Having us kill civilians in Oriath Square is tasteless.

"

Turtledove wrote:

Boem, you had the best argument possible, IMHO. You seem to have gone too far now.

You seem to be arguing that the frightened citizens are not civilians. You've been asked this specifically but did not answer that specific question, I don't think. If you are arguing that then you have gone to far, IMHO. The bandit analogy is a false equivalence.

Please note that making a good argument is a fine goal that you have already reached. That does not mean though that everyone has to be swayed into agreeing with you. I think it really boils down to personal opinion. I consider this topic being discussed to be a minor weakness in the presentation of the Path of Exile story. I accept that everyone does not have to agree with that opinion.

Maybe what is needed here is for winners to be announced? If so I hereby declare that Boem and gibbousmoon have won this thread! CONGRATULATIONS!

Lol, cheers :)

The reason i picked up on the civilian vs citizen thing is because gibbous called them civilians but the game doesn't.

So i was interested why he substituted citizen with civilian.

Because civilians being murdered is indeed tasteless, but citizens less so because it doesn't exclude military forces.(which isn't exactly up for debate, just look at the public response over the world to soldiers dying vs civilians being murdered, both are bad but one is clearly worse then the other in public opinion)

It's similar to my earlier point that the labbel "frightened" doesn't imply innocence, just like citizen doesn't imply innocence.

Also making good arguments doesn't mater in this thread, because they wouldn't aknowledge them anyway, which is why i started my initial post in this thread by stating its a bad faith conversation.(aknowledgement and agreement obviously being different things, neither happen)

So i don't mind digging down to the absurd because they are obviously not interested in dialectic and i don't mind partaking into a circus act in between maps.

Peace,

-Boem-

They are civilians. It is the only thing that makes sense to me. I guess that is where we disagree then?

"

Turtledove wrote:

They are civilians. It is the only thing that makes sense to me. I guess that is where we disagree then?

Well my argument would be that we dont know.

They might as well have been fighting before we arive in the oriath scene and just lost control of the fight resulting in "frightened citizens".

I don't see how the "they are innocent civilians" holds more pursuasive weight.
Ignoring the fact it doesn't add up with the story-line where they are former slave holders, not exactly prime innocence material.

It's just a dialectic excercise to see what "story-lines" could potentially fit the scene.
For example i didn't even disagree that its tasteless originally, i don't see anything wrong with it if thats the aim of the scene, but we can sure manage to introduce some alternative possible scenario's that dont require it to be tasteless within it's context.(or at the very least, not less tasteless then anything else the game throws at you which i assume should be the baseline if only this scene offends)

But i don't see Fruz or Gibbous being interested in that. I suggested multiple variable interpretations but none of them are even considered, their minds are set so its a bad faith conversation. Literally no point in it, which makes it a circus act.

Anyway, your post entertained, so cheers for that and have a good one i wont waste any more of your time.
You don't need to get dragged into this unless it amuses you.

Peace,

-Boem-

Even in the extremely unlikely case that they aren't civilians, killing them in the context of a war that adheres to modern treaty provisions would almost definitely be a war crime. They're unarmed, they don't try to fight back, they don't stand their ground, they aren't even in uniform. There is no reason to believe they are in any way attached to the armored soldiers that Oriath Square is also full of.

The original point you made was excellent. This stuff about "citizen vs. civilian" is uh... Less so. Stay away from semantic arguments that aren't in your mother tongue, it's never gonna turn out well.

"

007Bistromath wrote:

Even in the extremely unlikely case that they aren't civilians, killing them in the context of a war that adheres to modern treaty provisions would almost definitely be a war crime. They're unarmed, they don't try to fight back, they don't stand their ground, they aren't even in uniform. There is no reason to believe they are in any way attached to the armored soldiers that Oriath Square is also full of.

The original point you made was excellent. This stuff about "citizen vs. civilian" is uh... Less so. Stay away from semantic arguments that aren't in your mother tongue, it's never gonna turn out well.

Thats fair.

As far as points and arguments go, its irrelevant if they aren't taken seriously or aknowledged.
So i don't see why me adding some more far stretched interpretations diminishes this thread.

I mean,

"

Fruz wrote:

"

Boem wrote:
Please look up what bad-faith argumentation means Fruz.

It's entirely within the narative representation of the characters we play to not be bothered by killing "frightened citizens".

I really do not need to.

That second part is highly subjective, there is nothing that would indicate that any of the characters are sociopaths, that they would kill anybody without a afterthough.
Some have specific cruel lines when killing monsters, can you make a difference between monsters and "frightened citizens" ?

Stuff like that makes literally no sense if you have any clue about the characters backstory.

The witch literally killed children to take revenge on a village and the shadow is a killer for hire from an assasins guild.

It's beyond stupid to pretend they have solid ethical or moral grounds that would object to indiscriminate killing.

And that in the same paragraph where he refutes my claim he doesn't know what "bad-faith arguments" are.

Peace,

-Boem-

Yeah, I really don't get the "but they aren't sociopaths" thing. Leaving aside the fact that's not really necessary to be a murderer, as there's plenty of other kinds of mental damage that can cause that, yes, some of them absolutely are. Even without the old backstory snippets, if you just listen to the Shadow's chatter, it's completely obvious that killing wasn't just a job for him. He enjoys it deeply. He doesn't kill people in towns because it would cause him inconvenience. No such trouble in the middle of a riot. "Frightened Citizen" may as well read "Stab Doll" for him.

"

drklrd wrote:

They're. Not. Real. People.

Why are people getting so worked up over pixels on a screen. This is the best troll post of the year. Last year it was a guy who wanted Ghetto map to be renamed cuz it offended him.

That ghetto post made me think about the legendary


Which had the whole community roar up with laughter. That random name generator was quite racist.

They removed this posibility from the random name generator after that.

But ironically, when i posted a picture of a mob called "white scum" recently my post was censored and removed. So apparently racism only works in a specific direction. The more you know, kind of thing :)

Peace,

-Boem-

"

Boem wrote:

The witch literally killed children to take revenge on a village and the shadow is a killer for hire from an assasins guild.

Wow

So ...
- taking revenge through murder <=> killing random unarmed people just because they're there ?
I guess you really are foreign to the notion of "emotionally invested" huh

- Killing for a living, as a job <=> killing random unarmed persons just because they're there ?
Would you say that James bond is a complete sociopath then ? do you see him kill random people that don't matter to his tasks in any 007 movie ?


How much more ridiculous and disingenuous can this get ? seriously ?

"

Boem wrote:

It's beyond stupid to pretend they have solid ethical or moral grounds that would object to indiscriminate killing.

I guess that's merely convenient for you to say because you have no solid argumentation in our case (see the ridiculous and disingenuous hair splitting right before, that came from you).
What is beyond stupid however, is to pretend that they cannot possibly have ethics or moral, that's really something for sure.

"

gibbousmoon wrote:

Give it up, Fruz. Remember what I said about Boem's arguments becoming more chaotic and nonsensical once he becomes emotionally invested and desperate to "win?" He'll grasp at anything.

You are seeing it in action.

(Edit: see below for another example of him reaching. Equating bandits with frightened citizens this time.)

True
It was so ridiculous that he ended up being called for it by everyone, there is still a lot wrong going on though, I probably will not come back here as it seems genuinely pointless !

"

Fruz wrote:

"

Boem wrote:

The witch literally killed children to take revenge on a village and the shadow is a killer for hire from an assasins guild.

Wow

So ...
- taking revenge through murder <=> killing random unarmed people just because they're there ?
I guess you really are foreign to the notion of "emotionally invested" huh

- Killing for a living, as a job <=> killing random unarmed persons just because they're there ?
Would you say that James bond is a complete sociopath then ? do you see him kill random people that don't matter to his tasks in any 007 movie ?


How much more ridiculous and disingenuous can this get ? seriously ?

"

Boem wrote:

It's beyond stupid to pretend they have solid ethical or moral grounds that would object to indiscriminate killing.

I guess that's merely convenient for you to say because you have no solid argumentation in our case (see the ridiculous and disingenuous hair splitting right before, that came from you).
What is beyond stupid however, is to pretend that they cannot possibly have ethics or moral, that's really something for sure.

You claim im splitting hairs while twisting yourself in a position where you actually made a moral argument to defend honor killings on the "you simply don't understand their moral and ethical philosophy" grounds.

And at the same time equate a secret agent going out to kill a national or global threat to a member of an assasin guild who is willing to kill any random stranger as long as a payment is done.

/bravo i guess?

Peace,

-Boem-

edit : your the kind of person i would love to hear a moral and ethical defense of for affirmative action discriminating against minority groups like the harvard case.

And i mean that, i would be utterly fascinated just like i am with the defense you just attempted.

The fact is, they don't have you kill them. you choose to kill them out of convenience. You can single target the entire zone, but then you would risk death. It seems most people's morals or ethics or whatever end when they have to actually work to uphold them.

If you kill the civilians in Oriath, it's because you choose to. You are after all, a killer.

As far as war crimes are concerned, no one stops a battle to let civilians walk through the middle of it. If you are engaging the enemy, in order to sustain your own life and position, and a civilian walks into the battle, you are not responsible. There must be intent in order for it to be considered a war crime.

To put a different perspective on it. We have a thread where the community berates someone who got scammed , saying it's their own fault for not taking the necessary precaution's to avoid it, so why not apply that to the civilians who feel like it's a good idea to walk into an artillery barrage?

All that being said, I don't think any of this is really what the thread is about. It's about the fact that the civilians are even there , and why. Some folks might think it's gritty, and others might think its distasteful, but there is nothing about war that isn't distasteful, and the civilians might be there to remind those people who have not experienced war first hand just how horrible it can be.

Or maybe the devs where like...whatevs, who knows.