Off-Topic Thread vol. 2

Philosophically, it is.
Pure freedom means death. Pure order means death. Life is the transition between them, the evolution of system comes with the balance of both with the change of entropy, with energy flows, giving birth to peculiar fragile states, like the living forms who get consciouseness.
By itself freedom is just a phenomenon and the state with the maximum entropy, it isn’t kind, it isn’t evil - it is just what it is.

My hostility stems from gallente propaganda and from freedom cultists, who fight for the named freedom. And since you brought Kuvakei, isn’t he actually one who does GET the freedom, the freedom to do just whatever her wants. He wants more soldiers? He just kidnaps people. People don’t want to serve him? He modifies their brains to turn them into space zombies and pseudo-immortal tools of his domination. All that is possible because he got the FREEDOM. No laws, no codes, no honor, no restrictions. If he has the idea that the freedom must be taken away, then he is a hypocrite, enjoying almost maximum freedom himself.

As I said, the desire for freedom itself stems from criminality, it happens when people want to do something that is not allowed otherwise. I am switching here from more philosophical and physical concept to the political one, since I believe you probably meant so when you were talking about Megas and choices.

Freedom doesn’t really give any choices, because for choice you need a free will, not freedom. By choice, you can bump into a wall that prevents your way, and keep bumping to it ad absurdum, it doesn’t let you pass, of course - and that would be freedom to pass, but trying to get through is a choice. Even if there is a choice just to walk around that wall, that some people don’t realize, it could be quite narrow wall, about a meter width, yet, some people want to bump into it and complain they want the freedom for that wall to fall. And usually they’re blinded in their fanatism, not realizing that behind that wall there could be a fragile flower, and wall just prevents it from stampede of these freedom maniacs, who keep bumping into that wall only by their own choice instead of looking to make a step to the side and walk the road with other people.

Also, I am not completely Achura, and I would prefer if you address to me like a citizen of the State or just Caldari.

And also, please ignore Arrendiot. Certain forum trolls love to slander me without even trying to understand my position… or because they lack certain gears in their brain to think about, as I mentioned before, paths around the wall. They know that I would crush any of their arguments, so they resolve to pathetic insults and slanders like that, completely misinterpreting my own position like @Arrendis just did. Just ignore her.

1 Like

It’s not often I say this, but you lost me.

Uh … she seems to be saying essentially that rules exist for a reason and wanting to just bust through anything that limits your action for no other reason than because it limits you is a destructive impulse.

Which is true as far as it goes, but I wonder who is really on the other side of this argument.

Nobody?
Just speaking my point of view.

For Diana Kim, “free” always means [translator: loose, unbound, unrestricted, chaotic, anarchic] as in something drifting in a storm, and no matter how many people explain how many times, she is unable to understand it also can mean [translator: self-governed, autonomous, with agency]. Thus she makes these bizarre statements where where the ability to make a choice is the opposite of freedom.

Hope this helps.

1 Like

Newelle… did you not reread this before you sent it?

And in my own defense, it’s 23:55 and it’s been a very long week.

1 Like

Hm. I suppose the soldiery’s sense of humor is rubbing off on me.

3 Likes

Not everything is sexual. Combat forces inserting into theater is ‘aggressive’ enough, y’know?

Yes. I get that. But like I said, it’s late and it’s been a while. Let me be.

Sometimes I just want to share an amusing anecdote about something that happened, without it being turned into a metaphor about the Gallente-Caldari conflict of worldviews.

edit: Just to be clear, this isn’t about the four immediately preceding posts.

I’ve made no secret of why I’m here: there’s a debt I want to repay, a promise I want to keep, and someone I want to make sure is protected. While I sometimes experiment with greater causes (in general, I lean pro-civilization and pro-peace), in the end I’m only really loyal to Directrix Daphiti. Directrix Daphiti is loyal to Amarr.

Things have changed over the last few years, in this way and that. I feel a little more like a whole, adult person, now instead of … kind of a lost child who’s also a hollow place in the air. I’ve made mistakes, hurt people, gotten hurt … maybe more importantly, gotten really badly tangled up in the world.

But, that’s life, or maybe “living.”

I haven’t lost the identity I came into this world with. It’s more like I’ve been filling in the empty spaces-- trying out different ways of being whole. A lot of that’s definitely been filling with stuff I pick up from the Amarr-- or, inversely, from their enemies. More and more, the Empire is home.

Even now, though, I watch Amarrian society with a detached eye, a long-term visitor observing a culture that isn’t my own. Their Faith is admirable. I see its utility, the unity it inspires. Maybe if they really could conquer the world, they’d deserve to. God doesn’t have to be real for Amarr to be strong.

I always said, though, that I’d convert only if I came to truly believe in the Amarrian cause and god. I don’t want to lie, to God or to the people I’m close to.

And I don’t believe.

And it’s not like I’m such a strong person. If I can resist, even here, even under the influence of so many people I admire and love, why are people so afraid that they’re going to show up and talk everyone’s native religions to death? Even if they aspire to do something like that, that doesn’t mean they’re automatically going to win, even with a whole army of Archbishop Baraccas.

Anyway … as it stands, I find a lot to admire in the Empire, but also I said at the beginning, long ago, that I’d hear criticism from the Matari-- that I recognize their grievance as valid, and I’d listen. Maybe I haven’t always done great at that, but it’s still true. It just maybe doesn’t change things as much as people might assume or hope.

After all, even if I have sympathy, my duty remains. There aren’t a lot of people who are really in a position to persuade me it’s time to go, so maybe I should stop listening after all and save myself the stress and you the frustration.

It seems like I might miss something important if I did, though.

3 Likes

Because they’re afraid that when that inevitably fails, the swords will come out again. If anything, you’re proof against those who promote Reclaiming through the Word.

And I’m not going to lie, but the fact that non-violent methods are so much less effective in the long run does make it difficult to believe in eschewing wars of conquest entirely, even with what I believe now.

1 Like

Just wanting to deny other clans their spirits is inherently… abhorrent to most Matari. Being a missionary is a dishonorable profession, for that exact reason. You are imposing. You seek to destroy other people’s traditions. Just that you prefer to do it gently does not make it right.

Out of not wanting to do the same we do - mostly - live with the free Faithful of our homespace but it is an uneasy peace at best. To live with Faithful who themselves want to convert with words but have at their backs a navy and an army who are ready to do so with force… well, I’m sure you see my point.

1 Like

Even if you snapped a collar around my neck and made me light candles in a cathedral all day you still might never persuade me. The Matari largely turned against your Faith after a thousand years of violent Amarrian domination. Maybe you should give Directrix Daphiti a similar length of time to try nonviolent methods and see how things work out?

What could have been had we conquered the Minmatar but not enslaved them, I wonder?

There is no sign at all that this is true. You don’t listen to Matari voices. When we try to reason with you, you talk us down. You’ve never tried to come around to our viewpoint, or to understand why we feel the ways that we do about things.

My personal belief is that listening to all sides of a debate makes anyone a better person, even if they ultimately choose a side to agree with. You didn’t do that. At some point, you decided that Amarr is right and the Republic is wrong, and that was the end of it. Maybe it’s your loyalty to Directrix Daphiti that does it, although that would be strange because I’ve found her to be quite cognizant of and familiar with Matari issues. But blind dedication can have some interesting side effects.

At the end of the day, I don’t think that any of the three of us you singled out in your post really care whether you listen to Republic loyalists or think our cause is valid. But it does get very annoying to see you insist that you care, that you’re open-minded about the conflict, when you really are not.

So for the sake of not beating this dead fedo, stop pretending that you are.

4 Likes

I’ll say this, Mr. Quatrevaux: I rarely lie. If I say something, it is, at minimum, something I perceive as truthful in the moment. I’m often wrong, but I don’t lie much.

I don’t think you’re lying, either, but I wonder if you’re right.

Not only am I listening, I’ve listened for a while. You’re giving me a lot of sympathy for one of Else’s earlier arguments, even: telling someone their own mind, it turns out, is more aggressive and intrusive than I thought, even, and maybe especially, when you’re wrong.

Hm.

Just do what I did; block and ignore the hypocrite. I got so tired of reading all the regurgitated slaver rhetoric posing as “dispassionate, reasoned arguments” that it was the only sensible thing to do.

I really miss the old, amusing pirate Jenneth. This new one is just plain old tedious and no different from Kim or the average slaver zealot.

They wouldn’t need to, then. They’d force you to have multiple children, take those children from you while they continued to impregnate you, and raise those children to believe what they want them to believe.

Well, that’s maybe true. Only (1) it’s likely any children I have here will be Amarr anyway without creating a big issue and (2) your people managed to keep their identities despite what you just said.

Also, hi, Arrendis.

What do you think of Samira’s counterfactual where the Empire goes around conquering people without enslaving anyone? … It seems … well. Like if she wants it to be effective it ends in something like slavery anyway?