131 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

cglasgow wrote...

Capt. Obvious wrote...

"To your limited understanding." - Arishok

That's both Appeal To Ignorance Fallacy and attempting to grant the Arishok a free Omniscient Morality License; i.e., logically invalid argument.

You do realize that the Arishok's argument boils down to nothing but 'Because I say so!', right?   That's how a three-year-old argues.    Yeah, I'm not nominating the Arishok to join the ranks of great philosophers any time soon.

Funnily enough, though, much the same could be pointed at your quotation.

[cglasgow]

... do you even know what the Appeal To Ignorance Fallacy is? Hint: it's not having an opinion.

[Dean_the_Young]

cglasgow wrote...

... do you even know what the Appeal To Ignorance Fallacy is? Hint: it's not having an opinion.

I was referring more to the 'because I say so' aspect, which I felt was a very wise insight that can be applied to far more people in and out of fiction.

[Sidac]

Red Templar wrote...

If siding with the Arishok and turning the city over to the Qun was an option... I would have gone with it. The Arishok is awesome, and the Qunari rock some pretty solid truths.

THIS! I was mad when I couldnt side with the Arishok.

[Werrf]

The Qun could never have worked the way the Arishok wanted it to. The Qun is the kind of system that works very nicely when everyone accepts it, but it relies totally on that acceptance. It works because everyone is following it voluntarily. Those who choose not to follow it are Tal Vashoth and thrown out - how long before a city conquered by the qunari in order to convert everyone there to the Qun turned into nothing by Tal Vashoth?

The Qun in that sense is nothing but a theocratic dictatorship.

[cglasgow]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

I was referring more to the 'because I say so' aspect, which ...

... is exactly what the Arishok is doing when he goes 'Beyond your limited understanding'.  He's not even attempting to justify himself; he throws out an arbitrary statement ('the Qun is awesome!'), says its the truth, and denies all requests for clarification.  You either take his word for it or not.

Heinlein's statement, on the other hand, is expressed in a statement of 'This is what I believe and this is why'.  (Specifically, that the reason some people are better neighbors is because they're leaving you alone to live how you want to live.)  You can disagree with the man's premise ('freedom is better than security'), but what you can't do is accuse him of not trying to put any reason behind it ('because it means less busybodying in your life').

That's the difference between a statement of opinion and a 'because I say so'... the guy who honestly wants to debate his opinion will not answer back with "STFU noob" when you ask him to back himself up.

Modifié par cglasgow, 14 mars 2011 - 09:57 .

[Dean_the_Young]

cglasgow wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

I was referring more to the 'because I say so' aspect, which ...

... is exactly what the Arishok is doing when he goes 'Beyond your limited understanding'.  He's not even attempting to justify himself; he throws out an arbitrary statement ('the Qun is awesome!'), says its the truth, and denies all requests for clarification.  You either take his word for it or not.

Fortunately, I am not addressing this one way or the other.

Heinlein's statement, on the other hand, is expressed in a statement of 'This is what I believe and this is why'.  (Specifically, that the reason some people are better neighbors is because they're leaving you alone to live how you want to live.)  You can disagree with the man's premise ('freedom is better than security'), but what you can't do is accuse him of not trying to put any reason behind it ('because it means less busybodying in your life').

That's the difference between a statement of opinion and a 'because I say so'... the guy who honestly wants to debate his opinion will not answer back with "STFU noob" when you ask him to back himself up.

Since Heinlein's quotation lacked any qualifier such as 'what I believe', but rather made assertions as to the nature of people and things, it certainly does invest itself in a fair share of 'take my word on it.'

We certainly can point to his use of a fallacy of composition about the nature of humanity and the political division within. We could make a case as to his invocation of a No True Scotsman Fallacy in his definition of the political sides, as if there could be no other. And we can certainly disagree with those definitions, or his conclusion.

It certainly doesn't make a strong position as a reliable, authoritative fact or position in any sense.

[cglasgow]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Fortunately, I am not addressing this one way or the other.

This would have been a far more ideal post had it ended there.

Congratulations, you have entirely exceeded even my notoriously high tolerance for semantic nitpicking.  If you want to consider that a victory, I won't stop you.

[Dean_the_Young]

cglasgow wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Fortunately, I am not addressing this one way or the other.

This would have been a far more ideal post had it ended there.

Then we both could have been spared an exchange had you instead focused on an earlier point, instead of inventing another tangeant which wasn't being disputed, let alone adressed.

What a pity.

Congratulations, you have entirely exceeded even my notoriously high tolerance for semantic nitpicking.  If you want to consider that a victory, I won't stop you.

Now why would I do that?

[cglasgow]

Capt. Obvious wrote...

The Arishok is the arishok, isn't he? So he must be right about his own religion.

http://en.wikipedia....eligious_group)

Those guys totally believed in their own religion too.  That didn't make them right.

Again: belief does not change reality.  If I go crazy enough or get drunk enough I suppose that I could truly believe, with all my heart, that I'm actually a billionaire; won't change the fact that if I write a check above the actual balance of my bank account, its going to bounce.

And trust me, that bank balance ain't nowhere near a billion dollars.  Because if it was, I would be too busy doing body shots off of supermodels to be spending any time posting on this forum.  
 
Edit: Or if you want to narrow it down to the heads of major world religions, ok, fine.   Let's say that tomorrow morning, Pope Benedict steps out onto the balcony and declares that as of now, the law of gravity is officially repealed in the name of God.

Think that'll actually happen?   Mmmmmnope.   There's a reason that they had a parable about King Canute and the tide.

Modifié par cglasgow, 14 mars 2011 - 11:42 .

[Nathan Redgrave]

Werrf wrote...

The Qun could never have worked the way the Arishok wanted it to. The Qun is the kind of system that works very nicely when everyone accepts it, but it relies totally on that acceptance. It works because everyone is following it voluntarily. Those who choose not to follow it are Tal Vashoth and thrown out - how long before a city conquered by the qunari in order to convert everyone there to the Qun turned into nothing by Tal Vashoth?

The Qun in that sense is nothing but a theocratic dictatorship.

Less the theocratic part. The Qun seems to be a philosophic religion; I haven't heard of any gods involved.

[Myrmedus]

I agreed with him enough that I felt huge regret after killing him in our duel. You can say what you want about the Qunari but they're honorable if nothing else.

[cglasgow]

That they are.

Honor, however, is a value-neutral concept. Both good people, neutral people, and evil people can be honorable.

[Nathan Redgrave]

TobiTobsen wrote...

Yeah. Communism, but actually working communism IF we belive the codex and the Qunari themself, and not the ****ty failing socialism that calls itself "communism" in our world.

And in my opinion sounds working communism much better than the crappy way of life the other countries of Thedas offer. Just ask the Rivaini. If I interpreted the codex right, they even rebelled when the Chantry tried to "reintegrate" them. They seem to like the Qun.

Which is all well and good. The problem isn't that some people like the Qun and that those people are somehow evil by association (that's the Chantry's angle), but that proponents of the Qun try to force the Qun on people who don't. I--and by extension, my Hawke--wouldn't have opposed the Qunari before they tried to take over the city, and in fact would have actively opposed the attempts of extremists to defeat or incite them. It's another of those "there isn't a right answer" questions... right up until the Qunari try to force the other side into accepting the Qun, at which point the Qunari step into the role of the villains.

[cglasgow]

That is in fact what I did as well. Sister Petrice was wrong, wrong, wrong, and man did I regret the lack of murder-knife action there, in act 1 even.

But then the Arishok went into 'two wrongs don't make a right' territory, and, well, he had to go.

Edit: And while the Arishok is the #1 authority on what makes him happy, he don't know **** about what makes me happy.   Or about what makes humans happy.  For that matter, he doesn't give a **** about people being happy.  He just wants them to do what he wants them to do, whether they like it or not.

Also, if you want to know whether or not people in general are doing well under a certain government system, don't look at the big shots; they'll find a way to take care of themselves no matter what the system is.  Look at how the little guy is doing.   The Arishok?  Is not the little guy.

Modifié par cglasgow, 14 mars 2011 - 11:46 .

[Myrmedus]

Evil characters are rarely ever honorable...if ever in fact. That's because many of the personality traits we associate with being evil go hand-in-hand with dishonour.

I don't think the Arishok was evil but he was similar to the Templars in that he believed his way was right so much that he would force it upon others. Having said that, one of our people did steal their most sacred tome so I can understand them getting pissy.

[cglasgow]

Myrmedus wrote...

Evil characters are rarely ever honorable...if ever in fact. That's because many of the personality traits we associate with being evil go hand-in-hand with dishonour.

Eh, to risk slipping into the dreaded d20, honor is a function of your Law-Chaos axis, while evil is, natch, a function of your Good-Evil axis.

There is a certain statistical disproportion, yes; its rarer for evil people to have honor than good ones.   But that's a tendency, not a binding fact.  Hence, 'value neutral'.

Modifié par cglasgow, 14 mars 2011 - 11:54 .

[Red Templar]

cglasgow wrote...
Also, if you want to know whether or not people in general are doing well under a certain government system, don't look at the big shots; they'll find a way to take care of themselves no matter what the system is.  Look at how the little guy is doing.   The Arishok?  Is not the little guy.

The little guys are folks like Ketojan, who stoicly choses death in duty to the Qun over freedom, and the human converts who Brother Genetivi writes about as prefering their new way of life and pitying their fellows who haven't embraced it.

Still isn't an in-depth look at their society and its problems, but it is what we have.

[Sandmanifest]

I feel the same. next playthrough ill get whats-her-name and hand her over to the Arishok. I was thinking "this guy is right with my bioware character's metality" the whole time. Wasn't able to the first time because of that ridiculous glitch where you can't enter the Chantry. Watched my girlfriend play to find out she was a major part of the Qunari story go figure >_>

[Nathan Redgrave]

Isabela can actually return on her own to return the relic to the Qunari, if I remember, but it depends on your relationship with her, and you have to willingly let her go with the relic.

[Myrmedus]

cglasgow wrote...

Myrmedus wrote...

Evil characters are rarely ever honorable...if ever in fact. That's because many of the personality traits we associate with being evil go hand-in-hand with dishonour.

Eh, to risk slipping into the dreaded d20, honor is a function of your Law-Chaos axis, while evil is, natch, a function of your Good-Evil axis.

There is a certain statistical disproportion, yes; its rarer for evil people to have honor than good ones.   But that's a tendency, not a binding fact.  Hence, 'value neutral'.

No offence but I couldn't give a rats ass about D&D moral compasses because they're a game concept, I'm talking real-life morality here - DA goes far beyond the 9-point moral compass from D&D lol.

And besides, even in D&D Lawful-Evil is not an honorable character but simply a manipulator, one who chooses to adhere and manipulate the laws for personal benefit, like using the rules of a game to get what they want.

Modifié par Myrmedus, 15 mars 2011 - 12:00 .