AlanC9 wrote...
drayfish wrote...
A set of 'facts' that present only positive outcomes from employing totalitarianism, eugenics, or racial slaughter.
Quote marks around 'facts' because the situation was made up by the writers? Um..... yeah, like absolutely everything else in the MEU, the ending was fictional.
As of the release of the Extended Cut the game actually endorses these actions by proving them not only successful, but universally welcomed by the peoples that feel their results.
Not that this was a change in the design intent. But yeah, believing that Control or Synthesis were felt to be bad outcomes now requires weapons-grade headcanon. Destroy always required that.
You are right to say that there is no debate, because the game suggests that there doesn't need to be one. You use one of these options and you 'win', with seemingly no negative consequences; you don't and you are a fool that condemned everyone to death.
I was only talking about the game not engaging in the debate over the meaning of "genocide." Which choice is better is still a live issue.
And "no negative consequences" is kind of silly; there are a couple of idiots here who say that their preferred choice has no negative consequences, but the vast majority of us know better.
Those 'couple of idiots' have every reason to argue that their ideologically motivated endings are 'right', and that there are 'no negative consequences', because the text they are referencing, written by the writers who - as you say, had complete control of the fiction -
expressly and directly endorses those acts.
There are no negatives even glancingly dwelt upon in the end of the game. That's why figures like Seival and txgoldrush, etc. can spout off about the need to ignore individual rights and mutate people against their will in prison camps and ascend beyond their ignorant human morality, because the game itself
rewards such hateful thinking.
For someone like yourself, who is clearly interested in philosophical debate, you would have to agree that this is hardly a launching point for debate. It is blatant sophistry.
It's like asking:
Is it wrong to
steal a car?But wait: if you steal that car, no one will ever know. And it will stop all life in the universe from ending. Also, everyone will get a million dollars to buy new cars. Plus, the guy who owns the car was going to give it to you anyway...
The way the ending massages the details of these concepts, and shamelessly glorifies their application, completely undermines the original question, making it an exercise in compliance and gratification rather than consideration.
CronoDragoon wrote...
drayfish wrote...
Just look at how adamantly people revolt at the use of the word 'genocide' to describe the extermination of the Geth. It is the literal definition of the word - an entire race knowingly, actively wiped out - and yet the past year has seen innumerable semantic squabbles about why 'You can't use that word', because people are taking up the cues of the
ending and try to mealy-mouth their way around its implications. Suddenly it's not genocide because they are 'collateral damage'; it's not 'genocide' because they are just programs; it's not 'genocide' because they did it to themselves. This is dehumanising, disenfranchising rationalising that the game spends its final minutes not only allowing, but (I hope unwittingly) actively encouraging.
That's not the definition of the word, and I'm sorry you don't have the background to know that. Nowhere have I suggested that refusing to paint Destroy as genocide absolves Shepard of moral guilt. If you really want to discuss the moral problems of sacrificing the geth in Destroy, then it is easy to do so without resorting to the word
genocide. Of course, if you aren't willing to seriously discuss what happens in Destroy, and you are just looking to reject the entire hypothetical (which it is clear you have decided to do) then using genocide begins to make sense.
I'm sorry you believe the International Criminal Court, in strictly defining genocide with specific language to enable successful prosecution of war criminals, is being "mealy-mouthed" and "semantic." But guess what? Words specificallycreated to deal with real criminals and real horrific acts in history MUST be semantic.
Given that the circumstances of the game's narrative
are without any precedent, please provide an alternate word for an act that is, by definition, a knowingly targeted extermination of an antire race of beings.
And I am familiar with the definition of 'genocide'. Sheprd's actions, although shown to be performed with regret, apply:
The international legal definition of the crime of genocide is found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
Article II describes two elements of the crime of genocide:
1) the mental element, meaning the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such", and
2) the physical element which includes five acts described in sections a, b, c, d and e. A crime must include both elements to be called "genocide."
Article III described five punishable forms of the crime of genocide: genocide; conspiracy, incitement, attempt
and complicity.
Excerpt from the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of Genocide[/b]:
"Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
© Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
( Conspiracy to commit genocide;
© Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide. "
Again - Shepard regrets her actions, and it is arguably 'necessary', but this is the very definition of the term.
Modifié par drayfish, 29 juin 2013 - 04:56 .
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