Reading skills are important. For example, you look like a total ass if you can't even read the name of who wrote what you're quoting in your post. I'm going to leave the error there, so as to not cause any confusion with the comments. Also because I don't believe that just because I can change my posts and comments to hide stupid carelessness, doesn't mean I should.
Tamarind, this was stupid and you know it.
As long as you remain within the terms of service, you have the right do do anything in the game which you are capable of doing within the game.
I'd like to introduce what I call "you get arrested by time-traveling police".
We've all heard the "might makes right" concept and most people can at least accept that this isn't true, even if in practical terms might tends to win. Less explicitly stated is the "legal makes right" concept, or in fitting with my title "right makes right". If you can do it, it must be okay.
With that kind of thinking we'd never have any laws. If X action is not illegal, then X action must be moral. All we have to do is go back to before laws, and X action can be anything. In other words, once upon a time "right makes right" would have justified an entirely law-free world. If you think you like this idea, keep in mind this gives anyone the right to kill you, rob you, rape you, torture you. Get the idea? Then let's try something that seems sensible: if something is moral, it shouldn't be illegal.
See where we're going? Yep, it's the good old circular logic. It's not illegal so it must be moral and because it's moral we shouldn't make it illegal.
But obviously we've not used this standard forever. At some point someone recognized that a legal action is possible immoral or dangerous to others (at the very least murder laws are practical, regardless of morality). So they made it illegal. Deviating from murder, which has always been considered bad except during war or religion, meaning never, but setting aside that contradiction, let's look at slavery. Slavery was once legal, and even considered by some to be moral, since Negros need a master or else they'd never see Jesus. But thankfully, someone, many people actually, saw that legality does not define morality, nor the reverse, and that therefore while slavery was legal, it was likely not moral. So eventually slavery became illegal and we renamed it capitalism. Joking. Maybe.
Along this line we can see that what we call legal now may be illegal in the future. And so come the time-traveling police. Their job is to arrest people for what is immoral but not yet illegal.
And to loop it all back around: just because you can do something doesn't mean you should and it doesn't justify it either. I can throw this teapot (it's next to my monitor) out my window and it will likely break. It is legal. It's also stupid and counterproductive. If someone needs the law to defend their actions, lacking any other defense, they're using quicksand as their foundation.
P.S. I acknowledge that morality is a vague, slippery thing on which people are unlikely to agree absolutely. That's not my main purpose here. Instead I wanted to address the idea that once something is legal, anything goes.
P.S.S. "I would really have thought the title being “Chas’ Take on Frostgate” would have given the game away…" - Tamarind
7 comments:
Dear Klep, Tam didn't write this post. Chastity did.
First off: Chas, not Tam.
Secondly, I think you've sort of missed what I was actually saying. Indeed you're kind of arguing my point for me - what I said was that whether Frost was right or wrong, he had every right to do what he did.
And to loop it all back around: just because you can do something doesn't mean you should and it doesn't justify it either
I don't believe I ever said that it did. What I think justifies his actions is that I believe it is appropriate and correct to punish people for treating you badly if there is no external authority to do it for you.
What I said was that Frost did not need to be "given" the right to pull Volzaj without the rest of the pug present, he had that right already.
I can throw this teapot (it's next to my monitor) out my window and it will likely break. It is legal. It's also stupid and counterproductive.
But you still have the right to do it, if you want to - barring laws about public safety.
If somebody were to say "the fact that that teapot is an ugly colour does not give you the right to throw it out of the window" they would be making a statement which, while factually correct, would be completely meaningless. You have the right to throw your teapot out of your window anyway. Whether it is a good idea is a separate issue.
Sorry, I was way too snippy about it - I'm afraid I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about being mistaken for Chas, not because I don't have a great deal of respect for him but because I think and express myself quite differently him (at least I think so ...). It is incredibly easy to muddle up the authorship of posts over at RO, people do it all the time, you're certainly not the first, you won't be the last and I should try to find some strong visual way of differentiating them but I think it's beyond my artistic skills! Also whinging because you didn't see the title - and let's face it, people pay much more attention to the body of posts than the title - made it sound like I was "l2readnoob"ing you, which I wouldn't!
Sorries Tam & Chas, but we interwebber's always gonna treat ya like you's the one and the same bugger. Is not what we's disrespectful, is just we's a simple folk.
Except Larísa, who be wise beyond her centimeters.
"Dangerous", "counterproductive" are measurable. "Moral" is not. It's merely a rephrasing of "my mum/teacher/priest thought it's right and told me when I was a kid and I never had the brains or time to question it".
I hope even you don't consider "mum told me" a lawmaking authority.
While I agree with Chastity's conclusion, I disagree with the justification.
1. Groups of people can have rules that govern the behavior of people who belong to said groups.
2. These rules have many names, which are determined by the type of the group and the consequences for following/breaking these rules. For example, rules that apply to all citizens and residents of a given country are called "laws"; rules that apply to parties in a deal are called "terms of contract"; rules that apply to followers of a given religion may be called "commandments", and so forth.
3. Rules of different groups can be in accordance with each other, or in opposition. If I murder someone, it will be simultaneously a sin (by the rules of my religion), a crime (by the rules of the state), and an immoral act (by the rules of the society). If I go to the office on Monday wearing a pink T-shirt and a baseball hat, it will be a policy violation (by the rules of the company), but not a sin or a crime.
4. Frostheim, who abandoned his group in the middle of a heroic run, is a member of several groups: "WoW subscribers", "members of the WoW community" and "prominent bloggers".
4a. As a subscriber, he is bound by ToS. As Chastity accurately pointed out, ToS don't regulate such behavior. Therefore, he is acting as a subscriber should.
4b. As a member of the community, he is subject to its moral rules. According to them, Frostheim's action is a rather minor and common violation. While it's not something that one should strive to do, it's not as bad as, say, being a ninja.
4c. As a prominent blogger, he is expected to follow certain ethical standards and refrain from actions like plagiarizing the work of others or deliberately misleading his readers. These standards don't regulate abandoning one's group, so he's clean on this count. This, however, has nothing to do with point 4a.
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"I hope even you don't consider "mum told me" a lawmaking authority." - Gevlon
And yet we're supposed to recognize "some guy who got randomly selected to be WG leader" as a legitimate authority? :P
4c. As a prominent blogger, he is expected to follow certain ethical standards and refrain from actions like plagiarizing the work of others or deliberately misleading his readers. These standards don't regulate abandoning one's group, so he's clean on this count. This, however, has nothing to do with point 4a.
Replace "prominent blogger" with "human" and I'd agree with you.
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