Poll: Video Gamings Most One Sided Arguments.

[CloudAtlas]

Is hand wringing over the existential quandary justified? It's hard to say. Humanity has only ever recorded what it's like to be human. It's impossible to say what being not-human would be like and if the exchange is worth the toll.

But it might not be long until we have to ask ourselves those questions.

People already do mental or physical doping today, the expand their capabilities beyond what is naturally possible. Now the long-term effects are good reasons not to do that, but what if those negative effects can be eliminated? Will I be forced to dope to be able to compete at the workplace?

And what about fiddling with procreation? We might be able to identify what genes lead to what in a fertilized egg in the not so far away future, at least to some degree. Then parents might only select eggs that promise healthy, intelligent, attractive offspring. If they can afford it, that is. We, who are living now on this world, might end up mighty ugly, frail, and dumb in comparison.

Granted, that's not the same as augmentation with machinery and such, but it's not that different either.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

(everything)

Except Black Marsh. xD Argonians Rule!

Amusingly, I've felt for the longest time that the Argonians are the ones who will come out on top in all this. They control the entire eastern half of Tamriel now that they have Morrowind under their control. They're not directly allied with either the Empire or the Dominion and completely avoided any damage from both the Oblivion crisis while Cyrodil and Skyrim got completely thrashed (supposedly other places did as well, but there's no historical records of it). Not only that, but now they're almost entirely united under a single banner because of the Oblivion crisis instead of bein mostly just warring tribes.

On top of that, they're completely seperated from the civil war in Skyrim while every other political faction has some sort of fallout from it.

So yeah. Argonians are goin to control Tamriel by the end of it all. Wait and see.

Fun tidbit I read while I was browsin the Elder Scrolls Wiki in order to learn more.

The Argonian forces apparently managed to flood into Oblivion itself, fighting and winning against the Daedra on their own turf. The Dremora lieutenants were forced to close their own Gates to prevent being overrun, something unheard of anywhere else.

That's right. The Argonians pushed back so hard that the Daedra actually ran the fuck away as fast as they could. No one pulled that off. Not the Nords, not the Dominion, not even the hero of Tamriel was able to push back so ferociously that the Daedra willingly closed their own gates in order to keep themselves from bein completely slaughtered.

Seriously. The only logical choice is to side with the Argonians from now on which makes me extremely annoyed that they're not one of the playable factions in Elders Scrolls online.

I really hope the next Elder Scrolls is in Black Marsh. That place just sounds so cool.

Spoiler: Plus, I want to see some kids that aren't nord/imperial kids. Yeah I know Braith was a redguard, but compare her complexion to her parents. It's weird. [spoiler=I mean, look at this Argonian family.

:3 So cute.

I know it's not really a big deal but it's a little thing that bugged me in skyrim. Yeah, it's the home of the nords, but other races have lived there a long time too. No elf children is somewhat forgivable because they live so long, and don't have kids that often.

Anyway, to the point about Elder Scrolls Online. It is 1,000 or so years before skyrim(meaning about 800 before oblivion), so the Argonians aren't what they are now in terms of political power. But you can still play as one at least, and they do have their own group faction.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

There's a very good reason DE:HR seems one sided.

And that's because it is.

For one, you're literally forced to be augmented and it has not one, not two, but zero side effects. This means that instead of a realistic debate it's instead a matter of the transhumanists automatically being on the side of the player and the naturalists being wrong.

A good point. Sometimes a game has it's own message, and thus can be a bit bias in how it presents the argument.
That said, it is an issue that may soon be a reality.

Also, in the game it does show how the augmentations are being used to control peoples lives who are not free of the side effects. So I wouldn't say it's completely one sided, but you could easily argue it's a bit lopsided at the very least.

It really isn't a good point; the question of cost of transhumanism isn't in the toll it takes on the body.

I kind of meant more that the games may sometimes favor one side over the other sometimes, but I see what you're talking about.

Augmentation can eliminate any weakness. Virtually any illness present in the game's fiction can be effectively combated with technology. Frailty and strength, health and sickness, even power and helplessness have become goods to be bartered for at a reasonable price. So much of the human experience is tied to tragedy and as a species we are as apt to remember our great moments of pain as we are for those moments of victory. Things fundamental to the human experience are endangered by augmentation.

True. However, many augmentations act not as just improvements, but as replacements for parts the person has lost/don't work as well as they should. Some apparently work just as well as the real parts, that you could say the only real difference is that the replacements just happen to be fake.

In that way was anything really lost, in terms of one's humanity? You could say that with this use, we can bring people who have lost limbs, can hear, see, or have week hearts to a higher(and normal) quality of life.

If someone gets robot eyes because they are blind, do they lose some of their humanity, or do they gain some through being able to experience life with a new(and "normal") perspective?

Then again, perhaps I am mixing up feeling human, with feeling happy.

As for the rich getting augments just because they can, and it makes things easier? Well, I personally don't see that much difference between that, and those so rich now they can afford to fly everywhere in a helicopter if they so wish.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

True. However, many augmentations act not as just improvements, but as replacements for parts the person has lost/don't work as well as they should. Some apparently work just as well as the real parts, that you could say the only real difference is that the replacements just happen to be fake.

The dilemma is precisely that those parts are better than the ones you have. It allows you to engineer away your weaknesses rather than adapting in other ways. Some would argue that facing such adversity is a part of what made you who you are and that by eliminating such things, it could only degrade humanity as a whole.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

True. However, many augmentations act not as just improvements, but as replacements for parts the person has lost/don't work as well as they should. Some apparently work just as well as the real parts, that you could say the only real difference is that the replacements just happen to be fake.

The dilemma is precisely that those parts are better than the ones you have. It allows you to engineer away your weaknesses rather than adapting in other ways. Some would argue that facing such adversity is a part of what made you who you are and that by eliminating such things, it could only degrade humanity as a whole.

The use of such technology is an adaptation. The way we face the issues, and win. Like how some birds use cactus needles to fish out grubs in trees.

This is just using more advanced technology to combat more complicated problems. Doing such is what makes it possible for us to even have this very conversation right now, even though you and I are on different sides of the U.S.

That's not to say there can't be issues with technology. Almost all technology has been abused in some way.
That said, why toil and suffer, when you can just solve the problem?

 

[skywolfblue]

True. However, many augmentations act not as just improvements, but as replacements for parts the person has lost/don't work as well as they should. Some apparently work just as well as the real parts, that you could say the only real difference is that the replacements just happen to be fake.

The dilemma is precisely that those parts are better than the ones you have. It allows you to engineer away your weaknesses rather than adapting in other ways. Some would argue that facing such adversity is a part of what made you who you are and that by eliminating such things, it could only degrade humanity as a whole.

The use of such technology is an adaptation. The way we face the issues, and win. Like how some birds use cactus needles to fish out grubs in trees.

This is just using more advanced technology to combat more complicated problems. Doing such is what makes it possible for us to even have this very conversation right now, even though you and I are on different sides of the U.S.

That's not to say there can't be issues with technology. Almost all technology has been abused in some way.
That said, why toil and suffer, when you can just solve the problem?

The Path of Least Resistance is tempting, but perhaps it's a path we shouldn't always follow.

When instead of learning virtues like patience, we "go out and buy a faster aug", perhaps we're missing out on some of life's more important lessons.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

True. Most people do put the argument in turns of moving to the middle path. However, I can it one sided because they do usually use the short hand "I support the mages." when explaining what side they chose. Plus the Templars(mostly) don't really want a "middle way" to solve the problem, but rather to keep the status quo. Which is pretty much as much control as the Templars can get away with.

That said, this perception could be a bit bias because it's based on how the game frames the argument. Showing most mages asking for just a few more basic rights, and higher ranked Templars unwilling to give an inch. Because while it wasn't shown as much, there were Templars who believed that the mages could be trusted with more freedom, and there were some mages who probably should be locked up for good.

Again, this is all kind of based of what I have observed. In truth, it isn't impossible that I have it backwards, or like you said, the arguments may not really be that one sided.

Well, the argument against giving mages any freedom in the world of Dragon Age is, as I see it, that, in principle, every living mage is a potential gateway for demons that might end up subjugating or even ending the whole world. Pretty high stakes. And it's not just a hypothetical risk either, as mages are summoning demons and stuff again and again, so, eventually, it might be bound to happen. In the real world, large groups of people were stripped of their freedom for much lesser reasons (think of people with Japanese origin in the US during WW II).
Anyway, the moral question is: Is it justified to infringe upon the right to personal freedom of every member of a certain group just because some members pose a certain (great) risk for society as whole? And that's what I like about this question, because it's such a central question in moral philosophy, and in practical policy as well. And the game pushes this question to the limit: it's one thing if the risk is just someone hijacking a plane to blow up a building; the equivalent to the consequences in Dragon Age, however, would look more Al Qaeda acquiring 100 nukes.

What decision did I make personally in DA:O? Well, not really on moral grounds. I tried a city elf origin first, but switched to an elf mage. And my mage was pretty fed up with the racism she faced, with being imprisoned in this ugly tower, with being deceived into becoming a warden, and I, as a player, didn't like the game and so I didn't care about this world that much either, so she burned everything to the ground.

If I may be so bold, can I ask what you thought of the Human Revolution debate on human augmentation? Do you think that it may not be so one sided as well?

I haven't played it and know nothing about it, so I'm afraid I don't have an opinion here.

To be fair, the consequences for a mage summoning a demon are not the end of the world. Leaving aside that the Warden kills them constantly (since thats gameplay/story divide, and the Warden can also wipe out armies of darkspawn, mercenaries, whatever.) the templars generally reference the chasing down demon possessed mages as costing a year or two, several villages, and a few squads of templars. Also, locking the mages up doesn't seem to work very well... at least in my opinion. It seems that making people who can trade their humanity and morality for immense power really really angry, scared, desperate, and filled with hatred isn't that safe. Most of the abominations were created to fight the templars.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

True. However, many augmentations act not as just improvements, but as replacements for parts the person has lost/don't work as well as they should. Some apparently work just as well as the real parts, that you could say the only real difference is that the replacements just happen to be fake.

The dilemma is precisely that those parts are better than the ones you have. It allows you to engineer away your weaknesses rather than adapting in other ways. Some would argue that facing such adversity is a part of what made you who you are and that by eliminating such things, it could only degrade humanity as a whole.

The use of such technology is an adaptation. The way we face the issues, and win. Like how some birds use cactus needles to fish out grubs in trees.

This is just using more advanced technology to combat more complicated problems. Doing such is what makes it possible for us to even have this very conversation right now, even though you and I are on different sides of the U.S.

That's not to say there can't be issues with technology. Almost all technology has been abused in some way.
That said, why toil and suffer, when you can just solve the problem?

The Path of Least Resistance is tempting, but perhaps it's a path we shouldn't always follow.

When instead of learning virtues like patience, we "go out and buy a faster aug", perhaps we're missing out on some of life's more important lessons.

Sometimes perhaps, but even such advanced technology has limits of what it can do. Even though it may make our lives easier, it will never make them perfect. The tests of daily life will simply be replaced by others. For example, when we went from horses, to cars.

Perfection is unattainable in life. However, that just means we can always do better.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

That's a good one. Though, with the reapers breathing down you neck, it can make it easier to chose. Unless you were completely on the fence.
For me, I just figured, if they infected them with the stuff twice, I think they can do it again, so why not just cure it now, and if they act up, infect them again! Plus I tursted Wrex.

To me, the "Salarian argument" - we need the genophage to keep the Krogan in check in the future - is not what made the decision difficult - although the game tries its best to frame this argument as to make it matter. At the time when you have to make the decision, you know that you're fighting in a war against the extinction of all advanced life in the galaxy, and your situation is desperate. Conflicts that might or might not arise after this war is won, if it is won at all, which doesn't seem likely in the first place, has absolutely zero relevance.
I doubt that even the Salarians think that the genophage was the morally right thing to do in itself: you're almost sterilizing an entire species, and the effect that this has on the fabric of society of this species were horrible. But they felt it was necessary, that is, they justify the genophage with the Greater Good. They adopt the utilitarian position: The ends justify the means. But now, the situation has changed: The Salarian position of not curing the genophage is not only morally wrong, and unambiguously so I would argue, it is now also detrimental to the Greater Good. The only thing that does matter from the utilitarian perspective now is not being annihilated, and keeping the genophage is reducing the Krogan war effort, and thus increasing the chance of annihilation.

Unfortunately, the Salarians are incredibly stupid, and that's not the decision the player has to make: He has to decide between curing the genophage, thus winning the Krogan support but loosing the Salarian support (or parts thereof, and only with some likelihood; you can't know whether they get some sense reverse their decision later), or not curing the genophage, thus winning the Salarian support and risk loosing the Krogan support (if they find out).
So you have to decide whether the Krogan or the Salarian support is more valuable for the war, and what the chances of gaining/loosing either are after your decision, i.e. which decision contributes more to the Greater Good, winning the war. And you also have to decide, if this assessment favors the Salarians, whether this difference justifies the (unambigously) immoral act of not curing the genophage, lying about it to the Krogans, and, at the end, killing a dear friend for it.
Here, some say every alternative is preferable to extinction, and thus move such moral considerations to the back seat - and indeed, utilitarian considerations tend to prevail in war, especially in total war, because the stakes are incredibly high - and I tend to agree with this view, but you can also argue that, if in order to survive you have to commit deeply immoral acts, it's not worth surviving. (To choose a real life example, think about cannibalism: is it morally permissible to eat fellow human beings to survive?)

The game pulls every emotional string to make you opt for curing the genophage, and so, if I remember some BioWare stats correctly, it's probably no surprise that 80% of all people choose the cure, but still, I found it damn hard.

To be fair, if you fake curing the genophage, you could both. And the war is likely to be over before the Krogan children mature, at least it seems that way. Still, I cured it. I trust Wrex to keep his people in check, and I trust the galactic community to win another war against the Krogan if need be, and the Krogan are very good soldiers. Though I also disagree with the moral system that marks necessary evils as equal to evils. Perhaps its because I am a Utilitarian and believe that morality has to have a logically consistent way to derive what is right or wrong. As such, if you kill someone 3 seconds before they would have died anyway, that is essentially the same as just not killing them, since all killing a person is doing is making their life end before it otherwise would have. As such, the greatest good for the greatest number is the philosophy that we should use when lives are on the line, no matter how hard the decision, or how hard the sacrifice. To kill one innocent to save ten is not only morally permissible, but morally commendable, at least from my point of view. Also, might I ask, why do you consider cannibalism immoral? It doesn't really hurt anyone, and it can save lives. Also, you have almost certainly accidently ingested human skin cells, floating in the air. Why does the act of deliberately eating human flesh cary such moral weight?

 

[SillyBear]

I think the worst has to be New Vegas. They really fucking blew it. Caesar's Legion was blatantly evil. Yes, yes, there are some kind of decent qualities about them - but you really have to force yourself to think they are a good idea. No sane human being on Earth would actually prefer them in a real situation.

It was so much wasted potential. I think Obsidian were trying to make them an "ends justify the means" type of group who enslave, murder and destroy anything in their way but actually create a safer and stronger society to be in. But it really didn't work out that way - they came across as sexist, murdering nutjobs.

I'm not saying the NCR are the greatest thing since sliced bread - but they are a fantastic video game faction. They have a whole lot of redeeming qualities and a whole lot of bad qualities. They feel realistic. They are trying to do the right thing, but corruption and over ambition seems to bite them in the ass.

 

[J Tyran]

I think the worst has to be New Vegas.

New Vegas still leaves you other choices though, you can either go with Mr House or set yourself up with power or side with the NCR.

 

[CloudAtlas]

To be fair, if you fake curing the genophage, you could both. And the war is likely to be over before the Krogan children mature, at least it seems that way. Still, I cured it. I trust Wrex to keep his people in check, and I trust the galactic community to win another war against the Krogan if need be, and the Krogan are very good soldiers.

When you fake curing the genophage, Wrex turns on you later and you loose half the Krogan support.

Though I also disagree with the moral system that marks necessary evils as equal to evils. Perhaps its because I am a Utilitarian and believe that morality has to have a logically consistent way to derive what is right or wrong. As such, if you kill someone 3 seconds before they would have died anyway, that is essentially the same as just not killing them, since all killing a person is doing is making their life end before it otherwise would have. As such, the greatest good for the greatest number is the philosophy that we should use when lives are on the line, no matter how hard the decision, or how hard the sacrifice. To kill one innocent to save ten is not only morally permissible, but morally commendable, at least from my point of view.

And it's not wrong to make the utilitarian argument. And as I said, it becomes the more persuasive the higher the stakes are, and could they be any higher as in the Reaper war?
But to recognize the moral ambiguity of a choice problem, one has to recognize that it is not the only argument that can be made. And that, I feel, is what many people who argue that this or that problem is totally one-sided seem to miss.

Also, might I ask, why do you consider cannibalism immoral? It doesn't really hurt anyone, and it can save lives. Also, you have almost certainly accidently ingested human skin cells, floating in the air. Why does the act of deliberately eating human flesh cary such moral weight?

Cannibalism just feels really wrong to many, probably most, people. Whether it is for religious or other ethical reasons, I cannot say, but that's just the way it is. There are some rather well-known examples of people resorting to cannibalism for survival, but I would imagine that few who did so made this decision lightly, and many might suffer emotionally from the act forever, even though they felt it was the right thing to do.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I think the worst has to be New Vegas. They really fucking blew it. Caesar's Legion was blatantly evil. Yes, yes, there are some kind of decent qualities about them - but you really have to force yourself to think they are a good idea. No sane human being on Earth would actually prefer them in a real situation.

I think the worst has to be New Vegas. They really fucking blew it. Caesar's Legion was blatantly evil. Yes, yes, there are some kind of decent qualities about them - but you really have to force yourself to think they are a good idea. No sane human being on Earth would actually prefer them in a real situation.

It's all a matter of perspective. The greatest problem humanity faced follwing the war disorder and disunity. Think of the bandit threat that plagues the wastes 200 years later. The difficulty of transporting goods from place to place. The problems of feeding a people. The simple burecracy that allows society to function - these things are so shattered by the war that in 200 years, there are only a few truly notable instances where nations rose from ashes.

Even the mighty NCR struggles to maintain rule of a relatively small area with a host of human crises arising every year. Bandits still plague their wastes, supplies are still hard to come by, farming remains difficult and life, ultimately, remains nasty and brutish for most. The average citizen pays taxes for an army incapable of protecting them. They are beholden to a government that uses lethal force above due process. They are unwillingly sent to fight a war that's almost impossible for them to win over a piece of terrain they don't truly need.

By Contrast, the legion has won, through the same fire and steel as the NCR, a huge swath of land. In it, there is far greater security and stability in all aspects of daily life. The perception of brutality is only that: perception. Ceasar brought order to the wastes east of the Colorado. In his role, he is, at worst a historical arsonist - a figure like Alexander the Great or Napoleon. In two hundred years, societies had barely recovered before being mired in stagnation, all but incapable of any significant advance without help. The NCR is but a decident edifice that does a pleasant impression of what they dimly remember about American Democracy and in two hundred years - time sufficient for the actual United States to go from a handful of states and a scant few million inhabitants to a nation that stretched across the continent and home to more than 150 million. The NCR couldn't build roads. Or schools. Or cities. They could just piece together the ruins and ashes of what came before. They could just pretend to be a nation

Ceasar may not have had the power to subdue the entire NCR - the game doesn't give us sufficient information to make that determination. But the war that would have surely followed his all but inevitable victory at the Dam would have provided such a shove that unless the NCR adapated and actually made themselves into an effective nation would have brought them to ruin.

Ceasar, like all truly great leaders in history, certainly wasn't a nice guy. But pointing to his violence and brutality as evidence that he is the villain overlooks the reality that his violence and brutality was necessary. And even when you look at historical arsonists, Ceasar's actions seem downright pleasant compared to most of them. People were absorbed into the Legion rather than slaughtered whenever possible for example.