Why Preach?

ajqtrz wrote: So, in summary, I understand some of you don't like my style but let's try to stick to the subject at hand.  You do realize that every time you stray from the subject at hand and I feel it necessary to say things like this, I am forced to sound like your school teacher, right?  Sigh.  So if you stay on the subject at least I'll sound like your school teacher less often? AJ

AJ, the post by Shul-Nak addresses the subject at hand very articulately. Everyone else has given up because when other people did get to the subject at hand (like Angrim, Brandmeister, or AbstractDream in the past) you did not engage with their arguments.

Its nice seeing Players standing up to AJ and people like him for once 

ajqtrz, your continued imposition of real-world morals upon this virtual sandbox are frankly laughable.

Firstly, I have seen you contend that you have some right to free speech here. I distinctly recall signing away my rights to free speech when I accepted the terms and conditions of Illyriad that specifically deny the ability to discuss certain topics. If you were truly trying to defend free speech here, I would argue that attacking the banhammer, the Block function, Rikoo's chat moderation, and other means of literally silencing people would be a far more convincing use of your time in this respect.

So, there was no free speech to begin with.

You also claim that your suffering of in-game attacks over your tiresome rhetoric are a form of 'bullying.' While the letter of the definition would dictate that any in-game attacks here may be a form of coercion, there are important distinctions to make in the spirit of it : firstly, attacks on your virtual holdings here are not attacks on you personally. A personal attack goes above and beyond what is displayed in the sandbox; attacking a person's real world gender, job, family, lifestyle choices, who, importantly, did not choose to enter a discussion where those things might be challenged.

In addition, the rise and fall of your virtual holdings here in no way affects your ability to speak as you will. Any harm inflicted upon you because of your attachment to the things you build in this fictional, virtual world, are entirely a result of your own decision to place values on them. In the real world, people who speak out may risk their health, lives, the security of their family and friends. Here you are risking some digits on a screen.

In the real world, a true debate has no virtual cities in its periphery whose existence still has absolutely no effect on the legitimacy of the arguments being put forward. They are a distraction, aj, a useful tool for you to paint the attacks you suffer in-game as violations of fundamental rights of modern socities.

For the sake of all that is reasonable, this is a fantasy sandbox where the very existence of offensive military and diplomatic measures explicitly shows that the developers intended conflict to be a part of the game and metagame. Any player who places such importance on their 'possessions' here that an attack upon them is synonymous with an attack on their real-life core moral values or emotional health - is someone who should seriously re-evaluate their attachment for the sake of their own happiness. For the majority of people, this is not an environment in which to attain intellectual enlightenment via game mechanics.

You cite reading the Lord of the Rings as a means of comparing the escapism and imaginative freedoms afforded to us by literature and gaming. aj, I read the Lord of the Rings when I was 10 years old, if you want to play intellectual e-peen measuring. I'm a genius. A god amongst men. Really. FIGJAM. I am 20 years old now, making me a fine statistic for your 'younger people play more aggressively' assertion.

And I was fascinated - not by the 'good guys,' but by the savage and mysterious world of the orcs - these pitiable creatures who were driven to madness and cruelty by their savage master. That was what captured my imagination, and makes me prone to playing as savage greenskins in fantasy games. I find it fun to be competitive, violent, playing a way to build a story that I never would in real life.

Am I a closet psycho for finding them interesting? Am I just hiding behind the veneer of online gaming to indulge my need to bully and hurt people? Do I eat people in real life? No. Do I massacre wild animals in the name of a Dark Lord? No. Nor do I really wish extinction upon entire races for events that occured in a fictional universe's history.

But the imagination you cite is the reason many people are drawn here - to take choices in ways that they never could in real life. Look at the stories people write on their profile - Belegar's being the first example that springs to mind. I do not have the opportunity to siege cities, to ruthlessly impose my will on other people because I am very aware it is morally wrong to do so, and have a strong aversion to causing people harm.

Here in Illyriad, though, we are free to construct characters who take moral choices in a very different light than we do in real life. Do you still massacre animals in Illyriad, aj? Your attack score would seem to suggest so. Is that not an immoral choice also in the context of our real-world values? Maybe, in some circumstances. And yet it is a thoughtlessly accepted part of the game mechanics here.

This is why I cannot ever agree that the avatars we see are 100% synonymous with real people. The loss of 200 wild dog lives from the system is, in my mind, the same as myself losing hundreds of population, or entire cities during a siege. It is meaningless here, aj, because I recognise the wisdom of the Buddhists who destroy their beautiful mandalas after painstaking hours of creating them; all we have is dust, a flash in the eye of time. That philosophy is thrown into even greater focus in a virtual game.

In the age of internet censorship and continued violations of privacy, the fact that you choose to take your crusade here, and then have the unbelievable hubris to paint yourself as some intellectual martyr to the cause when people do not respond in the fashion that you wish - is actually hilarious.

You make this mistake continuosly of claiming that people are attacking you directly, or your morals, which are, to be fair, sound and agreeable in terms of the real world. But that is not why they attack you, aj. They attack you because you are unwilling to accept that the manner in which you act is directly impinging on their enjoyment, and enjoyment they may take in retaliating via in-game methods - and we know full well this does not invalidate your arguments, but they, too, have no place heree.

You are the footballer who claims that conceding a goal is a form of bullying, and condemns those who place value on scoring some goals because it hurts another team.
You are the preacher in the concert hall who claims that his removal for shouting over the music is an attack on 'free speech.'
You are all these analogies, aj, and your diversionary tactics do not fool anyone who, like me, has made the mistake of paying serious attention to your arguments.

I can only surmise you do this as some kind of clever trolling attempt, or maybe a social experiment to indulge your curiosity, because it does a disservice to those who claim to be wise and true when you are so tragically misguided in your pursuits. Your eventual managing to alienate some of the most friendly and accommodating characters in Illyria is something of an achievement.

I continue to watch your endeavours with bemusement.

Yours,

An Orcish philospher-warrior,

Shûl-nak


Edited by Shûl-nak - 23 Jan 2016 at 06:20

I think the crux of the issue here, aj, is not that anyone disputes your amazing viruosity in preaching, it's just that no-one considers preaching to be a useful endeavor.

lol never heard of that one before Killerpoodle, you sir may have hit the nail on the head....... and you just won the debate.