What's Your Alignment?

I always enjoyed playing Lawful Good, which is totally out of character for me and the DM had a blast keeping me in character. things like
DM: "You encounter and elf"
Me : "Is it a girl elf?"
DM: "Yes"
Me: "Is she cute?"
DM: "Her physical beauty is 18"
Me: "Does she put out?"
DM: "If you marry her"
Me: "OK, is there another female elf we can talk to?"
hehe you get the idea

I'm not sure what your point is?

Sex between two consenting adults is neither unlawful, nor not-good in my country and culture

OB1Shinobi wrote: 1) i disagree that either of us have had "the same" thoughts as the people in the videos; the fact that they acted so much different from how you or i act is perfectly convincing evidence that their thoughts and especially their thought patterns were quite different from yours or mine

It doesn't matter. You still cant classify someone as evil just because they think differently than you do. In fact quite a few psychopaths are non violent productive members of society. would you call them evil as well? Just because someone is a psychopath does not give us the right to condemn them. It is their action that can be condemned and that alone is what can be judged as evil or not.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-pros-to-being-a-psychopath-96723962/?no-ist
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/life-as-a-nonviolent-psychopath/282271/

It is not our makeup alone that determines our actions. It is a deeply complex and intricate combination of traits, environment and past. There is no set formula for evil because evil just does not exist except in our minds.

OB1Shinobi wrote: 2) are you saying elliot rodger was not malevolent until he fired the first shot at his first victim?
or was he already malevolent the moment he took aim? or when he stepped out of his car? when he acquired his weapons? when he made his videos?

This is simple. Rodger could not be considered evil or malevolent by any definition as we humans define it until he actually committed an act of violence. Cut and dried. Waiting in the bushes or not, (apparently not the bushes of love :laugh: ) until he pulled the trigger he had not committed a violent act and the only criminal act he committed was probably something like having a concealed weapon, which is a crime but not a violent one.

Guys like this are not evil nor malevolent. They are sick. In fact his entire life he had been under the care of a psychiatrist. He was taking anti-psychotic drugs for schizophrenia and had bi-polar disorder. He was also had high functioning Asperger syndrome and had been tortured relentlessly while growing up by bullies. Rejected by friends and unable to function in society this kids despair turned to rage against a society that he felt had failed him and rejected him.

In a lot of ways society did fail him. Speaking from personal experience, most of the time psychiatrists are indifferent and useless and the drugs they prescribe are worse than the cure they are supposed to provide. Beyond that, bullying and anti social attacks against vulnerable individuals runs rampant in schools. "The herd" picking out the weak and torturing them mercilessly is more of a psychopathic aspect of society then the individual going on a shooting rampage. So who is really the bad guy here? The individual or the society? In Rodgers mind his actions were justified. Its just sad that it takes this sort of unbounded violence for society to wake up and say, "hmm maybe something is wrong here with the way we treat individual people".

So in a certain sense your right about people dismissing the concept of evil but I don't consider that a bad thing. While we should deal with individual acts we call "Evil" we also need to realize that their execution is a subjective aspect of our reality. Those acts alone should not be our only focus because in the end those concentrated manifestations are not the ultimate source of the act. For every individual we pick out and call "Evil" there are boundless other malevolent drivers that manifested that evil besides just the individual. We must realize that it was not the individual alone but a combination of internal structure, societal interactions and personal past. Because of that, our focus should be on the fact that as we go through life we are all capable of cruelty and indifference in so many subtle ways and that affects and hurts others. If the individual is pushed to the point of violence, we are all responsible because we are the ones that ultimately "cut him from the herd". It’s just that our role in that shows up in not so neatly packaged ways most of the time so we should strive to always go the extra mile in all our social interactions.

In the end I'm not saying that anyone deserved to get attacked and I agree that his actions were wrong. But were they evil or were they the product of a broken individual that had been pushed beyond his limits to cope and then lashed out at those he perceived as his persecutors? Its all a subjective point of view and there are no absolutes. Is society ever going to perfect itself? I don't think so and so these things are an inevitable part of our reality. From a philosophical point of view one could even argue that these acts, "Evil" if you will, are a necessary part of our reality as a continual catalyst for society to evolve towards something more equitable. It is a driver for evolution itself. We as a species hold a special significance for human life. But in the grand scheme of things we are no better or worse than any other form of life in existence. In the eyes of nature, the facilitator of that evolution, the death of one individual human is no more significant than the death of an individual cow brought to slaughter or the death of one wolf in combat over control of a pack. None of these are "evil" They are just another part of the process of creation.

I'm a bit late to the party.

Erm, I'm probably Neutral Good with aspirations to be Lawful Good with Lawful Neutral tendencies but usually ends up being Chaotic Good.

If that made any sense to anyone at all, I'll be impressed

so i think that i will post this and whatever areas of agreement or disagreement we have will jsut have to be lol

ive enjoyed the discussion but its getting to the point where i feel like we're at the end of the line - you might say something thats really new and if so i might single it out, but it seems like we're really just rehashing the same content in different words, so after this i will probably concede
unless you really dazzle me lol, we'll see

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: It doesn't matter. You still cant classify someone as evil just because they think differently than you do.

im not talking about being different im talking about being malevolent and yes we can classify people as malevolent

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/malevolent
Malevolent
[muh-lev-uh-luh nt]
adjective
1. wishing evil or harm to another or others; showing ill will; ill-disposed; malicious:
His failures made him malevolent toward those who were successful.

2. evil; harmful; injurious:
a malevolent inclination to destroy the happiness of others.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/malevolent

1: having, showing, or arising from intense often vicious ill will, spite, or hatred
2: productive of harm or evil

anyone who lives up to these definitions can be classified as malevolent just like anyone who lives up to any other definition - "friendly", "funny" "brave", "intelligent", "tall", "left handed", "european" - can be classified according to the definitions of the relevant words

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: In fact quite a few psychopaths are non violent productive members of society. would you call them evil as well? Just because someone is a psychopath does not give us the right to condemn them. It is their action that can be condemned and that alone is what can be judged as evil or not.

im DEFINITELY NOT talking about "psychopaths"
theres WAY too much garbage to sift through with the term
i am talking about malevolence

in the case of "profoundly malevolent" people (aka evil) their actions will eventually reveal the malevolence of their internal, psychological disposition, but the disposition exists before the actions

typically it begins with small, but conscious and deliberate acts of malevolence, which have the effect of reinforcing (strengthening) the internal disposition

thats how the process happens lol
you can argue if you want but im getting bored with debating chickens and eggs - the question has already been solved lol and this is the answer http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38238685/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/which-came-first-chicken-or-egg/#.WA-hFo8rIdU

there is a difference between existential and legal realms - a person can be existentially malevolent but not legally guilty of a particular crime

even in the legal realm if it can be demonstrated that the person took the kinds of actions that are necessary to commit a certain crime then the charge of conspiracy can be used i.e. you dont have to actually blow up a building if you get caught with explosives and a notebook titled "My Brilliant Plan to Blow Up the Building"

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-pros-to-being-a-psychopath-96723962/?no-ist
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/life-as-a-nonviolent-psychopath/282271/

the first link was so bad that i didnt finish it - the guy is trying to sell his books and the entire article was fundamentally just a commercial so -- meh

for the second article: i am aware of mr fallon; my abnormal psych prof and also my developmental psych prof in previous semesters introduced his story to the classes. the gist of it is that he had latent biological potential for anti social personality disorder or for psychopathy as a consequence of his brain structure but because of a nurturing home life and a rewarding personal life, he never murdered anyone
or so he says - would you expect a murdering psyhco to tell you the truth??

thats only partly a joke btw, i do believe him, but i disbelieve the "psychopaths" (or whatever term you want to use) who do actually murder people, and i always think its completely silly when someone says something like "well it was the right thing from the murderers point of view" or "oh but the psychopath really believed he was doing the right thing when he did it" lol, riiiiiiiiight classic case of someone whose never actually met and had to interact with a malevolent person - they know perfectly well what they are doing and that it is wrong

and the articles you linked to only serve to demonstrate that a person can CHOOSE to NOT BE malevolent if they want to make that choice
which in turn means that those who CHOOSE to become malevolent are- well- deliberately and consciously malevolent, aka evil

all i am saying is that there are people who really like to hurt other people
its not a complicated assertion or even an arguable one considering the testimonial evidence of two individuals who themselves expressed pleasure at the exploitation and murder of other people

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: It is a deeply complex and intricate combination of traits, environment and past. There is no set formula for evil ...

malevolence is a good start lol

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: ...because evil just does not exist except in our minds.

neither does courage or love or integrity, but they are real, and fundamental to human interaction

this is redundant lol

look, you can either start from the supposition that "evil" absolutely cannot be accepted as valid, in which case youre just going to refuse and deny every bit of information that is presented to you

or, you can start from the supposition that "words mean things" and that if a person can be demonstrated to embody the literal definition of a word then, that person can be described with said word

and that if the literal definition of a word can be demonstrated to describe a recurring theme of behavior or human activity that the word has validity as a category in discussing society

the people in the videos i posted are obvious examples of malevolence, which shows that malevolence and evil are words with legitimacy as categories

your position is predicated on the need to refuse the possibility that "evil" can be valid, so it doesnt matter what i say lol because youre basically going to put your fingers in your ears and say "la la la la la la" lol

maybe thats not fair of me...

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: This is simple. Rodger could not be considered evil or malevolent by any definition as we humans define it until he actually committed an act of violence. Cut and dried.

definition of malevolent begins: "wishing evil or harm to another or others"

there is a difference between "causing harm" and "desiring to cause harm"
one may do either without also doing the other

rodger made hrs worth of videos explaining his desire to hurt people, so he definitely was malevolent if we use just the part of the definition of the word malevolent that says "wishing to cause harm to others" as our criteria for malevolence

but the definition ALSO includes those who actually do inflict harm on others, and rodger DEFINITELY fits that bill too, being a mass murderer and all lol

so it is cut and dry, rodger was malevolent

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: Waiting in the bushes or not, (apparently not the bushes of love :laugh: ) until he pulled the trigger he had not committed a violent act and the only criminal act he committed was probably something like having a concealed weapon, which is a crime but not a violent one.

well as i said earlier, the legal realm is more restricted and restrictive than the the existential realm
someone may at the same time be both be existentially malevolent and also legally innocent of some particular crime

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: Guys like this are not evil nor malevolent. They are sick.

does "sick" somehow disqualify one from being "malevolent"?
he meets the definitive requirements of the word
he was - by definition - malevolent
afaiac he was sick, and malevolent, and evil, all at once

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: In fact his entire life he had been under the care of a psychiatrist. He was taking anti-psychotic drugs for schizophrenia and had bi-polar disorder. He was also had high functioning Asperger syndrome and had been tortured relentlessly while growing up by bullies. Rejected by friends and unable to function in society this kids despair turned to rage against a society that he felt had failed him and rejected him.

its kind of sweet how you make the mass murderer sound so vulnerable lol
poor little mass murderer, he just wanted some friends!

i dont think theres ever been kid in greater need of a puppy, who at the same time was less able to be trusted with one, and thats serious
i honestly wonder if a puppy could have made a difference in his life
or jiu jitsu, or playing the guitar or scuba diving or anything

it is terribly sad, i do agree, and i mentioned this already when i talked about how malevolence "spreads" from person to person, and that one of the tragedies of evil is that it can turn its victims into victimizers, and thus perpetuators of further evil

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: In a lot of ways society did fail him. Speaking from personal experience, most of the time psychiatrists are indifferent and useless and the drugs they prescribe are worse than the cure they are supposed to provide. Beyond that, bullying and anti social attacks against vulnerable individuals runs rampant in schools. "The herd" picking out the weak and torturing them mercilessly is more of a psychopathic aspect of society then the individual going on a shooting rampage.

So who is really the bad guy here? The individual or the society?

lol
.....

thats why i use specifics and not generalities

elliot frodger and whatever that sexual predators name was, were the bad guys

you can say "society failed them" and that may be true or it may not be true, but even if it is true they chose what they chose and it was their choice
generally speaking, i dont buy the "the murdering rapist was just doing what he thought was best" line of defense for murdering rapists

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: In Rodgers mind his actions were justified. Its just sad that it takes this sort of unbounded violence for society to wake up and say, "hmm maybe something is wrong here with the way we treat individual people".

but maybe people rejected him because he was a creepy creep?
i dont mean just "different"or "awkward" i mean maybe he was arrogant and resentful and selfish as hell, a generally "disturbed" person who no one wanted to be around it because it was unbearable and negative and even frightening - in other words, maybe he was in life almost was exactly like he was in the videos?

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: If the individual is pushed to the point of violence, we are all responsible because we are the ones that ultimately "cut him from the herd".

um i dont think you can make that work lol

seriously - you cannot take the position that "society" is "responsible" for serial killers and mass murderers and sexual predators - those people make their choices and they are responsible for them

we can say that there are biological and environmental factors which increase the likelihood of various anti-social tendencies

we can say that there are warning flags which people in authority positions need to be sensitive to
and you can expect some responsibility from parents to raise their children actively and from schools to treat bullying seriously

we can develop any number of requirements and procedures for identifying and dealing with malevolent people, and i even agree we should focus on treatment rather than punishment when theyve not actually hurt anyone yet

but its not plausible to say that "society" is to blame for people who rape and murder and exploit the weak or the vulnerable

we all get bullied, some worse than others, yea, but ALMOST NONE OF US go on shooting sprees or think that it would really be ok to do so

certainly we can dive into an individuals personal history and ask "why was he/she malevolent?"
and we should do that, and it should be honest and not based on value judgments but on the desire to accurately identify cause-effect relationships

but why someone is malevolent is only a legitimate question once we accept that they are

and we dont have to use the word "evil"
but the word points to something that actually happens and what i see in these debates is people who deny the reality because they dont want to acknowledge the word

OB1Shinobi wrote: so i think that i will post this and whatever areas of agreement or disagreement we have will jsut have to be lol

ive enjoyed the discussion but its getting to the point where i feel like we're at the end of the line - you might say something thats really new and if so i might single it out, but it seems like we're really just rehashing the same content in different words, so after this i will probably concede
unless you really dazzle me lol, we'll see

Fair enough and I agree. We are just lobbing opinions from opposite sides of the merry-go-round at this point. Lol. I have greatly enjoyed this as well. Thanks for being such an engaging and worthy opponent in this debate. You have given me pause, caused me to think and I have found new insights into this topic. I will just touch on a few of your points and we can call it a day.

OB1Shinobi wrote: im not talking about being different im talking about being malevolent and yes we can classify people as malevolent

I think we are just dancing around a subtly in assignment here. I don’t think we can classify “people” as malevolent. I think we can classify “actions” (and maybe even thoughts, as you point out) as malevolent. I don’t believe that any person can be classified as absolutely anything including evil. And yes according to the definition that is what evil is - the wishing of or enacting of harm on others. That is a definition we made up because we have classified a specific family of thoughts and actions within that definition. Outside of that definition and paradigm family evil does not exist.

OB1Shinobi wrote: neither does courage or love or integrity, but they are real, and fundamental to human interaction

No actually those things are not real, Just like evil is not real. These are also a paradigm we made up to classify a family of thoughts and actions, nothing more.

OB1Shinobi wrote: does "sick" somehow disqualify one from being "malevolent"?

No I guess it doesn’t have to. He can be both as you say. Good point.

OB1Shinobi wrote: ts kind of sweet how you make the mass murderer sound so vulnerable lol poor little mass murderer, he just wanted some friends!
i dont think theres ever been kid in greater need of a puppy, who at the same time was less able to be trusted with one

LMAO… I really didn’t mean to have it come off that way. My point was that we are all capable of evil and we are capable of manifesting it in ways we never imagine. Butterfly effect sort of stuff I guess, even the smallest negative actions can potentially have a great impact. We just need to be very diligent of our own actions as well as keeping that eye on everyone else. You are right to an extent in the fact that we are responsible for our actions right up to the point we are not. That is why we also have a definition for criminally insane. And who knows where that line really is outside of our limited legal definition of it.

A defense asserted by an accused in a criminal prosecution to avoid liability for the commission of a crime because, at the time of the crime, the person did not appreciate the nature or quality or wrongfulness of the acts.

For me it comes down to that natural order of the universe of which bad things are necessary a part. How we classify those things and how we deal with them is up to each of us individually and collectively as a species. I think for the most part we agree on most of these things. It’s just the details in the different world views that differ.

One can either accept these things for what they are or rage against them in a futile attempt to eradicate them. I for one don’t see how anyone can not accept that what we call "the paradigm of evil" is actually an integral component of reality and therefore just as much a benefit to us as any other aspect of nature. When you look at it that way the component aspect of it goes away and it just becomes nature itself. After all everything is really just one thing, right?

OB1Shinobi wrote: ...courage...love...integrity...are real, and fundamental to human interaction

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: No actually those things are not real, Just like evil is not real. These are also a paradigm we made up to classify a family of thoughts and actions, nothing more.

i do want to talk about this, but not here...