Intergalactic Summit

I seriously doubt that any traditionalist believes that the BoR is about "peace and love".

"There will be neither compassion nor mercy;
Nor peace, nor solace
For those who bear witness to these Signs
And still do not believe."
- The Scriptures, Book of Reclaiming 25:10

Trying to turn that into a message of peace and love requires the kind of blindness only certain Amarrians on IGS can muster.

Continue to prove me right, thanks.

Do you spend much time among children? Violence, cruelty, selfishness, and injustice are just as common if not moreso among children left to their own devices as they are between adults, and more common than peace is in my experience. I have watched unsupervised children "playing" in both the State and Republic and seen how horrible they can be to each other. I have not spent any time among Amarrian children but I did observe many small perfidies between Gallente and Intaki children on my trip to the Crystal Boulevard, so I am sure that they are no angels either. I suspect that children everywhere are much the same.

I have also seen how a "mundane" elder can turn those misguided aggressions into small moments of unity and learning experiences. Children need guidance to find a moral path, not instinct. Instinct makes them pull the wings off of butterflies and push around smaller and younger children. I realize that many adults teach their children bad habits and biases (e.g. witness the next response I will make here), but good habits are even more dependent on learning.

And here is my second response, proving both the horrors of being taught prejudice by ones elders and Myxx's contribution to the discussion:

I am a little surprised to hear this from you, LG. I believe that the first discussion where we crossed paths you stated that you were trained as a simple soldier and just went where you were told and did what you were told and did not worry about the philosophy of it. This was some months back and one of the livelier conversations I have seen in NEA, so it was somewhat memorable and distant enough that I may be misquoting you. I shall have to go looking to see if I still have copies of the logs to make sure that I am not misrepresenting you too horribly.

I do not disagree entirely with your characterization of the State, at least as far as military and security forces go. You do follow the orders you are given, or your superiors find someone who will follow and you find yourself transferred and demoted - or possibly killed on the spot, for example if you are blatantly disregarding orders and endangering your peers in the middle of a firefight. But even for soldiers - and moreso for scientists and executives - the best and most successful people in the State find creative ways to forge their own path without insulting or directly contradicting their superiors. Following orders to the letter usually leads to a safe life, but one that is confined to a narrow niche, and in the State if you have any ambitions you need to balance obedience and initiative.

I suspect that these things are much the same for the Federation, so perhaps you or someone else could educate me a bit. What happens to a Gallente soldier who chooses to disregard orders? Are your soldiers actually allowed to ignore their superiors if they disagree with orders on political grounds, or because the soldier believes he or she has a more morally-appropriate opinion on how to proceed? I seriously doubt it, but I am willing to listen if I am wrong. However I am almost certain that you are doing nothing more than showing your usual ingrained hatred by contrasting the "enlightened Gallente" and "thuggish Caldari", and I am doing nothing more than having my usual kneejerk reaction to your acid, and we just go as another weary example of the already amply-made point that we are all flawed and fractious beings.

Captain Hawke, I do not mean to unleash my fangs in your thread - especially as a piece almost diametrically opposed in tone to what I have posted so far - without a nod to you as well. I cannot refute any point you have made. The path our peoples are set upon - of violence, of hatred, of building for war rather than investing in peace - all of these things are accurate. The suggestion that embracing peace would allow us to focus better on building more prosperous societies and finding a just solution to all of our grievances - also likely true. But I think the will is not there, at least for us.

Obviously I cannot speak for the Federation - let the disavowals and jingoistic speech of others suffice.

For the part of the State, I think I can impart an impression of the mood where I have lived and traveled. We have had our revolution, and what you see is the result. There is more hope, more just and visible rewards for both merit and failure, and a new prosperity. There is a new sense of purpose, and a resurgent pride in being Caldari. What there is not is a new hankering for peace. We are set more firmly on the path of conflict with the Federation than at any point since the last war petered out, and that will not change easily. I think it would require another flashpoint for us - a Malkalen of goodwill rather than ill - and a counterrevolution more drastic than anything I have seen in my lifetime to shift us so far. I do not see it happening.

I am sorry for your call to a greater good. Your sentiments and people like the Disciples of Ston put the rest of us to shame. But, flawed as we are, we each must walk our own path, and for the most part our feet face in another direction.

That said, my experience is not all-encompassing and others may disagree - for example Ishukone has made efforts to bridge the divide - so maybe there is more hope for you than what I have to say.

Don't worry... Mr. Hawke doesn't speak for the Intaki...neither for the Federation.

I should think that my posts prove me an uneducated and awkward philosopher. From a short reading on both topics I agree with your objection but it does not contradict my basic point - that we as human beings are at least as prone to violence as peace, and that peace is not a more natural state than conflict. That is based on an observation of several of our cultures, and what seems to be prevalent in all of them from an early age. Barring a sufficiently persuasive cluster-wide analysis demonstrating otherwise, I will choose to believe my eyes in this.

(I have edited this to remove any references to Captain DuPont's statements, in light of her clarification.)

The objection was not against that observation (and hence more a reply to your foreposter than you), but against the attempts to draw any conclusions from that observation.

It is irrelevant for an ethics debate what is a "more natural" state.

(Those who feel that "more natural" states are somehow inherently superior should deplug themselves from their pods and stop posting on this fine forum.)

Who "they" ? The 4 empires ? Of course they pay capsuleers to fight for a war they wanted in the first place. It is quite fortunate that CONCORD intervened, or you would have prefered a war involving the whole cluster population and planets ?

What is a shame, though, is what CONCORD did is actually not enough.

This will most likely be because all of the Amarrians who believe in the Reclaiming will be dead.