Why it's important to stop Al Qaeda

[Purkake]

Haven't you guys seen Gladiator? It looked pretty evil to me.

 

[GreasyDogMeat]

Give the Romans a break... they had GREAT entertainment!

[Purkake]

They also got their water from lead pipes...

 

That probably helped with the entertainment.

Edited December 16, 2009 by Purkake

[Gorth]

Give the Romans a break... they had GREAT entertainment!

Reg: They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had, not just from us, from our fathers and from our fathers' fathers.

Stan: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.

Reg: Yes.

Stan: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.

Reg: All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?

Xerxes: The aqueduct.

Reg: Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That's true.

Masked Activist: And the sanitation!

Stan: Oh yes... sanitation, Reg, you remember what the city used to be like.

Reg: All right, I'll grant you that the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done...

Matthias: And the roads...

Reg: (sharply) Well yes obviously the roads... the roads go without saying. But apart from the aqueduct, the sanitation and the roads...

Another Masked Activist: Irrigation...

Other Masked Voices: Medicine... Education... Health...

Reg: Yes... all right, fair enough...

Activist Near Front: And the wine...

Omnes: Oh yes! True!

Francis: Yeah. That's something we'd really miss if the Romans left, Reg.

Masked Activist at Back: Public baths!

Stan: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now.

Francis: Yes, they certainly know how to keep order... (general nodding)... let's face it, they're the only ones who could in a place like this.

 

(more general murmurs of agreement)

Reg: All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?

Xerxes: Brought peace!

Reg: (very angry, he's not having a good meeting at all) What!? Oh... (scornfully) Peace, yes... shut up!

[Lare Kikkeli]

lol dagon is at it again...

 

keep it up wrath of dagon, you're my biggest source of entertainment on these boards!

[Meshugger]

Didn't you guys know? Pretty much every civilization before the post sexual revolution of the western civilization has been, very, very, very evil.

[Wrath of Dagon]

I would have thought it was fairly logical to observe that rather than history moving inexorably towards your notion of right it was more probable that your concept of right had been shaped by the direction history already took?

 

I don't mean that in an insulting way. I used to feel similarly until I worked it out.

So what you're saying if the nazis had won, I'd be a nazi. Well how come I wasn't a communist when the communists won? There's such a thing as objective good and evil.

 

but we see history is generally flowing in the right way

What does that even mean?

The nazis could've won, the Cuban missile crisis could've easily turned into a nuclear exchange, etc.

What happened happened because it happened, we don't have anything to compare it to. Saying that it was meant to happen that way is meaningless.

We can compare it to what could've happened, it's not like it's hard to picture.

Edited December 16, 2009 by Wrath of Dagon

[Trenitay]

You have absolutely no idea what would've happened had they won.

[Purkake]

Pretty much.

 

You can compare the reality to your speculative fantasies, but that's about it.

 

Also, if that was the reality, why wouldn't you argue that that one is the correct one? Obviously you wouldn't be the person you are, assuming someone with your genetic makeup existed at all.

Edited December 16, 2009 by Purkake

[213374U]

We can compare it to what could've happened, it's not like it's hard to picture.

But in all fairness, you can't - your impressions aren't simply pure isolated intellectual constructs, they are strongly affected by the environment. You would be comparing an unreal fantasy you have spent a full five seconds imagining with the real world upon which your moral compass is built. While you're at it, you may as well compare with Bizarro World... for an absolutely pointless waste of time.

 

However you do subscribe the idea of "objective evil", which facilitates statements like this:

Then the vast swathes of the world are barbarians

 

So by engaging you in this line of debate, I have lost by default...

[Deadly_Nightshade]

There's such a thing as objective good and evil.

 

No there's not. Good and evil are just semi-useful labels - nothing more and nothing less.

[Walsingham]

There's such a thing as objective good and evil.

 

No there's not. Good and evil are just semi-useful labels - nothing more and nothing less.

 

A yakuza in Tokyo drug-kidnapped a young woman, tied her to a sink in his basement and raped her to death over the course of a year with his two mates.

 

Yes there's such a thing as ****ing evil. You t***.

[Lare Kikkeli]

A Walsingham in London buys products every day manufactured by companies in 3rd world sweatshops, thus directly financing modern slavery, rape and most likely murder.

Edited December 17, 2009 by Lare Kikkeli

[Walsingham]

A Walsingham in London buys products every day manufactured by companies in 3rd world sweatshops, thus directly financing modern slavery, rape and most likely murder.

 

How dare you?

 

I don't live in London.

 

EDIT: Actually I buy most of my clothes either second hand, or hand tailored. I'm not mad about it, but I regard my principle effort for third world progress being actually going out and getting shot for the buggers.

Edited December 17, 2009 by Walsingham

[Purkake]

You couldn't think of a more "evil" example? I am disappoint.

 

Needs more mutilation. See Martyrs for inspiration.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Sometimes it's hard to tell if people are evil or mentally ill, like whoever made that movie.

[Purkake]

No, you see he is an artist. There's a subtle difference.

[Lare Kikkeli]

Everyone who doesn't fit into your tiny box of normality is evil or mentally insane. Well I'm pretty damn happy here on the outside!

[Walsingham]

Everyone who doesn't fit into your tiny box of normality is evil or mentally insane. Well I'm pretty damn happy here on the outside!

 

Frankly, if raping someone to death makes my morality box tiny then I couldn't be happier to be in a tiny tiny box.

[alanschu]

It's pretty clear he's referring to Wrath of Dagon, not you.

 

Having said that, if a society was able to flourish that encouraged raping people to death, that society probably wouldn't consider raping people to death an evil thing. The thing is, social memes are somewhat organic themselves. A society that encourages and supports raping people to death is likely going to experience some social Darwinism because those traits don't seem to be ones that are very good at ensuring a society's survival.

 

 

What's good and evil is very much dependent on subjective beliefs and interpretations. That (as far as I know) no society would consider the mass raping and murdering anything but evil is not proof that it's an objective evil. It's just a demonstration that no society that exists today places positive societal value on those actions.

Edited December 17, 2009 by alanschu

[alanschu]

I would have thought it was fairly logical to observe that rather than history moving inexorably towards your notion of right it was more probable that your concept of right had been shaped by the direction history already took?

 

I don't mean that in an insulting way. I used to feel similarly until I worked it out.

So what you're saying if the nazis had won, I'd be a nazi. Well how come I wasn't a communist when the communists won? There's such a thing as objective good and evil.

 

This post is baffling. I'm unaware of any time that the United States of America was subjugated and/or defeated by Communist forces. If you're referring to the Communists being the ones that got to Berlin first, then no one is going to argue that. But the democratic nations of the Allied forces were most definitely "winners" in WW2 as well. Last I checked, you are living in the country of one of it's key contributors.

 

 

Futhermore, he wasn't saying that if the Nazi's had won, you'd be a Nazi (I'm skeptical that Hitler would have concerned himself with the United States if the United States hadn't bothered to get into the war). However, if you think that you'd still be in any way the same person you are today, if you had grown up with compulsory Hitler Youth participation, I'd say you are sorely mistaken.

[Walsingham]

I'm not denying that society helps set the perception of good and evil. In fact I'd suggest Imperial Japan is a better example than Nazi Germany because the Nazis were such a fleeting abberration in German culture.

 

But I'd argue vehemently, if not expertly, that there is such a thing as abstract good and evil. A big fat dude who put his fist into the internal organs of everyone he saw would be pretty much universally regarded as evil. Trying to think of something off the top of my head.

[Lare Kikkeli]

Is pedophilia evil? Was it evil in ancient greek or japan where it was a part of the culture? Is murder evil? What if you're murdering in self defense? What if you could save someone else? What if you're given permission by your country to kill anyone they say is an enemy?

 

There is no such thing as universal good or evil and you're pretty damn stupid if you believe there is.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Futhermore, he wasn't saying that if the Nazi's had won, you'd be a Nazi (I'm skeptical that Hitler would have concerned himself with the United States if the United States hadn't bothered to get into the war). However, if you think that you'd still be in any way the same person you are today, if you had grown up with compulsory Hitler Youth participation, I'd say you are sorely mistaken.

Look up "strawman argument".

[Hurlshort]

There is no such thing as universal good or evil and you're pretty damn stupid if you believe there is.

 

That's a tad much.

 

Mother Theresa - universally good.

 

Hitler - Universally evil.