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## Blue and orange morality

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Don Strudel
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### Blue and orange morality

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Post by Don Strudel » Tue Jan 25, 2011 2:31 am

This article sums up the concept of alien morality: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article ... on-Azeroth

> In 1985, noted philosopher Michael Ruse wrote an article entitled "Is Rape Wrong on Andromeda?" In the article, he postulated that if intelligent alien species existed on other planets in the universe, they might have different notions of morality than our own. Taking his cue from the growing field of what is now known as evolutionary psychology, Ruse argued that much of what we consider moral is shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and natural selection. Indeed, many biologists today believe that a variety of beliefs and behaviors like justice, fairness, mutual cooperation, reciprocal altruism, proportionality, inclusive fitness, kin favoritism and even the instinct to protect children all evolved from basic biological behaviors that made those who followed such principles more likely to survive and pass those values on to their offspring.
> So, it stands to reason that extraterrestrial morality would be shaped by a set of different environmental pressures, and that an alien's resulting moral code may be quite different than ours as a result. In a society where simple biology dictated that females only came in heat one day a year and were responsible for all of the child rearing, the males may have no choice but to engage it what we would consider rape simply to ensure the survival of their species. As their species became sentient, a whole complex system of morality may arise to justify such behavior in a way that most of us cannot fully fathom. This is not to say that such behavior is either right or wrong in an objective moral sense (assuming you even accept that such a thing exists), but simply that it is, for lack of a better word, appropriate behavior in that particular context.
> How does this relate to games? To put it simply, the environments we experience inside games are other worlds, and many of the avatars we play in them are essentially alien creatures who may seem human from time to time but are not entirely so. Their actions may not always map one-to-one with our sense of reality, and something that is not acceptable in our world may be entirely appropriate within theirs. Of course, by this I do not mean to justify or endorse in any way the harassment or "griefing" by one player of another in a multiplayer game; those are actions with real-life intent, directed at another real-life person, with real-life consequences. But within the context of the reality of the game itself, it may be entirely acceptable for a warrior to attack a seemingly unsuspecting centaur or for a hoodlum to shoot a hooker.

Last edited by Don Strudel on Wed Feb 02, 2011 11:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Surgo
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Post by Surgo » Tue Jan 25, 2011 5:22 am

HIDE YOUR KIDS
HIDE YOUR WIFE
HIDE YOUR DOG
http://www.dnd-wiki.org -- the wiki
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Avoraciopoctules
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Post by Avoraciopoctules » Tue Jan 25, 2011 5:26 am

And hide your husband?
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Centurion13
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Post by Centurion13 » Tue Jan 25, 2011 5:33 am

Based on a load of hooey.
You can no more invent an alien, ie, 'new' morality than you can invent a new color.
'If Evolutionary psychology is true, some form of genetic determinism must be true as well. This is simply the thesis that the hjman mind is the expression of its human genes. No slippage is rationally possible."
Of course there is also the environment. But if the environment controls how men are made and how they act, then they are not born that way and an explanation of the human mind cannot be expressed in evolutionary terms.
A successful evolutionary theory of the human mind (and morality) would erase any claim we might make on behalf of human freedom. Evolutionary psychology makes no sense, and the idea that our morals are the product of evolution is barely coherent.
Which is why you aren't going to get far with this one. You're approaching morality as though it were some sort of smorgasbord, something apparently up to the individual or to the society as a whole - but something which is a subjective choice and entirely dependent on subjective things.
We can't really do that, though it's obvious any philosopher can say such things. I wonder if he did it for the shock value or because he honestly believed that morality was something we did from evolutionary pressure. If the latter were true, how could any of us choose otherwise? It's programmed into us.
This whole thing is based on moral subjectivism, and that idea is bankrupt as a foundation for any fictional society.
Cent13
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik » Tue Jan 25, 2011 6:05 am

Oh fuck balls bajeezagah. That is the stupidest thing I have ever read. It's so stupid I don't even suffer from an overwhelming compulsion to show why it is stupid.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Prak
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Post by Prak » Tue Jan 25, 2011 6:06 am

Incoming DOGRAPE rant in 3...2...1...
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.

> Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.

> FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
> You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.

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TheFlatline
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### Re: Blue and orange morality

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Post by TheFlatline » Tue Jan 25, 2011 6:08 am

> Don Strudel wrote:As we all know, in Werewolf: The Apocalypse, the Garou eat human flesh, routinely engage in the violent murder of human beings, and have sex with both humans and wolves that spread diseases between them.
> I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here and provide a justification for all of this: Garou are immoral. They do not follow black and white human morals, but their own blue and orange morals that do not agree with human morals. Hence, whatever actions they do that we disagree with (cannibalism, murder, cross-species sex) are perfectly permissible amongst their alien mindset.

Eating human flesh is one of the biggest sins in the Werewolf cosmology. It leads directly to wyrm corruption. Which is why the Red Fang tribe was viewed suspiciously.
Murdering innocent humans is looked down upon. It *is* expected that you can fly into a blood rage and wake up in the middle of an impromptu slaughter house.
I won't even touch the dog rape thing.
That aside, they have their own "hierarchy of sins" called The Litany well established as apart from the human norm. This is like arguing that water is wet and expecting it to be edgy and topical.
Last edited by TheFlatline on Tue Jan 25, 2011 6:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Prak
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Post by Prak » Tue Jan 25, 2011 6:21 am

actually it's more like asserting water is dry.
There's also the fact that I still hold the dogrape is a special case. Wolves in WtA are portrayed as immensely more capable of communication and informed consent than real wolves. Possibly because a garou actually can sidle up to one, say "yo, bitch, down to fuck?" and get an intelligible, to them, answer.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.

> Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.

> FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
> You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.

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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Tue Jan 25, 2011 7:00 am

> Prak_Anima wrote: There's also the fact that I still hold the dogrape is a special case. Wolves in WtA are portrayed as immensely more capable of communication and informed consent than real wolves. Possibly because a garou actually can sidle up to one, say "yo, bitch, down to fuck?" and get an intelligible, to them, answer.

Dude, you can do that to a nine year old too. Doesn't make it even a little bit OK.
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Prak
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Post by Prak » Tue Jan 25, 2011 7:05 am

> FrankTrollman wrote:

> > Prak_Anima wrote: There's also the fact that I still hold the dogrape is a special case. Wolves in WtA are portrayed as immensely more capable of communication and informed consent than real wolves. Possibly because a garou actually can sidle up to one, say "yo, bitch, down to fuck?" and get an intelligible, to them, answer.

> Dude, you can do that to a nine year old too. Doesn't make it even a little bit OK.
> -Username17

Frank, I don't give a shit. In the game it's ok for your werewolf to fuck wolves. Do you get this bent out of shape when Discworld talks about Angua fucking wolves? You can liken it to pedophilia all you want, but the reality is that in the end, when a garou is sexing up a wolf, the wolf is a mature adult specimen of it's species. The nine year old isn't. I'm sorry you have memories of being tied to a chair and forced to listen to your fellow players form rape camps or something, but here, like in many other cases, your gaming experiences are unique. Your fellow players were bad, and you should feel bad that you didn't not tell the people who apparently deserved it that they were filthy sexual deviants.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.

> Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.

> FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
> You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.

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Vnonymous
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Post by Vnonymous » Tue Jan 25, 2011 7:39 am

> 1. That the ever-dominant and only inherent impulse in all living beings, including man, is the will to remain alive — the will, that is, to attain power over those forces which make life difficult or impossible.
> 2. That all schemes of morality are nothing more than efforts to put into permanent codes the expedients found useful by some given race in the course of its successful endeavors to remain alive.
> 3. That, despite the universal tendency to give these codes authority by crediting them to some god, they are essentially man-made and mutable, and so change, or should change, as the conditions of human existence in the world are modified.
> 4. That the human race should endeavor to make its mastery over its environment more and more certain, and that it is its destiny, therefore, to widen more and more the gap which now separates it from the lower races of animals.
> 5. That any code of morality which retains its permanence and authority after the conditions of existence which gave rise to it have changed, works against this upward progress of mankind toward greater and greater efficiency.
> 6. That all gods and religions, because they have for their main object the protection of moral codes against change, are inimitable to the life and well-being of healthy and efficient men.
> 7. That all the ideas which grow out of such gods and religions — such, for example, as the Christian ideas of humility, of self-sacrifice and of brotherhood — are enemies of life, too.
> 8. That human beings of the ruling, efficient class should reject all gods and religions, and with them the morality at the bottom of them and the ideas which grow out of them, and restore to its ancient kingship that primal instinct which enables every efficient individual to differentiate between the things which are beneficial to him and the things which are harmful.

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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Tue Jan 25, 2011 8:05 am

Heh. He really is going on fine until he decides that because morality is man made to help us survive, that we should reject it. It really doesn't follow at all. Having shown that morality works, Nietzsche really would have needed to demonstrate that his immoral superman system also worked, or worked better.
As is: This sentence no verb.
-Username17
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Judging__Eagle
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Post by Judging__Eagle » Tue Jan 25, 2011 9:24 am

If femmes of a species go into heat once a day, they're usually mate-picking.
There are some species of mammals that have that exact sort of similarity in reproductive cycle. Certain species of ungulates do have a fetility time frame of 1-3 days; and during those days the females will patrol through male display grounds, and pick the male they'll mate with this season.
The prelude to which involves the males strutting their stuff, and driving out the less serious competitors to the fringes; while the ones with the traits the species looks for (physical strength and endurance) remain in a more prominent area for the females to pick out their mates.
If anything, in the case of "single day" fertility being the only option; the species would be even more focused on have pre-established methods to ensure safe and effective reproduction methods.
Not go into a crazed rape all females for species survial day-long marathon. Especially if the creatures are early enough in their evolutionary track that they haven't actually developed gender dimorphism. Really, the "rapist" males in such a species would be bred out. Early enough in the evolutionary track, the males and females won't actually have very distinct bodies, so females and males will probably have fairly similar physiognomy. Females would attack males trying to attack them; and elect to breed with those that are trying to breed with them.
Also.... rape is a stupid, mentally deficient, argument to make a case for. Especially a case where rape = reproduction. In any species that practices it (dolphins, humans; both mammals btw; I don't know of any others), it seldom results in sexual acts of a reproductive manner, let alone actual reproduction.
In all seriousness though, an alien mindset will not only be at the limits of our imagination; but beyond the limits of our imagination.
A species where the offspring bearers are an other species, that the multi-gendered members of a species use as a growing/decanting locations is... seriously the start of how you create "alien" mindsets.
You have to go beyond stupid, narrow-minded, shit like "assuming" that a species will even have bilateral symmetry or even anything in dual parts. We could see unilateral symmetry, trilateral, quadrilateral or higher axes of symmetry in a species. All of those would be very different from the bilateral symmetry commonly seen on earth's multi-cellular organisms.
And that's only physiologically. Mentally, in humans we seriously see a minimum of five gender-types. In other mentally complex species, the numbers could be of any type; up to and including hybrid types or even outlier types that completely change the game of being a species. Maybe you get genetic data from several different 'genders'; cook it up in one of several 'incubators'; and implant into an other location for the fetal stages; then place in a pouch with a feeding organ/mammary-like for the early infancy stages.
Adding in things that "multiply" offspring in a batch; or tweak their genetic material; or cull and select from a pool of possible genetic options; are all going to make things more complicated than what is assumed is on Earth.
Of course, on Earth, we do such things in advance. Mate selection is part of selecting mates with genetics that the species has evolved to look for; in humans, large breasts are a dupe for fertility; in deer, the stag that has the stamina to keep dueling rivals while their mates watch is a sign of at least being genetically capable of having the stamina to survive the rigours of life.
Having read the rest of the article.... it's boring, and mildly informative; while not even bothering to examine games that had moral choice games that are outside the few examples the author presented. I mean... seriously, Fallout is a moral choice game. You can shoot children in the eyes; and that is a mark on your karma, but it's not something that stops, or starts, the game's main plot and story.
Morality is best asked by "by what means did you get to the end?".
The Gaming Den; where Mathematics are rigorously applied to Mythology.
While everyone's Philosophy is not in accord, that doesn't mean we're not on board.
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Vnonymous
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Post by Vnonymous » Tue Jan 25, 2011 9:47 am

> FrankTrollman wrote:Heh. He really is going on fine until he decides that because morality is man made to help us survive, that we should reject it. It really doesn't follow at all. Having shown that morality works, Nietzsche really would have needed to demonstrate that his immoral superman system also worked, or worked better.
> As is: This sentence no verb.
> -Username17

Nietzsche already proved that his worked - we instinctually come up with a set of rules to help us advance, and then those rules get codified and they live past their time, and become harmful. People should throw these old moralities away and embrace the new ones that they create, from the same source as the old.
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FatR
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Post by FatR » Tue Jan 25, 2011 9:56 am

As we all know, humans rape, kill, enslave and brutalize each other (never mind less intelligent and powerful beings). Well, shouldn't we think of a moral system to excuse all that?
In other words: everything you (OP) have said about either WtA or morality is bullfuck. In fact, so is the very idea of "alien morality". Every single time it boils down to either "I'm more powerful than you, so I'm making whatever rules I want, what you're gonna do about that, bitch?" or "I'm don't really have full sentience".
EDIT: Tried to save against the desire to participate in Topic That Should Die Because It's Bullshit To Begin With, and made it.
Last edited by FatR on Tue Jan 25, 2011 10:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
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fbmf
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Post by fbmf » Sun Jan 30, 2011 6:59 pm

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
I did my best to split off the Wolf/Dog Rape discussion into a thread of its own in MPSIMS at the request of more than a few posters.
[/The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
EDIT: The thread URL is:
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52047
-fbmf
Last edited by fbmf on Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Avoraciopoctules
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Post by Avoraciopoctules » Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:12 pm

[applauds]
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:51 pm

The first page, even the first post is full of dog rape. What the hell is this supposed to accomplish?
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Avoraciopoctules
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Post by Avoraciopoctules » Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:57 pm

Something symbolic.
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Sun Jan 30, 2011 8:07 pm

> Avoraciopoctules wrote:Something symbolic.

Yeah, but the symbolism is totally lost on me. This thread is still full of dog rape. The first sentence of the first post is "We know that in oWoD there is a metric asstonne of dog raping." Then it goes on with: "But what if poorly understood moral relativism made that somehow OK because they aren't part of our culture."
Seriously. The very first paragraph of the very first post is a poorly constructed moral incorrigibility argument for excusing the raping of dogs. This thread can do two things:

- Die
  or
- Be about people coming up with shitty philosophical defenses of rape while other people either shoot them down or vomit into their own mouths.

There is no option 3.
-Username17
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Windjammer
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### Re: Blue and orange morality

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Post by Windjammer » Sun Jan 30, 2011 8:10 pm

> Don Strudel wrote: whatever actions they do that we disagree with (cannibalism, murder, cross-species sex) are perfectly permissible amongst their alien mindset. [...]
> This article sums up the concept of alien morality:
> "...Taking his cue from the growing field of what is now known as evolutionary psychology, Ruse argued that much of what we consider moral is shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and natural selection."

Let's suppose that "permissible" in the first line is short hand for "morally permissible".
The whole OP is a huge non sequitur. The deontic status of an action is not necessarily grounded in contingent factors that "shaped" its acceptance (or rejection) by mankind at a given historical moment. By "not necessarily" I mean: depending on which meta-ethics you subscribe to. If you're a Kantian, for instance, moral laws cannot hold relative to historical or similar contingent circumstances. You can easily disagree with Kant on what the actual moral laws are, but you may easily agree with him on this requirement of what a moral law is.
The OP, both in the quoted and non-quoted bit, commits an error that is fairly wide spread. It equivocates on explaining the origins of belief, and moves from the belief's aetiology to its justification (that's the non sequitur). Here's a good explanation of the difference, from Mark Sainsbury's "Logical Forms":

> Suppose we ask an orthodox Hindu: why does he suppose that one should not eat meat? One kind of answer is: this belief was instilled in him by his family at an early age, and has been sustained by a variety of social and personal pressures. But it does not give a REASON for the belief, in the sense of 'reason' in which logic is concerned with reasons. Explanations of this kind belong to psychology or sociology. They are quite foreign to logic.
> Suppose we answer the question in a different way, saying: the Hindu believes that killing, and everything which requires killing, is wrong; and that eating meat requires killing. This answer MAY explain the origin of the belief. But it also does, or purports to do, something else: it JUSTIFIES the belief.

Last edited by Windjammer on Sun Jan 30, 2011 8:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Molochio
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Post by Molochio » Sun Jan 30, 2011 10:47 pm

I thought, in my naivete, that I through thorough consideration of all that it intails, had helped us reach some closure on this matter.
I am surprised to see that the dog rape thread has simply been reset to add clarity to it's consideration.
Interesting.
Last edited by Molochio on Mon Jan 31, 2011 9:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Come... Submit... Obey... I am your friend and master. Your thoughts are like water to me."
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A Man In Black
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Post by A Man In Black » Tue Feb 01, 2011 6:31 am

Why delete 4/5ths of the dogrape thread and not the whole thing?
I wish in the past I had tried more things 'cause now I know that being in trouble is a fake idea
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Prak
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Post by Prak » Tue Feb 01, 2011 6:48 am

because we could have a perfectly reasonable discussion on Blue and Orange morality here without mentioning Dogrape, and discuss dog/wolf fucking in the MPSIMS thread that was created.
...you know, if we were capable of reasonable...anything.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.

> Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.

> FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
> You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.

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Orion
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Post by Orion » Tue Feb 01, 2011 7:26 am

The original topic is fucked all to hell anyway.
A: The first guy quoted claims to be offering a "justification", that werewolves are "immoral." That is not a justification. That is not what "immoral" means. I'm 90% certain he meant "amoral" which, while still wrong, would be way closer to making sense. Then it does the stupid shit Kaelik pointed out.
But the tie-in to gaming in the second quoted article is extra-squicky. He's going to great lengths to justify the evil actions of his in-game avatars rather than taking the more sensible self-defense that "it's just a game." That means either he isn't clear on the difference between games and reality, or he's throwing up a cloud of bafflegab to disguise something seriously awful.
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