Are We Evil?

Atrocities · #1 January 3rd, 2004, 10:19 AM

Ok so your the ruler of a vast stellor empire with enemies all around you. You have commanded your forces to obliterate an enemy planet. Your ships defeat the planets orbital defense and anihilate the planets Weapons Platforms. All you have to do now is drop troops but instead you glass the population from orbit killing 16 Billion people.

Does that make you Evil? Think about it, if that was a real planet, those were real beings, would not what you have just done be considered a crime against the galaxy? Whole sale extermination of the population of an entire planet?

I guess the next logical question would be if you enjoyed exterminating that planets population. Well did you? I hate to say it, but yes, I loved blowing those insects to hell. I mean how dare they be on my planet before I ever even knew it exsisted. What the hell, this is a four X game with on of the X meaning Exterminate.

But if in some far off distant reality those were real living breathing beings, how would you feel about killing them in mass?

The order to commite genocide against an entire planet is an order that I could not give. But then again, who knows the circumstances. What if that planet was filled with 16 billion vampires who have been feeding on your worlds for centuries, then wiping them out would only be the right thing to do. Then again what if they are a planet of women and children vampires? Would the same apply?

Would we as a leader of our own empire not be as evil as those we kill by killing them?

To be an effective leader is to made a decision and never question it. Decisiveness is a weakness that one can not aford when ruling a vast stellor empire. So in the end, burn them or conqeur them it makes little differance. Glass them and your an evil SOB, drop troops and loose them and your a poor leader and will be ousted. Given those alternatives, the Vampires would fry.

Taera · #2 January 3rd, 2004, 11:35 AM

The boundaries of human morals would claim that as evil, but more logically/technically sometimes its the only way to go. Of course, not that i'd advocate doing that in real life

but face it, it is far more effective.

Narratio · #3 January 3rd, 2004, 01:35 PM

And that, Bug my bug, was the decision the US made over Hiroshima... (maybe not Nagasaki, I'm unsure). They projected casualties from an Operation Olympic, compared to testing out the first "real tough toys for real tough boys".

The Japanese fried and we're still discussing it.

Karibu · #4 January 4th, 2004, 02:43 AM

They bombed Nagasaki also. I believe it saved lives compared what attack on Japan islands would have costed. However, I think I would not have bombed cities first, but made a show in some nearby place where their emperor could see the result and told that next one will be dropped in Tokyo. I am not sure if I would have the courage to order such bombing.

Gryphin · #5 January 3rd, 2004, 03:30 PM

I think you may recall, I won't glass a planet. I will only capture them.

I find even though it is no more than a bunch of 1s an zeros I still can't get into it.

oleg · #6 January 3rd, 2004, 03:35 PM

I don't want to get into another A-bomb discussion, thank you.

As to the original question, what is evil ? I had a relative died of cancer recently. Does it makes cancer cells evil ? But humans are not mindless cells, you say ! Are you sure ? Even if humans have free will - it will be debated forever - does that makes humanity as whole a conscious force for good ? Or are our moral dilemas no more than Brownian motion of tiny cells in a suicadal cancer devouring the life on the planet ?