Industry and innocents in space

Sometimes, I hear opinions to the effect of not attacking innocent industrialists.

I suppose innocence as a concept is a relative thing. Where I come from, arms manufacturers and dealers are hardly considered innocent.

Hate as definition of identity

I often encounter our people saying we should avoid becoming what we hate, when they argue against some practice of our enemies (particularly the Amarr).

Even if I might agree with the idea argued for, I dislike that reason support it.

Why should we care what our enemies are like for the purposes of defining what we are like? We should strive to have an identity of our own, instead of being not-them.

Pashanai and U'K

Pashanai Ministry of War station got bombed.

On IGS, among the other discussion, U'K pilots are already flashing the possibility of offering 1 isk for Shakor's head because he denounced the attack.

The same bounty as they had for Midular.

I guess supporting somebody does not agree with that bunch much.

News from Providence

I am buried in paperwork and listen to the news trickle in from Providence. A funny region, one that so many want to attack but so few to keep.

I'm glad I'm not in politics.

Hateful see offense where none is meant

Real courtesy is not about turns of phrase.

It is about refraining from splitting hairs, about making a honest effort to try to see the meaning and thoughts behind the words. About giving people the benefit of doubt, instead of being too quick to assume the worst.

Fitting webs

Some people think battleships do not need to fit webs. Such people often reason that some other pilot can do the webbing. Maybe some other battleship, maybe a tackler, and they can use the medslot for something else.

This kind of thinking in my opinion has two problems.

First, because of tracking, short range turret battleships generally like having webs. The job of battleships is to deal damage, and the web is there partly to ensure you get to deal a larger portion of your theoretical DPS in practice. It is a medslot damage module.

And secondly, because if everybody relies on somebody else to bring the webs, not enough people will. And in the tactical situations EM usually fights in, webs are almost always necessary.

Scramblers do some of the same job nowadays, by disabling MWD.

How to work for the enemy?

A theoretical question:

In the utterly theoretical situation that a capsuleer would simply have no other alternatives except to work for hostile agents, what would be the way to do so and cause the least harm?

I am at the moment leaning towards only accepting combat missions, only against other hostile factions, and only in our own home space.

Given the choices, making the hostile faction pay you to shoot pirates in the Republic sounds like the least of evils.

Dina Arvid

I was going thorough some of my music records today.

I used to listen to Dina Arvid as a teenager, and until couple of years ago. Her music is emotional and pretty moody, in that slightly pretentious way that often appeals to teenagers.

I found some of her music today by chance, when I was sorting thorough stuff.

I walk in the corridors of my life,
Looking for you, sometimes you're there.
I grin and bear it, grin and bear it,
I am the girlfriend and not the wife.

(Dina Arvid, "Girlfriend")

Good times.

Personal and communal responsibility

Matari and non-Matari can have a different sense of honor and responsibility.

Some non-Matari (especially Gallente individualists) want to be considered as individuals first, and members of their reference groups (clans, corporations, social circles) second - if at all.

They do not generally consider it fair or just to be judged for the misdeeds of their relatives or friends, and do not want to feel responsible for consequences of actions that are not their own.

From the perspective of communal responsibility such views are odd. Who we are associated with defines a large part of who we are. Inaction counts as action.

"It was not me, he did it." Yet, he was your kin, should you not have prevented him?

"I did not know what he was doing." Yet, if he was indeed your close friend, should you not have known?

Perhaps, if he indeed was your kin or friend, he should have thought of you before doing what he did.

24

I am 24 now.

I feel young and old at the same time. I remember the time when mid-twenties people seemed very old to me, feels like it was yesterday.

I'm not ready to be old. Old people are supposed to be wise and settled and stuff. Years have passed, and I'm still just me.

Changes and capsuleering

In a conversation last night I said that capsuleering changes a person. Yet, we make those changes ourselves, by the choices we make and things we do every day.

It is perhaps the curse of the pod that it gives us power over so many people it becomes impossible to personally know them all. Forcing us to make numbers and abstractions out of living and breathing human beings.

I have changed since I became a capsuleer. I am not as nice as I once was.

Do other capsuleers miss the person they used to be?

Words and feelings

Lately I've started to wonder if words are the right tool for describing and considering feelings.

Words are a tool of the intellect, and language a structure built to enable thought. Creating understanding and insight with words requires precision of expression and concepts.

However, with feelings the expressions often seem to be missing. There are no scales for quantitative comparison, no names and categories for qualitative judgements, the interdependencies and causalities cannot be properly described.

If words were well suited for describing feelings, would the problem of trying to figure out what you feel exist at all?

If words were well suited for describing feelings, would not human lives be fundamentally different?

Measuring feelings

How can one define victory conditions for friendships?

Yet, there is a point where winning is no longer possible, and the objective changes to salvaging what you can. Instead of playing to win you play to not lose.

Human feelings are not a thing one can easily measure.

For my business life, I have learned to set goals based on what I want, and what I think I can get. Is making the difference ever useful with feelings, except to make me discontent with my lot?

I would not be where I am now, had I been able to see a half empty glass as half full.