Analyzis of villain motivation

[Closak]

Simple really, the purpose of this thread is to figure out the motivations of villains, the reason they do what they do.

Since in some cases it is not explicitly stated why a villain is doing something the fans may have to analyze said villain themselves to figure it out.

So the point here is to pick a villain whose motivations are not as obvious as they should be, and then dissect him/her, dissect the character and figure out what makes him or her tick.

Basically, figure out what the heck is going through these people's heads.


Though of course you can always dissect a non-villain instead, as long as it involves taking the character apart and figuring out how he/she works.

[Optimystik]

:xykon:: For teh lulz

[devinkowalczyk]

A little seriously
The Evil Red Empire of Russia lost 25 million people in WW2. Afterwards, they freaked out a bit. They had been attacked twice in like 20 years and been hurt pretty bad. They threw up some walls and secluded themselves a bit. And America needs an enemy so voila.


Magneto:
He believes that his path is correct, that diplomacy is useful but sometimes more force is needed. Asteroid M was a good idea, but then some jerks messed it up.

Red Cloak:
His religion is a military religion seeking to make the goblin people the top of the world. It is evil considering it requires the destruction and subjugation of others, but is good because it focuses on bringing a downtrodden people up.

[Optimystik]

Devin, fyi, discussion of real-world wars and politics is not allowed here. I'd edit that part out of your post.

[devinkowalczyk]

Apologies

Is there anything in the books or comic that denotes why Xykon is evil?

other than just boredom
or to just rule the world
or is that it?

[Optimystik]

That's really all there is to it. Start of Darkness gives you an idea of how evil he can get, but he was designed to be "evil for evil's sake" as it were.

[devinkowalczyk]

Do the colors still matter in 4e for the dragons?

[Zevox]

Red Cloak:
His religion is a military religion seeking to make the goblin people the top of the world.
Error: this has never been indicated in the comic. We know from SoD the Dark One teaches never to trust Humans, but there has never been any indication that it is his intention to have Goblins conquer the world. Redcloak's evil stems rather from the fact that his methods involve things like slavery or vengeance-driven conquest and killings, not from anything inherent in the Dark One's religion.

Zevox

[Avilan the Grey]

A lot of the time, in fiction, the villain is just born with a villain ball up there where the sun can't find it and therefore have the most pathetic excuses.

In fact, I think "wants to rule the world" is the LEAST annoying one of all the "normal" explanations.
"For the lulz", "for the Evulz", "because I want to be the most beautiful woman on earth", "because I don't want to grow old" etc are just pathetic.

Now some good motivations that turned out to be bad, which to me is the preferred approach to a villain:

Crazy sect of Knight Templars: "Purge the world of Evil!" (Just don't look in the mirror!)

Loghain, and others like him: "Save my beloved country from betrayal and invasion" (by destroying it?)

Evil Emperor: "We need to subdue everyone so that there finally can be PEACE and LOVE" (by shooting anyone that has free will or has a hobby the Emperor disapproves of)

Etc.

[Gorgondantess]

A lot of the time, in fiction, the villain is just born with a villain ball up there where the sun can't find it and therefore have the most pathetic excuses.

In fact, I think "wants to rule the world" is the LEAST annoying one of all the "normal" explanations.
"For the lulz", "for the Evulz", "because I want to be the most beautiful woman on earth", "because I don't want to grow old" etc are just pathetic.

Now some good motivations that turned out to be bad, which to me is the preferred approach to a villain:

Crazy sect of Knight Templars: "Purge the world of Evil!" (Just don't look in the mirror!)

Loghain, and others like him: "Save my beloved country from betrayal and invasion" (by destroying it?)

Evil Emperor: "We need to subdue everyone so that there finally can be PEACE and LOVE" (by shooting anyone that has free will or has a hobby the Emperor disapproves of)

Etc.

Y'know, not everybody is an altruist- some people are just bad people. Look at pretty much any serial killer through the ages. Their motivation? "For the lulz". Ted Bundy did what he did because he enjoyed it. There are people willing to shoot a man in the face for some petty cash- not wanting to grow old? That's an even better reason to do evil stuff (though still not a good one). Fear of mortality can drive people to great lengths.

[Avilan the Grey]

Y'know, not everybody is an altruist- some people are just bad people. Look at pretty much any serial killer through the ages. Their motivation? "For the lulz". Ted Bundy did what he did because he enjoyed it. There are people willing to shoot a man in the face for some petty cash- not wanting to grow old? That's an even better reason to do evil stuff (though still not a good one). Fear of mortality can drive people to great lengths.

Yes, but I think we are talking about two different things here. I am talking about the main villain, the interesting recurring character. I have never been interested in serial killers, they fall into the "pathetic" excuses above, mainly because they are nuts.

[Killer Angel]

Evil Emperor: "We need to subdue everyone so that there finally can be PEACE and LOVE" (by shooting anyone that has free will or has a hobby the Emperor disapproves of)


Ah, the good old "war that will end all the wars".
We need to conquer all of your countries, don't you understand? it's for your own safety!

An interesting variant of this concept, moves the Borg.

[hamishspence]

Do the colors still matter in 4e for the dragons?

Yes- but less so. The MM gives the most common alignment for various creatures (in chromatic dragons, it's Evil) but does not say how common exceptions are.

Draconomicon 1 (4E) does- saying that while Evil chromatics are commonest, Neutral chromatics exist. That said, Neutral chromatics aren't always particularly nice- but the nicer ones can be positively beneficient to the people who live near them.

And Metallics are downgraded to Unaligned by default in MM2 and Draconomicon 2- Good, Evil, LG, and CE ones all exist though. So "it's metallic" definitely doesn't mean it will be a "good guy".

[Dr.Epic]

"some men aren't looking for anything logical...Some men just want to watch the world burn."

[hamishspence]

Falls ino "personal gratification"- villain enjoys seeing trouble and strife and people suffering- so they cause it.

[Closak]

Master Xehanort from Kingdom Hearts

Once a good and just man, he eventually came to the conclusion that things were a little to peaceful, after all, he's a freaking keyblade master, but with things so peaceful he has nothing to use his kickass skills on.

So he turned to research, specifically, research about the nature of the Keyblade Wars that ravaged the universe long ago.

Eventually his research ground to a halt however, he could not get any further without witnessing it himself, there were just a few problems.

1: The Keyblade Wars were already long over

2: He was old and his body would likely give up on him soon

So he decides that in the name of knowledge he is going to cause the Keyblade Wars to start anew.
He also decides to steal someone elses body so that he can live long enough to actually see it happen.

So the plan is.

1: Create Vanitas by extracting all the darkness from Ventus's heart, leaving two beings, one with a heart of pure light, and the other with a heart of pure darkness (Success)
2: Manipulate events to ensure that Terra becomes vulnerable to possesion (Success)
3: Ensure that Ventus and Vanitas reaches an equal level of strenght, then make them fight, thus creating the X-Blade (Success)
4: Steal Terra's body (Success)
5: Use the X-Blade to unlock Kingdom Hearts and start the Keyblade Wars anew (Failure due to a combination of Aqua getting in the way and Ventus Sacrificing himself)

The end result is Xehanort with amnesia being nursed back to health by Ansem the Wise.

This later leads to the betrayal and the experiments that caused the Heartless to multiply and start swarming the universe as well as the creation of Nobodies, resulting in Organization XIII.


So basically his motivation is: FOR SCIENCE!

Yes, Xehanort is a big jerk (Big understatement here)

[Yulian]

I'd have to say Magneto is actually one of the most thoroughly explored villains as regards his motivation. The fairly recent Magneto: Testament finally gave him a definitive background as a German Jew and the name "Max Eisenhart". Not one incident in that book is something that did not actually happen at some point. Really, with his background, one can see what shaped him and where he went wrong, taking the wrong lesson away from the horrors he experienced.

What I notice in comics lately, is that a lot of authors are taking a hint from Batman's rogues gallery and really starting to actually explore the motivations of the villains. The Flash's group, the Rogues, all got interesting backstories, traumas, and psychoses.

However, many villains don't have any depth, or no more so than any real-world robber and thief. I mean, you take your basic Kalibak or Absorbing Man and you really just have a thug with incredible super powers. Sometimes there isn't actually all that much underneath.

- Yulian

[SolkaTruesilver]

I just finished watching Aliens.

Is it just me, or the villain (Burke) has probably one of the weakest and most idiot motivation AND justification?

Seriously.

He wants to bring the Aliens back to study for their bioweapon department. Fair ennough, except that it has almost been proven that Aliens are extremely hard to control.

After, he wants to bring back alien EGGS inside peoples so it will pass quarantine. Right. Because nothing bad might happen if you do that. The sheer stupidity of the guy fazes me.

FINALLY, when Ripley calls him out about wanting to bring back bodies of the Facehugger, he says: "These will be worth millions to the Bio-weapon department! We will be set for life!"
If anything, Burke should have known better. He decided to bring up the MONEY argument to Ripley?

Here is an argument I would have made, and would have insured that Ripley actually cooperate with me:

"If we bring these back, we will be able to understand them. Maybe we could design nerve gase that will kill them, or we could figure out how to take them out of their victim's face without killing the victim. We don't know the least thing about these creatures, and in the case we meet these again, we should know how to kill them"

Ripley: Oh.. I see Burke. Yhea, you are right. Hold on to those. Do you need a weapon?


:smallmad:

WAS IT THAT HARD TO COME UP WITH A RATIONAL VILLAIN?!

[Closak]

Problem is, that kind of stupidity exists in real life as well.

So the part with him being an idiot is actually disturbingly plausible for the simple reason that some people really are THAT stupid.

What surprises me is that a idiot like him ever got into a position where he could cause trouble in the first place.

...I blame greedy corporate executives for that one

"Oh look, we can save money by hiring an idiot instead of someone who actually has a functional brain!"

[SolkaTruesilver]

...I blame greedy corporate executives for that one

"Oh look, we can save money by hiring an idiot instead of someone who actually has a functional brain!"

Except that for the most part, "greedy corporate executives" don't hire idiots for that kind of position. It's just easy to dismiss the Corporates in company as idiots/greedy/immoral, but it's just another unfair characterisation easy to make.

Albeit, seeing the kind of position Burke had, he was probably on a "dead-end" position in the Company. Seriously, he was responsible for coaching a girl who just woke up from 57 years of sleep so she can answer her hearing? That's not a very high nor noteworthy position in a Megacorporation.

Maybe Burke was simply a stupid guy who ended up having opportunity to screw up big time. The company already put in into a dead-end job initially. He jumped on the opportunity to come along the marines in order to have a breakaway opportunity for his career. Since it was a high-risk job, no one else actually competed with him about it (and he probably earned some brownie point by convincing Ripley)

So.. we come to the conclusion that Burke was a mild-retard who just got a break of luck? (he's certainly behave like sub-par intelligence)

[Dr.Epic]

Apologies

Is there anything in the books or comic that denotes why Xykon is evil?

other than just boredom
or to just rule the world
or is that it?

Not much:

A life time of being put down by wizards. Also, once he learned that being a lich meant he couldn't taste coffee he REALLY snapped.

keep in mind he was still evil before this

[Frozen_Feet]

Xykon's motivation is simple: he's a sadist. He likes seeing and making other people suffer. Being put down by wizard only gives him motivation to specifically pick on wizards - it's not the reason he is evi. He was this way from the start.

However, becoming a lich did make him worse. He was a sociopath even before it, but undeath severed his last remaining connections to humanity. Making people suffer is the only thing he enjoys and can still do, and so... he does just that.

[Dr.Epic]

Master Xehanort from Kingdom Hearts

Once a good and just man, he eventually came to the conclusion that things were a little to peaceful, after all, he's a freaking keyblade master, but with things so peaceful he has nothing to use his kickass skills on.

So he turned to research, specifically, research about the nature of the Keyblade Wars that ravaged the universe long ago.

Eventually his research ground to a halt however, he could not get any further without witnessing it himself, there were just a few problems.

1: The Keyblade Wars were already long over

2: He was old and his body would likely give up on him soon

So he decides that in the name of knowledge he is going to cause the Keyblade Wars to start anew.
He also decides to steal someone elses body so that he can live long enough to actually see it happen.

So the plan is.

1: Create Vanitas by extracting all the darkness from Ventus's heart, leaving two beings, one with a heart of pure light, and the other with a heart of pure darkness (Success)
2: Manipulate events to ensure that Terra becomes vulnerable to possesion (Success)
3: Ensure that Ventus and Vanitas reaches an equal level of strenght, then make them fight, thus creating the X-Blade (Success)
4: Steal Terra's body (Success)
5: Use the X-Blade to unlock Kingdom Hearts and start the Keyblade Wars anew (Failure due to a combination of Aqua getting in the way and Ventus Sacrificing himself)

The end result is Xehanort with amnesia being nursed back to health by Ansem the Wise.

This later leads to the betrayal and the experiments that caused the Heartless to multiply and start swarming the universe as well as the creation of Nobodies, resulting in Organization XIII.


So basically his motivation is: FOR SCIENCE!

Yes, Xehanort is a big jerk (Big understatement here)

So you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Dark Knight reference count on this thread: 2

[Closak]

Pretty much.

We all know old men are cranky, this guy just turned the cranky old man thing up to 11 and took it out on the whole universe.

Also, there was science involved.

Crazy scientist + Cranky old man = Not good.

[TheBST]

Not much:

A life time of being put down by wizards. Also, once he learned that being a lich meant he couldn't taste coffee he REALLY snapped.

keep in mind he was still evil before this


True that. Spoilers for SoD/rambling:


Personally, I think Xykon's evilness is mostly down to his having innate arcane power from a very young age. Xykon started like a lot of sociopaths- being cruel to animals for kicks. Problem is, Xykon believes that being able to destroy people means his philosophy of power is right, and theirs was wrong. 'I'm alive, they're dead, guess we know who was right'. Look at the first people to try and give Xykon a moral education: electrocuted and devoured by a zombie. No was ever able to reign him in. And when people have been able to overpower him, Xykon's reaction hasn't been to rethink his worldview, but to acquire more power. Xykon sees killing people as not only fun, but a kind of philosophical victory: look at his speechs to Dorukan and Varsuvius. Also the line:



I like listening to sounds Paladins make when they realize that all their beliefs in a just and caring universe don't matter for squat when they're on fire..

And I think Xykon really believes that. If the values of Law or Good had any meaning, then the followers of these codes would be able to stop him.

That's how I read Xykon's 'motivation'. He doen't have any scheme, so much as Evil is a lifestyle that let's him have the same twisted type of 'fun' he showed as a kid, and every time someone tries to stop him, and he overpowers them, he takes it as vindication. It's might-makes-right turned up to 11. .

[Dr.Epic]

True that. Spoilers for SoD/rambling:


Personally, I think Xykon's evilness is mostly down to his having innate arcane power from a very young age. Xykon started like a lot of sociopaths- being cruel to animals for kicks. Problem is, Xykon believes that being able to destroy people means his philosophy of power is right, and theirs was wrong. 'I'm alive, they're dead, guess we know who was right'. Look at the first people to try and give Xykon a moral education: electrocuted and devoured by a zombie. No was ever able to reign him in. And when people have been able to overpower him, Xykon's reaction hasn't been to rethink his worldview, but to acquire more power. Xykon sees killing people as not only fun, but a kind of philosophical victory: look at his speechs to Dorukan and Varsuvius. Also the line:



I like listening to sounds Paladins make when they realize that all their beliefs in a just and caring universe don't matter for squat when they're on fire.

And I think Xykon really believes that. If the values of Law or Good had any meaning, then the followers of these codes would be able to stop him.

That's how I read Xykon's 'motivation'. He doen't have any scheme, so much as Evil is a lifestyle that let's him have the same twisted type of 'fun' he showed as a kid, and every time someone tries to stop him, and he overpowers them, he takes it as vindication. It's might-makes-right turned up to 11. .

He tries to show the schemers just how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.

The Dark Knight reference count in this thread: 3

[Mr. Scaly]

Seymour Guado of FFX: Had the goal of killing everyone in the world to save them from the utter despair of living in hopelessness. Certainly nursing nihilistic tendencies. Fatalism too possibly as he believed it was unavoidable. And a healthy dose of revenge ont he world that treated him so shabbily.

[JonestheSpy]

Except that for the most part, "greedy corporate executives" don't hire idiots for that kind of position. It's just easy to dismiss the Corporates in company as idiots/greedy/immoral, but it's just another unfair characterisation easy to make.

Albeit, seeing the kind of position Burke had, he was probably on a "dead-end" position in the Company. Seriously, he was responsible for coaching a girl who just woke up from 57 years of sleep so she can answer her hearing? That's not a very high nor noteworthy position in a Megacorporation.

Maybe Burke was simply a stupid guy who ended up having opportunity to screw up big time. The company already put in into a dead-end job initially. He jumped on the opportunity to come along the marines in order to have a breakaway opportunity for his career. Since it was a high-risk job, no one else actually competed with him about it (and he probably earned some brownie point by convincing Ripley)

So.. we come to the conclusion that Burke was a mild-retard who just got a break of luck? (he's certainly behave like sub-par intelligence)

You might want to try reconciling that view with the events in a certain Gulf that have been in the headlines lately.

Really, I hope it's not political to say that people - corporate or not - will quite often put short term personal gain ahead of long-term societal risk. And minimizing potential dangers when planning on how to make money is a not at all uncommon habit among folks, whether tomb robbers, bank robbers, or multinational executives.

Really, I think the old-time Deadly Sins (and I mean this in a completely secular manner) are still the bedrock motivations for bad guys, either singly or in combination. Greed, fear, vanity, envy, they're at the foundation of every believable villain. Malice, spite, sadism, those are all the icing on the cake, but they don't work that well as prime movers.

Except for Xykon. He's great because he's a meta-villain. He knows he lives in a world of over-the-top fantasy heroes and villains, and said "Yeah, this works for me, let's do it." He was playing a role, one which he really enjoyed, but he seem to mean it personally. But when he became a lich and lost his ability to experience the "simple pleasures" that meant so much to him, that's when he went totally overboard. He's like an actor playing a cliched evil mastermind who could no longer relax, step into the green room between takes, and have coffee break. The role is all that's left.

[SolkaTruesilver]

You might want to try reconciling that view with the events in a certain Gulf that have been in the headlines lately.

Really, I hope it's not political to say that people - corporate or not - will quite often put short term personal gain ahead of long-term societal risk. And minimizing potential dangers when planning on how to make money is a not at all uncommon habit among folks, whether tomb robbers, bank robbers, or multinational executives.

A company will never have the kind of power you see in many movies or sci-fi setting. The recent leak was caused because of the company desiring to increase it's profit margin to beat it's concurrent, to secure its business. They loss big.

If a company loses competitor, it will stop doing such aggressive move, and will rather fall into incompetence. Most monopols are often incompetent in the long-term. Evidence: Government agencies.

I guess it's a societal choice to determine the amount of competition you want to set for your organisation that drives your society. Be it government, religious orders, or capital-based companies.

Is it too political?

[Dacia Brabant]

One of the "we had to destroy this world to save it" sort of villains whose motivation made sense to me was from Suikoden 3. Massive spoilers:


So in that game's world there are 27 True Runes that are semi-sentient and divine that are tied to the fate of major events that happen in that world. Luc, the main villain, was created from a True Rune and had such a close bond to it that he could see the future from the Rune's perspective: the world eventually ends up a stagnant place of perfect order with no living creatures on it. He decides this is a fate too horrible to bear and sets out to destroy the True Rune, thus changing the future.

Unfortunately the destruction of the True Rune would also destroy a good part of the continent the games take place on, and so enter our heroes to stop the villain...once they finally figure out what's going on anyway. So it's the old "would you kill one person to save many more lives?" argument, only more like killing a million people to save the world. I'm not saying I agree with it--for one thing we don't know what the altered future would look like, and it may end up not even changing--but I can understand it.

[JonestheSpy]

Is it too political?

Way too political, yes. I suggest heavy editing.

My point in a nutshell: people do incredibly stupid, and/or evil things out of greed, within corporations or out. Corporations, like many large organizations of many different types, can encourage bad behavior by rewarding unethical behavior that benefits said organization (i.e. getting a hold of a fearsome alien to use as a biological weapon) while shielding individuals from the consequences of their actions.

Burke probably would have faced no consequences of any sort if he'd decided to stay behind. I rather suspect he came along because he didn't want some other young turk getting the credit for saving the situation and moving in on his territory.

[Yulian]

He tries to show the schemers just how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.

The Dark Knight reference count in this thread: 3

I have a big problem with that "supposed" motivation for the Joker in that film. All of his acts showed a tremendous amount if planning and forethought. He couldn't possibly have gotten to the judge, the mayor, the commissioner, Rachel, or Harvey without thoroughly researching the security precautions take around them. He could never have planted all those explosives in a currently fully-staffed hospital or the two ferries without planning. Heck, the way he got to Gambol shows that too.

He's either deliberately lying to Harvey or he's in denial. But that character obviously plans, and plans a lot.

- Yulian

[Erts]

I have a big problem with that "supposed" motivation for the Joker in that film. All of his acts showed a tremendous amount if planning and forethought. He couldn't possibly have gotten to the judge, the mayor, the commissioner, Rachel, or Harvey without thoroughly researching the security precautions take around them. He could never have planted all those explosives in a currently fully-staffed hospital or the two ferries without planning. Heck, the way he got to Gambol shows that too.

He's either deliberately lying to Harvey or he's in denial. But that character obviously plans, and plans a lot.

- Yulian

Yeah...
However, with a character as messed up as the TDK's Joker, don't you think that he may have some insane justification of this hypocrisy?

[Dr.Epic]

One of the "we had to destroy this world to save it" sort of villains whose motivation made sense to me was from Suikoden 3. Massive spoilers:

What about:

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Entertainment/images-2/adrian-veidt-ozymandias.jpg


I have a big problem with that "supposed" motivation for the Joker in that film. All of his acts showed a tremendous amount if planning and forethought. He couldn't possibly have gotten to the judge, the mayor, the commissioner, Rachel, or Harvey without thoroughly researching the security precautions take around them. He could never have planted all those explosives in a currently fully-staffed hospital or the two ferries without planning. Heck, the way he got to Gambol shows that too.

He's either deliberately lying to Harvey or he's in denial. But that character obviously plans, and plans a lot.

- Yulian

WHERE ARE THEY?!?!?!?

The Dark Knight reference count in this thread: 4

[Yora]

I just love Ocelot from Metal Gear Solid. How can you not love this guy? And on hindsight, he had a really good motivation, though it's quite certain they had not really thought about it before it cam to writing the ending of the final game. :smallbiggrin:

Spoiler, which just explains everything that happend in the entire mind screwed series. Don't read if you want to play the games.
Everything Ocelot did in MGS 1, 2, and 4 was to destroy the Patriots, who ruled the United States and later the entire world in secret. Instead of revealing the Patriots existence and drawing their attention, he mad some powerful enemies which, while trying to stop his mad spree of destruction, would coincidently destroy the Patriots. If he would have commanded his pawns directly, his plan would easily get revealed and be stopped. So instead he made it look like he got defeated several times, but in fact he had prepared for exactly that outcome, while the apperent collateral damage to the Patriots was his main objective.

[SolkaTruesilver]

What about:

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Entertainment/images-2/adrian-veidt-ozymandias.jpg


His goal wasn't "Destroy the world to save it". Against what many people in Hollywood seems to think, "New York" isn't "The World".

He provoked the death of a small portion to prevent the global collapse he thought was inevitable. He set himself to be in the best position to influence society in the way he thought would allow humanity to thrive.

In retrospect (and while reading The Emperor-God of Dune), I wonder if he isn't a little like Leto in his harsh choices.

[hamishspence]

It wasn't just New York- in the movie version.

He didn't just "provoke the death of" people he actually killed them- with the means at his disposal. As well as killing Dr Manhatten's friends with cancer.

[mangosta71]

@Yora: You could have summed that up with "repeated Xanatos gambits".
The Operative from Serenity is one of my favorite villains. Dedicated and loyal to the point of blindness - he has the clearance to find out the truth, but believes so unswervingly in his superiors that he never questions them. He knows that the stuff he does for his cause is evil, but does it anyway and feels no remorse. He's a man who can say "I'm a monster" in a calm, conversational tone - no anger, no bitterness, no emo crap - it's a simple statement of fact.

[SolkaTruesilver]

It wasn't just New York- in the movie version.

He didn't just "provoke the death of" people he actually killed them- with the means at his disposal. As well as killing Dr Manhatten's friends with cancer.

I don't see how "provoking the death" and "killing" is in any way different from one another. I wasn't trying to underplay his actions by using these words, just having little more of a purple prose.

And again, I don't see how him killing Dr Manhattan's friend makes things worse. He destroyed ONE CITY (parts of multiple in the movie), adding half a dozen more doesn't make it worse all of a sudden.

And even if he destroyed parts of many cities in the movie (remember, a big good part of New York still existed at the end of the movie), it's still a LONG WAY from "Destroying the World". He killed a handful of million people, at the most. That's like, less than 1% of the world's population.

[SolkaTruesilver]

@Yora: You could have summed that up with "repeated Xanatos gambits".
The Operative from Serenity is one of my favorite villains. Dedicated and loyal to the point of blindness - he has the clearance to find out the truth, but believes so unswervingly in his superiors that he never questions them. He knows that the stuff he does for his cause is evil, but does it anyway and feels no remorse. He's a man who can say "I'm a monster" in a calm, conversational tone - no anger, no bitterness, no emo crap - it's a simple statement of fact.

Made all the more heartbreaking by having him state that he does all of this for a better world, but he doesn't deserve that better world because of the actions he commited.

*sigh* Do you wonder if that's what Book felt, from time to time?

[Thufir]

I just finished watching Aliens.

Is it just me, or the villain (Burke) has probably one of the weakest and most idiot motivation AND justification?

Objection. Burke is not the villain of Aliens. The aliens are the villains of Aliens. Burke is an idiot used as a plot device to get them onto that planet.


@Mango: I also liike the fact he says he has no place in the 'World without sin' he's trying to bring about, and you honestly believe that if he thought his job was done he'd probably kill himself, likely by throwing himself on his sword.

[hamishspence]

It shows he was willing to kill people just to manipulate Manhatten- not because their lives "needed to be sacrificed"

And the means used- not instant death, but a slow, cancerous death- so that Manhatten would believe he himself was responsible.

It's like the difference between someone willing to drop a bomb on a city in a war- and someone willing to slowly poison another innocent person simply to get what they want.

[mangosta71]

Killing his friends gave Dr. Manhattan a reason to pursue a personal vendetta (and since he's the hero, it makes the audience feel the same way). The fact of the matter is that most people don't care as much about a million strangers dying as they do about one person they know dying.

[SolkaTruesilver]

1) It shows he was willing to kill people just to manipulate Manhatten- not because their lives "needed to be sacrificed"

2) And the means used- not instant death, but a slow, cancerous death- so that Manhatten would believe he himself was responsible.

It's like the difference between someone willing to drop a bomb on a city in a war- and someone willing to slowly poison another innocent person simply to get what they want.

1) Again, he had to manipulate Manhattan to achieve what he wanted. He believed Manhattan had a destructive influence on human society by creating a unipolar world where the U.S. dominated everyone on the international stage and would never even accept a minor defeat.

Making Manhattan leave Earth was what he wanted, thinking that it was humanity's best option.

2) In a war, wether your poison your ennemy or you bomb them, the end result is the same. There is no best choice, except if you are clinging to some sort of moral superiority that comes down to nothing when annihilation is on the line.

Killing these people the way Adrian did was the only way to ensure his plan. He didn't picked this way, these victims and this plan of action because he felt like it, but because that was the best way to achieve his goal - at least, from his perspective.

Since humanity's annihilation on the long-term was on the line, I think we cannot claim that morality over a few was more important than the human race's survival.

[Dr.Epic]

The fact of the matter is that most people don't care as much about a million strangers dying as they do about one person they know dying.

That's one of the reason the death of everyone in the comic is far more emotional than it was in the movie: you had these subplots with these characters and then you see them all killed in one swift action.

[SolkaTruesilver]

That's one of the reason the death of everyone in the comic is far more emotional than it was in the movie: you had these subplots with these characters and then you see them all killed in one swift action.

And this is also why I completely disrespect the argument "but he killed his friends" after we have state that he destroyed a city.

I usually try to have a Number+ morality, meaning that survival of the greater number is usually the best course of action, but with circumstancial elements that could factor in (ex: 1 young promising person vs 4 terminal state dying persons).

Meaning that my sister is not more important than 10 random strangers. (Sorry if you read that Sister, but you know me).

Ozymandia was a villain in the story, but it's still a long way to go before people actually make the argument that he was wrong in his actions. Killing millions is a despicable act, but maybe he was properly justified. Maybe he wasn't. But maybe he was.

Killing 5 more people doesn't change that.

[hamishspence]

2) In a war, wether your poison your ennemy or you bomb them, the end result is the same.

It tends to be treated differently, though- maybe due to cultural biases.


Since humanity's annihilation on the long-term was on the line, I think we cannot claim that morality over a few was more important than the human race's survival.

When a character chucks out morality entirely and uses "survival of the species" as their only guide- doesn't that risk creating a tyrant?

Is Ozymandias truly benevolent- or a megalomaniac prone to rationalize everything he does as being "for the benefit of the species"?

[SolkaTruesilver]

It tends to be treated differently, though- maybe due to cultural biases.

Which is why I refer to you to the very part that followed the statement you quote, yet conveniently omitted:

There is no best choice, except if you are clinging to some sort of moral superiority that comes down to nothing when annihilation is on the line.

When it comes down to your survival, you won't be caring about how you kill your ennemy. You only care about killing him. Only the lucky factions have the luxury of establishing "right" and "wrong" ways of killing your ennemy, and that because we live in a quite safe environment, with few ennemies.


When a character chucks out morality entirely and uses "survival of the species" as their only guide- doesn't that risk creating a tyrant?

Is Ozymandias truly benevolent- or a megalomaniac prone to rationalize everything he does as being "for the benefit of the species"?

Off course it risk creating a Tyrant. But a Tyrant isn't a bad thing by itself. A petty Tyrant that only think for his own survival and power is dangerous to humanity. A Tyrant that want the best thing for his people is an extremely good driving force that will eventually whip the people into trying to struggle the power back into their hands, making them start appreciating what they previously took for granted.

Again, I give Leto II's Golden Path as an example as to why a Tyrant might not be a bad thing in itself.

Humanity was on the verge of destruction on the long-term. Too much weapons, not ennough done to preserve society's structure. He wanted to ensure that humanity would not only survive, but prevail by diverting ressources away from self-destruction and toward better stability.

So you are not going to sway me by using the "Tyrants are evulzzzz" argument. This thread is all about going past the initial labelling of "This guy is evil" usually depicted in movies, and actually go beyond that. So I think we could do the same exercice regarding Tyranny. Is Tyranny for the evulz, or is there rational reasons behind it when it occurs? Is it an absolute evilzzzz, or something else?

Can Tyranny be a good thing for the society?

[Thufir]

Can Tyranny be a good thing for the society?

Lord Vetinari would say yes. Though good tyrants are rare.

[hamishspence]

DMG2 does suggest "some tyrants are wiser and more just than their legitimate predecessors"

that said the "only the species matters, the individual is nothing" perspective has ominous implications when taken to its logical extreme.

Ozymandias appears to think that as the most intelligent human on earth, he is therefore morally empowered to make any decision on behalf of "the species" in order to preserve it.

Yet "intelligent" does not mean "infallible" and, as mentioned in previous threads, he was taking an awful gamble. Especially considering it involved depending on the "feelings of humanity" of someone he'd set to distance himself from humanity, by killing their friends.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Lord Vetinari would say yes. Though good tyrants are rare.

But does a tyrant needs to be good to have a lasting positive impact on their society?

I mean, ultimately, did Napoleon did more good than bad? Many says yes. Others (the English, specially, and thu the Americans by cultural osmosis) usually say no. Was he a good tyrant? (many French would say yes).

Did Palpatine done more good than bad to the Galaxy with his reign of terror? Don't forget how wrecked and corrupted the Old Republic was. He allowed a revival of the Galaxy's federal society into a more vitalized, less corrupt entity.

Was he a Good tyrant? No. Did the outcome of his reign did good? Probably.

[hamishspence]

The outcome doesn't necessarily justify the deed.

And when you think about how much damage Palpatine did specifically to get power (The Clone Wars?) it's even more problematic.

Does "the galaxy was a bit less corrupt" (a dubious claim to make anyway) mean "Causing the Clone Wars, and massacring all the Jedi, was not an evil act"?

Even if you take the view that

"Palpatine knew of the Vong- and everything (armies, fleets, superweapons, absolute rulership, immortality) was intended primarily to ensure the galaxy could face them- and the Jedi were destroyed because he was certain they'd have been unable to get past their hatred of the Sith"

that still makes his actions morally shady.

[SolkaTruesilver]

that said the "only the species matters, the individual is nothing" perspective has ominous implications when taken to its logical extreme.

Which is why do not take it to it's logical extreme. That would be falling into the Slippery Slope fallacy.


Ozymandias appears to think that as the most intelligent human on earth, he is therefore morally empowered to make any decision on behalf of "the species" in order to preserve it.

No. He didn't decided to act by telling "I am the most intelligent man on Earth, ergo I am the best choice to act", but rather, he was the only one who actually decided to do something about the problem, rather than stay impotent and saying: "that's how the world is, what can you do?".

His intelligence allowed him to speculate as to how he could solve the problem. But he never let any kind of limitation prevent him from achieving his goal. Others might have said: "Well, what can we do about Dr Manhattan?". He didn't let that stop him.

His intelligence doesn't give him an absolute morality license. His intelligence simply allowed him to figure out a plan to attempt, and eventually, succeed.

If he was the only one who figured out a way to prevent the apocalypse, well, sorry, I can't start playing armchair moralist and pick on his morality choice. He was the one in command, by virtue of having figured out what to do.


Yet "intelligent" does not mean "infallible" and, as mentioned in previous threads, he was taking an awful gamble. Especially considering it involved depending on the "feelings of humanity" of someone he'd set to distance himself from humanity, by killing their friends.

Yes. I have to agree that this was the biggest risk and flaw he took. And if there is a reason where I might criticise him, is that he is not infaillible, meaning he could have figured out something wrong, made bad projection, and the like.

But if we stopped at every single decisions in the world based on "He might have been wrong", "He might be wrong", we won't achieve anything significant, and no real decision will ever be done. Was is a wrong decision to bomb Hiroshima? Nagazaki?

How about other big decisions made in fiction or in reality. These people could have been wrong, you know, and they had no right to make these choice.

Funny how people give so much flak to Adrien about him killing millions of people, yet no one say anything about Luke killing a million himself. There was a lot of innocent people on the Death Star. People with families, who just wanted a good job, and they never did anything bad in their lives.

Yet, Luke did the right thing. Sometimes, you need to have blood on your hand to do the right thing.

[SolkaTruesilver]

The outcome doesn't necessarily justify the deed.

And when you think about how much damage Palpatine did specifically to get power (The Clone Wars?) it's even more problematic.

Does "the galaxy was a bit less corrupt" (a dubious claim to make anyway) mean "Causing the Clone Wars, and massacring all the Jedi, was not an evil act"?

Even if you take the view that

"Palpatine knew of the Vong- and everything (armies, fleets, superweapons, absolute rulership, immortality) was intended primarily to ensure the galaxy could face them- and the Jedi were destroyed because he was certain they'd have been unable to get past their hatred of the Sith"

that still makes his actions morally shady.

Try to shape in your mind a comparison between Palpatin and Leto 2. Think of them both as "predator" who commit atrocities upon their citizens, who forces them into submission.

They serve the same purpose. They are the ones that cull the weaks, that destroy what's useless and make everybody improve for the best in order to break away from a complacent statis that everybody had been stuck in for centuries.

Except that one does it with that very purpose in mind, while the other does it for personnal gain and just pure power craving. It doesn't change the fact that both of them shook their population into action where they were stuck into slow decay before.

[hamishspence]

They serve the same purpose. They are the ones that cull the weaks, that destroy what's useless and make everybody improve for the best.

Think about that phrasing. When a ruler looks at their people and decides to "cull the weak and destroy what's useless"- what kind of ruler is that?

Some rulers have put "cull the weak" policies into place on their own populations- they're generally looked on with contempt.

[JonestheSpy]

Just to point out - autocracy does not necessarily equal tyranny. A "good tyrant" is an oxymoron, as a tyrant is by definition a BAD autocrat. The title - King, Dictator, Chairman, etc - may very, it it all boils down to ultimate power resting with a single individual.

Brooks has fun with Vetinari and calling him a tyrant, but he's not really all that tyrannical.

[hamishspence]

Doesn't the term "tyrant" imply "autocrat that obtained power by illegal means"?

It doesn't say anything about how well the tyrant rules.

[The Big Dice]

Doesn't the term "tyrant" imply "autocrat that obtained power by illegal means"?

It doesn't say anything about how well the tyrant rules.

A tyrant is someone who is in power and uses that power oppressively, possibly unjustly and certainly absolutely.

It's got nothing to do with how they came to power.

[Thufir]

Tyrant (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tyrant)
–noun
1.
a sovereign or other ruler who uses power oppressively or unjustly.
2.
any person in a position of authority who exercises power oppressively or despotically.
3.
a tyrannical or compulsory influence.
4.
an absolute ruler, esp. one in ancient Greece or Sicily.

Tyrant
n.
1.
An absolute ruler who governs without restrictions.
2.
A ruler who exercises power in a harsh, cruel manner.
3.
An oppressive, harsh, arbitrary person.


Some of those definitions can definitely be used for people who aren't bad autocrats.
Also, when I said 'good tyrant', I didn't actually mean good in an alignment sense, so much as someone who uses their tyrannical power to positive effect for the benefit of the people.

[Zevox]

Doesn't the term "tyrant" imply "autocrat that obtained power by illegal means"?

It doesn't say anything about how well the tyrant rules.
That is the original, ancient Greek meaning of the term. However, as the previous poster demonstrated, it is not the modern meaning.

Zevox

[SolkaTruesilver]

Think about that phrasing. When a ruler looks at their people and decides to "cull the weak and destroy what's useless"- what kind of ruler is that?

Some rulers have put "cull the weak" policies into place on their own populations- they're generally looked on with contempt.

Except that most of those "cull the weak" policies are actually "cull the strong", in order to preserve their power and destroy any kind of opposition.

I am not saying that tyrants have that in mind. I am saying that Tyranny is a natural social phenomena that happens when a society became compacent and somewhat un-governable. The society is often somewhat damaged, but has the opportunity to renew itself through that struggle.

[Avilan the Grey]

Except that most of those "cull the weak" policies are actually "cull the strong", in order to preserve their power and destroy any kind of opposition.

I am not saying that tyrants have that in mind. I am saying that Tyranny is a natural social phenomena that happens when a society became compacent and somewhat un-governable. The society is often somewhat damaged, but has the opportunity to renew itself through that struggle.

The only "Cull the Weak" policy that I know was fully implemented was Sparta's and that didn't work out too well... (It turns out that a weaker man, trained as a soldier, still is stronger than a man that well... never survived childhood).

To paraphrase someone in a computer game: A true king serves his people. If he serves himself, then he is a tyrant.
I am not getting into an IRL debate here, but there is a big difference between a ruler and a tyrant.

[SolkaTruesilver]

The only "Cull the Weak" policy that I know was fully implemented was Sparta's and that didn't work out too well... (It turns out that a weaker man, trained as a soldier, still is stronger than a man that well... never survived childhood).

To paraphrase someone in a computer game: A true king serves his people. If he serves himself, then he is a tyrant.
I am not getting into an IRL debate here, but there is a big difference between a ruler and a tyrant.

If you actually go out and kill children that you feel are weaker, that's not a "cull the weak". You simply are doing eugenism on your population.

Having a real tyrant that has oppressive structure makes the best organisation survive, while the incompetent dies. It's not only a matter of genetic darwinism, it's mostly a matter of social darwinism. You want the more efficient organisation, guerilla cells, thinkers, to act together to overthrow the Tyrant.

Think of the two most known Revolution that occured in the western world: the American and the French one. both ended up producing great thinkers in their era, and a society model that broke away from the norm of their time and allowed more flexibility in the way of dealing with the struggles the society faced. France ended up making the whole Europe fear it because of the re-thinking of many established "realities" about army organisation, recruitment and supply. It never would have happened under the old regime.

Thu, Louis XVI's oppression of it's people allowed for a change of it's people that had influence farther and wider than the actual actions of his regime.

you could make some similar claim regarding King George's treatment of it's american colonies, and how it ended up changing many established "realities" in America, and how the society went through an amazing change because it had to break away.

This is not making the absolute apology of tyrants. Nor does it mean that we have to lay down and die when a tyrant is established over you. Quite the opposite, you have to fight him with all your energy, and when your people will become strong ennough to beat them, you will have grown.

It's just that a tyrant's rule, while it has to be opposed, is not necessary a bad thing in a people's history.

[hamishspence]

If you actually go out and kill children that you feel are weaker, that's not a "cull the weak". You simply are doing eugenism on your population.

Aren't they the same thing in this case? "The needs of the species outweigh the rights of the individual"- so the eugenic policy comes into play to sterilize or kill those deemed "inferior" or "weak" or "a danger to the species if their genes propagate"

When it comes to assessing moral philosophies- isn't the usual test- to logically extrapolate from the tenets of the philosophy, to see where it goes and what it prescribes?

[SolkaTruesilver]

Aren't they the same thing in this case? "The needs of the species outweigh the rights of the individual"- so the eugenic policy comes into play to sterilize or kill those deemed "inferior" or "weak" or "a danger to the species if their genes propagate"


Because you are deciding on an arbitrary value of the word "strong", "weak", and others regarding your specie. You are pre-selectionning the qualities that you want to see emerge in the society you are so-called "improving". No one can make the choice.

If you simply oppress everyone, the social structure will change in the oppressed. Their social behavior will change. Their culture will change, their way of thinking and fighting will change. They will become stronger. Not necessarely physically, but also socially and mentaly.

But ultimately, they will become what they have to become to overthrow you. If that means stronger physical population, so be it. But it might also mean an elite ruling class of brainy charismatic, but physically weak people. If that's the best and the strongest, than so be it.

[hamishspence]

At the time, the most common definition of "the weak" was "the physically and mentally disabled" and policies were put into place to ensure they didn't breed, and in some places, to actually kill them.

These days, such policies are deemed abhorrent.

Maybe it's just me- but whenever I see "cull the weak" applied to the human population, I get worried. Who defines "the weak" anyway?

I see people say "Let's get back to nature- then the weak will die and the strong flourish" and I dislike it.

A villain might be "dedicated to improving the species" and believe "if the species is not improved, it will be outcompeted, wither, and die" and use that as the rationale for all their atrocities. But they would be no less a villain for the fact that their overarching goal is "preserve the species".

[SolkaTruesilver]

At the time, the most common definition of "the weak" was "the physically and mentally disabled" and policies were put into place to ensure they didn't breed, and in some places, to actually kill them.

These days, such policies are deemed abhorrent.

Maybe it's just me- but whenever I see "cull the weak" applied to the human population, I get worried. Who defines "the weak" anyway?

I see people say "Let's get back to nature- then the weak will die and the strong flourish" and I dislike it.

But that is not my meaning. You are using stupid old definition of "cull the weak" that shouldn't apply. I am not talking of arbitrary removing a part of our population because we deem them inferior. I am talking about establishing a social predator that will destroy the weakest elements of our society. But these elements might be organisational, biological, or even cultural factors.

you will reduce the amount of ressources available, which means that only the most efficient organisation will thrive. You make them menaced, so only the most enduring will thrive.

It has nothing to do with human biology. A weakling human child has the potential to produce incredible greatness for the human population in general. That is up to that population to decide for itself if it wants to care for it. If it doesn't, so be it. If it wants, better for them.

But it's not up to the Tyrant's will to make these choice. The Tyrant's role is to be the predator, the danger, the oppressor. The population will make the hard choices themselves.


(I am remembered of the Bajorans in Star Trek. during the Occupation by the Cardassians, they had to do away with their cast-based society, the D'Jharra, and have everybody do as they were able to. That helped them a LOT)

[hamishspence]

you will reduce the amount of ressources available, which means that only the most efficient organisation will thrive. You make them menaced, so only the most enduring will thrive.

Which reduces a lot of things to luck- who's lucky enough to survive, and who isn't.

To call Leto II "good" or even "neutral" is, I think, something of a stretch- he's intelligent, he used to be human, he knows how much suffering he inflicts, and he does that anyway.

He gets away with it because he has near-perfect prescience. The idea of trying to establish a modern day version of Leto, or trying to reduce humanity to such a state that "only the fittest survive" seems like a bit of a step backward. The trend of civilization has been to move humanity away from "nature red in tooth and claw where only the fittest survive".

[Mistral]

If you actually go out and kill children that you feel are weaker, that's not a "cull the weak". You simply are doing eugenism on your population.

Having a real tyrant that has oppressive structure makes the best organisation survive, while the incompetent dies. It's not only a matter of genetic darwinism, it's mostly a matter of social darwinism. You want the more efficient organisation, guerilla cells, thinkers, to act together to overthrow the Tyrant.

Think of the two most known Revolution that occured in the western world: the American and the French one. both ended up producing great thinkers in their era, and a society model that broke away from the norm of their time and allowed more flexibility in the way of dealing with the struggles the society faced. France ended up making the whole Europe fear it because of the re-thinking of many established "realities" about army organisation, recruitment and supply. It never would have happened under the old regime.

Thu, Louis XVI's oppression of it's people allowed for a change of it's people that had influence farther and wider than the actual actions of his regime.

you could make some similar claim regarding King George's treatment of it's american colonies, and how it ended up changing many established "realities" in America, and how the society went through an amazing change because it had to break away.

This is not making the absolute apology of tyrants. Nor does it mean that we have to lay down and die when a tyrant is established over you. Quite the opposite, you have to fight him with all your energy, and when your people will become strong ennough to beat them, you will have grown.

It's just that a tyrant's rule, while it has to be opposed, is not necessary a bad thing in a people's history.

One of the big issues I've always had is that people seem to be under the misconception that Darwinist evolution, social or otherwise, leads to their own preferred definition of "best," which is why Social Darwinism was bandied about so much in the early 20th century. It doesn't create the "best" in a social sense if you subscribe at all to concepts like Locke's or Rousseau's social contract, just the most suited to survival. Revolutions in particular tend to be both brutal and wasteful, and can (and frequently do) fail to address the causes of the social enmity that created the circumstances in which they could occur.

To address your specific points, the French Revolution did lead to a paradigm change in both methods of governance and military engagement, but the fundamental concept of the levée en masse and the citizens' army goes back to the Gauls, and more pertinently and recently, the milice of the Ancien Régime. The French had been using a magazine system for munitions for over a century by this point, and the extension of this to food and other key supplies was in fact natural, as Jomini would recognize after the wars had ended when he first coined the term "logistics". The high morale consistent with Napoleon's armies, and the archetypal "baton in every knapsack" that exemplified the meritocratic principles on which he encouraged his military to function, but these principles didn't appear again until not a revolutionary, but an evolutionary role - in Britain, one can point to the Cardwell and Childers reforms to standardize regiments and abolish such nepotistic (is that the proper word?) practices as the sale of commissions or regimental seniority, and these reforms were not supported by the French Revolution, but rather the example of the Prussian Army and the failures of the Crimean War. For that matter, the Prussian paradigm of a dedicated General Staff was also evolutionary, taken from the concepts by Clausewitz's On War and earlier. One could argue that its success in the Franco-Prussian War did lead to its general adoption in other nations, but one must also remember that the lessons of this and Russo-Japanese War led to the adoption of the concept that elan and vigour could overcome set defences and technological superiority such as that the French had in their war, and that the development of the set-piece mobilization plans such as that which the Prussians had used was one of the critical pieces that created the bloodbath that was the First World War.

More directly, the American Revolution did not create any such paradigm change in terms of the actual governance of the 13 colonies that successfully gained their independence. Democratic, meritocratic government in these colonies went back to their founding in many cases, most notably the House of Burgesses in Virginia and the Massachusetts General Court. The Articles of Confederation, and later the Constitution, simply expanded upon ideas that were already present to give them a greater geographic scope. For that matter, these were already British as well; the ascendancy of the Whigs, the reform of the British rotton boroughs, and the development of self-rule and the eventual Dominion system occured in spite of, rather than because of the American independence. The last in particular didn't come about until the Canadians revolted and were, in fact, entirely unsuccessful. Consider the other obvious contraexample of the Latin American colonies, which had been governed by Spanishi-appointed viceroys rather than locally elected dignitaries. Stability, when attained, was not at the hand of social egalitarianism or justice, but instead in repression and oligarchy under the influence of a landed elite, such as the Rosas of Argentina or the Café com Leite politics of Brazil. This was not the "best" by most conventional social definitions of the word, but it proved to be the most able to survive in the political environment of those nations. Could the democratic principles that had formed the governments of such defunct nations as the United Provinces of Central America or Colombia have survived and prospered? Possibly, but the power struggles instigated as the elites sought to protect that which they had meant that these governments could not maintain integrity and collapsed.

[hamishspence]

The argument seems to be "it can be moral to oppress people (impartially) as Leto II did, because, by doing so, you improve them enough that they eventually overthrow you."

Seems a bit iffy to me.

[Yora]

Also fitness depends on the society you exist in. Survival skills don't help you at all to be successful in the political and economic sector, and are really not required to find food in the mountains or survive attacks by wild animals. It's no longer about living or dying in the western world. For the vast majority of people this thing is allready secured pretty much.
In some communities it might not matter how much monney you have, but in others monney alone will determine if you survive certain sicknesses or not. The fitter one is the one with the bigger purse. The physical abilities don't play much of a part here.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Which reduces a lot of things to luck- who's lucky enough to survive, and who isn't.

That's what you think. I think the organisations who would better administrate themselves would be the ones who survive.


To call Leto II "good" or even "neutral" is, I think, something of a stretch- he's intelligent, he used to be human, he knows how much suffering he inflicts, and he does that anyway.

But Leto never gave a specific way for evolution, except the Atreide-stealth gene (and strenght, dex, intelligence, etc...). When it came to societal evolution, he only had one approach - oppression - and he wanted humanity to surprise him. He did not knew what was the form that society would take, he just wanted something that was strong and clever ennough to beat him.


He gets away with it because he has near-perfect prescience. The idea of trying to establish a modern day version of Leto, or trying to reduce humanity to such a state that "only the fittest survive" seems like a bit of a step backward. The trend of civilization has been to move humanity away from "nature red in tooth and claw where only the fittest survive".

He got away with nothing. Leto ended up having what he wished: humany strong ennough to kill him, and that would unleash a new wave of movement in the sociology of the Imperium.

This is NOT, I repeat, NOT about establishing a "only the stronger, faster survive". It's about having social structures and organisation that are the most apt regarding the modern social realities. Societies have the bad tendency to keep living up with the paradigms that their forebear established, regardless of the necessities that these tendency have been established. So if you do X because you grandfather did X, you will keep doing it even if the reason X happened in the first place is now outdated.

When a society falls into immobilism and worship of what was because they just want to wander in the past, they get complacent. This is why I think hardship usually comes next, so that the society will renew itself.

I don't see why you have any problem with the basis of what I say. It's the core capitalism principal that competition breeds efficiency. If you have multiple people fighting each other in the "free market" environment, the better will prevail and their model will become the De Facto reality for the business environment, until somebody comes up with a better one.

But if you do not allow challenges to the establishment because of X, Y or Z (protectionism, monopoly, etc...), you refuse the intensive to adapt and get better.

Now, what I want, is to apply these principles to a society as a whole. Too many relics of the past, ways of thinking, etc.. prevents us from adapting to the current realities that our society face, because our society can afford to be complacent.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Also fitness depends on the society you exist in. Survival skills don't help you at all to be successful in the political and economic sector, and are really not required to find food in the mountains or survive attacks by wild animals. It's no longer about living or dying in the western world. For the vast majority of people this thing is allready secured pretty much.
In some communities it might not matter how much monney you have, but in others monney alone will determine if you survive certain sicknesses or not. The fitter one is the one with the bigger purse. The physical abilities don't play much of a part here.

It's not necessarely about the individuals!! :smallfurious:

Will you people eventually get to understand that?!

[TheEmerged]

Comics: the villain whose motivation has always interested me is Doom, especially during the early part of the 2099 run (before it went off the rails). Why? Because we get to see Doom without the intrusion of Doom's obsession with Reed Richards.

Doom's ego doesn't go to 11, it goes to 11 to the 11th power of the 11th power, factorial :smallbiggrin: It's an easy copout, when writing the character, to stop there. But what makes Doom interesting to me is the way Doom's epic hubris drives Doom to do good deeds despite Doom's own interests at times.

For example: Doom doesn't actually love Doom's home country of Latervia. Don't believe this for a moment. Latervia however has become a part of Doom's ego -- Doom does the best Doom can for it because Latervia failing would mean Doom has failed. Similarly Doom has no loyalty to the tribe of gypsies Doom came from - but to betray them would speak poorly of Doom's honor.

Some people mock Doom's odd speech pattern, but really it's just an outgrowth of the same hubris. Doom is too important for 3rd person pronouns. Note the lack of a smiley? That's because I'm not joking. Doom thinks of Doom this way, and Doom sees no reason to coddle you by submitting to your societal niceties.

And yet in his own mind, he's more heroic, noble, and gentlemanly than Richards.

[Yora]

Okay, now that reproduction is no longer the end to the means of survival, the individual becomes rather unimportant.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Comics: the villain whose motivation has always interested me is Doom, especially during the early part of the 2099 run (before it went off the rails). Why? Because we get to see Doom without the intrusion of Doom's obsession with Reed Richards.

Doom's ego doesn't go to 11, it goes to 11 to the 11th power of the 11th power, factorial :smallbiggrin: It's an easy copout, when writing the character, to stop there. But what makes Doom interesting to me is the way Doom's epic hubris drives Doom to do good deeds despite Doom's own interests at times.

For example: Doom doesn't actually love Doom's home country of Latervia. Don't believe this for a moment. Latervia however has become a part of Doom's ego -- Doom does the best Doom can for it because Latervia failing would mean Doom has failed. Similarly Doom has no loyalty to the tribe of gypsies Doom came from - but to betray them would speak poorly of Doom's honor.

Some people mock Doom's odd speech pattern, but really it's just an outgrowth of the same hubris. Doom is too important for 3rd person pronouns. Note the lack of a smiley? That's because I'm not joking. Doom thinks of Doom this way, and Doom sees no reason to coddle you by submitting to your societal niceties.

And yet in his own mind, he's more heroic, noble, and gentlemanly than Richards.

In other word, he's clearly insane. Right?

[Mistral]

That's what you think. I think the organisations who would better administrate themselves would be the ones who survive.
Only in very specific ways. An organization that can efficiently marshall very limited resources is still operating with very limited resources.


But Leto never gave a specific way for evolution, except the Atreide-stealth gene (and strenght, dex, intelligence, etc...). When it came to societal evolution, he only had one approach - oppression - and he wanted humanity to surprise him. He did not knew what was the form that society would take, he just wanted something that was strong and clever ennough to beat him.
As I've no idea what you're talking about, I cannot say specifically what is correct or incorrect, but I must say that strength or cleverness alone are not necessarily positive traits for rulership, nor will they provide an affirmative government that provides what is best (again, I use that arbitrary word) for their people.


He got away with nothing. Leto ended up having what he wished: humany strong ennough to kill him, and that would unleash a new wave of movement in the sociology of the Imperium.

This is NOT, I repeat, NOT about establishing a "only the stronger, faster survive". It's about having social structures and organisation that are the most apt regarding the modern social realities. Societies have the bad tendency to keep living up with the paradigms that their forebear established, regardless of the necessities that these tendency have been established. So if you do X because you grandfather did X, you will keep doing it even if the reason X happened in the first place is now outdated.

When a society falls into immobilism and worship of what was because they just want to wander in the past, they get complacent. This is why I think hardship usually comes next, so that the society will renew itself.

I don't see why you have any problem with the basis of what I say. It's the core capitalism principal that competition breeds efficiency. If you have multiple people fighting each other in the "free market" environment, the better will prevail and their model will become the De Facto reality for the business environment, until somebody comes up with a better one.

But if you do not allow challenges to the establishment because of X, Y or Z (protectionism, monopoly, etc...), you refuse the intensive to adapt and get better.

Now, what I want, is to apply these principles to a society as a whole. Too many relics of the past, ways of thinking, etc.. prevents us from adapting to the current realities that our society face, because our society can afford to be complacent.
But competition can render an organization impotent as well, especially if it's poorly defined or channelled. For a perfect example, many dictators set up competing organizations that must then operate under greater resource limitations than originally, and thus can accomplish less individually. If there were a single organization or even if the organizations cooperated, it would accomplish far more than the practical reality.

One of the more interesting parts about your advocation of unlimited free market capitalism is actually how bad it is for undeveloped nations. There are certain start-up costs inextricably involved in developing a domestic industrial capacity which must be overcome. Those external parties that have already done so are thus at an advantage, economically speaking, against other new entrants, because having recouped their start-up costs, they can sell the same products at a reduced price in absolute terms without actually affecting their relative profit margin. Principles of modern globalization have reduced this impact, as the reduction in price and increase in efficiency of bulk transportation has made the outsourcing of manufacturing industries feasible, but even this still leaves the actual ownership of the wealth outside of the nation where the industry is located, leaving it effectively inaccessible save through economically intrusive methods such as nationalization or redistribution. Moreover, should this occur through violent revolution, this can result in the destruction of the physical locus of this wealth (i.e. the factories) and a net negative for the society as a whole, which no longer has access to the wealth (wages, products) that the factories once produced and is thus reverted to the circumstances pre-globalization. In fact, the industrialization of many nations, America and China foremost in thought at the moment, was accomplished in part through significant tariff barriers, and Russia, as the Soviet Union, did that one further by being completely ostracized from the international economic community. It's obviously more complicated than that alone, as the different circumstances of those three examples indicates, but the proper use of trade barriers was and is still a criticial component of economic development at the level of the specific nation, which has a significant effect on the society of that nation.


It's not necessarely about the individuals!! :smallfurious:

Will you people eventually get to understand that?!
No, of course not. I never once said it was about the individual. I have framed all of my arguments in terms of the society.

[SolkaTruesilver]

No, of course not. I never once said it was about the individual. I have framed all of my arguments in terms of the society.

I wasn't directing that at you, but at the other posters who kept going back to the individual's capacity to survival.

Your own argumentation is actually quite interesting. I will need more time to analyse it. Thank you for sharing with me.

[hamishspence]

The point I was making is- if you look at thinks in evolutionary terms, and see what various evolutionary scientists have written, you'll notice that there is a strong theme of:

"evolution is very much a statistical process. Yes, overall, the fittest tend to survive, but very often, those who are killed are just unlucky rather than weak"

And during mass extinction events, it's even more pronounced.

You might have been saying that it's only organizations that get crushed, culled, destroyed, and the most resilient survive and improve- but organizations are made up of individuals, and when organizations are crushed, individuals suffer.

[SolkaTruesilver]

The point I was making is- if you look at thinks in evolutionary terms, and see what various evolutionary scientists have written, you'll notice that there is a strong theme of:

"evolution is very much a statistical process. Yes, overall, the fittest tend to survive, but very often, those who are killed are just unlucky rather than weak"

And during mass extinction events, it's even more pronounced.

But it's not necessarely a matter of biological evolution, but sociological evolution. It's matter of re-organising the different forces forming your society into something that is more adapted to modernity than the one your society created before, that might be outdate but still living out because of social inertia.

Could you point out some social elements that exist in our society but are quite outdated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority)? Maybe even useless in our time?

(I use a very, very mild example because I don't want us to delve too much into politics). But the thing is, you do NOT want your Tyrant to pick up who lives and who doesn't. You do not want him to point a finger at an organisation and say "We do away with it". The menace has to treathen everybody at the same time, so that only the most vulnerable to destruction actually fall to it, and the strongest survive.

[Mistral]

But it's not necessarely a matter of biological evolution, but sociological evolution. It's matter of re-organising the different forces forming your society into something that is more adapted to modernity than the one your society created before, that might be outdate but still living out because of social inertia.

Could you point out some social elements that exist in our society but are quite outdated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority)? Maybe even useless in our time?

(I use a very, very mild example because I don't want us to delve too much into politics). But the thing is, you do NOT want your Tyrant to pick up who lives and who doesn't. You do not want him to point a finger at an organisation and say "We do away with it". The menace has to treathen everybody at the same time, so that only the most vulnerable to destruction actually fall to it, and the strongest survive.

The problem with this is that a tyrant, by nature, exerts both autocratic and preferential control. He really can point a finger at an organization and say, "Do away with it," whether it's the CCA, a plucky band of insurgents, or his own allies of convenience. Only the most capricious or insane tyrant directly threatens his own actual power base as much as he does his rivals or opponents; the tyrant by nature of their continued existence as a tyrant must have some means of enforcing their decrees, and those who constitute these means, whether they're a secret police, a hereditary nobility, an officer corps, or an entrenched bureaucracy, are going to be less or not at all affected by the tyrant's more onerous decrees, whether it's because the tyrant bears some loyalty to them in return or because the tyrant simply doesn't want to be toppled by his own tools. If the tyrant has a whole toolbox at his disposal, he can certainly turn them against each other to encourage them to fight each other rather than unify against him, but again, this also promotes inefficiency and waste, not to mention weakening the entire structure. He may remain in power as a consequence of this, but that is to the tyrant's own benefit as an individual, and not to the benefit of the society as a whole that must deal with the consequences of this infighting.

[hamishspence]

it's also worth remembering what Leto's reign is compared to- Muad-Dib's jihad:

Paul: "Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others."

and later, in Children of Dune:


"You think me a coward for refusing that path," Paul said, his voice husky and trembling. "Oh, I understand you well, son. Augery and haruspication have always been their own torments. But I was never lost in the possible futures because this one is unspeakable!"

"Your Jihad will be a summer picnic on Caladan by comparison," Leto agreed.

also:


"If I'd chosen your way, I'd have become the bicouros of shaitan. What will you become?"

"For a time, they'll call me the missionary of shaitan, too," Leto said. "Then they'll begin to wonder, and finally they'll understand. You didn't take your vision far enough, father. Your hands did good things and evil."

"But the evil was known after the event!"

"Which is the way of many great evils," Leto said. You crossed over into only a part of my vision. Was your strength not enough?"

"You know I couldn't stay there. I could never do an evil act which was known before the act."

So, Leto's describing what he does as "an evil act which is known before the act."

[SolkaTruesilver]

it's also worth remembering what Leto's reign is compared to- Muad-Dib's jihad:

Paul: "Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others."

and later, in Children of Dune:

also:

So, Leto's describing what he does as "an evil act which is known before the act."

You focus on the horrible act, yet there is a very definite reason Leto did what he did.

It wasn't for the Evulzzzz

[hamishspence]

True- but a villain doesn't have to do things "for the evulz" - but we still call them a villain and not "an unusually pragmatic hero".

Most of the better villains "have good reasons for what they do" from Magneto (in some portrayals) to Ozymandias, to Redcloak.

[JonestheSpy]

True- but a villain doesn't have to do things "for the evulz" - but we still call them a villain and not "an unusually pragmatic hero".


It occurs to me that there is a certain kind of villain into it for the Evil that I appreciate. That's the one turns out to be kind of sympathetic, not because they have idealistic goals like Redcloak or Ozymandias, but because you realize that the reason they're evil is that they have suffered so much and are so traumatized that it broke them, and put them together again in a horrible twisted way. They're totally evil, totally bonkers, and at the same time pitiful.

Alan Moore did this with the Joker in his amazing The Killing Joke. Gail Simone did it recently with the truly disturbing crimelord Junior, who we discover

is the sister of one of the main characters, and was sexually, physically, and mentally abused by their father, so much so that all she really wants is to do to the world what was done to her.

Uriah Heep from Dickens' David Copperfield is a smaller scale version of this, driven to malice by the constant hammering that he was a lower class nobody, who must always remember to bow and scrape to his 'betters', regardless of his own intelligence and capabilities.

[Alindo]

I really think that a pointless villain is much better. No reasons for being malevolent, but for the simple reason that it's fun.

[Closak]

And then we have that one guy who grew up surrounded by evil and corrupt people, and then ended up as a soldier, witnessing the horrors of war.

So he spent his whole life surrounded either by war, corrupt politicians, mad scientists, or greedy corporate executives who would gladly sacrifice a large portion of the population if they could earn money from it.

So eventually he snaps and comes to the conclusions that ALL humans are evil.

Then he somehow get's the idea that he's the messiah and that it's his destiny to cleanse the world of sin.

Of course, the best way to cleanse the world of humanity's sins is to KILL THEM ALL!

Cue homicidal madman who wants every single human dead.

Great, now we have a crazy bastard who thinks he's Jesus and wants to kill everyone because humanity is evil and deserves to die.

...That guy is messed up.

[Yulian]

Some people mock Doom's odd speech pattern, but really it's just an outgrowth of the same hubris. Doom is too important for 3rd person pronouns. Note the lack of a smiley? That's because I'm not joking. Doom thinks of Doom this way, and Doom sees no reason to coddle you by submitting to your societal niceties.

And yet in his own mind, he's more heroic, noble, and gentlemanly than Richards.

Doom also loves puppies.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/Spurious_logic/LJpics/2010_April/00a33e0e.jpg

- Yulian

[tomandtish]

I just finished watching Aliens.

Is it just me, or the villain (Burke) has probably one of the weakest and most idiot motivation AND justification?

Seriously.

He wants to bring the Aliens back to study for their bioweapon department. Fair ennough, except that it has almost been proven that Aliens are extremely hard to control.

After, he wants to bring back alien EGGS inside peoples so it will pass quarantine. Right. Because nothing bad might happen if you do that. The sheer stupidity of the guy fazes me.

FINALLY, when Ripley calls him out about wanting to bring back bodies of the Facehugger, he says: "These will be worth millions to the Bio-weapon department! We will be set for life!"
If anything, Burke should have known better. He decided to bring up the MONEY argument to Ripley?

Here is an argument I would have made, and would have insured that Ripley actually cooperate with me:

"If we bring these back, we will be able to understand them. Maybe we could design nerve gase that will kill them, or we could figure out how to take them out of their victim's face without killing the victim. We don't know the least thing about these creatures, and in the case we meet these again, we should know how to kill them"

Ripley: Oh.. I see Burke. Yhea, you are right. Hold on to those. Do you need a weapon?


:smallmad:

WAS IT THAT HARD TO COME UP WITH A RATIONAL VILLAIN?!

Actually, it's not quite as stupid as all that. After all, let's looks at the experiences so far. The first contact was with 7 people who have no military training, no training in dealing with non-human life-forms (it's unclear what other nonhumans have ever been found before) and no real weapons on the ship. So they get wiped out (betrayal by Ash doesn't help either).

The only survivor is on the hook for destroying an incredibly expensive cargo, and is coming up with a fantastic story. It's also unclear if Burke is aware of the original plot (i.e.: did he actually know that a signal existed, since in the inquiry everyone is denying that it did). It's not unreasonable to assume that a platoon of marines and full firepower (before they lost the bulk of their weaponry) could handle the situation. And hey, if you can bring one of these creatures back, $$$! Presumably the government wouldn't like the Company having this, so that is why they would smuggle the specimen inside a human.

Don't get me wrong, the actions of the Company are still deplorable. The original plot basically states the crew of the Nostromo is expendable. Burke is willing to lie to Ripley to get her to come along, and is willing to sacrifice anyone to bring a live specimen home. And he could have told the colonists that there were claims that there was an alien ship out there with potential life forms on it. But given that their only source of info on the life form was one untrained civilian, I'm not sure you can say they are incredibly stupid. (Although I will readily concede your point on the money argument).



Objection. Burke is not the villain of Aliens. The aliens are the villains of Aliens. Burke is an idiot used as a plot device to get them onto that planet.

Actually, I'd say that Burke (and the Company), and the aliens are the antagonists, with Burke and the Company also being the villains. To be a villain, you have to have more than basic instincts, and as of Aliens they hadn't really shown us that the aliens have any. Some of the written literature describes them as bio-weapons, and indicates that the Queens have genius level IQs, but the movies don't go to quite that level. They are an extremely aggressive species, but Burke (and the Company by extension) are the one who are actually evil.

Not saying that they don't need to be stopped. Think of them like particularly aggressive fire ants invading your home. It's not personal, they're just doing what they do. Doesn't mean you don't break out the bug spray.

[Dr.Epic]

I have a big problem with that "supposed" motivation for the Joker in that film. All of his acts showed a tremendous amount if planning and forethought. He couldn't possibly have gotten to the judge, the mayor, the commissioner, Rachel, or Harvey without thoroughly researching the security precautions take around them. He could never have planted all those explosives in a currently fully-staffed hospital or the two ferries without planning. Heck, the way he got to Gambol shows that too.

He's either deliberately lying to Harvey or he's in denial. But that character obviously plans, and plans a lot.

- Yulian

A villain distorting the truth even lying to achieve his own ends?!?!? Never in the history of anywhere and all time has that ever been done!

[SolkaTruesilver]

Actually, it's not quite as stupid as all that. After all, let's looks at the experiences so far. The first contact was with 7 people who have no military training, no training in dealing with non-human life-forms (it's unclear what other nonhumans have ever been found before) and no real weapons on the ship. So they get wiped out (betrayal by Ash doesn't help either).

The only survivor is on the hook for destroying an incredibly expensive cargo, and is coming up with a fantastic story. It's also unclear if Burke is aware of the original plot (i.e.: did he actually know that a signal existed, since in the inquiry everyone is denying that it did). It's not unreasonable to assume that a platoon of marines and full firepower (before they lost the bulk of their weaponry) could handle the situation. And hey, if you can bring one of these creatures back, $$$! Presumably the government wouldn't like the Company having this, so that is why they would smuggle the specimen inside a human.

Don't get me wrong, the actions of the Company are still deplorable. The original plot basically states the crew of the Nostromo is expendable. Burke is willing to lie to Ripley to get her to come along, and is willing to sacrifice anyone to bring a live specimen home. And he could have told the colonists that there were claims that there was an alien ship out there with potential life forms on it. But given that their only source of info on the life form was one untrained civilian, I'm not sure you can say they are incredibly stupid. (Although I will readily concede your point on the money argument).



I did not say Burke's motivation were stupid. I thought that the way of achieving his ends were stupid.

Seriously, you do NOT try to offer riches to the girl who is still struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder because of an encounter with the xenomorph, telling her that her getting rich will allow the filthy bug to live more.

You DO tell the girl that studying the bug would help humanity find a way of destroying it for good one day. That there may be more out there, and humanity has to be ready to destroy them.

[Fiery Diamond]

If you actually go out and kill children that you feel are weaker, that's not a "cull the weak". You simply are doing eugenism on your population.

Having a real tyrant that has oppressive structure makes the best organisation survive, while the incompetent dies. It's not only a matter of genetic darwinism, it's mostly a matter of social darwinism. You want the more efficient organisation, guerilla cells, thinkers, to act together to overthrow the Tyrant.

Think of the two most known Revolution that occured in the western world: the American and the French one. both ended up producing great thinkers in their era, and a society model that broke away from the norm of their time and allowed more flexibility in the way of dealing with the struggles the society faced. France ended up making the whole Europe fear it because of the re-thinking of many established "realities" about army organisation, recruitment and supply. It never would have happened under the old regime.

Thu, Louis XVI's oppression of it's people allowed for a change of it's people that had influence farther and wider than the actual actions of his regime.

you could make some similar claim regarding King George's treatment of it's american colonies, and how it ended up changing many established "realities" in America, and how the society went through an amazing change because it had to break away.

This is not making the absolute apology of tyrants. Nor does it mean that we have to lay down and die when a tyrant is established over you. Quite the opposite, you have to fight him with all your energy, and when your people will become strong ennough to beat them, you will have grown.

It's just that a tyrant's rule, while it has to be opposed, is not necessary a bad thing in a people's history.

You, um, do know that social Darwinism is bunk, right? At least in terms of it actually producing a positive outcome for the most commonly accepted positives.


It's not necessarely about the individuals!! :smallfurious:

Will you people eventually get to understand that?!

Of course, here I have to disagree. I don't give a damn about society as a whole - it is the individuals who make up the society that have value. "The species" has little to no worth, in and of itself, if you don't acknowledge the importance of the individual. After all, it is because an individual human is more important than, say, an individual bird that we can say that the human species is more important than the species of that bird, not the other way around.

[SolkaTruesilver]

You, um, do know that social Darwinism is bunk, right?

Because it has been used as an excuse by tyrants to invade their neighbours.

Any use of Darwinism to justify absolute tyranny ends up being bonker because it's just an excuse.

But I do believe there is a genuine effect of social darwinism within a society, where elements evolve and adapt to situation, where the weak organisations bankrupts or gets dissolved.



Of course, here I have to disagree. I don't give a damn about society as a whole - it is the individuals who make up the society that have value. "The species" has little to no worth, in and of itself, if you don't acknowledge the importance of the individual. After all, it is because an individual human is more important than, say, an individual bird that we can say that the human species is more important than the species of that bird, not the other way around.

I guess we will have to disagree, indeed. Because I give a big damn about society as a whole, and I believe that the whole is bigger than the parts. I care a lot about what happens to my people, and many time during recent history (100 years), it has been proven that individual would prove less important than the security of the society that is part of it.

But that is a mere point of view. I guess you might say it's my little religion, one where I believe one's immortality is achieve through contribution to the species, to the big whole that will go on after I am gone, and, I hope, thrive and live. I'd rather make that whole innovative, strong and adaptive, that can withstand any challenges that will present itself.

[Mistral]

Because it has been used as an excuse by tyrants to invade their neighbours.

Any use of Darwinism to justify absolute tyranny ends up being bonker because it's just an excuse.

But I do believe there is a genuine effect of social darwinism within a society, where elements evolve and adapt to situation, where the weak organisations bankrupts or gets dissolved.



I guess we will have to disagree, indeed. Because I give a big damn about society as a whole, and I believe that the whole is bigger than the parts. I care a lot about what happens to my people, and many time during recent history (100 years), it has been proven that individual would prove less important than the security of the society that is part of it.

But that is a mere point of view. I guess you might say it's my little religion, one where I believe one's immortality is achieve through contribution to the species, to the big whole that will go on after I am gone, and, I hope, thrive and live. I'd rather make that whole innovative, strong and adaptive, that can withstand any challenges that will present itself.

The entire problem with this outlook is that "weak" or "strong" are defined not in terms of actual benefit to the species or to those who constitute that species/social structure, but by the simple survival of the social structure in question. For that matter, barring external alterations to the status quo, hydraulic empires can become capable of surviving indefinitely because the necessity of centralization in order to maintain the relevant resource supply (typically water, hence the name) also creates a situation in which competition or conflict with the institution in control of the resource becomes impossible from within (defined both institutionally and geographically). It has perfectly adapted to its situation such that it no longer needs to change; it is in fact in an ideal equilibrium as far as any application of biological Darwinism to social principals can be made, but historical examples of the hydraulic empire are both extremely authoritarian and stagnant. Innovation is not a survival trait in stable environments. In fact, rocking the boat needlessly can lead to instability and collapse, which is detrimental for the society in question and those who comprise it. Selecting for adaptability or innovation as a general goal requires a fundamentally different paradigm than survival. Change may happen, but a society that embraces and encourages change as a general concept does not need to happen. The only thing that needs to happen, under a rigorous application of social Darwinism, is a society that happens to be able to survive the present set of circumstances.

And this, I'm finally recognizing, is hideously and horribly off the original topic, so I'll say no more.

[Yulian]

A villain distorting the truth even lying to achieve his own ends?!?!? Never in the history of anywhere and all time has that ever been done!

Yeah, but the movie sort of wanted to pretend he was telling the truth there when he very obviously was not.

You missed my point.

- Yulian

[LurkerInPlayground]

I have a big problem with that "supposed" motivation for the Joker in that film. All of his acts showed a tremendous amount if planning and forethought. He couldn't possibly have gotten to the judge, the mayor, the commissioner, Rachel, or Harvey without thoroughly researching the security precautions take around them. He could never have planted all those explosives in a currently fully-staffed hospital or the two ferries without planning. Heck, the way he got to Gambol shows that too.

He's either deliberately lying to Harvey or he's in denial. But that character obviously plans, and plans a lot.

- Yulian
Partially, he was trying to convince Harvey that he's not the real evil that needs to be battled. Part of that persuasion requires the Joker to destroy any belief that Harvey has that the Joker is a brilliant mastermind.

But there's a subtext. He's saying that the idea of a "perfect plan" is absurd. People often think of a good strategist or a good planner as a person who will stick unswervingly to what's written on paper. And they feel more safe following a rigid plan, even if "the plan" is no longer relevant.

Whereas the Joker realizes that improvisation is important. He keeps a lot of contingencies up his sleeve so that he can rapidly adapt to a fluid situation. The options that he has are never rigid, and they're reasonably accessible given the resources he has on hand.

His jailbreak is good example of this. He can reasonably expect his cronies to be put somewhere in the same building with him. So he can rely on his cellphone bomb to be somewhere nearby to create a convenient distraction. It's not a "perfect plan," but it gives him an option. It allows him to hedge his bets in case he is captured.