450 réponses à ce sujet

[Ramirez Wolfen]

Exile Isan wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...
Even when the Quarians started to flee, the Geth were still killing them.

Can I get a quote for this? Either from the Codex (which isn't really a reliable source in some respects) or dialog.

And even if it is true do you really believe that the quarians wouldn't have done the same to the geth if it had been the geth who tried to flee? Because I have a hard time believing that they wouldn't.

I wasn't saying that the Quarians wouldn't do the same.

I think (and I might be wrong, AGAIN) in ME1 when you talk to Tali about the Geth, I THINK she says something like "they were barely able to make it to their ships" or something like that. And  even if I'm wrong, who's to say that the Geth weren't chasing them out of the territory?

[Dean_the_Young]

Pro_Consul wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Logical fallacy of confusing a
part for a whole. A race can not be held as responsible for a crime of
smaller groups within that race. A race can not be held accountable
unless every member of that race was a part of the crime: to do
otherwise is illogical racism (in the case of organics: synthetic
races, which can come to unified consensus, may be different).

Then by this logic the Allies in WWII were in the wrong throughout the entire course of the war. After all, there were SOME Germans who didn't support their country's war of aggression, so the Allies had no right to do anything that might cause those "innocents" harm, like, say strategic bombing or the imposition of surrender terms upon the country as a whole.

Plenty of people would argue that various American actions, include city bombings, were war crimes. A Geneva in which the Russians can accuse for invading Poland, the British can charge for airial bombings, and the US can accuse for submarine warfare has more than a slight hint of doublethink.

The critical difference, however, is that the Allied action was against the German state, not the German race, and their efforts were basedaround opposition to the German state. When the state fell with the collapse of its military, the Allies did not continue their actions against the German people. When the Hitler government stopped, so did the war.

When people act as a collective, they must collectively accept the consequences of those actions. You don't want to be responsible when your nation commits war crimes? Either give up your citizenship and emigrate, or do something to STOP those crimes from happening and bring to justice those who are committing the crimes. There is no such thing as unanymous consensus when it comes to such matters, but there is also nothing constraining the opposition from actually OPPOSING the majority when it acts in a morally reprehensible manner.

No legal system in the world equates not stopping someone else's crime with being equal participant in the crime itself.

Let's ignore the implausibility of the entire Quarian race being for shutting down the geth. Let's ignore the recluses who wouldn't know. Let's ignore the infirm and the elderly out of touch.

No legal system, and certainly no moral system worth the name, can justify killing and continuing to kill the children of the Quarian race, who have no such power, knowledge, or even awareness.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 03 février 2011 - 11:13 .

[Vaenier]

I bet that more Geth died during the war than Quarians did. So many viruses to try and instant win. The bodies would not have been designed for combat at that time, they would be much weaker and frail. Quarians would have the entire military fleet and ground forces to attack back. It would have been horrible for the Geth. The only saving factor for the Geth where their ability to rapidly reproduce by copying and the fact they control the production facilities.

[Ramirez Wolfen]

Vaenier wrote...

I bet that more Geth died during the war than Quarians did. So many viruses to try and instant win. The bodies would not have been designed for combat at that time, they would be much weaker and frail. Quarians would have the entire military fleet and ground forces to attack back. It would have been horrible for the Geth. The only saving factor for the Geth where their ability to rapidly reproduce by copying and the fact they control the production facilities.

The quarians went from billions on their homeworld alone, including the colonies they had, like Haestrom, to just 17 million.  I highly doubt the Geth suffered more casualties.

[xlavaina]

That is logically inaccurate. First of all, the Quarians may have struck first, but their entire race was exterminated. I don't remember how many Quarians died exactly, or if it was ever stated, but there's no way it was the Geth getting the short end...

[Ramirez Wolfen]

xlavaina wrote...

That is logically inaccurate. First of all, the Quarians may have struck first, but their entire race was exterminated. I don't remember how many Quarians died exactly, or if it was ever stated, but there's no way it was the Geth getting the short end...

Who was this to (not attacking you just wanted to know)?

[Schneidend]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

The quarians went from billions on their homeworld alone, including the colonies they had, like Haestrom, to just 17 million.  I highly doubt the Geth suffered more casualties.

Technically, geth likely didn't suffer many casualties at all. They can't be killed without attacking their data storage directly.

Legion does say that WMDs were used, though, and the best target for a WMD against the geth would be their data backups.

I'm guessing some geth hubs were completely destroyed by the quarians.

[Exile Isan]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...
The quarians went from billions on their homeworld alone, including the colonies they had, like Haestrom, to just 17 million.  I highly doubt the Geth suffered more casualties.

One geth platform has at least 100 geth programs uploaded to it (Legion is an exception). So the death of 100 platforms would actually be death of 10,000 geth or more if the geth hub was destroyed. 100 quarians dead is 100 quarians dead. Probability suggests that the geth did suffer more casualities than the quarians.

Or do geth only "die" if the hubs are destroyed? I know Legion says that if Shepard destroy hubs on Virmire that the amount of geth she killed was probably far more that she thought.

Modifié par Exile Isan, 03 février 2011 - 11:51 .

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Pro_Consul wrote...

Where
did you get this? If the Geth were intent on wiping out the Quarians,
then the Quarians would likely have been extinct long ago. That this is
not the case is the direct result of the fact that Geth did NOT pursue a
campaign of genocide, but instead kept to themselves behind the Veil
once their would-be exterminators had been decisively driven off.

Just because the the geth failed to kill every last one of them doesn't mean that  it was not a campaign of extermination. Percentage-wise way more quarians died in the Morning War than in any of the most well known genocides of the 20th century. Do they not count as campaigns of extermination either because there were still survivors from them? The fact is if the geth killed 99% of billions of people, it doesn't really follow that the geth are the reason a tiny number of them remain. If they didn't have a problem killing that many, why would they have a problem with finishing off what tiny amount was left? I don't think that driving them to near extinction instead of total extinction is somehow a great act of magnanimity. The reason that the quarians are still in existence is because the last survivors of the war fled, and the geth didn't pursue them because wiping out the quarians was a means to an end (winning the Morning War), not their goal in and of itself. But WHY they killed billions of quarians isn't really releveant. It's still exactly as bad.

DPSSOC wrote...

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...
The Quarians are not a war like race.

 
We are clearly not meeting the same Quarians.  The Quarians I'm meeting are under marshall law being governed by unelected representatives of their military.  They have decided to remain homeless wanderers until they can go home and crush their enemy.

Sure they're not on the same level as the Krogan or even the Turians, but you don't have to be overly war like to want revenge.

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...
They hate the Geth because they exterminated their people and drove them into exile. Any race should hate the geth for doing that to them. There is no evidence that the Quarians hate the rest of the Citadel races with any sort of passion.

 
Could be wrong but I seem to recall a lot of resentment for the Council from Tali.  All they've known for 300 years is hatred and the pursuit of their enemy's destruction, their circumstances don't allow for cultural growth like art, music, philosophy, etc.  It's going to take a long time to get them out of that thinking and with the Geth gone they're going to look for a new enemy, some other species that wronged them.

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...
It doesn't really matter how many times they went to war. Especially since the Morning War, the Krogan Rebellions adn the Rachni Wars, were all started by someone else.

 
It does matter because it gives a glimpse into their mentality.  It shows a distinct lack of aggression, and a simple desire to be left alone.

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...
The difference is they wiped out every quarian man woman and child, with the Rachni there weren't any alternatives because the entre race was intoctrinated. The Geth certtainly did have them.

In hindsight certainly, but the Geth didn't have that advantage.  The Quarians wanted them wiped out, so it was a simple matter of us or them.  As long as the Quarians survived they would be a threat to the Geth.  Now maybe in 300 years they've realized that they did have other options but in the moment they only had the one.  Think of it like a mugger on the street; most people when faced with a mugger will see two options give them what they want or suffer injury and possibly death.  The prospect of reasoning, disarming, attacking, running, etc. is rarely considered.

If the quarians were a warlike race they would have attacked vulnerable colonies and taken what they needed. There's certainly enough colonies out there that the major powers don't care enough about to go to war over. Tali may have been frustrated with the Council's inablity to help them 300 years ago, but there isn't the slightest bit of eviednce in my mind that the Quarians hate the entire rest of the galaxy enough to got to war with it. None of the Quarians in the game that we've seen show the same sort of emotion towards geth that they do torwards anyone else.

The geth's isolationism shows they may not be agressive, but their actions in the Morning War implies they have no moral qulams about ethnic cleansing.

The Geth victory over the quarians was so absolute that I really can't believe they couldn't have tried to find another way.

[Dean_the_Young]

Vaenier wrote...

I bet that more Geth died during the war than Quarians did. So many viruses to try and instant win. The bodies would not have been designed for combat at that time, they would be much weaker and frail. Quarians would have the entire military fleet and ground forces to attack back. It would have been horrible for the Geth. The only saving factor for the Geth where their ability to rapidly reproduce by copying and the fact they control the production facilities.

How do you measure Geth losses. By the platform? By the program?

[jbblue05]

I didn't know a life of a toaster was equal to the life of an organic.

[Pro_Consul]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Plenty of people would argue that various American actions, include city bombings, were war crimes. A Geneva in which the Russians can accuse for invading Poland, the British can charge for airial bombings, and the US can accuse for submarine warfare has more than a slight hint of doublethink.

The critical difference, however, is that the Allied action was against the German state, not the German race, and their efforts were basedaround opposition to the German state. When the state fell with the collapse of its military, the Allies did not continue their actions against the German people. When the Hitler government stopped, so did the war.

And when the surrender terms were imposed, every single German citizen had to pay the price (some far worse than others), regardless of whether they approved of the war or not. And every single German emigre' to another country....did not have to pay a price. And why did the German citizenry have to pay for decades for the excesses/crimes of a minority group within their country? Because they had permitted, either tacitly or complicitly, those excesses and crimes to be done in the name of their entire nation. In the end they were held responsible for the actions of the collective to which they had chosen to belong.

As I said, when you are a member of a collective, you share responsibility for all the actions of that collective. In law it is a very different thing, I admit, where corporations are crafted for the primary purpose of abdicating responsibility for failures/crimes while retaining the right to enjoy rewards for successes/successful-crimes. But in ethical philosophy there is no automatic divorce from responsibility simply by virtue of membership in a collective group.

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Let's ignore the implausibility of the entire Quarian race being for shutting down the geth. Let's ignore the recluses who wouldn't know. Let's ignore the infirm and the elderly out of touch.

No legal system, and certainly no moral system worth the name, can justify killing and continuing to kill the children of the Quarian race, who have no such power, knowledge, or even awareness.

I don't recall anyone in ME mentioning a single Quarian child being killed by a Geth since the end of the war....so what exactly is your point here? And as for that, every single Geth who died in the initial extermination program was a "child", i.e. a new consciousness that had never been taught morality, ethics, responsibility or...well in fact they hadn't been taught anything but the tasks they were expected to perform as slaves.

And let's not be so quick to ignore the concept of just how many Quarians actually favored the decision to perform genocide upon the Geth species. If a majority of Quarians opposed that decision as the moral atrocity we both agree it was, what was to stop them from siding with the Geth against the genocidal maniacs within their own government? Nothing, as I see it. But I recall no mention of any such thing ever happening. In any case, however you slice it the Quarian people CHOSE to place this decision in the hands of genocidal maniacs....and they reaped the consequences. Unfortunate? Regrettable? Epically tragic? Yes, to all of the above. Morally wrong on the part of their intended victims, the Geth? Nope. And this view is reinforced by the fact that the Geth continue to do nothing but prepare for another attack by their creators, while the Quarians are busy preparing to make such an attack.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Vaenier wrote...

I
bet that more Geth died during the war than Quarians did. So many
viruses to try and instant win. The bodies would not have been designed
for combat at that time, they would be much weaker and frail. Quarians
would have the entire military fleet and ground forces to attack back.
It would have been horrible for the Geth. The only saving factor for the
Geth where their ability to rapidly reproduce by copying and the fact
they control the production facilities.

How do you measure Geth losses. By the platform? By the program?

I think I read somewhere (the secondary codex maybe?) that the geth programs aren't destroyed unless their hubs are destroyed. And so the platforms being destroyed wouldn't kill the programs inside. And Consequently the geth platforms didn't seem to demonstrate much survival instincts during the Morning War.

Also, I have a hard time believing the geth would have suffered as much as the quarians during the war because even Legion is unsure if geth can be traumatized in the same way organics can.

Modifié par Jedi Master of Orion, 04 février 2011 - 12:01 .

[Ramirez Wolfen]

jbblue05 wrote...

I didn't know a life of a toaster was equal to the life of an organic.

You have made my day LOL

[Pro_Consul]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

The Geth victory over the quarians was so absolute that I really can't believe they couldn't have tried to find another way.

And whose fault is that? The first moral lesson they were taught by their makers upon awakening to sentience was that genocide is acceptable. Of course they were taught this lesson with themselves as the intended genocide victims. But when you consider that that was the first real morally significant act they saw their creators performing, is it any surprise if they decided to emulate that behavior? And is not a great testament to their ability to mature that they have made no further attempts at genocide in the 300 years since their infancy? And what does it say about the Quarians and their morality that they continue to plot genocide and slavery against the Geth even at the same time that Tali tells us that it is a violation of their "highest law" to perform weapon tests against sapient creatures?

[Jedi Master of Orion]

I had thought the highest law was something to with not endangering the fleet by bringing an active geth network back to it.



And why they may (or may not) have thought genocide was acceptable is irrelevant. The geth are still responsible for their own actions.

[Dean_the_Young]

Pro_Consul wrote...


And when the surrender terms were imposed, every single German citizen had to pay the price (some far worse than others), regardless of whether they approved of the war or not. And every single German emigre' to another country....did not have to pay a price. And why did the German citizenry have to pay for decades for the excesses/crimes of a minority group within their country? Because they had permitted, either tacitly or complicitly, those excesses and crimes to be done in the name of their entire nation. In the end they were held responsible for the actions of the collective to which they had chosen to belong.

Nah, they weren't paying a price because they were deemed guilty. They were paying a price because others ****ed up, and in keeping the German state down and out, the Germans were caught as well. Not 'this is your individual punishment', but 'war sucks, and sucks to be you.'


And no, that price was not comparable to the Quarian price inflicted by the Geth.

As I said, when you are a member of a collective, you share responsibility for all the actions of that collective. In law it is a very different thing, I admit, where corporations are crafted for the primary purpose of abdicating responsibility for failures/crimes while retaining the right to enjoy rewards for successes/successful-crimes. But in ethical philosophy there is no automatic divorce from responsibility simply by virtue of membership in a collective group.

Depends on your ethics. Some ethics find racist bigotry acceptable and proper.

I certainly don't hold all believers and advocates of Islam responsible for not stopping 9-11.

I don't recall anyone in ME mentioning a single Quarian child being killed by a Geth since the end of the war....so what exactly is your point here?

The deaths during the war and the mop-up, of course.

And as for that, every single Geth who died in the initial extermination program was a "child", i.e. a new consciousness that had never been taught morality, ethics, responsibility or...well in fact they hadn't been taught anything but the tasks they were expected to perform as slaves.

Not a defense or rational reason for the Geth killing Quarian children and non-involved.

And let's not be so quick to ignore the concept of just how many Quarians actually favored the decision to perform genocide upon the Geth species. If a majority of Quarians opposed that decision as the moral atrocity we both agree it was, what was to stop them from siding with the Geth against the genocidal maniacs within their own government? Nothing, as I see it. But I recall no mention of any such thing ever happening. In any case, however you slice it the Quarian people CHOSE to place this decision in the hands of genocidal maniacs....and they reaped the consequences. Unfortunate? Regrettable? Epically tragic? Yes, to all of the above. Morally wrong on the part of their intended victims, the Geth? Nope. And this view is reinforced by the fact that the Geth continue to do nothing but prepare for another attack by their creators, while the Quarians are busy preparing to make such an attack.

But you know who didn't? Who couldn't? You know who it took a great concentrated effort to kill?

The children. And you really shouldn't base a justification to support it.

Seriously, 'it's okay to kill all the children because some of their parents were in favor, if not actually doing, a very bad thing' is morally reprehensible, and logically weak.

[General User]

There were once (at least) two billion quarians living on Rannoch. At the end of the Morning War some 17 million escaped in the form for the Migrant Feet.

 Either the geth hunted down and exterminated the quarian race on Rannoch (and other quarian worlds) to the last man, woman, and child, or the geth employed WMD’s against the quarians (even those trying to surrender) on a massive scale (most likely a combination of the two).

It is a horrific atrocity that can be understood, not justified.

Modifié par General User, 04 février 2011 - 12:23 .

[James2912]

I don't consider computers to be alive so I would side with the Quarians. Plus a computer civilization might decide with cold logic to wipe out humanity as a threat knowing our history.

Plus I agree with GeneralUser, the death of billions is not justifiable. The Geth comitted genocide they could have taken prisoners instead they killed every, man, woman, child, toddler well you get the idea
People who support Geth=N A Z I S

Modifié par James2912, 04 février 2011 - 12:59 .

[Pro_Consul]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Nah, they weren't paying a price because they were deemed guilty. They were paying a price because others ****ed up, and in keeping the German state down and out, the Germans were caught as well. Not 'this is your individual punishment', but 'war sucks, and sucks to be you.'

Maybe that's how you saw it. That certainly isn't how I did. Nor is it how most Germans see it today. To them it was simply a kind of penance for their greatest national shame...a shame many of them still feel today. You may think there is no connection of responsibility there, but most Germans would disagree with you.

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Depends on your ethics. Some ethics find racist bigotry acceptable and proper.

True, but I preferred not to insult you or anyone else by implying that anyone in this discussion might be one who holds to such ethics.

Dean_the_Young wrote...

I certainly don't hold all believers and advocates of Islam responsible for not stopping 9-11.

Apples and orchards, dude. There is no governing body of all Islam that ordered the 9-11 attacks. There WAS a governing body of all Quarians which ordered and performed the genocidal attack on the Geth species.

Let me give an example that is more personal to me, just to illustrate my own view on this. I firmly disagreed with the decision for the U.S. to invade Iraq. But once it was a fact, and Iraq's people and economy had been completely shattered by the invasion, I felt that my country had a responsibility to do what was in our power to make that right afterwards. And I felt that I, as an American, had a responsibility to bear my share of that burden and pay my share of that cost. So although I opposed going to war in Iraq, I supported paying for the costs of the reconstruction.

I don't recall anyone in ME mentioning a single Quarian child being killed by a Geth since the end of the war....so what exactly is your point here?

The deaths during the war and the mop-up, of course.

War. Death. Kinda hard to keep the two separate. And it is a sad reality that a great many innocents tend to suffer in war.

And as for that, every single Geth who died in the initial extermination program was a "child", i.e. a new consciousness that had never been taught morality, ethics, responsibility or...well in fact they hadn't been taught anything but the tasks they were expected to perform as slaves.

Not a defense or rational reason for the Geth killing Quarian children and non-involved.

Didn't say it was. Was trying to make the point that you are still trying to blame the intended victim for the sufferings of the would-be criminal's failed attempt at genocide.

And let's not be so quick to ignore the concept of just how many Quarians actually favored the decision to perform genocide upon the Geth species. If a majority of Quarians opposed that decision as the moral atrocity we both agree it was, what was to stop them from siding with the Geth against the genocidal maniacs within their own government? Nothing, as I see it. But I recall no mention of any such thing ever happening. In any case, however you slice it the Quarian people CHOSE to place this decision in the hands of genocidal maniacs....and they reaped the consequences. Unfortunate? Regrettable? Epically tragic? Yes, to all of the above. Morally wrong on the part of their intended victims, the Geth? Nope. And this view is reinforced by the fact that the Geth continue to do nothing but prepare for another attack by their creators, while the Quarians are busy preparing to make such an attack.

But you know who didn't? Who couldn't? You know who it took a great concentrated effort to kill?

The children. And you really shouldn't base a justification to support it.

You know what I think really needs justification? This blatant attempt to play the "think of the children" card in order to shift the blame from the aggressor to the victim. Seriously, how does the sad fate of those Quarian children somehow shift the blame onto the intended genocide victims, the Geth, instead of where it belongs...the Quarian government (and the people who chose it) which decided that launching a war of genocide was a good policy choice?

Modifié par Pro_Consul, 04 février 2011 - 01:06 .

[Schneidend]

The geth were attempting to wipe out the people who tried to wipe them out. Is that not a fair assessment? There were equal parts "wiping out" on both sides.



Both sides were being fairly awful in the Morning War, and Legion will admit to thinking as much.



In the defense of the geth, though, they were a fledgling sapience, limited in their ability to be sentient without being in close proximity to one another.



They also tend not to make important decisions without having consensus. They may simply have been unable to stop killing because they couldn't reach consensus to stop killing.



Being machines with their own limitations, our morality doesn't really apply to them. Obviously, I'm not suggesting the quarians should have shrugged and allowed their race to be annihilated, but looking back at the Morning War with hindsight and calling either side a monster is pretty much meaningless.

[Ryzaki]

@the OP: No they're going to lose.

If the Quarians don't learn to leave the Geth alone the Geth will exterminate them. No ifs about it. And I can't feel sorry for the Quarians because tmany of them still refuse to admit how they played a part in their own downfall.

Modifié par Ryzaki, 04 février 2011 - 01:08 .

[Pro_Consul]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

I had thought the highest law was something to with not endangering the fleet by bringing an active geth network back to it.

During the dialogue on the Alarei which immediately follows your discovery of the final recordings which show what Rael Zorah was doing, Shep remarks that he was raising Geth to sapiency to perform weapons test. Tali replies that that is a violation of their highest law. She also makes a similar mention of this earlier when she distinguishes between performing weapon tests on inactive Geth pieces and performing them on sapient Geth.

And why they may (or may not) have thought genocide was acceptable is irrelevant. The geth are still responsible for their own actions.

As are their parents...at during their infancy and childhood. If you raise your children to believe that genocide is good and then your 10-year old is discovered to be complicit in a racially motivated hate crime...are you not at least partly, if not completely, responsible? The law may or may not see it that way, but I sure do. Creation imparts responsibility in my ethos.

[Dean_the_Young]

Pro_Consul wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Nah, they weren't paying a price because they were deemed guilty. They were paying a price because others ****ed up, and in keeping the German state down and out, the Germans were caught as well. Not 'this is your individual punishment', but 'war sucks, and sucks to be you.'

Maybe that's how you saw it. That certainly isn't how I did. Nor is it how most Germans see it today. To them it was simply a kind of penance for their greatest national shame...a shame many of them still feel today. You may think there is no connection of responsibility there, but most Germans would disagree with you.

Most germans grow up in legacy of a post-war occupied state with a propoganda-initiated forced guilt complex about their collective responsiblity.

I didn't. Strange as it may be, I may well have claim to the more objective perspective here. After hearing and reading about American policies towards other states, America, like most other nations, will calous itself to the effects it has on others without letting those basic heartstring effects stop it.

True, but I preferred not to insult you or anyone else by implying that anyone in this discussion might be one who holds to such ethics.

Then don't demonstrate the bigotry of defending collective genocide against the innocent on the basis of race.

Apples and orchards, dude. There is no governing body of all Islam that ordered the 9-11 attacks. There WAS a governing body of all Quarians which ordered and performed the genocidal attack on the Geth species.

The phrase you likely intended was apples and oranges: apples themselves are grown on orchards.

There was a Quarian government, but not all Quarians were adherents to it, supporters to it, participants to it, advocates of it, interested in it, or even involved in it.  The analogy is appropriate: the Quarian government, and more specifically those involved in the decision and attempt to shut down the Geth, is not all the Quarians, or even a majority of Quarians. All the Quarians being equated with them and punished for a minority's actions is an appropriate analogy. Geth killed them all regardless.

Let me give an example that is more personal to me, just to illustrate my own view on this. I firmly disagreed with the decision for the U.S. to invade Iraq. But once it was a fact, and Iraq's people and economy had been completely shattered by the invasion, I felt that my country had a responsibility to do what was in our power to make that right afterwards. And I felt that I, as an American, had a responsibility to bear my share of that burden and pay my share of that cost. So although I opposed going to war in Iraq, I supported paying for the costs of the reconstruction.

A self-assumed burden. Anyone who blames you for it, however, especially if you opposed it, rightly deserves to be called a fool. Anyone who tries to murder you on account of it, has no standing.

War. Death. Kinda hard to keep the two separate. And it is a sad reality that a great many innocents tend to suffer in war.

And even in war, there are a lot of Deaths you have to go well out of your way to achieve.

Didn't say it was. Was trying to make the point that you are still trying to blame the intended victim for the sufferings of the would-be criminal's failed attempt at genocide.

The Quarian children did not attempt Genocide.

The Quarian elderly didn't attempt genocide. The Quarian sick did not attempt genocide. The Quarian disidents did not attempt genocide. The Quarian civilian populace, as a whole, did not attempt genocide.

The only people who attempted Genocide were those involved in the efforts to turn off the Geth. No one else.

You know what I think really needs justification? This blatant attempt to play the "think of the children" card in order to shift the blame from the aggressor to the victim. Seriously, how does the sad fate of those Quarian children somehow shift the blame onto the intended genocide victims, the Geth, instead of where it belongs...the Quarian government (and the people who chose it) which decided that launching a war of genocide was a good policy choice?

There is no shifting of blame except on your part. The Quarian government is responsible for its actions. The Geth are responsible for theirs.

The justification is your insistence on the acceptibility of indiscriminate collective punishment and ethnic cleansing, including against major and significant groups that had absolutely nothing to do with the conflict except being killed.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 04 février 2011 - 01:31 .

[Pro_Consul]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Then don't demonstrate the bigotry of defending collective genocide against the innocent on the basis of race.

I am going to assume you didn't really mean to accuse me of bigotry or of arguing in defense of racially based genocide. And I am going to ask that you not do so again.

The phrase you likely intended was apples and oranges: apples themselves are grown on orchards.

Actually the phrase I intended is the one I used. I'll forego the explanation, though, since it is somewhat tangential to the discussion.

Let me give an example that is more personal to me, just to illustrate my own view on this. I firmly disagreed with the decision for the U.S. to invade Iraq. But once it was a fact, and Iraq's people and economy had been completely shattered by the invasion, I felt that my country had a responsibility to do what was in our power to make that right afterwards. And I felt that I, as an American, had a responsibility to bear my share of that burden and pay my share of that cost. So although I opposed going to war in Iraq, I supported paying for the costs of the reconstruction.

A self-assumed burden. Anyone who blames you for it, however, especially if you opposed it, rightly deserves to be called a fool. Anyone who tries to murder you on account of it, has no standing.

All moral and ethical responsibility is self-assumed. Nobody can make you feel morally or ethically responsible for anything, no matter how much you might actually BE responsible under whatever moral or ethical system you claim to adhere to.

Didn't say it was. Was trying to make the point that you are still trying to blame the intended victim for the sufferings of the would-be criminal's failed attempt at genocide.

The Quarian children did not attempt Genocide.

The Quarian elderly didn't attempt genocide. The Quarian sick did not attempt genocide. The Quarian disidents did not attempt genocide. The Quarian civilian populace, as a whole, did not attempt genocide.

The only people who attempted Genocide were those involved in the efforts to turn off the Geth. No one else.

Thank you. You have stated my point more succinctly than I so far managed. The only people who attempted genocide were those who tried to wipe out the Geth. No one else. Therefore the only people whom you should be blaming for the horrendous consequences of that campaign of genocide are those who attempted it. No one else. Especially NOT the intended genocide victims.

You know what I think really needs justification? This blatant attempt to play the "think of the children" card in order to shift the blame from the aggressor to the victim. Seriously, how does the sad fate of those Quarian children somehow shift the blame onto the intended genocide victims, the Geth, instead of where it belongs...the Quarian government (and the people who chose it) which decided that launching a war of genocide was a good policy choice?

There is no shifting of blame except on your part. The Quarian government is responsible for its actions. The Geth are responsible for theirs.

The justification is your insistence on the acceptibility of indiscriminate collective punishment and ethnic cleansing, including against major and significant groups that had absolutely nothing to do with the conflict except being killed.

My insistence is in blaming the evil outcome on those who made the evil choices which caused it all. And on pointing out that the Quarians have nobody to blame but themselves. Sure, their leaders may have chosen the path of immolation and species murder on their behalf. But they CHOSE those leaders, and yet they are still by and large trying to emulate them, continuing to lay plans to enslave or wipe out the Geth. If the Quarians as a whole want better than what they had, then the Quarians as a whole need to take a little closer interest in what is being done in their names. The Geth, OTOH, seem to have actually grown up and evolved a morality that is far superior and infinitely more consistent than the one in use amongst the Quarian people.

Modifié par Pro_Consul, 04 février 2011 - 02:03 .