I just want to be clear. Might doesn’t actually make right. It just makes it very hard to argue with you.
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And encourages all the less mighty to band together and pool their strengths and resources to kick the wanker down the ladder.
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No, it doesn’t. It makes you less powerful: Your agency is impaired, and dependent upon their permission.
Different kinds of groups exhibit different group behaviors. Packs (as most often used with canines, but also other predatory creatures), for example, do not respond to danger by huddling together with the young at the center of the group. Herds (used for herbivores) do not spread out to use misdirection and confusion to turn a situation more advantageous to themselves. And neither exhibits any particular tendency toward the kind of altruism and justice impulses seen in primate troupes.
Simplistic thought leads to simplistic thought. It’s no wonder you cling so tightly to it for justification.
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This doesn’t actually happen as often as people might hope, though. Usually in practice people will bow to what they see as immutable reality as long as they still have stuff that they really don’t want to lose-- typically, as long as they’re still getting fed.
Humans are pretty tolerant of getting pushed around. They’re not so tolerant of starvation.
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Like most animals, really
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It typically happens when the threat turns into an existential one. Like, as you pointed out, starvation. Or hypothermia. Or an avalanche.
It just needs just the right amount of duress to trigger.
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If you are in the lower part of a hierarchy there will always be cost, but the point of these deals is that the benefit outweighs the payment. You wouldn’t agree to give someone 90% of your monthly income in exchange for protection. But you might agree to another, fairer deal. This does still impair your agency but the point is that both sides benefit from the deal gaining something they need and losing part of something they have more than enough of, therefore increasing both sides power.
I did say that some groups of animals operate differently than others, but in most animals, the dynamics are almost the same. We have a strong bond with other humans.
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Not automatically. Nor do all of the parties involved agree to the arrangement. You claimed that:
Matari slaves are ‘under the protection’ of their Holders. That doesn’t make them powerful. They didn’t have to agree to be at the lowest levels of the heirarchy of Amarr society. There’s no benefit in the deal for them.
And that’s what your whole position is built on: that it’s ok for the strong to enslave the weak because… apparently that makes the weak more powerful?
As I said: simplistic thought leads to simplistic thought. You blindly accept the utter crap your society spoons out, and never question it… and this is what you’re left with, this feeble nonsense masquerading as reason, with holes in it I could drive a titan through.
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Slaves were not powerful enough and so, one way or another fell into other peoples service, and a slave who is protected by their owner is definitely more powerful than a slave who isn’t.
I am not saying that being a slave makes you safer than being free. In fact, that is the opposite way around. But what I am saying is that humans have a desire to be as powerful as they can be, so the situation with the day of darkness was just us submitting to human nature.
If humans do not crave power why do wars happen? Why is science a thing? Why does anyone even want to become a capsuleer for goodness sake?
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Mr. Zateki? Um. When it comes to Amarr stuff I’m kind of an observer, and there’s a line you’re stumbling around the edge of right now.
It’s not a good line.
Ambition is maybe inevitable, but, if you look at it as the sole driving force you’re missing some hugely important stuff.
Wars seem to happen for various reasons, usually intermingled: economic factors; ideological divisions; the kinds of differences in position and perspective that keep people from really understanding each other. And, yeah, someone’s thirst for power or feeling that they have a right or duty to impose their power on someone else.
Science might advance in certain contexts as a desire for power, but mostly it’s driven (especially among the researchers and academics themselves) by a different impulse: curiosity.
Hunger for power is kind of a variable thing. … as a capsuleer, I have more than I feel like I should. I think it warps me, darkens me, makes me consider stuff I have no business even thinking about. I think it mostly becomes a vehicle for the worst in us. But then, I don’t remember anymore why I wanted to become a capsuleer. I gather it was because I felt unwanted, where I was, and wanted to prove myself. So maybe capsuleers really do seek this status mostly out of a desire for power.
Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to find a capsuleer who’s also a really good and decent person.
I guess I’m beating around the brambles a little here so I’ll get right to it:
It seems that there is a vicious, jagged, core truth to Sani Sabik belief: “power matters.” The Sani Sabik tend to treat it as the only actual truth, and spend a lot of time congratulating themselves over how clever they’ve been to uncover it. Really it’s an insight that isn’t all that far beneath the surface of Amarrian civilization, so, it doesn’t take all that much uncovering.
It’s a little dangerous, though. It’s the heart of a heresy the Amarr physically burn people for (like, with lasers). Your whole feudal society is set up around the careful distribution and control of power: who gets how much, and why, so, an insight like that is corrosive by nature.
It’s not corrosive because it’s wrong; it isn’t. It’s corrosive because people who find it have this way of thinking it’s the only meaningful truth. But if that’s so, there’s no reason for anyone to show real loyalty to anyone else; we’re all just using each other for advantage, preying on one another in millions of little ways.
Your faith teaches the opposite: that we’re all part of a single shining kingdom, which it is the duty of the Amarr to build. At its core it’s a self-negating belief, rather than a self-indulgent or self-empowering one; maybe that’s why I find it easy to get along with the Amarr generally, even if I’m not a believer. Of course, egos and so on pop up even so, and ambition, and pride.
But your main thesis, “We did it because we could?”
It’s pretty much what Arrendis and Miz, and a lot of other people really, think of the Empire-- that you’re bullies and villains who go around enslaving anyone you can, because you can-- so it plays into your enemies’ hands. It’s not one a lot of Amarr in good standing will find persuasive or sympathetic. And, respectfully, it seems like a pretty fast way to lose any standing you might have, and maybe even find a certain word kind of firmly attached to your name going forward:
“Heretic.”
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As always, it remains adorable how hard Aria tries to make her chosen position tenable by pretending really hard there’s any truth to the pretense, when all around her there’s plenty of evidence of the reality underneath. You see that Zat fellow? He’s not an aberration or abnormality. You’ll see his like in every noble house and family across the Empire. The breeding facilities? They’re sanctioned. The raids going on in our space, right now as we speak? Ordered.
The Empire does demonstrably and irrefutably go around enslaving who they can, because they can. They’ve just hit the wall where they can no longer do so with impunity, so the efforts of pretending it’s benign are increased so they’ll get to play the victim when it comes time to pay the price for their choices and actions.
For an ‘observer’, there’s rather a lot you turn a blind eye to.
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Hee. And we’re back to it.
I unblocked you by the way, Miz.
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Yes, you’re completely right, infants born into slavery should’ve been stronger, so they’d have been able to fight off the entire Empire all on their own, at birth.
Science happens because people seek to understand. And yes, some people seek to understand because understanding things gives you greater control over your world, even in tiny ways. Others seek to understand only because they’re driven to understand. Some people are just curious.
As for war… war happens because people need a bullet to the head.
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This would make a little more sense as a line of thought if there was a way of making sure who needed it and making sure those who needed bullets got them.
There’s usually some difference of opinion about who needs bullets. And usually some receiving of bullets by people who didn’t need or want them. … Actually, it seems like some wars have hardly anybody who needs a bullet to the head.
Editing people you don’t like out of the world seems like a messy business, and only partly because they’ll often try to edit you back.
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Well, that’s usually why both sides wind up shooting.
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Well … maybe, but, speaking for myself, I don’t really need to feel like someone needs a bullet in order to give them one.
More generally, though, Arrendis, I was watching your exchange with Miz and … well, if you know you probably can’t win militarily now, and you probably can’t win militarily in the future either …
… Why is it you’re so dead set against taking our collective time and working stuff out peacefully again? I mean, maybe you really feel like the Praefecta and I and everybody over here need a bullet because we’re supporting a regime that’s perpetuating the suffering of people you care about, but, if you know you probably can’t win by force of arms (especially being as your best shot at a surprise attack was about ten years ago) … why not try something else?
If we all deserve bullets but you concede that you probably can’t give them to us, why not try something different that doesn’t directly involve guns? You might agree with Miz that even if the Empire is changing (which I think she would say it isn’t, but, that’s not clearly true) it can’t change fast enough to suit you, but do you actually have a better option? I mean, unless this universe really seems to you like it cares a lot about what people deserve?
Is violence compulsory just because you think we deserve it?
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Well, first, your basis is flawed.
It would be more accurate to say I believe we definitely can’t win militarily now, but I believe that we’re on-track to outpace the Empire’s growth both industrially and scientifically, and so think it likely there is a point in the future when we can win militarily.
I’m also not saying ‘we need to wait for that day’. I’d prefer to do everything I can to change the strategic situation to make tomorrow that day.
As for why I’m so dead set against working stuff out peacefully… this is a binary proposition: The only resolutions are either: the Empire renounces slavery and releases all its slaves, OR there will be war and billions will die. There’s no compromise, no middle ground. There’s no ‘well, give up some of your slaves, and we’ll only kill some of you’. Either they end slavery, or they don’t.
The Empire is not going to give up its slaves. This is because the Empire, by and large, doesn’t want to give up its slaves, and won’t do anything it doesn’t want to do unless forced to do so by violence or the threat of violence.
There is no moral argument, no economic argument, that hasn’t already been tried over the centuries. If there was, we’d likely try it. But there isn’t. Because we did. You can hope for peace and civility and ‘some other solution’, but until you’ve got an alternative solution to offer, Aria, it’s all meaningless. This isn’t an abstract issue. This is peoples’ lives that the Empire continues to destroy, every single day.
The Empire will not give up its slaves, and it’s not going to stop raiding to enslave even more. The Empire—every adult, citizen, retainer, or whatever—who doesn’t actively and loudly oppose the enslavement of others, who continues to support the hierarchy and structure that engages in this crime, is evil. They may be nice people, they may be perfectly wonderful folks to chat with, but they are choosing to be a force for evil, nonetheless.
And they will not stop. Even when confronted with it, the most that will happen is they’ll mouth platitudes about yes, it’s something that should stop, but they want it to stop because politeness and reason, and they couldn’t ever turn and denounce the Empire just because the Empire destroys billions of lives every day.
So there will be war. It’s only a question of when, and how many die.
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Validate the most atrocious abuse of human beings on an institutional level, while it’s still going on? The staggering lack of even the most basic ethical and moral principle required for that would be nigh unprecedented. There is nothing to negotiate or discuss. The Empire are as we speak committing atrocities on a scale that dwarfs anything the Sansha, Blooders, Angels, Gurista, Drifters or what have you have successfully managed all together.
No Aria, there won’t be any ‘working stuff out peacefully’, even if there wasn’t centuries of blood and suffering demanding a measure of justice. Right now, in this moment alone, there is cause for utter obliteration of the Empire and all its supporters. This will of course never come to pass, but the simple fact is that there is no peaceful option while this is the case.
There are no excuses. There are no valid justifications. There is nothing to build anything but war upon, until the Empire release all their slaves, and that just won’t happen.
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Well … it’s not only about making arguments, in the end, though. Argument is really just a persuasive discussion of reality, right? But there are some arguments you don’t make out loud.
The Empire’s been changing, over time. Adjusting. Adapting. Vak’Atioth and the Minmatar Rebellion were a pair of nasty shocks, and the ripples are still being felt. These days (raids or no raids) there’s only one Great House that still really wants to do the whole “Reclaiming by the sword” thing. That’s House Sarum, and even its last empress didn’t really go all-out for war, despite how her reign began. That’s not because of an argument someone made, unless maybe you count Vak’Atioth as an argument by the Jove. (In which case, wow, seriously persuasive argument. Whole civilization got lots to think about there.) It’s because of something that happened.
Changing circumstances, shifting realities-- still shifting even now. You don’t have to talk people into stuff that events are making them confront without you having to say a word.
That might seem like an argument for you to keep preparing for war, itself, but, it might not be a good idea to conduct diplomacy that way unless you can be sure of success. After all, if the Amarr believe you, the ready answer is to respond in kind … or maybe take a page from Miz and get the party started early, before the situation worsens.
Only, that’s maybe not such a good end for anybody, either. And, actually, I’m not sure it’s going to become one for anybody-- the shocks from Vak’Atioth that produced a peacemaker emperor and the Pax Amarria also seem from here to have spurred what might otherwise have been a pretty sleepy Empire to wake up and pay real attention to the strategic situation. You might think time is on your side, but, that’s kind of a roll of the dice, at best. The Empire has a lot of resources at its disposal, if it uses them well, and it’s probably dangerous to assume it won’t.
As for “evil” … if you want to think of me that way, I guess I won’t blame you. If my last clone ends up getting hanged or shot or something as an ally to your enemies I guess I won’t have a lot to complain about. I don’t really recognize that “evil” in myself, though.
This is the “justice” of the world I see, Arrendis: interaction, fluctuation, consequence, shifting patterns of interaction. It’s not on your side, or mine, or Miz’s. It isn’t going to validate any of us that way.
Of course, neither you nor the Amarr broadly see it that way: the Amarr see themselves as serving God; you and Miz apparently see yourselves as serving justice. So, maybe you’ll get your war.
But I won’t hope for such a thing.
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I’ve yet to see a rebuttal of the points made in my opening post, by any of the notable Imperial Orthodox posters, such as Samira Kernher, or any PIE theologians.
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