600 réponses à ce sujet

[Xilizhra]

They still are more like a giant special interest group considering there is no country of Palestine.

Didn't the UN admit Palestine as an observer state?

[wcholcombe]

Didn't the UN admit Palestine as an observer state?

Yes, they did, but there is still no geographic area that is governed by the PLO.  They serve as the voice of the Palestinian people in Israel. But this discussion is going severly off topic. Again, I used PLO when I should have used Hezbollah.  My apologies.

[Jack Druthers]

How is this related to the the thread subject?  

[Master Warder Z_]

Didn't the UN admit Palestine as an observer state?

 

It was denied back in 2011 because Israel ****ed about it and the Americans like usual came running to their aid.

 

There is still talks about it happening but as it stands right now?

 

No.

 

edit:  They did grant the Palestianian state a right to exist, but no territory, government or political boundaries, its basically  an enclave still in all but name, woo...big concession there.

[Master Warder Z_]

Yes, they did, but there is still no geographic area that is governed by the PLO.  They serve as the voice of the Palestinian people in Israel. But this discussion is going severly off topic. Again, I used PLO when I should have used Hezbollah.  My apologies.

 

Its fine, its just erm i support causes ya know.

[wcholcombe]

It was denied back in 2011 because Israel ****ed about it and the Americans like usual came running to their aid.

 

There is still talks about it happening but as it stands right now?

 

No.

On Thursday, 29 November 2012, In a 138-9 vote (with 41 abstaining) General Assembly resolution 67/19 passed, upgrading Palestine to "non-member observer state" status in the United Nations.^[46][47] The new status equates Palestine's with that of the Holy See.

 

But again we are way off topic.

[Master Warder Z_]

On Thursday, 29 November 2012, In a 138-9 vote (with 41 abstaining) General Assembly resolution 67/19 passed, upgrading Palestine to "non-member observer state" status in the United Nations.^[46][47] The new status equates Palestine's with that of the Holy See.

 

But again we are way off topic.

 

You didn't check my updated post combe

 

I misremembered but it still doesn't mean much.

[Dean_the_Young]

If you're not saving more than half as many lives as you're locking up, then the system isn't really worth it to me. You're free to disagree with that, obviously, but my entire argument is based on my opinion that the casualties have to be high to justify the system.

 

Now we're getting somewhere. Let's continue this. What would be the standard of measure for success?

 

If the Circle is working, after all, the mages inside it won't be producing casualties. That's kind of the point of a preventative system. Even if we accept the standard of 'your mundane life is worth two mages being free' (and I don't see any particular reason why any mundane in Thedas should sell their life so cheaply), we're obviously going to have to deal with a speculative worth of what the mages cost is if freed. The measure for what the mages can cost is likely going to mages outside the circles.

 

We don't have many numbers, but we do have some sense of scale. Connor as a medium-high tier abomination alone nearly wiped out a major population center- between gameplay-vs-lore deflation, what should we estimate Redcliffe as being? About the size of the Ferelden Circle? Same with the Countess of Blackmarsh: an established community for sure.

 

Depending on when the Baroness acted, in a single generation we have at least two established settlements almost wiped out by an abomination outbreak. Three, if we include the Circle Tower itself and Uldred's secessionists. Is three settlements (including one mage) worth one mage settlement? Especially when two of them were in a single year?

 

 

 

If Tevinter is able to fight a substantial war and gorge themselves on blood sacrifices while staying a rich, stable country while they're doing literally everything that could possibly raise the risk of abominations, in theory, then my only conclusion is that the risk isn't high enough for me to justify the system or they're doing a more effective job containing it.

 

 

But why are you making these scale of assumptions in the first place?

 

What about the island conflict would suggest a substantial war in population casualties? Even WW2 was extremely limited in the population effects in the areas that weren't in conflict- which here is pretty much all of Tevinter. And what is you measure of 'gorging' on blood sacrifices: thousands a year? Hundreds a month? Tens a day? Depending on the system in question, all of these can be easily absorbed by the demographic set up, especially with slavery.

 

'More effective' is a relative measure, and must have data to support it. Including the underlying assumption that Tevinter is stable.

 

 

I'm more so leaning towards containment based on issues like Feynriel's reports that they know how to better control "dreamer" powers and the lack of anyone mentioning seeing any of these abomination attacks. But, honestly, I feel like your bias keeps you from admitting there could be any substance to the theory, so this is basically an exercise in futility. We're not really discussing the possibility, let's be honest, you're acting defensively towards your favored position.

 

 

Oh, I fully agree that Tevinter is better versed about controling the dreamer power. Knowledge is a mitigating factor- but it isn't mitigating our arguments of potential harm, and your theory is based upon a lack of substance. Arguing against a void is pointless, because the void has arbitrary meaning: we could just as well insist that him not mentioning any established lore as evidence of an exception or weakness in the lore.

 

It's not that I don't think Tevinter can't do better- it's that your argument that it is sucks.

[Dean_the_Young]

I don't agree. The mage underground shows that many people were willing to take risks to secure others' freedom at no direct benefit to themselves.

 

Who says the mage underground didn't benefit themselves? Motivations we've seen have included friends, family, and simple profit- all are grounds of self-interest.

[Xilizhra]

Who says the mage underground didn't benefit themselves? Motivations we've seen have included friends, family, and simple profit- all are grounds of self-interest.

We didn't actually see profit as a motive from its members, and not all were family/friends of mages.

[Dean_the_Young]

We didn't actually see profit as a motive from its members, and not all were family/friends of mages.

 

Except we did: the lyrium smuggler and certain corrupt templars.

 

 

Do answer my question instead of ignoring it, Xilizhra. Who says the mage underground didn't benefit themselves?

 

You made this claim- certainly you can back it up.

[Lulupab]

Except we did: the lyrium smuggler and certain corrupt templars.

 

 

Do answer my question instead of ignoring it, Xilizhra. Who says the mage underground didn't benefit themselves?

 

You made this claim- certainly you can back it up.

 

You speak as if absolutes exist. It certainly benefit them but it was not the reason they helped the mages.

[wcholcombe]

I don't see why you make that comparison. The chantry made it legal and Maric didn't care and made Ferelden independent anyway. That is exactly why Chantry has very weak presence in Ferelden in comparison to other nations. The religion is there but there is no enforcing of chantry laws especially in how Ferelden itself works.

 

Its like the pope making something official but a nation not caring and doing it anyway. Has happened many times already and it was quite legal.

Except all other countries recognized Ferelden as being conquered.  It wasn't like Nevarra or Tevinter or the Free Marches were protesting the conquest.

 

As for chantry law--Ferelden practices very limited law anyway.  Gaider said that was why they chose it for the original country to do DAO in as is loose enforcement of its own laws and the laws of others would explain why the character is able to get away with so much.

 

Don't ask me to explain the lack of law enforcement in DA2.

[Master Warder Z_]

You speak as if absolutes exist. It certainly benefit them but it was not the reason they helped the mages.

 

Doesn't change the fact incentive was there.

[Xilizhra]

Except we did: the lyrium smuggler and certain corrupt templars.

 

 

Do answer my question instead of ignoring it, Xilizhra. Who says the mage underground didn't benefit themselves?

 

You made this claim- certainly you can back it up.

I said "many." You'd have to show that every single member of the mage underground was benefiting themselves by it in some direct manner.

[Lulupab]

Except all other countries recognized Ferelden as being conquered.  It wasn't like Nevarra or Tevinter or the Free Marches were protesting the conquest.

 

As for chantry law--Ferelden practices very limited law anyway.  Gaider said that was why they chose it for the original country to do DAO in as is loose enforcement of its own laws and the laws of others would explain why the character is able to get away with so much.

 

Don't ask me to explain the lack of law enforcement in DA2.

 

Not protesting =/= agreeing. They didn't care when it was conquered as much as they didn't care when Chantry made it official. They also didn't care when Maric kicked them out and occupied some of Orlesian territory which Ferelden still holds. Ferelden was reformed after they kicked out Orlesians. They only practice the necessary laws.

[Lulupab]

Doesn't change the fact incentive was there.

 

Just like many organizations that support people the benefit gotten from them were spent on getting people under their banner who didn't work for free. Such as mage underground paying off a Templar to help smuggle mages out of the circle. There has to be a benefit or the mage underground cannot afford it.

[wcholcombe]

Not protesting =/= agreeing. They didn't care when it was conquered as much as they didn't care when Chantry made it official. They also didn't care when Maric kicked them out and occupied some of Orlesian territory which Ferelden still holds. Ferelden was reformed after they kicked out Orlesians. They only practice the necessary laws.

Outside of major cities, Ferelden is the proverbial Wild West.  If you can manage it you can do it.  Might makes right and you settle your own accounts.

[Master Warder Z_]

Just like many organizations that support people the benefit gotten from them were spent on getting people under their banner who didn't work for free. Such as mage underground paying off a Templar to help smuggle mages out of the circle. There has to be a benefit or the mage underground cannot afford it.

 

It seems to me both of you are attempting to turn a mercenary group into a non profit it is all though.

[Lulupab]

Outside of major cities, Ferelden is the proverbial Wild West.  If you can manage it you can do it.  Might makes right and you settle your own accounts.

 

And to be honest in a feudal society such as Thedas might is everything. Ferelden is open about it whereas Orlais hides it behind fancy things. Their definition of "might" is different, their usage is the same.

[Nocte ad Mortem]

Now we're getting somewhere. Let's continue this. What would be the standard of measure for success?

 

If the Circle is working, after all, the mages inside it won't be producing casualties. That's kind of the point of a preventative system. Even if we accept the standard of 'your mundane life is worth two mages being free' (and I don't see any particular reason why any mundane in Thedas should sell their life so cheaply), we're obviously going to have to deal with a speculative worth of what the mages cost is if freed. The measure for what the mages can cost is likely going to mages outside the circles.

 

We don't have many numbers, but we do have some sense of scale. Connor as a medium-high tier abomination alone nearly wiped out a major population center- between gameplay-vs-lore deflation, what should we estimate Redcliffe as being? About the size of the Ferelden Circle? Same with the Countess of Blackmarsh: an established community for sure.

 

Depending on when the Baroness acted, in a single generation we have at least two established settlements almost wiped out by an abomination outbreak. Three, if we include the Circle Tower itself and Uldred's secessionists. Is three settlements (including one mage) worth one mage settlement? Especially when two of them were in a single year?

 

But why are you making these scale of assumptions in the first place?

 

What about the island conflict would suggest a substantial war in population casualties? Even WW2 was extremely limited in the population effects in the areas that weren't in conflict- which here is pretty much all of Tevinter. And what is you measure of 'gorging' on blood sacrifices: thousands a year? Hundreds a month? Tens a day? Depending on the system in question, all of these can be easily absorbed by the demographic set up, especially with slavery.

 

'More effective' is a relative measure, and must have data to support it. Including the underlying assumption that Tevinter is stable.

 

 

Oh, I fully agree that Tevinter is better versed about controling the dreamer power. Knowledge is a mitigating factor- but it isn't mitigating our arguments of potential harm, and your theory is based upon a lack of substance. Arguing against a void is pointless, because the void has arbitrary meaning: we could just as well insist that him not mentioning any established lore as evidence of an exception or weakness in the lore.

 

It's not that I don't think Tevinter can't do better- it's that your argument that it is sucks.

My theories aren't based on any more lack of evidence than yours are, you're just not really willing to admit that. We're just assuming. I'm not really convinced your argument "sucks" any less. 

 

Connor's event happened in a period where the Blight and brewing civil issues in the area made the situation go unnoticed longer than it likely would have otherwise. The baroness situation had apparently happened quite a long time prior. The "Blackmarsh Undying" quest is NOT supposed to imply something that happened recently. It's supposed to have been a mage that trapped her people in the fade so that she could feed off them towards basically immortality, or an extended life, at any rate. The wiki says the baroness was actually "alive" during the occupation of Ferelden by Orlais. So, I would say those two events don't speak much for the long term risks. They are major events, sure. They're horrible and tragic. However, they're not that large in the scope of things having only the two to go on and not much evidence that they're likely to continue happening often.

 

Still, the staff implies to us constantly that we're supposed to believe that abominations are a big threat. I'm willing to say that maybe the threat is minimized by the limitations of story telling. This is a meta argument, but I think it's probably true. The threat is likely bigger than the evidence suggests, because they can only tell us so many stories. Thus, why I'm more inclined to think Tevinter is controlling the issue better and not that the issue isn't real.

 

Knowledge is definitely a mitigating factor when it comes to harm. If they know more about protecting themselves from demons, then that knowledge could be used to keep abomination counts down everywhere. That's with OR without the additional use of the circle and the templars. If they know how to control conditions that the rest of Thedas doesn't understand that makes possession more likely and/or they know how to better keep themselves from being possessed then that obviously mitigates harm. There's no argument against that, it's obvious fact. Whether you want to throw out the templars, etc, in favor of it is irrelevant. It's a preventative measure regardless what other measures you use on top of it, or which you substitute it for. 

[Dean_the_Young]

You speak as if absolutes exist. It certainly benefit them but it was not the reason they helped the mages.

Absolutes do exist: they can be disproven by other facts, but facts themselves are a form of absolute. As it is, we absolutely do know that parts of the mage underground have had self-interest in helping mages.

 

Making unsupported claims about the motivations of the underground, like you are doing here, is simply that- unsupported. So would be claiming that 'many', or 'most', or 'the reason' is known: we don't know facts that would support such claims, and that is an absolute.

 

The idea that oppossing oppression is the same as embracing an understanding of political freedom is itself a separate unsupported assumption. The basis for claiming the existence of a philosophy of universal political freedom analogous to Western understanding would be people espousing a philsophy- not people opposing what would be opposed by Western liberalism and then assigning a motivation to them.

[Lulupab]

Absolutes do exist: they can be disproven by other facts, but facts themselves are a form of absolute. As it is, we absolutely do know that parts of the mage underground have had self-interest in helping mages.

 

Making unsupported claims about the motivations of the underground, like you are doing here, is simply that- unsupported. So would be claiming that 'many', or 'most', or 'the reason' is known: we don't know facts that would support such claims, and that is an absolute.

 

The idea that oppossing oppression is the same as embracing an understanding of political freedom is itself a separate unsupported assumption. The basis for claiming the existence of a philosophy of universal political freedom analogous to Western understanding would be people espousing a philsophy- not people opposing what would be opposed by Western liberalism and then assigning a motivation to them.

 

I did not mean that by "absolutes". The more something close to reality the more it becomes far away from being absolutely good or evil. Everything becomes grey and that's the way it is. The real question is how grey is it? one drop of black color makes a large quantity of white grey, there could also be equal amount of black and white. We should consider this when analyzing mage underground as we are talking about a society that every single person and organization expect self profit and interest in what they do and mage underground is no different. Seeing how risky it is and mages usually don't have much to pay them I'd say its the good kind of grey. The members of mage underground help mages and make just enough to continue it. Did I mention the risks?

[wcholcombe]

My theories aren't based on any more lack of evidence than yours are, you're just not really willing to admit that. We're just assuming. I'm not really convinced your argument "sucks" any less. 

 

Connor's event happened in a period where the Blight and brewing civil issues in the area made the situation go unnoticed longer than it likely would have otherwise. The baroness situation had apparently happened quite a long time prior. The "Blackmarsh Undying" quest is NOT supposed to imply something that happened recently. It's supposed to have been a mage that trapped her people in the fade so that she could feed off them towards basically immortality, or an extended life, at any rate. The wiki says the baroness was actually "alive" during the occupation of Ferelden by Orlais. So, I would say those two events don't speak much for the long term risks. They are major events, sure. They're horrible and tragic. However, they're not that large in the scope of things having only the two to go on and not much evidence that they're likely to continue happening often.

 

Still, the staff implies to us constantly that we're supposed to believe that abominations are a big threat. I'm willing to say that maybe the threat is minimized by the limitations of story telling. This is a meta argument, but I think it's probably true. The threat is likely bigger than the evidence suggests, because they can only tell us so many stories. Thus, why I'm more inclined to think Tevinter is controlling the issue better and not that the issue isn't real.

 

Knowledge is definitely a mitigating factor when it comes to harm. If they know more about protecting themselves from demons, then that knowledge could be used to keep abomination counts down everywhere. That's with OR without the additional use of the circle and the templars. If they know how to control conditions that the rest of Thedas doesn't understand that makes possession more likely and/or they know how to better keep themselves from being possessed then that obviously mitigates harm. There's no argument against that, it's obvious fact. Whether you want to throw out the templars, etc, in favor of it is irrelevant. It's a preventative measure regardless what other measures you use on top of it, or which you substitute it for. 

two other examples would be the abomination that was Meredith's sister killed 70 people before it was stopped and the abomination that lead to the creation of the ROA fought its way out of a tower killing mages and templars alike and killed 70 people before it was stopped.
 

In the pursuit of further info, Redcliff village alone was a pop of 200 people, we don't know about the castle.

[Nocte ad Mortem]

two other examples would be the abomination that was Meredith's sister killed 70 people before it was stopped and the abomination that lead to the creation of the ROA fought its way out of a tower killing mages and templars alike and killed 70 people before it was stopped.
 

In the pursuit of further info, Redcliff village alone was a pop of 200 people, we don't know about the castle.

Well, honestly, I don't need that much convincing that the risk of mages becoming possessed is substantial. I'm willing to accept it on the meta-knowledge that the staff told us it was. It seems pretty futile to take a position against what the writers specifically tell us is true.