91 réponses à ce sujet

[SandTrout]

We know from Legion that the Reapers are not singular entities, but rather, they are a accumulation of consciousnesses. Combined with the nature of the creation of a Reaper, we can reasonably understand that each Reaper is the combined consciousness of the species they were derived from. This form of consciousness is not comprehensible in its implications to an individual sentient being, and from the Reapers perspective, they are doing us a favor by ascending our species to their level of being.

Regardless of the fact that I find their goals horrific, they see themselves as benevolent in their motives, and well within their right in their means.

[ISpeakTheTruth]

Very few people ever think that the things they do are evil, most people who do horrible things believe that they are doing them for the right reason.... but that doesn't make what they do not evil and it doesn't make them not evil because they think they're right.

[Moiaussi]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

That said, Vido's an interstellar warlord and a war criminal. Killing him may well save more lives in the long run than were lost in the refinery.

Love your sig.

Setting the refinery on fire while Vido is conscious and able to flee using the fire as cover doesn't seem like a particularly effecient means of taking down  anyone. If he had been upfront about his real goals it is unlikely Shepard would have been unwilling to help and would almost certainly found a better approach. My infiltrator Shepard was angry with him for never learning to use or respect sniper rifles. If you want an assassination done, do it right!

[Ship.wreck_]

Recon64bit wrote...

Renegade Shepherd - Completes mission at all costs, end justfies the means-type character. Kills anyone in way of mission without remorse, and lacks sympathy towards squadmates. Straight to business, but not evil.

Uhhh... that is evil.

Reapers - I think they are like grim reapers(not truly evil), they have a duty to wipe out entire civilizations to ensure cycles of life so that no one else reach their status. But I'm just guessing.

Murdering innocent beings to make sure none of them can ever evolve to a point where they can challenge or compete with you in any way is not a duty. And it's pretty much a perfect example of evil.

[CaptainZaysh]

ISpeakTheTruth wrote...

That's the thing though Captain is that we don't know if the only way the Reapers can exist is to consume only sentient life.

Grrrr.  You are dodging the question.  I'm not trying to trick you, I just want your actual answer to develop the conversation.  For the third time: if food became sentient, would it be evil to eat?

ISpeakTheTruth wrote...
They could just as easily harvest a planet that is filled with cattle for their purposes unless they need sentient being for some sort of transfered intelegence but the reasons for only havesting sentient life isn't explained yet.

Reaping is their method of reproduction.  (My guess is that only sentient creatures create sentient Reapers.)

ISpeakTheTruth wrote...
Look at it this way if you're going to die and the only way that you can prevent your death is to kill 100 people is that morally ok to kill a hundred people just to save yourself? No. To me that's evil.

What if they're lesser people, though?  What if we could prevent your death by killing 100 child rapists?  Would killing them to sustain you really be evil?

[Sebby]

Moiaussi wrote...

CaptainZaysh wrote...

That said, Vido's an interstellar warlord and a war criminal. Killing him may well save more lives in the long run than were lost in the refinery.

Love your sig.

Setting the refinery on fire while Vido is conscious and able to flee using the fire as cover doesn't seem like a particularly effecient means of taking down  anyone. If he had been upfront about his real goals it is unlikely Shepard would have been unwilling to help and would almost certainly found a better approach. My infiltrator Shepard was angry with him for never learning to use or respect sniper rifles. If you want an assassination done, do it right!

The Squad was pinned down and Zaeed did what he had to do. He's a good man.

[CaptainZaysh]

Yeah, it's easy to criticise decisions made under fire. I know a guy who, during a firefight with civilians around, heard movement behind an orchard wall and tossed a grenade over without checking who it was. Easy to second guess that kind of decision, horrible to have to make it.

[General User]

If there are no objections, I’ll take a whack at this…

CaptainZaysh wrote...
Grrrr.  You are dodging the question.  I'm not trying to trick you, I just want your actual answer to develop the conversation.  For the third time: if food became sentient, would it be evil to eat?

Yes, it would be evil to eat sentient beings. To misquote Mordin, “consuming a species with members capable of calculus (hell, even arithmetic) is wrong”

CaptainZaysh wrote...
Reaping is their method of reproduction.  (My guess is that only sentient creatures create sentient Reapers.)

That would make them abominations, things which are evil by their very nature.

CaptainZaysh wrote...
What if they're lesser people, though?  What if we could prevent your death by killing 100 child rapists?  Would killing them to sustain you really be evil?

To kill criminals to sustian your own life is wrong, to kill criminals because their crimes merit doing so is right.

Modifié par General User, 17 juin 2011 - 01:59 .

[ISpeakTheTruth]

CaptainZaysh wrote...


Grrrr.  You are dodging the question.  I'm not trying to trick you, I just want your actual answer to develop the conversation.  For the third time: if food became sentient, would it be evil to eat?

I didn't dodge your question I answered it in the next paragraph maybe you didn't notice. I said very clearly that if the only way I can live is to kill 100 people and I do that than yes I'm evil for doing that.

So for the third time there's my answer.

CaptainZaysh wrote...
What if they're lesser people, though?  What if we could prevent your death by killing 100 child rapists?  Would killing them to sustain you really be evil?

If I kill 100 rapists because I feel hungry than yes I'm evil. Killing people just to help yourself is evil.

But that is besides the point the Reapers aren't picking lesser people because they don't care they kill everyone and yep that makes them evil.

[Moiaussi]

Seboist wrote...

The Squad was pinned down and Zaeed did what he had to do. He's a good man.

I don't remember being particularly pinned down. Zaheed was trying to assassinate a conscious target by fire, not defend the squad.

Which makes more sense to you? Start a fire that gives your target a need to run and could easily cut you off from your target or either approaching quietly and sniping your target's head off or at least goading your target into standing and fighting so he doesn't just run? Safe bet that Vido knows the plant better than Zaheed or Shepard. Even if the workers are left to die, Zaheed is lucky to be able to catch Vido. Vido knows the plant better and if the layout had been less linear, Zaheed and Shep could easily have been too delayed finding the route through the place to stop his escape. The fire makes the chances of catching him even more random. They could easily have lost both workers and Vido.

[Moiaussi]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

What if they're lesser people, though?  What if we could prevent your death by killing 100 child rapists?  Would killing them to sustain you really be evil?

Are you implying that the entire population of all races in ME (other than the Reapers, but including the Protheans and all other races that preceded them) are 'child rapists?'

[Lapis Lazuli]

Moiaussi wrote...

CaptainZaysh wrote...

What if they're lesser people, though?  What if we could prevent your death by killing 100 child rapists?  Would killing them to sustain you really be evil?

Are you implying that the entire population of all races in ME (other than the Reapers, but including the Protheans and all other races that preceded them) are 'child rapists?'

Is he implying that child rapists (most of whom have destroyed very few lives through their crimes) are evil while trillion-scale genocidists are not?

[jamesp81]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

ISpeakTheTruth wrote...

Let me explain. If you and a few hundred of your kind decide that its ok to destroy every civilisation that will ever be made just so you're bellys will be full than that makes you evil and yes that makes you a monster. If you kill a hundred people just to save yourself than you're a monster.

So if we suddenly discover that food is sentient, only the evil would continue to eat?

Yes.

But food isn't sentient, so it's kind of a never-going-to-happen hypothetical question anyway.

[jamesp81]

I think the Reapers are monstrously evil.

But it actually doesn't much matter, either way, if they aren't.

I'm still going to kill them all and ****** on their ashes.

There are some other evil characters. Vido Santiago's pretty rotten. So is Jedore. The warden on purgatory was pretty rotten too.

[Sebby]

Moiaussi wrote...

Seboist wrote...

The Squad was pinned down and Zaeed did what he had to do. He's a good man.

I don't remember being particularly pinned down. Zaheed was trying to assassinate a conscious target by fire, not defend the squad.

Which makes more sense to you? Start a fire that gives your target a need to run and could easily cut you off from your target or either approaching quietly and sniping your target's head off or at least goading your target into standing and fighting so he doesn't just run? Safe bet that Vido knows the plant better than Zaheed or Shepard. Even if the workers are left to die, Zaheed is lucky to be able to catch Vido. Vido knows the plant better and if the layout had been less linear, Zaheed and Shep could easily have been too delayed finding the route through the place to stop his escape. The fire makes the chances of catching him even more random. They could easily have lost both workers and Vido.

Shepard and the second squadmate were behind cover and unable to do anything while being fired upon by a "company of blood thirsty bastards", that fits the description of "pinned down". What Zaeed did was making them lose the "homefield advantage" as he says.

[Ship.wreck_]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

ISpeakTheTruth wrote...

That's the thing though Captain is that we don't know if the only way the Reapers can exist is to consume only sentient life.

Grrrr.  You are dodging the question.  I'm not trying to trick you, I just want your actual answer to develop the conversation.  For the third time: if food became sentient, would it be evil to eat?

Food is sentient, and no.

CaptainZaysh wrote...

ISpeakTheTruth wrote...
They could just as easily harvest a planet that is filled with cattle for their purposes unless they need sentient being for some sort of transfered intelegence but the reasons for only havesting sentient life isn't explained yet.

Reaping is their method of reproduction.  (My guess is that only sentient creatures create sentient Reapers.)

Cattle are sentient so even if that's the case, which no one knows it is, catttle would work. Also their main purpose is not to reproduce. They only occassionally choose a species to "ascend". But they always wipe out all intelligent species in the galaxy. Even if they did need to harvest an entire species to reproduce that doesn't provide a logical reason to destroy all of the species.

The only logical reason they could have to wipe out all the intelligent species in the galaxy every 50,000 years would be to prevent the continued evolution of those species and secure their own status as the dominant force in the galaxy. Killing all of your competitors just to make sure you maintain your status is pretty definitive of evil.

CaptainZaysh wrote...

ISpeakTheTruth wrote...
Look at it this way if you're going to die and the only way that you can prevent your death is to kill 100 people is that morally ok to kill a hundred people just to save yourself? No. To me that's evil.

What if they're lesser people, though?  What if we could prevent your death by killing 100 child rapists?  Would killing them to sustain you really be evil?

It's more than a stretch to compare the entire populace of the Galaxy to pedophiles, and even if that were a valid comparison (which it's not), the Reapers don't need to wipe everyone out to reproduce. At the MOST they would only need to harvest the species they've chosen to "ascend" which would leave most of the galaxy intact, and there's no reason they couldn't still leave behind enough of the "ascended" species for them to repopulate. Like I said, they're only destroying everyone to protect themselves from what could turn into competition in a few million years, and that's pretty f*cking evil.

[SandTrout]

You also should note that the Reapers believe that they are saving the species they Reap, as well as allowing new species to rise up and take their place among the the galaxy without being kneecapped by a 100k year space-faring species.

The Blue Suns, Eclipse, and Blood Pack can generally be considered evil because we understand their goals and their methods.

We partially understand the methods, and do not have a real grasp on the goals of the Reapers, so judgment on weather they are good or evil is not possible. Right now they simply fall under the catagory of "threat". A tiger, shark, or bacteria can be a threat to me without being inherently evil.

[CaptainZaysh]

General User wrote...

Yes, it would be evil to eat sentient beings. To misquote Mordin, “consuming a species with members capable of calculus (hell, even arithmetic) is wrong”...That would make them abominations, things which are evil by their very nature.

I'm not sure that continuing one's species is evil, even at the expense of other ones.  It's what every species is designed to do.  How can it be evil to eat?

We can easily reverse the argument.  By not allowing the hungry beings to eat them, the food beings are causing a species with members capable of calculus to starve to death.  Are they then evil?  We end up in a universe where evil becomes meaningless as a label, since its applied to everybody.

General User wrote...
To kill criminals to sustian your own life is wrong, to kill criminals because their crimes merit doing so is right.

I guess we're about to get into deontology vs utiliarianism.

[CaptainZaysh]

Moiaussi wrote...

Are you implying that the entire population of all races in ME (other than the Reapers, but including the Protheans and all other races that preceded them) are 'child rapists?'

No, I was attempting to find a human group analogous to the "lesser species" the Reapers would have perceived.

As you well know.

[CaptainZaysh]

Lapis Lazuli wrote...

Is he implying that child rapists (most of whom have destroyed very few lives through their crimes) are evil while trillion-scale genocidists are not?

I think I am, actually.

[CaptainZaysh]

jamesp81 wrote...

But food isn't sentient, so it's kind of a never-going-to-happen hypothetical question anyway.

Thanks for your important contribution, James.  I would hazard a guess that almost any discussion about the ethical values of a fictional race of sentient starships is likely to involve several questions of a hypothetical nature, so your observation may well be useful all over the forum.

[CaptainZaysh]

Ship.wreck wrote...

Food is sentient...Cattle are sentient

You know what we mean.  Capable of calculus.  What's the word we're looking for?

Ship.wreck wrote...
But they always wipe out all intelligent species in the galaxy. Even if they did need to harvest an entire species to reproduce that doesn't provide a logical reason to destroy all of the species.

The only logical reason they could have to wipe out all the intelligent species in the galaxy every 50,000 years would be to prevent the continued evolution of those species and secure their own status as the dominant force in the galaxy. Killing all of your competitors just to make sure you maintain your status is pretty definitive of evil.

But that's exactly what we're intending to do to the Reapers - wipe them out to achieve dominance.  How is that not evil?

[CaptainZaysh]

This thread is turning into the Captain Zaysh show.

[ISpeakTheTruth]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Lapis Lazuli wrote...

Is he implying that child rapists (most of whom have destroyed very few lives through their crimes) are evil while trillion-scale genocidists are not?

I think I am, actually.

Your morality is clearly messed up if in your mind genocide is not evil

As for what you said about us trying to destroy the Reapers to make ourselves domanaint.... what in the name of god are you talking about?

We're trying to keep from being destroyed by a specie that wants to completely destroy every sentient being in the galaxy and melt us into a sticky paste and your inventing this scenario where we're the attackers? I don't even know where to go with this conversation because your morals seem to be completely off here.

You compare everyone specie in the ME galaxy as child rapists and then say that us wanting to defend ourselves from genocide is just as evil as the specie that is trying to comit that genocide? What?

[Ship.wreck_]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Ship.wreck wrote...

Food is sentient...Cattle are sentient

You know what we mean.  Capable of calculus.  What's the word we're looking for?

I don't think there's a word for that. Science has always had trouble coming up with a logical definition that clearly defines humans from all other sentient species on this planet, and everytime we learn a little more about animal behavior they end up having to revise the definition of us so that chimps don't count.

First it was "We use tools and they don't; therefore we are superior." Then we realized a lot of animals use tools so they had to change it to

"We use tools specifically designed to kill things (weapons) and they don't, therefore we are superior." Now scientists have noticed some chimps sharpening sticks and stiping bark to make handles and using those to spear prey in hard to reach places, it's still being debated wether they are making weapons, but if you happen upon a natgeo episode it's pretty clear to the common observer that these are rudimentary spears so the things are probably eventually going to change to

"We conduct war and they don't; therefore we are superior." But it's also documented that chimps from one group sometimes go on "raids" into another group's territory, kill the other group and take over. Which looks a heck of a lot like tribal warfare. So that probably won't last long either.

Also there was a definition involving laguage in there too, but we've been able to teach apes sign language, and dolphins actually have their own fairly well developed language that even includes individual names.

Point is that scientifically speaking there really isn't any clear way to logically establish that we are "superior" to other species. We're clearly the most successful, and we're clearly the smartest, but the other's aren't nearly as far seperated as we would like to think. So it would be wrong/evil of us to wipe out an entire sentient species for ANY reason, and we've actually  acknowledged that! Which if you ask me is impressive.

Am I saying we shouldn't eat meat? HELL NO!
Am I saying we should allow chimps and dolphins to vote? I don't think so... but then again with voter turn out being what it is mayyybeee.... wait no! I mean, no.

All that said, food is sentient, there's not really anything better than sentient, it's not wrong to eat, but it is wrong to arbitrarily anihilate species, and the Reapers are evil.

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Ship.wreck wrote...
But they always wipe out all intelligent species in the galaxy. Even if they did need to harvest an entire species to reproduce that doesn't provide a logical reason to destroy all of the species.

The only logical reason they could have to wipe out all the intelligent species in the galaxy every 50,000 years would be to prevent the continued evolution of those species and secure their own status as the dominant force in the galaxy. Killing all of your competitors just to make sure you maintain your status is pretty definitive of evil.

But that's exactly what we're intending to do to the Reapers - wipe them out to achieve dominance.  How is that not evil?

That's not our intentions at all. We're not taking uprovoked offensive action against the reapers so that we can achieve dominance. We're taking defensive action against the Reapers to ensure our continued existence. That will probably eventually involve wiping out the Reapers, but that's not just for the hell of it, or to establish and maintain dominance, that is ONLY because they have PROVEN through their own actions that they cannot be trusted to coexist in the galaxy with any other established galactic society.

I don't get how you equate defending ourselves from an unprovoked attack with arbitrarily wiping out species to establish dominance, but uhhh... those things are no where near equal.