To end The War

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
226

It’s not about my convictions, Mr. Revon, it’s about your attitude and the performance you showed in the discussion.

On one hand, you called me a friend, but on the other, you started talking in my discussing about my person instead of my ideals.

Then you said that you hate the Federation, but just a bit earlier you openly stated that “there is the Diana Kim we all know and loathe.” You - who? Gallente? Other enemies of the State? Because that’s what neither my friend, nor any citizen of the State would say. But almost any citizen of the Federation will eagerly put a sign under that.

Next, you make an outlandish and ridiculous by its absurdity claim that “Diana hates most people”. Who could say that sort of nonsence? Either a clown or a troll. You have made a claim that you are not a “zealot of irrationality”, but after such claim maybe you actually are.

I am definitely not a “baka”, and unlike your claims, mine are based on observations, publically available facts and rational logic, and by these I will doubt your words, I will doubt that you are “friend”, I will doubt that you are “not a zealot of irrationality”, and I will doubt your loyalty to the State.

There was an old movie, and the main villain there was a gallente spy, his behavior was quite similar to what you’ve just displayed. Saying on one hand “oh, you are my friends! How could I do something bad to you!” - and on the other, doing exactly opposite.

You definitely don’t sound as one, fighting for the same side in this war. And I don’t think doubt that our ships are heading in the same directions. As I have shown with words and actions, my ships is sailing together with the State, while the direction of your ship for me is unknown, and I won’t make decision about that based on your words only, as your behavior is neither friendly, nor consistent.

As a conclusion, I can tell you only this:
I’ll leave you alone. But if I see you turning your ship against Caldari and will start hurting the State, I’ll probably be the first who will stuff your ship with rail slugs. Because from now on my eyes will be on you. :policewoman:

– D. Kim, Strike Cmdr.
State Protectorate,
Caldari State

227

“Someone’s making it worse. Clearly I must too.” isn’t a very good argument for anything, Aria.

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228

You really don’t get it, Miz?

The argument is, “It won’t work, period. You will make it worse. Here’s why. Think of something else.”

… I was working on the something else, but, I don’t think I have a productive role to play in that anymore, so, I’m done. Hopefully someone comes up with something. Maybe there’ll be something productive I can do with it at some point, but right now, not so much.

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229

No I get what you believe. I am just of the opinion you’re wrong.

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230

If that’s true, maybe you could start arguing against that instead of:

… which isn’t what I was saying at all?

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231

You’re right, I didn’t word that well. That was meant to be the effect of what you do, not what you intend to do. Better?

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232

Do you have some reason to put forth to think that what you propose will actually work? I mean, despite the inevitable assistance of pilots like Mr. Revon? If there was a test case for your proposal, it would seem to be Ms. Kim, and she doesn’t raise the ante in at all the same way.

It seems like your argument on this boils down to, “You’re wrong,” which I really don’t think I am. Even now.

I’ve explained my reasoning, Miz. Will you? Are you really saying something like, “It would work just fine if people would just stop making it not work?”

… if it depends on people and has to work in spite of how people are, it probably isn’t going to.

Edit:

Also, much, thank you.

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233

I have explained it more than once, in half a dozen different places. The simple fact of the matter is that you need look no further than the consequences of your decision to poke the hive. The man takes this as encouragement and slaughters people in your backyard, or what he believes to be your backyard. More than once.

He has gotten a reaction out of you. Now he’s coming back to till the field again.

You legitimized him. You’re not some weird little troll like certain others. You speak a lot. You’re highly visible. You granted him relevance. Think some random punk like Revon would get any kind of similar response? Worse yet, you set the example that this is what people should be doing. Poke the clown. Maybe it’ll do something funny.

You want people to do something against their nature? Set an example and maintain it, instead of giving in to your own… ‘nature’. At the very least, successful or not, you will have done the right thing and risen above the cancerous shitpails that constitute the majority of these boards. At best… you may actually achieve something.

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234

Getting to feel superior to others because I’ve “risen above” them isn’t a goal that appeals to me very much, Miz. And I’m not really interested in achieving stuff only in the best-case scenario. Especially when the best-case scenario involves expecting (very arguably) “better” of people than people can fairly be expected to show you.

The question’s become academic for me, anyway, though. So.

Whatever, really, I guess.

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235

That’s neither what the post said, not even the part of the post that should have been the most relevant to you.

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236

Really?

If it doesn’t work, it just lets me feel superior to other people and get to hold my head high (IE, feel superior) because I did the “right thing” … that’s not a thing you’re saying should motivate me?

I get what else you were saying, but that’s pretty well over now, anyway. For good or ill.

Be happy, Miz! You win. I don’t see any good I can do in that matter anymore.

… But I won’t discourage others from trying.

Encouraging calculated disengagement in the full knowledge it’s unlikely to work is something I’ll leave to you and like-minded, morally superior people.

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237

Rewriting it to “lets me feel superior”? Yes, really, that’s neither what the post said, nor even the part of the post that should have been the most relevant to you.

You have a sadly egotistical view if that is what you got from it. Look further afield than yourself. Perhaps it’ll do you some good.

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238

She misinterprets “to rise above” as “having the bigger ego”.

239

You’re reading the ‘getting to feel superior’ bit into this, Aria. What she said was you’ll have done the right thing. The rest of it is ancillary, fluff. Worst case: you did the right thing. That’s a lot better than a whole lot of ‘best case’ scenarios in this cluster.

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240

See … here’s the thing, though, Arrendis:

If she’d framed it in terms that involved just doing the right thing while comparing myself to no one else, I’d find it more sympathetic. Miz judges others very harshly. She looks down on people. She looks down on you; she looks down on me. I have no desire to follow her example that way (excepting maybe a reflexive and frankly unwanted tendency to look down on her in turn). I’m aware she (and you) see it differently; that you see it as behaving righteously, standing up for justice.

I don’t believe justice even exists in this world.

I’m more concerned with whether what I’m doing will work to achieve something worthwhile. For me, there’s no comfort in virtuously standing aside while something awful happens-- especially when I’m not convinced of the virtue of any such thing. If you “do the right thing,” and the consequence is horror and death-- did you really do the right thing? Maybe, but … if you cast it as “rising above the cancerous” so on and so forth…

The payoff’s obvious, then: even if it all went hellishly wrong, at least you followed what you thought was right. Well, good for you, but nothing’s solved, and a bunch more people are dead.

Well, my conscience has a kind of different voice than you two’s seems to. I have no interest in rising above. I don’t judge myself by that standard, as a rule. And I try not to cast aspersions on other people’s sensibilities. I don’t see, or accept, any single scale to measure myself on.

Ms. Tsukiyo isn’t a perfect representative of our faith (nor am I, for that matter), but she does understand a lot (enough to really get herself badly lost). A seeker’s journey is undertaken alone. I have no desire to compare myself with my fellow figments.

Was I more virtuous than others? Did I stand strong where others would have turned aside? Irrelevant.

The question is whether I properly understood and moved according to my part in this … or whether I did not.

It’s too soon to tell. … But I think my part is done, either way.

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241

Pft. Miz doesn’t look down on me. Miz is angry with me because she expects better of me. That, inherently, means she thinks I’m ‘better than that’.

As for the way she framed it… she framed it in terms that make sense to her. No reference to how you should feel about rising above the muck, just expressing herself that you’d be doing the right thing, and most of the people here… don’t.

It’s not a matter of there being justice in the world. If the best option you have still doesn’t solve anything, and a bunch more people are dead… then there’s nothing you were going to do that would have made things better. In fact, if you’d done something else, in the long run, you likely would’ve made things worse, and gotten more people dead.

And sometimes, that’s all you can cling to.

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242

If you say so. Calling you an appeaser sounds pretty looking-down-on to me. Also, bizarre.

Whether she looks down on you or not, she definitely looks down on me. And on a whole lot of people. I shouldn’t care. But I kind of do, a little. But it doesn’t make me feel like helping her…

No, kind of emphatically not.

Well … you can tell yourself it was the best option. That can be your impression.

It’s pretty hard to say whether it really was, though, unless you’re willing to trouble yourself with it a little. Likely even then. But, as you might have noticed, I care some about learning the right lessons from things.

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243

Ms. Jenneth, I believe at this point you are required to openly clarify, what exact “assistance” of pilots like Mr. Revon you were talking about.

244

Mr. Revon was engaging and provoking you deliberately, Ms. Kim. Miz believes the more, ah, aggressively controversial visitors here should just be ignored.

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245

It’s not a question of telling yourself it was the best option, Aria. It’s a question of: did you see a better one?

Whenever you reach a decision point, you have to evaluate your choices, you have to have criteria for making your decision. So unless you actively set out to make a bad decision, when you make that decision, you know what the best decision available to you was, with the information you had on-hand.

If you know what that is, and you intentionally make a different decision, well, that’s on you. If you look at your options and make the decision that analysis tells you is the right one… well, then you’ve made the right decision. Because no matter what you learned later, you can only work with the information you have in the moment.

So ‘learning the right lessons’? ‘willing to trouble yourself with it a little’? You should always evaluate your major decisions. You should always be looking for ‘what could I have done better to give myself better options?’ and ‘was I right? Should I have known better? What information was there that I missed?’

And if you missed something, sure, be critical of that. But if you’re making the decision that looks best when you make it… then you should never get down on yourself for the decision itself.

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