Word meanings and "nice guys"

I talked a bit about changes in word meanings in a previous post. I'll give an example.

I assert most planetside Matari would consider "a nice guy" to be somebody who is nice to other people. An Angel Cartel loyalist would not be "a nice guy" because they seek to extort, enslave and kill other Matari.

Many Matari capsuleers, on the other hand, seem to use "a nice guy" to mean "somebody who is talking pleasantly to me". They seem to attach to the words no requirement to actually be nice to other people. Sometimes not even the requirement to be very nice to the speaker himself, the words may just mean said person is entertaining company.

Measuring morals

I believe a capsuleer's morals are measured by their deeds. Things they do, and things they choose not to do.

I believe one cannot be separated from their deeds - a man who does evil deeds is an evil man, not a good man who does evil deeds. Otherwise, the world would only have good men and the whole distinction would become rather useless.

Yes, there is a theory of moral relativity. One man's good is another man's evil and so forth. However, should one happen consider all viewpoints to be equally "right", choosing between using one's own moral standards and enemy moral standards should hopefully not be particularly difficult choice.

Looking into darkness

I believe you cannot look into the darkness without the darkness looking back into you.

I see this as part of how human contact works, not a weakness in any specific person or a flaw in their integrity.

The very act of seeking to understand and emphatize with an enemy's views is an act of mentally trying on their justifications. There is little harm of doing it once and then rejecting it.

However, making a mental habit of thinking of an enemy as a nice guy will slowly over time affect what one considers to be characteristics of nice guys, subtly changing value sets and meanings given to words.

Choosing the evil you fight

I came to the realization that the world is not a very nice place sometime after I became a capsuleer.

I just can't fix it all. That task is just too huge for me, for anybody. So I try to make just a small part of it better. That is better than trying to do everything and achieving nothing.

Or so I prefer to tell my concience.

The "death is preferable to slavery" argument

Some people justify shooting ships carrying slaves by arguing that death is a better fate than slavery.

I personally choose not to justify causing the death of our kin with the "death is preferable to slavery" argument. I do not feel I should be making that choice for those unfree people and for their clans and tribes.

Instead I choose to justify causing their death by my opposition of the Amarr and their evil. By the right of our kin to make their choices themselves.

The fact of the matter is the Amarr are using the lives of our kin as shields. And the Amarr will keep doing more of it as long as they follow their evil religion.

On the needs of free and unfree Matari

There is often discussion about how one should prioritize the rights and needs of different groups of Matari - free and unfree. So far, I have chosen for to work mainly for the Republic, for the free Matari.

I do wish to free our kin in captivity. But I also want to protect the lives and freedom of our kin who are already free. If a captive Matari dies, we have lost one of our kin. If a free Matari dies, we have also lost one of our kin.

And the free Matari need to be strong and prosperous to be able to free the captive Matari.

Coping with capsuleer life

After some thought, I've decided to slightly rephrase and blog something I posted in a corporate internal discussion.

I will share two other things that have helped me much over the years, when I have struggled with what I have become. Maybe they will help you too.

The first, from Theron Gyrow, is that morality is a choice, not a destiny. I have free will. Even if I have thoughts and feelings I would rather not have does not mean I have to let them dictate how I act.

The second, from Elsebeth Rhiannon, is that while we have been made into weapons, we can choose how we will be used. I have great power. Many might wish to make my choices for me, but I am the one who chooses which causes I serve.

I find myself returning to these truths over and over again.

It can sometimes be tempting to abdicate responsibility, to pretend to be driftwood pushed along by evil fate.

No road home

Tonight, I could not sleep.

Some time ago, in a discussion, somebody mentioned that if the Republic survives the coming war, some - perhaps many - of us might not be welcome home anymore.

What we do now might be necessary for the survival and wellbeing of our kin. Or at least we would like to think so.

However, there are things civilized societies need to condemn, in order to stay civilized.

There might be no road home. No hero's welcome. We might be war criminals, a liability, or worse.

Am I being odd, if I find that thought comforting?

Moral relativity and justifications

There are people who believe morality is relative, that there is no absolute right and wrong.

I find using such arguments to be weird when one is choosing the right thing to do. Especially in the context of justifying actions they or others should take.

If all morality is relative, and so all viewpoints are objectively equally valid, what is wrong with simply just using yours?

Terrorists and tradeoffs

From IGS: Press release about Du'uma Fiisi re-education program survivality rates.

Where is the line between terrorists and traitors? Does one measure success by results - lives gained and lives lost? By objectives? By intentions?

If Du'uma Fiisi had not done what they did, 650 000 less of our kin would be free.
If Du'uma Fiisi had not done what they did, 350 000 less of our kin would be dead.

Will those people who think it is better to die free than live a slave consider that a good exchange?

Putting trust in mercenaries

Something to remember in regard to mercenaries: They have left their home and kin in order to fight for money.

And the thing with money is that there is always somebody who has more than you do.

Podding? Cruelty?

I can't fathom why some capsuleers view podding as somehow more cruel than just shooting the ship down. As something "nice" people do not do.

If I'm willing to to shoot the capsuleer's ship and kill his crew just because they happened to sign an employment contract with him, why would I think killing the capsuleer himself would be too harsh?

IGS, about soul

Post to IGS:

My clan believes spirit or soul is our personal part of the spirit of our kin, stored in the unity of flesh and mind.

This unity is forever lost when one is emergency cloned or clone jumps. After that what remains is a copy with the belief it is the original.

The spiritual part of kinship cannot survive serialization to data. The physical part of the kinship is lost when one moves to borrowed flesh. And even if both persisted, separating one from another breaks the whole.

Does soullessness make somebody a monster? Not necessarily. Ethics and morals are also a concious choice. Being able to do evil does not make such deeds a necessity, just like being able to do good does not force one to goodness.

I have not been in the habit of posting to IGS before. I wonder if participating in such conversation was particularly smart.

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.

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.

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.

Shooting ships and people

After I wrote the post about how people treat reds, my friend Arkady Sadik commented he thought most capsuleers perceive themselves as not shooting people in space, but instead shooting ships or at most the capsuleer pilot of the ship. He thought it was a psychic self-defense mechanism, to help people live with their image of themselves.

I am inclined to agree, based on my own perceptions.

However, this does beg a rather interesting question in regard to morality.

Which pilot is less evil - the one who deceives himself in order to continue killing people, or the one who is concious of his deeds and does them regardless? And which one is the more dangerous?

Reds inside and outside the pod

Some capsuleers seem to have a curious dichotomy about how to treat reds inside and outside the pod.

They are happy to shoot reds in space; pirates, angels, sanshas. Even tell you they think it's fun. Curiously, the same people will consider you a closed-minded stuffy prig for showing a cold shoulder to a pirate or sansha capsuleer met at a bar.

I wonder why is that? Do they think capsuleers are so special? Is it the difference of just knowing it is a person inside the red ship blip and being actually able to see the person?