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Federation: Have We Lost Ourselves?
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Eli Hakomairos
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#121 - 2014-11-25 00:27:23 UTC
Samira Kernher wrote:
You can't force someone to change their principles. You can only force them to act contrary to them.

Obediance to avoid punishment, to sate an addiction, to earn a reward, or to survive is only lip service. You can't force an ideal or a faith. There would be no Republic if you could.


if the Matari didn't have auto-cannons i'm quite sure there would be much more Ammatar.
Stitcher
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#122 - 2014-11-25 00:32:36 UTC  |  Edited by: Stitcher
You can't force somebody to act at all.

Action implies volition and agency. What you CAN do is narrow the range of possible options they have to only those where acting in a way contrary to your wishes would be very much against their best interests, or where acting in a way that conforms to your wishes is very much in their best interest. The point is, in such circumstances, the option remains to act against self-interest, or maybe to have a definition of self-interest that differs from your own.

It's the difference between encouraging the donkey - whether out of desire for a carrot or aversion to the stick - to move towards you, and physically having an MTAC with a sling pick the beast up and deposit it at your feet. While the end result in both cases is that your physical proximity to the donkey has increased, the critical difference exists that in the former case the donkey elected - after encouragement - to act and move itself, while in the latter case you chose to move the donkey by your own effort.

I would never, for example, willingly stab my sister. If you locked me in some horrific limb-manipulating exoskeleton that then forced my arms to move in such a way that my sister was stabbed, I STILL would not have stabbed her. You see?

AKA Hambone

Author of The Deathworlders
Astera Zandraki
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#123 - 2014-11-25 00:43:29 UTC
Eh, the OP is a typical cultural relativist. One can measure the worth of a society on a number of factors: crime levels, lives lost, economic prosperity, overall happiness etc. The Federation does well in all categories.
Tyrel Toov
Non-Hostile Target
Wild Geese.
#124 - 2014-11-25 02:57:01 UTC
everyone sucks. Does it really matter who sucks a little less in a given subject?

I want to paint my ship Periwinkle.
Elmund Egivand
Tribal Liberation Force
Minmatar Republic
#125 - 2014-11-25 04:59:53 UTC
Tyrel Toov wrote:
everyone sucks. Does it really matter who sucks a little less in a given subject?


Personally, I believe we should admit that we suck and see if we care. If we care, we should see how we could suck less.

A Minmatar warship is like a rusting Beetle with 500 horsepower Cardillac engines in the rear, armour plating bolted to chassis and a M2 Browning stuck on top.
Jvpiter
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#126 - 2014-11-25 06:01:30 UTC
Liuni Kalthis wrote:
Jvpiter wrote:


Behold the Gallentean who laments his loss of the proverbial fig leaf during an open discussion about the faults of the Federation. Give him a strobe-lit room with opiates and writhing bodies and he would forget that modesty were ever a word.


I am not surprised, in the least.



Sounds like a good time, when are you going to be throwing this party sir?



As soon as Diana volunteers to be the main course.

Call me Joe.
Liam Antolliere
Doomheim
#127 - 2014-11-25 16:40:36 UTC
Astera Zandraki wrote:
Eh, the OP is a typical cultural relativist. One can measure the worth of a society on a number of factors: crime levels, lives lost, economic prosperity, overall happiness etc. The Federation does well in all categories.


Mademoiselle Zandraki,

You do me a disservice by simply dismissing the conversation as "cultural relativism." If that is how you indeed consider it, then you needn't have responded at all.

In case it was not already apparent, the original post led to several discussions, some on topic and others less so, but discussion was the point.

Furthermore, I wasn't measuring the worth of Federal society, nor even inquiring about it. I challenged the exact complacency you've demonstrated by comparing where we are from where we should be given the ideals and principles we proclaim to uphold. That's not cultural relativism, it's cultural conservatism.

"Though the people may hate me, that does not relieve me of my charge."
Diana Kim
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#128 - 2014-11-25 17:27:24 UTC
Jvpiter wrote:


As soon as Diana volunteers to be the main course.


Excuse me...
WHAT EXACTLY do you expect me to do?... Shocked

Honored are the dead, for their legacy guides us.

In memory of Tibus Heth, Caldari State Executor YC110-115, Hero and Patriot.
Veikitamo Gesakaarin
Doomheim
#129 - 2014-11-25 18:33:49 UTC
Liam Antolliere wrote:
... why are we despised and reviled by so many? Is it just perspective? Are we simply misunderstood?



I have often asked myself this question, myself. I have always tried to do the right thing in life and all that comes of it is to be despised and reviled by so many. Maybe it's just because sometimes I'm so carefree with a joy that's hard to hide, but I cannot always be an angel, so even though my intentions are good I remain misunderstood.

That said, I do not see how the Federation has lost itself - rather, it has found its drive, its sense of purpose and direction, and the necessity to realize its own Manifest Destiny. That the Federation has managed to not only attain these virtues while adhering to fundamental principles of individual freedoms, equality under the law, and the pursuit of free enterprise while maintaining both its internal cohesion and external security is an accomplishment to be admired and respected. Achievements born no doubt only by the leadership of men such as President Jacus Roden and the efforts of its patriots as embodied in a civil servant such as Mentas Blaque.

In light of such, I can but only wonder at the need to apparently apologize as a citizen of the Federation for its successes in recent years.



Kurilaivonen|Concern
Jvpiter
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#130 - 2014-11-25 19:06:32 UTC
Diana Kim wrote:
Jvpiter wrote:


As soon as Diana volunteers to be the main course.


Excuse me...
WHAT EXACTLY do you expect me to do?... Shocked


Alas, a brief joke perhaps at your expense.


In any case, if either of us found ourselves amongst a borderline orgy, I imagine we would both be interested in bathing in some blood. Would that be inappropriate?



Call me Joe.
Liuni Kalthis
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#131 - 2014-11-25 22:28:50 UTC
Jvpiter wrote:
Diana Kim wrote:
Jvpiter wrote:


As soon as Diana volunteers to be the main course.


Excuse me...
WHAT EXACTLY do you expect me to do?... Shocked


Alas, a brief joke perhaps at your expense.


In any case, if either of us found ourselves amongst a borderline orgy, I imagine we would both be interested in bathing in some blood. Would that be inappropriate?





And you call Gallente the odd ones; I will never understand blood raiders.