near lunacy.

Mercy is by definition the responsibility of Empire - the Empress specifically - not the Lord's, and only through proper living can we be defended from His wrath. It is only us, mortals, who are capable of such a thing as "mercy". The Lord is Law and the ordering of the universe as we see it. Mercy can not be mixed in a laboratory or mined from an asteroid. Our blessing is that we have the power to create this "mercy" and exersize it through our own acts, and as it was written in the book of Reclaiming, to save the rst of humanity from the Lord's wrath we must convert them, and if they will not convert, our option for a chance to preserve their souls is the Reclaiming?

Again, the garbage can smells better - to the reader and at times to the Holders themselves, and atrocitie are committed. They shall be punished for what they have done in a way far more efficient than anything we can do here in new Eden.

And as for the Lord's wrath -- none are truly safe by blood or belief. None. Anyone and everyone from the poorest commoner to the most pious Holder-Priest can slip from the true Path and be denied paradise, and the Lord will not be handing out memos to let you know you've done it until the day of your judgement arrives. All those flashy news articles of Amarrians who use their positon -- not as a chance to show mercy and assistance, but as a chance to exersize power, sadism, and to feed their own egos -- is why these horrific misunderstandings of Imperial life exist in the first place.

If you don't like the truth because it is ugly, I could care less. Repeating lies will not change truths.

Anyway, I'm done preaching, and will have little interest in anyone's logical arguments. One can not argue with a book, and it is in the Scriptures these things are written. If you can get a Pax Amarria to get into a discource with you about this, help yourself. Simply keep in mind that if the Lord talks back to you, please seek help before you yourself end up the next one war-decced by half a dozen corporations.

I think your opposition would agree with you on this point.

Some can and will argue (rightly) that ships piloted by Capsuleers require far less crew, and therefore we are "saving lives".

Some can and will argue (rightly) that many baseliner crew are paid, and chose freely to do the work they do; that they have taken these jobs willingly, with full knowlege of the risks. Perhaps even the same for the occasional Exotic Dancer.

Some will argue (rightly) that many causes are not simply 'our wars' as private Capsuleer corporations go. We do not exist and function in a vaccuum, nor were we generated spontaneously with purpose derived later. We were and are an answer, a first step, in wars that have been raging for centuries. We were born of the baseliners - we *were them*, once, and are a product of their decisions to use a capsuleer program and our own decision to participate.

But yes. The crew die anyway. In droves. Even in a sense, 'by accident'. Nearly every Capsuleer would rather dock home in their ship than a pod, and will comfort themelves if they do dock up in a pod or wake in a tank that the numbers of baseliners required to operate their ship-now-wreck was far lower with an Infomorph Piloting the starship. They will comfort themelves with the percentage of lifepods that found their way to stations. They comfort themseves with the 'lives saved'.

Fourteen trillion (estimated) crew of capsuleer vessels alone have died over the last decade. The number of 'brilliant lives' lost in Baseliner operated ships of all factions, 'legal' and 'illegal' by CONCORD rating has not even been measured.

These numbers are the populations of entire star systems. Countless lives, stories are now silent, known only to God.

The scale of these numbers have reduced the dead to numbers, and nothing else because they are too large to encompass, even with an Infomorph brain capacity. We simply can not encapsulate the scope of the loss, truly, in our minds. We are incapable. One may as well try and comprehend the mind of God before trying to fully comprehend what we have done.

Most of us can barely look in the mirror and acknowledge the enormity our deadly truth. Some wonder why we are viewed as monsters that can cause the most hardened baseliner soldier to lose control of his or her bladder when confronted with our physical presence. We are the bogymen of nightmares so horrific that even we can't observe ourselves without using metaphors, calming truuisms, blinding ideals such as duty, faith... moral responsibility... lest we become so terrified of ourselves that we wetgrave in that unspeakable fear.

So, instead? We'll argue over 2000 versus 2034 versus 4034 instead to decide if it was murder or rescue.

It's always easier to swallow a smaller pill, a metaphor of the larger overall picture. We can comprehend 2034. Even a good baseliner school-teacher can remember 2034 names and faces and a few key aspects of each.

As for the involvement of baseliners on starships... It's a lofty dream, but wars will never be only fought with clones or drones.

Too many people (baseliner as well as Empyrean) in evey faction cry out for blood, the permanancy of the death of their enemies.

The frustration shown that Naupilius can not be killed "forever" shows this need for death all by itself. It justifies the killing of his crew, because "anything, even death, is better than being under his control". As if we, mortal and imperfect, are infallable judges and this makes us righteous.

Expand that and you have the security blanket of every Capsuleer who fires at any other ship due to differences in beliefs - though Naupilius is a carnival-mirror exmple, it is a mirror nonetheless. We shoot those who we do not agree with, or if we do not fire, we act via inaction to cause their destruction. Any more information than that is detail.

How horrible, for we, justified, to be considered murderers. How unfair, to be viewed with an objective inhuman lens of Truth.

I am a murderer.

I chose when I entered the Academy to bear this burden so others would not have to, because I am 100% assured someone would become the murderer instead of me.

If I refused, if ALL of us refused, the old baseliner wars would simply begin anew. Clusterwise peace will not be attained by Capsuleers refusing to fire a weapon ever again. Just the old 'to excintion' wars, again.

We are not as big as we think. We're expendable in our mechanized 'immortality', but not as most think. We're assets, as much as any slave on the market. We're tools to lower the numerical percentage of baseline fatalities and to leave the blood on the hands of a thing built in a laboratory for the purpose of murder.

And if a Capsuleer chooses to never fire a weapon? Then they'll simply fulfill our other purpose of interstellar trade. A miner mines tritanium which ends up in the hull of a warship. Separate yourself from the truth by as many degrees as you like. The wars will not end until they are ended -- and we have no say in when that will happen.

That so-called freedom isn't - no matter what symbol your faction gave you to tell you so. We are simply free to fulfill the purpose for which we chose to be intended.

To murder... in the name of being a savior... to the survivors.

You seem to be missing the wider view of the forest for all the trees, Verin. That said, I'll leave the question posed to you unanswered and the option to engage in dialogue open should it interest you in the future.

You doth protest too much, methinks.

PIE turning them over to Gradient? Voluntarily?

If you'll excuse me I seem to have dropped a jaw somewhere around here and need to find it before my surprised approval stumbles over it.

Edited because words and I forgot to voice my sincere appreciation of what appears to have been an attempt at non-violent solution in the initial moments of the confrontation. This more than anything displays a good intent on the mercenaries' part and I can thus eat a bit of humble pie and retract my previous accusations and apologize.

Stormcrows, good work.

The forest and the trees are one and the same. A logger who cut down the latter thinking no harm could come to the former, would soon run out of both.

The question you posed stems from a flawed interpretation of my meaning. Your line of questioning is derived from the mistaken conclusion that just because I readily acknowledge that individual slaves are capable of living full and happy lives in slavery, I then mean that slavery is "justified", "Worthwhile" or has "positive outcomes".

If that conclusion is flawed, then it follows that every single question you could possibly ask me based on that conclusion is also flawed. It's like asking me if I've stopped abusing children yet. I can't give an answer which directly answers that question in either the affirmative or the negative because I have never abused a child in my life. Similarly, I can't directly answers the question you're asking me because you're asking me to clarify opinions that I don't hold. I can only address the validity of the question itself.