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[Lotion Soronarr]

IanPolaris wrote...

I guess you don't know what the word "radical" means when it applied to terms like behavoirists and such.  Skinner and his disciples are called "radical behaviorists" because they believe that only the direct environment stimulous is meaningful when it comes to pyshcology.  I am not going to bother with extra cites and such because this is NOT a thread and forum of applied human psychology.  I invite others to do their own reading.  There are many psychological theories out there besides the one you cited.

You're not goign to bother citing namers or reading....yeah..I though as much.
You're theories are radical..everything yo usay is disputed. I ahve proof of it, but I won't bother posting my sources. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Rather I was pointing out that if mages in normal society were as dangerous as you and the Chantry want us to believe, then we should be seeing sighns of that.  Lack of such signs is evidence against the Chantry's assertions.  Really that's all.

That's a whole lot of things you don't see.

3. You footprint is bollcoks. It does not apply here. Even if it was, DA:O is no Earth and same social behavior and psychological models do not apply - remeber?

No it's not.  Actions even in the game have consequences and it's perfectly reasonable to ask for the logical consequences for a game world construction. 

Behavior is a consequence. What I said was also perfectly reasonable. The calculations I made were also perfectly reasonable. If you want to simply handwave those away, then I'm handwaving yours.

the only reasonable thing to conclude is that you're wrong.

Oh..and you didn't asnwer the burnign question..You adoid it like a plague, because yo uknow it will burry you.

Really?  We are supposed to take your say-so that I am wrong, when I have supplied game lore evidnece that strongly indicates that I am not?  Okaaay.....

-Polaris

Lore evidence strongly indicates that you are wrong. You got it the other way around.

[IanPolaris]

Lord Cheetah wrote...

i'm just going to say this, if you let mages to be free how much people will the average mage kill.
just look at the connor incident, 1 little boy used ONE spell and i think at least 75 people (in castle and village) were killed, and now you must remember, a life is a life, a mage's life should be just as valuable as a normal 1, blood mages aren't exactly killing 1 person so they can do awesome spells the rest of their life, and even if they did, it would be bad enough. 1 mage (like Uldred or Avernus) can do a simple spell to summon demons which kill a load of people, in Uldred's case more then half the circle got killed or became a abomination.

The Conner incident was an absolutely unique incident where normal help was totally unavailable.  It was a conflux of very bad things that permitted the situation to get as bad as it did.  Normally Bann Teagan could have gotten Teryn Loghain to send troops within the week to deal with the situation and help defend the village.  Normally, you would have had a solid support structure that would have caught Conner early and given him the training he needed by COMPETANT instructors...and yes normally there could be Templars there within the day to help the Bann and Teyrn's men police the situation.

For a variety of unrelated reasons, all of this was unavailable, so you can't point to the death-toll from Conner and say that is a typical abomination case.  It's not.  In fact it's unique that so many things went wrong all at once...and it's worth noting that the Chantry and Circle system played a direct role in allowing this to happen at all!

They might be stereotypical examples but they still killed loads of people on accident, if you read codexes in Broken circle and talk to people you notice that it also didn't go the way Uldred wanted it to go, he was a abomination the whole time since he summoned the demons. What would exactly change if they would be free?

He was not.  Niall makes that very clear.  He was a bloodmage sure, but he bacame an abomination when he tried to summon more demons then he could control....or in short by being dumb.

-Polaris

[Lotion Soronarr]

IanPolaris wrote...

Lotion,

Yes you did. You said that circle was the most logical and reasonable choice. You have made that emphatically clear many times. Go back and read your own damn posts!

Incorrect. I claimed that is was an EFFECTIVE choice..in terms of death prevention. I NEVER claimed it was a moral choice. Remeber the improsoment of mages?

The dillema with the Cricle is exactly that - is it justified to lock up a gorup of people if it saves lives? Safety vs. security. Duty to the populace vs. duty to mages. Needs of many vs. needs of view.
All complex questions with no easy answer.


Now, I ask again - WHERE IS THE GREYNESS IN YOUR CHOICE? WHERE? SHOW IT TO ME!!!

[IanPolaris]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

I guess you don't know what the word "radical" means when it applied to terms like behavoirists and such.  Skinner and his disciples are called "radical behaviorists" because they believe that only the direct environment stimulous is meaningful when it comes to pyshcology.  I am not going to bother with extra cites and such because this is NOT a thread and forum of applied human psychology.  I invite others to do their own reading.  There are many psychological theories out there besides the one you cited.

You're not goign to bother citing namers or reading....yeah..I though as much.
You're theories are radical..everything yo usay is disputed. I ahve proof of it, but I won't bother posting my sources. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Let me know when this becomes an applied human pschology forum.  Otherwise this is off-topic.

Rather I was pointing out that if mages in normal society were as dangerous as you and the Chantry want us to believe, then we should be seeing sighns of that.  Lack of such signs is evidence against the Chantry's assertions.  Really that's all.

That's a whole lot of things you don't see.

A lot of other people don't see it either.  It's a valid criticism.

3. You footprint is bollcoks. It does not apply here. Even if it was, DA:O is no Earth and same social behavior and psychological models do not apply - remeber?

No it's not.  Actions even in the game have consequences and it's perfectly reasonable to ask for the logical consequences for a game world construction. 

Behavior is a consequence. What I said was also perfectly reasonable. The calculations I made were also perfectly reasonable. If you want to simply handwave those away, then I'm handwaving yours.

Been through that.  You haven't supplied any reasonable calculations at all.

the only reasonable thing to conclude is that you're wrong.

Oh..and you didn't asnwer the burnign question..You adoid it like a plague, because yo uknow it will burry you.

Really?  We are supposed to take your say-so that I am wrong, when I have supplied game lore evidnece that strongly indicates that I am not?  Okaaay.....

-Polaris

Lore evidence strongly indicates that you are wrong. You got it the other way around.

Codex: History of the Circle, Codex: Rivvain, etc are all not part of the game lore now?

-Polaris

[Lotion Soronarr]

IanPolaris wrote...

Where is the downside of the system I am advocating?

Simple. It requires patience to give people enough time to be deprogammed enough to give mages a fair chance. It also requires patience on the mage side to understand that however noble their reasons were, their exactions have been construed to give all mages a bad name and that's been done for centuries.

The fact is most people tend not to have such patience without extremely skilled diplomatic and political leaders (which we see a distinct lack of).

In short, anytime you change a system, you have a dangerous transition period. That is the biggest disadvantage to what I am proposing.

-Polaris

That's not disadvantage, that is bollocks. Change and time and violence always happen.


You're basicly reduicign the huge moral dillema down to "should I take this regualr sword..or this +12 one that reduces my magic by 1...did I mention that I'm a warrior?"
Tehre isn o dillema.

The "choice" is too obvious, too clear, too simple. There is no greyness.

[Lotion Soronarr]

IanPolaris wrote...
A lot of other people don't see it either.  It's a valid criticism.

I call it a stinking pile of s***.

Been through that.  You haven't supplied any reasonable calculations at all.

you haven't supplied anything reasonable since this thread was started.

Codex: History of the Circle, Codex: Rivvain, etc are all not part of the game lore now?

They are. Your interpretaion of them however, is not.

[IanPolaris]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Lotion,

Yes you did. You said that circle was the most logical and reasonable choice. You have made that emphatically clear many times. Go back and read your own damn posts!

Incorrect. I claimed that is was an EFFECTIVE choice..in terms of death prevention. I NEVER claimed it was a moral choice. Remeber the improsoment of mages?

The dillema with the Cricle is exactly that - is it justified to lock up a gorup of people if it saves lives? Safety vs. security. Duty to the populace vs. duty to mages. Needs of many vs. needs of view.
All complex questions with no easy answer.


Now, I ask again - WHERE IS THE GREYNESS IN YOUR CHOICE? WHERE? SHOW IT TO ME!!!

I don't have to.  I point out that even in DAO, not all choices are Grey anyway even if they should have been.  For example, getting the circle to help Conner is always the uncontested best choice.

As for the rest, I never said you claimed it was moral.  I said that you repeatedly and loudly said that it was the best and most logical system.  You have.  If so, then there is no Greyness either.  In fact I find it rather ironic that you of all people are trying to push 'greyness' as a reason why the circle system is justified.  The who point of greyness is the strong implication and possibility that it isn't.

The Greyness comes in when you ask, "Ok, if it isn't a good system, how do we go about dismantling it....or even should be dismantle it given the short term pain and chaos it will cause".  The choice between short term chaos and even strife for the sake of a long term solution OR short term tranquility at the price of a long term disaster is very much a Grey Choice, and it's one that even today in real life politics, countries are continually facing and failing at.

-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Where is the downside of the system I am advocating?

Simple. It requires patience to give people enough time to be deprogammed enough to give mages a fair chance. It also requires patience on the mage side to understand that however noble their reasons were, their exactions have been construed to give all mages a bad name and that's been done for centuries.

The fact is most people tend not to have such patience without extremely skilled diplomatic and political leaders (which we see a distinct lack of).

In short, anytime you change a system, you have a dangerous transition period. That is the biggest disadvantage to what I am proposing.

-Polaris

That's not disadvantage, that is bollocks. Change and time and violence always happen.


You're basicly reduicign the huge moral dillema down to "should I take this regualr sword..or this +12 one that reduces my magic by 1...did I mention that I'm a warrior?"
Tehre isn o dillema.

The "choice" is too obvious, too clear, too simple. There is no greyness.

I guess I have to simply for you:

Do you take a choice that will create the most benefit for everyone a hundred years down the road, but will cost lives and money for everyone in the short term, OR do you advocate a system that "works" after a fashion and preserves those lives and property now....but at the expense of a long term disaster a hundred years from now.

That is very much a grey choice.

-Polaris

[Lotion Soronarr]

IanPolaris wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Lotion,

Yes you did. You said that circle was the most logical and reasonable choice. You have made that emphatically clear many times. Go back and read your own damn posts!

Incorrect. I claimed that is was an EFFECTIVE choice..in terms of death prevention. I NEVER claimed it was a moral choice. Remeber the improsoment of mages?

The dillema with the Cricle is exactly that - is it justified to lock up a gorup of people if it saves lives? Safety vs. security. Duty to the populace vs. duty to mages. Needs of many vs. needs of view.
All complex questions with no easy answer.


Now, I ask again - WHERE IS THE GREYNESS IN YOUR CHOICE? WHERE? SHOW IT TO ME!!!

I don't have to.  I point out that even in DAO, not all choices are Grey anyway even if they should have been.  For example, getting the circle to help Conner is always the uncontested best choice.

Yes you have. You have to show the greyness.
The devs calimed the mage issue was supposed to be grey.
The Redcliffe choice is irrelevant. For one, the devs never claimed IT was supposed to be grey, and for another, it requires metagame knowledge...specificly, knowledge of future events.

As for the rest, I never said you claimed it was moral.  I said that you repeatedly and loudly said that it was the best and most logical system.  You have.  If so, then there is no Greyness either.  In fact I find it rather ironic that you of all people are trying to push 'greyness' as a reason why the circle system is justified.  The who point of greyness is the strong implication and possibility that it isn't.

I said best from the security standpoint. Learn to read.
Not to mention that I repetedly in this thread stressed the need to define "best".
You fail.

But it doens't matter what I said, because this is about what you said. We're starting from the assumption that everything you said is correct.

The Greyness comes in when you ask, "Ok, if it isn't a good system, how do we go about dismantling it....or even should be dismantle it given the short term pain and chaos it will cause".  The choice between short term chaos and even strife for the sake of a long term solution OR short term tranquility at the price of a long term disaster is very much a Grey Choice, and it's one that even today in real life politics, countries are continually facing and failing at.

-Polaris

No, this isn' grey.
Again, you have a choice btween a perfect system that will take some time to implement and a broken, amoral system that is going to crumble violently.
War and instabiltiy is not a negative poitn for your system, when sticking with the Cirlce system will likely cause a war (according to you). You got strife and instabiltiy regardless of whihc you choose.

SO WHERE IS THE DILLEMA? I want you to show me hte moral dillema thatis required for it to be a grey choice! I demand it.

Modifié par Lotion Soronnar, 25 janvier 2011 - 08:53 .

[Lotion Soronarr]

IanPolaris wrote...I guess I have to simply for you:

Do you take a choice that will create the most benefit for everyone a hundred years down the road, but will cost lives and money for everyone in the short term, OR do you advocate a system that "works" after a fashion and preserves those lives and property now....but at the expense of a long term disaster a hundred years from now.

That is very much a grey choice.

-Polaris

You're slipping.

Acoording to you, the system DOESN'T work. According to you it is regressive and crumbling. According to you, it will break down ina  bloody, massive war.
Do I have to quote you here?

No matter what of hte 2 systems you support, was and conflict and death are inevitable.

[Lord Cheetah]

IanPolaris wrote...

Lord Cheetah wrote...

i'm just going to say this, if you let mages to be free how much people will the average mage kill.
just look at the connor incident, 1 little boy used ONE spell and i think at least 75 people (in castle and village) were killed, and now you must remember, a life is a life, a mage's life should be just as valuable as a normal 1, blood mages aren't exactly killing 1 person so they can do awesome spells the rest of their life, and even if they did, it would be bad enough. 1 mage (like Uldred or Avernus) can do a simple spell to summon demons which kill a load of people, in Uldred's case more then half the circle got killed or became a abomination.

The Conner incident was an absolutely unique incident where normal help was totally unavailable.  It was a conflux of very bad things that permitted the situation to get as bad as it did.  Normally Bann Teagan could have gotten Teryn Loghain to send troops within the week to deal with the situation and help defend the village.  Normally, you would have had a solid support structure that would have caught Conner early and given him the training he needed by COMPETANT instructors...and yes normally there could be Templars there within the day to help the Bann and Teyrn's men police the situation.

For a variety of unrelated reasons, all of this was unavailable, so you can't point to the death-toll from Conner and say that is a typical abomination case.  It's not.  In fact it's unique that so many things went wrong all at once...and it's worth noting that the Chantry and Circle system played a direct role in allowing this to happen at all!

They might be stereotypical examples but they still killed loads of people on accident, if you read codexes in Broken circle and talk to people you notice that it also didn't go the way Uldred wanted it to go, he was a abomination the whole time since he summoned the demons. What would exactly change if they would be free?

He was not.  Niall makes that very clear.  He was a bloodmage sure, but he bacame an abomination when he tried to summon more demons then he could control....or in short by being dumb.

-Polaris

even if the Connor incident could have been handled very easy, that wud probably still mean people would have died, maybe less but they still died and the templars/soldiers would have probably killed Connor himself. Is it really worth risking people's life so the little boy can be arl?

Btw in your last sentence, I presume you mean Uldred instead of Niall, because that ain't right, but are you justifying summoning demons if you don't summon too much, doesn't really make sense because the fact they are there to kill EVERYone, they just either go rampage (like with the rage demon) or just make a plan to kill people large scale (like the pride and desire demon), but they aren't here to serve anyone, that is if they don't get to kill somebody.

yes it is not nice to kill /  tranquil potentional blood mages, but if they are to be blood mages, they can be mass murderers, most people rather avoid that

[IanPolaris]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Lotion,

Yes you did. You said that circle was the most logical and reasonable choice. You have made that emphatically clear many times. Go back and read your own damn posts!

Incorrect. I claimed that is was an EFFECTIVE choice..in terms of death prevention. I NEVER claimed it was a moral choice. Remeber the improsoment of mages?

The dillema with the Cricle is exactly that - is it justified to lock up a gorup of people if it saves lives? Safety vs. security. Duty to the populace vs. duty to mages. Needs of many vs. needs of view.
All complex questions with no easy answer.


Now, I ask again - WHERE IS THE GREYNESS IN YOUR CHOICE? WHERE? SHOW IT TO ME!!!

I don't have to.  I point out that even in DAO, not all choices are Grey anyway even if they should have been.  For example, getting the circle to help Conner is always the uncontested best choice.

Yes you have. You have to show the greyness.
The devs calimed the mage issue was supposed to be grey.
The Redcliffe choice is irrelevant. For one, the devs never claimed IT was supposed to be grey, and for another, it requires metagame knowledge...specificly, knowledge of future events.

No it doesn't require metagame knowledge.  There are no fewer than three in-game sources that tell you about the circle option at Redcliff.  The circle option practically shoved in your face. 

If you are going to claim it requires knowlege of future events, then what I am talking about is a grey issue.  I would also say that the very FACT this is a 50+ page reflects it's a grey issue.  Basically is a system that SHOULD be better for everyone in the long term, worth the short term economic, political, military, and even moral costs?  Very much a grey issue.

As for the rest, I never said you claimed it was moral.  I said that you repeatedly and loudly said that it was the best and most logical system.  You have.  If so, then there is no Greyness either.  In fact I find it rather ironic that you of all people are trying to push 'greyness' as a reason why the circle system is justified.  The who point of greyness is the strong implication and possibility that it isn't.

I said best from the security standpoint. Learn to read.
Not to mention that I repetedly in this thread stressed the need to define "best".
You fail.

But it doens't matter what I said, because this is about what you said. We're starting from the assumption that everything you said is correct.

If the security issue were as clear cut as you say, and abominations really could be compared with ebola victims, then there wouldn't be any grey issues.  This is why the Developers are deliberately withholding abomination rates from the game lore!  We are supposed to doubt and strongly doubt that the circle system is justified not just on a moral level but a practical one as well.

The Greyness comes in when you ask, "Ok, if it isn't a good system, how do we go about dismantling it....or even should be dismantle it given the short term pain and chaos it will cause".  The choice between short term chaos and even strife for the sake of a long term solution OR short term tranquility at the price of a long term disaster is very much a Grey Choice, and it's one that even today in real life politics, countries are continually facing and failing at.

-Polaris

No, this isn' grey.
Again, you have a choice btween a perfect system that will take some time to implement and a broken, amoral system that is going to crumble violently.
War and instabiltiy is not a negative poitn for your system, when sticking with the Cirlce system will likely cause a war (according to you). You got strife and instabiltiy regardless of whihc you choose.

SO WHERE IS THE DILLEMA? I want you to show me hte moral dillema thatis required for it to be a grey choice! I demand it.

Any time you change a system, you introduce a transition period.  Such periods always come with expectation gaps and inherent instability.

In this case, the common people of Thedas for the most part do mistrust and even fear mages and right or wrong, that Chantry programming will take a long time to be reversed.  Therefore simply letting all mages out to live alongside mundanes is asking for a bloodbath....yet if you don't let them out, then you are continuing a system of unjust imprisonment.  There's a moral dilemna right there and ther are more if you'd bother do consider the implications of changing the circle system.

So is it better to pretend there isn't a problem for short term gain at the expense of long term disaster or do you try to solve the longterm problem at the risk of short term bloodshed and even revolt (on both sides)?  Seems grey to me.

-Polaris

[Augoeides]

Lord Cheetah wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Lord Cheetah wrote...

i'm just going to say this, if you let mages to be free how much people will the average mage kill.
just look at the connor incident, 1 little boy used ONE spell and i think at least 75 people (in castle and village) were killed, and now you must remember, a life is a life, a mage's life should be just as valuable as a normal 1, blood mages aren't exactly killing 1 person so they can do awesome spells the rest of their life, and even if they did, it would be bad enough. 1 mage (like Uldred or Avernus) can do a simple spell to summon demons which kill a load of people, in Uldred's case more then half the circle got killed or became a abomination.

The Conner incident was an absolutely unique incident where normal help was totally unavailable.  It was a conflux of very bad things that permitted the situation to get as bad as it did.  Normally Bann Teagan could have gotten Teryn Loghain to send troops within the week to deal with the situation and help defend the village.  Normally, you would have had a solid support structure that would have caught Conner early and given him the training he needed by COMPETANT instructors...and yes normally there could be Templars there within the day to help the Bann and Teyrn's men police the situation.

For a variety of unrelated reasons, all of this was unavailable, so you can't point to the death-toll from Conner and say that is a typical abomination case.  It's not.  In fact it's unique that so many things went wrong all at once...and it's worth noting that the Chantry and Circle system played a direct role in allowing this to happen at all!

They might be stereotypical examples but they still killed loads of people on accident, if you read codexes in Broken circle and talk to people you notice that it also didn't go the way Uldred wanted it to go, he was a abomination the whole time since he summoned the demons. What would exactly change if they would be free?

He was not.  Niall makes that very clear.  He was a bloodmage sure, but he bacame an abomination when he tried to summon more demons then he could control....or in short by being dumb.

-Polaris

even if the Connor incident could have been handled very easy, that wud probably still mean people would have died, maybe less but they still died and the templars/soldiers would have probably killed Connor himself. Is it really worth risking people's life so the little boy can be arl?

Btw in your last sentence, I presume you mean Uldred instead of Niall, because that ain't right, but are you justifying summoning demons if you don't summon too much, doesn't really make sense because the fact they are there to kill EVERYone, they just either go rampage (like with the rage demon) or just make a plan to kill people large scale (like the pride and desire demon), but they aren't here to serve anyone, that is if they don't get to kill somebody.

yes it is not nice to kill /  tranquil potentional blood mages, but if they are to be blood mages, they can be mass murderers, most people rather avoid that

Your point about the demons makes little sense. Why summon demons, even in a minimum amount? Because they're extra firepower in a situation where you may need allies of any sort for the sake of survival.If you had a choice to summon a demon through magic to save a group of people from darkspawn or let the darkspawn kill them because it was blood magic, which would you choose?

The summoning of a demon seems perfectly justifiable when one's life or the lives of others are at stake.

Anybody can be a mass murderer, why single out mages?

[IanPolaris]

Cheetah,



Niall makes it clear that Uldred was always a bloodmage but wasn't always an abomination. I thought my sentence before was clear but apparently was not. As for the rest, I don't condone summoning demons at all from the practical risk factor alone, and what Uldred did was dumb.



That said, the chantry's position on bloodmagic is stupid. Bloodmagic will always be available because demons will always offer to teach if (if no other source!). Given that, you should regulate bloodmagic and insure that you have bonded and loyal mages with better bloodmagic than the criminals. Think of it like military grade weapons.



-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

Everyone,

To expound further, the entire circle/mage issue is very grey.  It's a two pronged problem.

1. Is the Circle system justified?

I believe that I have shown fairly strong evidence that it is not especially in light of other magic using cultures not needing it.  However, you have education/propaganda to the contrary for centuries by the Chantry, and hard numbers are difficult to come by (look at this thread!)  If you believe the Chantry then the security may be worth the price, but if you don't then it's not.

2.  If the Circle is NOT justified, how do you change to one that is?

This is the part that Lotion is (imho deliberatly) misunderstanding.  Just because another system such as the one the Dalish use (more or less) or a modified Tevinter system, you STILL have to dismantle a system that currently "works" (albeit badly) and then try to rebuild one that is better all while dealing with the antgonisms that have built up for centuries.  As a rule (even in nonmagic societies) revolutions tend to happen not when things are at their worst, but when things just start to get better and change is begun.

Thus the question becomes, even IF we accept the Circle system is bad, is it worth the short term loss of life, property,and other pain to change it?  Considering that the change itself may trigger an all out mage's war, that's not a question to take lightly.

-Polaris

[Lotion Soronarr]

IanPolaris wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...
Yes you have. You have to show the greyness.
The devs calimed the mage issue was supposed to be grey.
The Redcliffe choice is irrelevant. For one, the devs never claimed IT was supposed to be grey, and for another, it requires metagame knowledge...specificly, knowledge of future events.

No it doesn't require metagame knowledge.  There are no fewer than three in-game sources that tell you about the circle option at Redcliff.  The circle option practically shoved in your face. 

If you are going to claim it requires knowlege of future events, then what I am talking about is a grey issue.  I would also say that the very FACT this is a 50+ page reflects it's a grey issue.  Basically is a system that SHOULD be better for everyone in the long term, worth the short term economic, political, military, and even moral costs?  Very much a grey issue.

I'm not talking about the option, I'm talking about the outcome. There is no risk in the 3rd choice. No dillema. tehre is one if you don't have metagame knowledge of how it will turn out.


You fail. The length of this discussion is of a different nature altogehter. We were debating what the basic truth behind the system is. YOU claim that that truth is obvious and it's what you say.
There is only one truth. Baced up by game lore and codex..or so you say.
Remeber, we're analyzing this from your standpoint only. Assuming everything you say is true.

So ti's not a grey issue. Because hte short term military/economi thing..it doesn't exist. TEHRE IS NO CHOICE IF ONE SYSTEM IS OBJECTIVELY BETTER IN EVERY WAY. you claim it is objectively better. You claim that any rational, thinking human beign should choose the other system.

As for the rest, I never said you claimed it was moral.  I said that you repeatedly and loudly said that it was the best and most logical system.  You have.  If so, then there is no Greyness either.  In fact I find it rather ironic that you of all people are trying to push 'greyness' as a reason why the circle system is justified.  The who point of greyness is the strong implication and possibility that it isn't.

I said best from the security standpoint. Learn to read.
Not to mention that I repetedly in this thread stressed the need to define "best".
You fail.

But it doens't matter what I said, because this is about what you said. We're starting from the assumption that everything you said is correct.

If the security issue were as clear cut as you say, and abominations really could be compared with ebola victims, then there wouldn't be any grey issues.  This is why the Developers are deliberately withholding abomination rates from the game lore!  We are supposed to doubt and strongly doubt that the circle system is justified not just on a moral level but a practical one as well.

No grey issue? What atre you drinking?

Security vs. freedom is NOT a grey issue? Many. vs. Few is NOT a grey issue? The whole circle system is one giant grey issue.
But you are claiming it's not. You are claiming that OBJECTIVELY:
- it doesn't keep the coutrnyside safe
- produces more abominations
- is morraly corrupt
- is regressvy and self-destroying
- will end in a massiw war, that you compared to armageddon

In other words, it is YOU who are claming that the system is not justified from ANY angel. Morally, practicly, effectively. YOU say it fails at every possible level.
WHERE IS THE DIFFICULTY OF CHOICE THERE?


And yeah. Aparenlty you seem to know exactly what the developers are thinkign and why they dont' say something. <_< Laughable.
Your'e grasping at straws now. Pathetic.

No, this isn' grey.
Again, you have a choice btween a perfect system that will take some time to implement and a broken, amoral system that is going to crumble violently.
War and instabiltiy is not a negative poitn for your system, when sticking with the Cirlce system will likely cause a war (according to you). You got strife and instabiltiy regardless of whihc you choose.

SO WHERE IS THE DILLEMA? I want you to show me hte moral dillema thatis required for it to be a grey choice! I demand it.

Any time you change a system, you introduce a transition period.  Such periods always come with expectation gaps and inherent instability.

In this case, the common people of Thedas for the most part do mistrust and even fear mages and right or wrong, that Chantry programming will take a long time to be reversed.  Therefore simply letting all mages out to live alongside mundanes is asking for a bloodbath....yet if you don't let them out, then you are continuing a system of unjust imprisonment.  There's a moral dilemna right there and ther are more if you'd bother do consider the implications of changing the circle system.

So is it better to pretend there isn't a problem for short term gain at the expense of long term disaster or do you try to solve the longterm problem at the risk of short term bloodshed and even revolt (on both sides)?  Seems grey to me.

And I'm telling you again - regardless of whhhc system you suport, there is going to be tension, violence and bloodshed. So this "negative" side is not exclusive to the anti-circle stance.

It is YOU who said that keeping the chantry sstem will result in a chantry-mage war that will tear the world apart. So how is that better than a transition period?

Again - you FAIL to privide a moral dillema. you FAIL at providing a practical dillema. You FAIL at providing ANY dillema at all.

You have lost this argument. Utterly.
Withdraw while you still have some dignity left, instead of digging yourself in ever deeper.

[Lord Cheetah]

(Big list of quotes by Agoeides-------------Big list of quotes by Agoeides)

You can summon demons for the sake of your survival but there are ALWAYS consequences, you might be safe from your enemy if you summon demons, but like i said before, the demons ain't there to serve you unless you are 1 very very evil and powerful person yourself or your just a abomination, because they want the dead of mankind, the demons will need repayment, which usually isn't going to be nice (find me a codex where it states they remained good little pets after being summoned), and they probably murder even more people then you intended, the caster himself usually doesnt turn out good either. 


Ianpolaris, you do know what blood mage is do you, they practically murder people, or otherwise make them suffer for their power or they can ofcourse just summon demons and really let hell break loose. You can have loyal goody blood mages but i am pretty sure you can't be both a blood mage and a nice guy, because you have to to not so nice things to be called a blood mage.

EDIT: Grammar failz

Modifié par Lord Cheetah, 25 janvier 2011 - 09:22 .

[IanPolaris]

Am I the only one that's finding it ironic that Lotion is now talking about "Greyness" as a defense for his position when he was anything but 'grey" for most of this thread?



-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

Yes, the circle system will result in a war that will tear Thedas apart. I don't think that part should be in doubt any longer. However, the sad fact is that sometimes an act of changing a bad system for the better can trigger the revolt/war/problems that the change was supposed to prevent.



Basically there is a choice here between putting the day of reckoning off or not doing so.



I also point out that the change I am advocating has NOT been presented as an option in the game (at least not yet). If you are going to talk about morally grey choices then you need to restrict yourself to choices offered IN THE GAME.



Right now the choice in the game seems to be the current circle system or total emancipation of mages all at once. While I do think the mages need to be emancipated, I have serious issues with the "all at once" because that can also create much unnecessary strife.



-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

Lord Cheetah wrote...

Ianpolaris, you do know what blood mage is do you, they practically murder people, or otherwise make them suffer for their power or they can ofcourse just summon demons and really let hell break loose. You can have loyal goody blood mages but i am pretty sure you can't be both a blood mage and a nice guy, because you have to to not so nice things to be called a blood mage.

EDIT: Grammar failz

No they don't.  There is nothing about Bloodmagic that requires you to harm or murder anyone but yourself.  Admittedly the magisters of Tevinter were not nice people and did do a lot of blood sacrifice you are talking about, but that's a far cry from using your own life force or even those that willingly volunteer.

-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

Lotion,



The difficulty is that most people that have been "educated" by the chantry DO believe the circle is needed for security whether it is true or not. How to deal with that while at the same time asking mages to accept change gradually is a very, very difficult thing.



The point is this: I believe I have made a very strong case the circle system is not only unnecessary but harmful. The fact that you are whining about a purely meta-argument means I've largely "won" my point on this.



However, even so, you still have to show that in game to the people of Thedas and still have to try to change it in a way that won't blow up in your face. If you don't think that isn't a grey issue (and very much a security issue since the transition will be a security nightmare), then you sir, are not paying attention.



-Polaris

[Augoeides]

IanPolaris wrote...

Am I the only one that's finding it ironic that Lotion is now talking about "Greyness" as a defense for his position when he was anything but 'grey" for most of this thread?

-Polaris

He's roleplaying as a templar for us.... right?

[elfdwarf]

let's put world on fire

let's put mage, elf, grey warden, qunari and dwarf in noble chantry world

let's mage walk free or civil war against chantry

let's elves walk free outside elven community or civil war against chantry

let's qunari religion in every country

let's turn chantry updown

only thing i care killing templar and seeing chantry world burn

Modifié par elfdwarf, 25 janvier 2011 - 09:47 .

[Lord Cheetah]

elfdwarf wrote...

let's put world on fire
let's put mage, elf, grey warden, qunari and dwarf in noble chantry world
let's mage walk free or civil war against chantry
let's elves walk free outside elven community or civil war against chantry
let's qunari religion in every country
let's turn chantry updown
only thing i care killing templar and seeing chantry world burn

funny how i think exactly the opposite even though most of what u say doesnt make too much sense

[LobselVith8]

Lord Cheetah wrote...
i'm just going to say this, if you let mages to be free how much people will the average mage kill.

Killed by people indocturinated to hate mages by the Chantry, you mean? Because that happens in Andrastian nations, not in Rivain, the Dalish clans, or even Haven.

Lord Cheetah wrote...

just look at the connor incident, 1 little boy used ONE spell and i think at least 75 people (in castle and village) were killed, and now you must remember, a life is a life, a mage's life should be just as valuable as a normal 1, blood mages aren't exactly killing 1 person so they can do awesome spells the rest of their life, and even if they did, it would be bad enough. 1 mage (like Uldred or Avernus) can do a simple spell to summon demons which kill a load of people, in Uldred's case more then half the circle got killed or became a abomination.

Isn't that a call for mages being properly trained to use their abilities, not for them to be imprisoned indefinitely?

Lord Cheetah wrote...
They might be stereotypical examples but they still killed loads of people on accident, if you read codexes in Broken circle and talk to people you notice that it also didn't go the way Uldred wanted it to go, he was a abomination the whole time since he summoned the demons. What would exactly change if they would be free?

Mages would stop fighting their oppressors to be free of them.

Lord Cheetah wrote...
even if the Connor incident could have been handled very easy, that wud probably still mean people would have died, maybe less but they still died and the templars/soldiers would have probably killed Connor himself. Is it really worth risking people's life so the little boy can be arl?

So we should ignore the bad system set in place for mages because the same Chantry that dehumanizes and imprisons mages also clearly stigmatizes all mages as evil and caused a mother to seek an alternative means to help her son?

Lord Cheetah wrote...
Btw in your last sentence, I presume you mean Uldred instead of Niall, because that ain't right, but are you justifying summoning demons if you don't summon too much, doesn't really make sense because the fact they are there to kill EVERYone, they just either go rampage (like with the rage demon) or just make a plan to kill people large scale (like the pride and desire demon), but they aren't here to serve anyone, that is if they don't get to kill somebody.

Nobody justified anything, you're intentionally misrepresenting what was said. Ian pointed out that it was stupid. As for possession, anyone possessed by a demon is dangerous. A possessed cat killed three trained templars (Anders). Demons can possess anything, including dead trees and corpses.

Lord Cheetah wrote...
yes it is not nice to kill / tranquil potentional blood mages, but if they are to be blood mages, they can be mass murderers, most people rather avoid that

Your kind of thinking is why the Chantry system is tolerated, and why mages keep resisting against their oppressors.

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

DG stated specificly that the templa-mage issue is meant to be grey. Grey as in "no clear moral victor". No clear solution to the issue. No clear side to pick. Of course, some people may prefer to pick one of h the other, but that's on purely sbbjective issues.

People are allowed to point out if they find a system morally reprehensible and ineffective, Lotion.

Lotion Soronnar wrote...
And I ask oyu - if you're agaisnt imprisoning people (for whatever the reason) who didn't do anything - what would you do if your neighbour town becomes the epicenter of a deadly virus. when the army comes to set up the quarantene, will you fight them?

That's an interesting question. We're discussing whether we would spare the Architect and the Messenger due to how even intelligent darkspawn can pass on darkspawn disease to non-darkspawn, right? Because I can't possibly imagine how this pertains to mages in the slightest.

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

You postulate that it is an objective truth (according to you) that the Chatnry and the Cirlces are evil, incompetent, morraly corrupt, ineffective, etc, etc... In short they've go no pro's ..only con's.
they don't keep the coutrnyside safer, they dont' keep the mages safer, they don't have the moral highground...what DO they have?
On the other hand, you present other systems as having only pros and no cons.
So where is the hard choice here? Where is they greyness? YOU CLAIM THERE IS AN OBJECTIVELY SUPERIOR CHOICE IN EVERY WAY...Something that the dev's explicitly said is not true. David Gaider confirmed it - the Circle issue, the whole mage-templar thing is meant to be grey..muddled.. with no clear better choice.

People have pointed out how flawed, illogical and morally wrong the Chantry's decision to imprison mages is because it conditions mages to become abominations and instigates mages towards rebellions against their oppressors.  There's also no proof that it's actually effective at what the Chantry claims is its purpose.

Lotion Soronnar wrote...
The imprisoment never was about crimes or something thaty do/didn't do. It was about security. About safety.
Mages are ticking bombs that no one knows when they will go off. And there's only a few of them.
Confining them seems like the most efficient way to prevent many deaths.

"Ticking time bombs?" That must explain the complete annihilation of Haven, Rivain, and the Dalish clans, right? Because I could swear they're all in existance in DA:O. As for imprisonment, where's the proof that it's for security? The codex History of the Circle accurately assesses that it's creation had absolutely nothing to do with security.  It's a bad system that continues to cause more death because people don't like being enslaved to an order that demonizes and dehumanizes them.