Utari's Puppies (Formerly Off-Topic Thread)

[Samira_Kernher]

@Diana_Kim

@Arrendis

Neither were the ancestors of those slaves. They were abducted from their own homeworld and enslaved.

That’s just bare words of a known liar, who was openly claiming that I was “chopping off people’s hands”. Nope. Not believing that.

Arrendis is not lying.

The history of Amarr-Minmatar relations is that we lived in two separate areas of space. When the Empire found the Minmatar, the Amarr raided the Minmatar for slaves, and later invaded and conquered the whole nation.

Similar plans were intended for the Caldari (and the Gallente, and the Jove), but due to two secessions and the military capabilities of our enemies, these plans were never enacted on, leading to the current state of affairs where we seek to Reclaim by influence instead of force.

The crime, in all cases, is that those outside of the Amarr Empire do not serve God, that everyone outside Amarr are descended from apostates. Even you are guilty of this crime, Kim; you and the rest of the Caldari have just been given a ‘stay of execution’ for the time being.

A handful of slaves are people enslaved for committing what you would normally consider a crime. But those kinds of “criminals” make up the vast minority of slaves.

I’ve told you all of this before, Kim.

@Diana_Kim

were released by decree of Empress Jamyl.

This is incorrect. A sizeable number were released by Empress Jamyl, but most slaves in the Empire are still those descended from the Amarr invasions of the original Minmatar nation. Those invasions took place over several hundred years, not just one moment. The 9th generation and above represent those descended from some of the very first invasions, but the descendants of the later invasions are still living in slavery in the Empire today.

[Deitra_Vess]

It’s nobody’s job to prove you wrong. No one person decides that. What is anyone’s job is to prove their stances. The Amarr try to convince us their religion and slavery are right, we(or at least many of us) try and prove they are wrong and to some extent murdering them for their ancestors actions is right (“we come for our people” will always be at the expense of theirs as they view them as their own after all so as we would die for our own only a fool would not expect it from the opposing side). Our thoughts and opinions are malleable but over time they lose that characteristic until they break if you shut out all stresses and reside in an echo chamber. You can certainly hate the words but to hate the force is to hate what makes you. You’ll always be bombarded with differing opinions, use them to build yourself not tear yourself down.

[Aria_Jenneth]

It’s not that I’m going to be shutting out the discussion, Deitra; it’s that I’m sick of talking about the same old stuff, around and around and around. Who wants to talk about the same exhausted debating points forever?

There’s more to you than that. There’s more to us, and to me!

Even if I have to kill someone I don’t want to think of them as boring. So let’s talk about something we can actually learn something from!

[Deitra_Vess]

Joys of some people having one tract minds… Usually I just back away slowly from those conversations.

[Arrendis]

So let’s talk about something different. I saw what I’m told is an actual, legitimate chinchilla the other day. It vaguely looked like a fat, fluffy rat.

Since then, I can’t help but think that Pandemic Legion FC Doomchinchlla is a whole lot less intimidating now.

[Deitra_Vess]

Hey! Dooms nice!!

[Arrendis]

I never said he’s not! It just makes or hard to be intimidated by a guy when you’re imagining him as basically a rodent version of a sheep, happily munching on some lettuce.

[Deitra_Vess]

That I’ll agree with…

[Mizhara_Del_thul]

If I get mauled to death by an apex predator, that’s one thing. If I were to get mauled to death by a fuzzy little rodent, that’d be something infinitely worse.

… this, by the way, is one of the primary reasons why I want to paint all my ships bright neon pink with kittens, hearts and rainbows all over them.

[Aria_Jenneth]

Well-- I guess the point of the name is probably absurdity, but …

You can take something really scary and make it fairly innocuous (even cute, maybe) (at least arguably) by making it little.

Maybe you could make a cute thing terrifying by making it big? Say, like, really big-- a crust-tearing, mantel-gnawing interstellar monstrosity making spritely leaps from planet to planet, landing with the force of a global extinction event, its claws piercing the thin planetary skin as the shock of its arrival spreads through the lithosphere as a global earthquake, tumbling cities on the far side of the planet hours before the atmospheric pressure wave arrives to obliterate the few survivors as the world-hopping horror gorges on delicious pulpy planetary interior like a fruit-eating bat on an orange!

DOOM CHINCHILLA!

… doable. Still silly, though.

[Teinyhr]

Oh dear she’s been writing quite a while.

[Aria_Jenneth]

Someone's spread a nasty rumor . .

Well you go tell the Caldari make nice with the Federation and dismantling their fleets, and maybe you would have a leg to stand on with your holier-than-thouness.

Hm … well …

It’s nice of you to assume I’m particularly loyal to the State. That is, after all, what would be expected back home, and it does seem to have been true of my predecessor even when she was with the Cartel. For me, though …

Caldari architecture seems cold, hard, and confining. My oldest memories are of being a prisoner in surroundings like that, and even if objectively I was a pretty comfortable one I was still waiting for someone to decide whether I should be allowed to live as the person my paperwork claimed I was or just … shot.

What’s more, I’m a second-class citizen there. Pieter and the others in PY-RE (notable exception: Veik, at least when she’s on a tear) were nice about it and even seemed not to care, but I’m of mixed blood. That’s … not good, in the State. I still value the State for the protection it gives Achura, but I’m not sure linking me to the Caldari, or vice versa, is really fair, either way.

As for your more general point, though, Ms. Teinyhr, I’m a determinist. I don’t see free will as a real thing; it’s an illusion. We’re all products of our circumstances, acting out our lives like parts in a cosmic play. So none of us is to blame for who and what we are, in the end (though whether there are pragmatic reasons to treat free will as real is another matter).

I believe in neither cosmic good nor evil, but admit I’d rather witness a cosmic comedy than a tragedy. (Of course, this is where the sadder but possibly wiser side of myself whispers in my ear: “too late.”)

(Also, it can be easy to forget a lot of this stuff when confronted with things like mass slaughter. Delights and horrors make it harder to maintain any very significant level of perspective. It’s what I’m talking about if I mention getting tangled up in the world.)

Mostly, I’m less interested in being “holy,” than correct. And in some sense that’s a selfish wish, because it’s an effort to disentangle myself from the world-- to clear my eyes and see things as they are to the degree possible, but also to be free from suffering.

Being mixed up in certain kinds of stuff hurts, even if it’s nice at other times. There’s some stuff I’ve got mixed up in the last year or so that’s made it … really hard, even to be happy with some people I’m pretty fond of, like Arrendis. So I guess right now I’m trying to kind of wipe my eyes and wake up a little.

@Teinyhr

Oh dear she’s been writing quite a while.

Ah-- yeah, sorry.

Edited a bit for not sounding quite so awful there at the start, and also clarity.

[Teinyhr]

@Aria_Jenneth

It’s nice of you to assume I’m particularly loyal to the State, though.

You’re assuming that I assumed so. I know you’re somekind of ubercentristneutral, at least you think you are, all the whle parroting your more recent masters. I mentioned it because of a somewhat similar situation - both feel threatened by a vastly bigger expansionist empire.

@Aria_Jenneth

As for your more general point, though, Ms. Teinyhr, I’m a determinist. I don’t see free will as a real thing; it’s an illusion. We’re all products of our circumstances, acting out our lives like parts in a cosmic play. So none of us is to blame for who and what we are, in the end (though whether there are pragmatic reasons to treat free will as real is another matter).

That sounds more like fatalism to me. Or even defeatism.

@Aria_Jenneth

Mostly, I’m less interested in being “holy,” than correct. And in some sense that’s a selfish wish, because it’s an effort to disentangle myself from the world-- to clear my eyes and see things as they are to the degree possible, but also to be free from suffering.

Yet for the past year, maybe longer, you’ve been constantly wrong. Especially when it comes to my people. In your effort to be as neutral and milquetoast as possible, you don’t see who’s whispering in your ear.

Edit:
Altough it might be that you’ve droppd the pretense of neutrality at some point and sworn fealty to the Amarr, in which case I’ve missed it.

[Aria_Jenneth]

@Teinyhr

You’re assuming that I assumed so. I know you’re somekind of ubercentristneutral, at least you think you are, all the whle parroting your more recent masters. I mentioned it because of a somewhat similar situation - both feel threatened by a vastly bigger expansionist empire.

Fair 'nough.

@Teinyhr

That sounds more like fatalism to me. Or even defeatism.

Hm. “Defeatism” would be more like, “Why even try? We’re doomed!”

Fatalism’s closer, but still inaccurate-- it’s the idea that everything’s foreordained, therefore inevitable. That’s too closely tied to the idea that things are predictable for me.

To my eye, humans don’t have free will, but they absolutely do have an ultra-complicated set of circumstances with everything from genetics to upbringing to what they had for breakfast this morning, local humidity, particulate count, and maybe even (GASP!) logical reasoning playing into it.

We don’t have free will, but chaos makes a decent substitute.

That’s pretty much determinism. I used to resist the label, but, it’s accurate, so … sure. I’m a determinist.

@Teinyhr

Yet for the past year, maybe longer, you’ve been constantly wrong. Especially when it comes to my people. In your effort to be as neutral and milquetoast as possible, you don’t see who’s whispering in your ear.

Likewise, the Amarr often wonder why I haven’t converted. I don’t really have a problem with your position, or with theirs: it’s natural to think your own view is the correct one. After all, it takes a particular kind of stubbornness, or maybe pride, to persist while believing you’re in the wrong.

[Deitra_Vess]

@Aria_Jenneth

Mostly, I’m less interested in being “holy,” than correct. And in some sense that’s a selfish wish, because it’s an effort to disentangle myself from the world-- to clear my eyes and see things as they are to the degree possible, but also to be free from suffering.

I don’t understand why this would be a fault, the one who knows everything is also the first to conclude they know nothing at all.

@Aria_Jenneth

haven’t converted. I don’t really have a problem with your position, or with theirs: it’s natural to think your own view is the correct one. After all, it takes a particular kind of stubbornness, or maybe pride, to persist while believing you’re in the wrong.

Under this logic, if you haven’t noticed not many agree with my words, so one could say in the general consensus I am wrong. Am I stupid, stubborn or a mix of both? I like to think I simply take a different path than most, that means I am neither. I simply exist and hopefully make other people think.

[Arrendis]

@Aria_Jenneth

To my eye, humans don’t have free will, but they absolutely do have an ultra-complicated set of circumstances with everything from genetics to upbringing to what they had for breakfast this morning, local humidity, particulate count, and maybe even (GASP!) logical reasoning playing into it.

Well, logical reasoning itself (at least, the employment of it, how thoroughly it’s employed, what holes there are in someone’s logic, etc) is a product of all of the other circumstances, too.

[Arrendis]

@Vollhov_Jr

Not only 9th generation and up

We were asked to not clutter up that thread, and take it somewhere else.

But to address your point: the academics and theologians cannot have been more than a pittance of the total released.

[Aria_Jenneth]

@Deitra_Vess

I don’t understand why this would be a fault, the one who knows everything is also the first to conclude they know nothing at all.

Well-- so, what I’m expressing right now is a line of philosophy that can lead to a kind of cold, distant perspective, and in fact does traditionally involve a lot of disengagement from the world.

It means getting a lot of perspective, but makes it hard to DO anything with it, you know?

(I have mentioned Achura is the weirdest theocracy ever, right? The old aristocracy got uplifted, leaving the monks-- the people least-interested in worldly concerns-- in charge of everybody’s worldly concerns. I haven’t quite decided whether this is a brilliant arrangement or a very, very bad one for everybody.)

@Deitra_Vess

Under this logic, if you haven’t noticed not many agree with my words, so one could say in the general consensus I am wrong.

Uh … you might misunderstand a little. I’m not saying people should fall into line with their societies; I’m saying that for people holding a position to hold beliefs or take action in accordance with that position isn’t surprising.

If we had to conform strictly to the consensus of those around us, I should probably convert, or else go home and probably accept punishment for what I did to Grandfather.

@Arrendis

Well, logical reasoning itself (at least, the employment of it, how thoroughly it’s employed, what holes there are in someone’s logic, etc) is a product of all of the other circumstances, too.

Hee. True, but, so are a lot of the other circumstances, yes?

[Arrendis]

@Aria_Jenneth

Hee. True, but, so are a lot of the other circumstances, yes?

Of course They’re all influencing one another all the time, but there’s no reason to single out logical reasoning as if it’s somehow something separate from all of the other ultra-complicated factors, just because it takes place in the delusion that is the human mind.

[Aria_Jenneth]

Sure there is! It’s something humans have often historically taken outsized pride in, but also something that seems to actually sometimes be a factor in human decision-making rather than merely its product. Our capacity to reason might not rule our lives, but it does play an interesting role.

Mentioning it is also a good way to refer to the tangentially-related argument over whether human beings behave as rational actors (it’s pretty clear by now that we don’t, but there’s still a lot of tradition of us flattering ourselves this way, so …).