On the other hand, 3rd ed was about "How much jerky did you bring when you went on this hike?", "Well, that's not enough jerky".
4th Ed is the first one I can play with my friends where we spend more time playing than looking in damn books. Also, if you don't like Eladrin (basically High Elves) or Dragonborn, don't play them.
That damnable old school D&D forcing people to read and remember things written in books! How very dare they!
P.S. you could have taken your own advice with regard to ration rules if they annoyed you so much -- don't use them.
You're assuming the point of rape is to fulfill sexual desire -- it's not, it's about wielding power over someone else. Given this, motive then isn't "heterosexual male" (i.e. horny), but rather "need to assert power over another" which then means opportunity isn't fulfilled by finding a willing participant.
By your argument Mike Tyson would have been innocent of rape purely on his celebrity status granting him a plethora of women willing to sleep with him.
Gee, the timing here is rather suspicious. While it's certainly possible that the charge is substantive one immediately has to wonder about correlation with the past and impending leaks. One must be careful of post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies, but that doesn't mean there definitely isn't a connection.
You're missing the point. It's an illustrative example which looks at the justification of the response in order to determine the ethical system employed -- look above to my response to the other AC -- overwhelmingly the justification given is in teleological terms -- bad things will happen.
Besides which, you don't have "C" listed correctly. It's not that rule systems are simplistic, but that they don't look at consequences -- obedience is the only requisite in order to be acting morally under a Deontological system -- consequences are not a consideration at all. If you want an argument as opposed to the description I was giving above, then one would run like this:
A. Deontological ethics is based upon adherence to rules.
B. Teleological ethics is based upon the outcome of an action.
C. When given a "hard case" moral dilemma where adherence to a common Deontological ethical rule (i.e. truth telling) results in dire consequences most respondents will ignore the rule and heed the consequences -- the decision is based upon the outcome of an action.
Therefore, most people are already considering consequences (thinking Teleologically) when making "hard case" moral decisions -- this a decidedly non-Deontological approach to determining the ethics of a situation.
Deontological rules in ethics don't have a hierarchy -- they are derived from the divine or reason and as such are equally weighted.
Besides, the overwhelming type of response when queried about the justification for answering "No" to the Nazis is teleological -- it's about the outcome or consequences. In short, it's a straight up Utilitarian justification.
That's why it's such an often used scenario for discussion -- it's very illuminating to see how many appeal to consequential ethics without even realizing it.
I could have probably clarified things much more simply by just giving the ten commandments as an example -- these are the types of rules that constitute a Deontological ethic. It's not rules like human laws and such -- it's universal rules seen as the basis for all ethical activity.
Note the rule I'm referring to is: "lying is wrong". This is the classical form of this example which is used to demonstrate the case. This differs from what the poster I was replying to was referring to since he was talking about the hiding of the Jews to be the rule break (to better mirror the poster's form he was replying to). So, from what I was outlining there is no antecedent rule break -- the telling of the lie is the rule break and the hiding of the Jews to begin with isn't the subject of an ethical analysis (one can break a human created law/rule but still be acting ethically).
To come to your question on the rule makers: no, there is no room for their fallibility. Your mistaking the Nazis for the rule makers here (hiding Jews is against the law) -- they're not, it's god or reason that are the rule makers. Deontological ethical system's rules are seen to be infallible either by way of appeal to an infallible god or by way of arguments seen to be sound. These are rules handed out by god or by reason -- therefore they are infallible.
I should have probably been clearer when I used the term "rule" and made sure it wasn't simply any rule or rule system I was referring to, but god's rules or reason's rules that are seen as the tenets of morality for the adherent of a Deontological ethical system.
This is actually a fairly common example used to illustrate that most people's ethics are of the Utilitarian sort as opposed to the Deontological sort -- even those who would describe themselves as adhering to a Deontological type of ethics (i.e. Christians).
Deontological ethics holds a thing is wrong if a rule is violated -- i.e. a lie is told. It is wrong to tell a lie -- period. There is no situational or contextual element in the analysis -- one simply obeys in order to be ethical and if one disobeys one is unethical.
Utilitarian ethics has a strong contextual element which focuses on likely happiness/unhappiness resulting from an action and searches for the maximization of happiness as the ethical end -- the ethical is that which maximizes happiness.
Given the situation above with regard to the Nazis knocking on the door and asking, "Do you have Jews hiding here?" the vast majority of respondents will say the ethical answer is "No" and justify that answer by way of what would happen if they answered truthfully -- the Jews would face horrible suffering and/or death. In short, the maximization of happiness in this case means breaking a rule against lying since adhering to that rule will mean greater suffering.
Most people who are strong adherents to Deontological ethical systems don't see themselves as violating their ethical beliefs in this circumstance, but they most assuredly are doing so. They might think of it as an "exception" or find some other justification, but in the end they are utilizing a competing and antithetical ethical system to the one they purport to adhere to -- they're actually Utilitarians at heart even if they don't recognize themselves as such.
One can be an adherent to an ethical system which is solely rules based ("x" is wrong no matter what), but in doing so one must sanction some truly horrible actions -- like answering "Yes" when the Nazis knock and ask if Jews are hiding in the basement.
Either they'll find a way to play it for free, or they'll go find something else to spend their time on.
As a developer, the latter would sure help me sleep better at night, knowing my product isn't benefitting some punk-ass Generation Me self-righteous little shit who refuses to pay for anything they can get away with. Between that and preventing casual piracy, DRM is more than worth it.
I'm glad you posted because you're pointing out the real core issue with piracy that the people hell bent on fighting it have -- and it's not about economic loss at all. It's that some people just simply can't abide the notion that someone else is getting something for nothing -- even though that someone else isn't costing them money in the process. It's the gall felt at the thought of someone getting all the same benefit as someone else, but being able to side step the economic transaction -- this is why DRM makers make their money.
Critics? No, it was the consumers -- they preferred the easy to digest answers given by the Sophists of the day -- and ultimately silenced him for being a gadfly.
In the end, however, he chose to end his own career when he chose to end his own life. He could have escaped death at his trial and even after sentence, but ultimately refused to take any of the ways out that were available to him.
Obsidian's games tend to be flawed, but that's still a bit unfair.
Speaking only of the official campaign, BioWare's NWN is not even comparable to what Obsidian did with NWN2 (the only real appeal of the first game was the multiplayer.).
The problem with your analysis here is that NWN's was something very much more than the official campaign -- from the get go it was designed to be a tool for people to make their own adventures and play together. The OC was only supposed to be little more than a demo of what might be done. When Bioware lost the Baldur's Gate franchise through the legal battles with Interplay (parent of Black Isle who's remnants are now Obsidian) they had to scramble to try to turn it into something also that served the player looking for more "Baldur's Gate type of play". In short, Bioware lost their showcase RPG story telling product and then needed to shoe horn that feature into the NWN's package. So, simply comparing official campaigns isn't exactly fair in terms of a complete analysis of the two products -- one was an afterthought born of necessity and the other (NWN2's) was designed from the get go to be the main product on offer. Also, I take issue with the only real appeal of NWN1 being multiplayer -- the toolset (building) and custom content were huge aspects of the game with many 10's of thousands of downloads of user created modules designed for single player use only.
Obsidian took a deliberate design decision to focus on the campaign and as a result they made some dubious technical decisions with regard to the entire package. Multiplayer, the toolset and custom content all took a back seat to the OC, so it's not surprising that it surpassed Bioware's OC which was, effectively, an afterthought. The longevity and heart of the original game, however, was down to the entire package (and ongoing support from Bioware) -- and this is where NWN2 fell down. NWN1 corrected it's deficiencies with its OC's in the subsequent expansions, but Obsidian couldn't effectively fix what it had broken in a timely and coherent manner which led to the game fading out and not enduring as the original has done.
It's certainly not entirely Obsidian's fault -- I'm sure dealing with near broke Atari as publisher didn't make things easy on them in the least. I'm sure they were pressured to release before ready, etc. etc. They gave it a valiant effort given what looked to be an extremely limited (possibly nonexistent?) after ship support budget. They also tried to keep the community engaged, appointed a community manager, had a technical blog by one of the programmers for the building community http://oeiprogrammer.blogspot.com/ and generally tried to make all the right noises. In the end, having a good OC was just not enough to have the same kind of enduring legacy that NWN1's enjoys, however -- the whole package is needed for that and they didn't deliver it.
It's amazing that BP can drill for oil with no provable solution to a catastrophic failure. It's like operating on a patient and going 'Trust me, I'm a doctor'.
Since when is the Maple Leaf the symbol of North America? Does it have something to do with the value of the dollar? The country with the highest valued dollar has its flag tagged as North American symbol?
Or is it simply that the title of the story should have been "Volcanic Ash Heading Towards New Foundland, Canada"?
Newfoundland Canada is in North America, so the story title is perfectly accurate -- the cloud is moving towards a Canadian part of North America.
Also, the originating news source is from a Canadian newspaper, so the use of flag seems appropriate as well..
Then there was something wrong with that demo. There's very little odour from a properly functioning e-cig. It also depends upon the flavour of liquid used. Some flavours will have an associated odour, but generally speaking most people find it pleasant as it's a reflection of the flavour -- i.e. you might smell a faint odour of strawberry if someone was using a strawberry flavoured liquid.
Be careful of thinking of "those e-cigs" as some sort of single entity -- there are many different models -- some of which are straight rip offs and barely function. Also, there's a myriad of liquid flavours that can be used, so "those e-cigs" can be widely variant in terms of odour depending on what one uses in them.
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand, 3rd ed was about "How much jerky did you bring when you went on this hike?", "Well, that's not enough jerky". 4th Ed is the first one I can play with my friends where we spend more time playing than looking in damn books. Also, if you don't like Eladrin (basically High Elves) or Dragonborn, don't play them.
That damnable old school D&D forcing people to read and remember things written in books! How very dare they!
P.S. you could have taken your own advice with regard to ration rules if they annoyed you so much -- don't use them.
First Post.
You're assuming the point of rape is to fulfill sexual desire -- it's not, it's about wielding power over someone else. Given this, motive then isn't "heterosexual male" (i.e. horny), but rather "need to assert power over another" which then means opportunity isn't fulfilled by finding a willing participant.
By your argument Mike Tyson would have been innocent of rape purely on his celebrity status granting him a plethora of women willing to sleep with him.
The value needs to be evaluated independent of anything he says or does...
Correct, and it nullifies everything you said previously to it in your post.
You illustrated perfectly the ad hominem the poster you're replying to warned of -- "motive" is just another way to say "circumstantial ad hominem."
Excellent point.
Gee, the timing here is rather suspicious. While it's certainly possible that the charge is substantive one immediately has to wonder about correlation with the past and impending leaks. One must be careful of post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies, but that doesn't mean there definitely isn't a connection.
You're missing the point. It's an illustrative example which looks at the justification of the response in order to determine the ethical system employed -- look above to my response to the other AC -- overwhelmingly the justification given is in teleological terms -- bad things will happen.
Besides which, you don't have "C" listed correctly. It's not that rule systems are simplistic, but that they don't look at consequences -- obedience is the only requisite in order to be acting morally under a Deontological system -- consequences are not a consideration at all. If you want an argument as opposed to the description I was giving above, then one would run like this:
A. Deontological ethics is based upon adherence to rules.
B. Teleological ethics is based upon the outcome of an action.
C. When given a "hard case" moral dilemma where adherence to a common Deontological ethical rule (i.e. truth telling) results in dire consequences most respondents will ignore the rule and heed the consequences -- the decision is based upon the outcome of an action.
Therefore, most people are already considering consequences (thinking Teleologically) when making "hard case" moral decisions -- this a decidedly non-Deontological approach to determining the ethics of a situation.
Deontological rules in ethics don't have a hierarchy -- they are derived from the divine or reason and as such are equally weighted.
Besides, the overwhelming type of response when queried about the justification for answering "No" to the Nazis is teleological -- it's about the outcome or consequences. In short, it's a straight up Utilitarian justification.
That's why it's such an often used scenario for discussion -- it's very illuminating to see how many appeal to consequential ethics without even realizing it.
I could have probably clarified things much more simply by just giving the ten commandments as an example -- these are the types of rules that constitute a Deontological ethic. It's not rules like human laws and such -- it's universal rules seen as the basis for all ethical activity.
Note the rule I'm referring to is: "lying is wrong". This is the classical form of this example which is used to demonstrate the case. This differs from what the poster I was replying to was referring to since he was talking about the hiding of the Jews to be the rule break (to better mirror the poster's form he was replying to). So, from what I was outlining there is no antecedent rule break -- the telling of the lie is the rule break and the hiding of the Jews to begin with isn't the subject of an ethical analysis (one can break a human created law/rule but still be acting ethically).
To come to your question on the rule makers: no, there is no room for their fallibility. Your mistaking the Nazis for the rule makers here (hiding Jews is against the law) -- they're not, it's god or reason that are the rule makers. Deontological ethical system's rules are seen to be infallible either by way of appeal to an infallible god or by way of arguments seen to be sound. These are rules handed out by god or by reason -- therefore they are infallible.
I should have probably been clearer when I used the term "rule" and made sure it wasn't simply any rule or rule system I was referring to, but god's rules or reason's rules that are seen as the tenets of morality for the adherent of a Deontological ethical system.
This is actually a fairly common example used to illustrate that most people's ethics are of the Utilitarian sort as opposed to the Deontological sort -- even those who would describe themselves as adhering to a Deontological type of ethics (i.e. Christians).
Deontological ethics holds a thing is wrong if a rule is violated -- i.e. a lie is told. It is wrong to tell a lie -- period. There is no situational or contextual element in the analysis -- one simply obeys in order to be ethical and if one disobeys one is unethical.
Utilitarian ethics has a strong contextual element which focuses on likely happiness/unhappiness resulting from an action and searches for the maximization of happiness as the ethical end -- the ethical is that which maximizes happiness.
Given the situation above with regard to the Nazis knocking on the door and asking, "Do you have Jews hiding here?" the vast majority of respondents will say the ethical answer is "No" and justify that answer by way of what would happen if they answered truthfully -- the Jews would face horrible suffering and/or death. In short, the maximization of happiness in this case means breaking a rule against lying since adhering to that rule will mean greater suffering.
Most people who are strong adherents to Deontological ethical systems don't see themselves as violating their ethical beliefs in this circumstance, but they most assuredly are doing so. They might think of it as an "exception" or find some other justification, but in the end they are utilizing a competing and antithetical ethical system to the one they purport to adhere to -- they're actually Utilitarians at heart even if they don't recognize themselves as such.
One can be an adherent to an ethical system which is solely rules based ("x" is wrong no matter what), but in doing so one must sanction some truly horrible actions -- like answering "Yes" when the Nazis knock and ask if Jews are hiding in the basement.
Standard reporting technique to point out the reporting nation's involvement in an international effort.
I guess G.W. Bush hasn't been back to Texas in a long time then.
Either they'll find a way to play it for free, or they'll go find something else to spend their time on.
As a developer, the latter would sure help me sleep better at night, knowing my product isn't benefitting some punk-ass Generation Me self-righteous little shit who refuses to pay for anything they can get away with. Between that and preventing casual piracy, DRM is more than worth it.
I'm glad you posted because you're pointing out the real core issue with piracy that the people hell bent on fighting it have -- and it's not about economic loss at all. It's that some people just simply can't abide the notion that someone else is getting something for nothing -- even though that someone else isn't costing them money in the process. It's the gall felt at the thought of someone getting all the same benefit as someone else, but being able to side step the economic transaction -- this is why DRM makers make their money.
Critics? No, it was the consumers -- they preferred the easy to digest answers given by the Sophists of the day -- and ultimately silenced him for being a gadfly.
In the end, however, he chose to end his own career when he chose to end his own life. He could have escaped death at his trial and even after sentence, but ultimately refused to take any of the ways out that were available to him.
Two mice enter -- one mouse leaves.
Are you a BSologist?
I'm going to assume you aren't. If so, wtf makes you think anyone is going to take your BS accusation seriously? I call BS on your BS on his BS.
Obsidian's games tend to be flawed, but that's still a bit unfair.
Speaking only of the official campaign, BioWare's NWN is not even comparable to what Obsidian did with NWN2 (the only real appeal of the first game was the multiplayer.) .
The problem with your analysis here is that NWN's was something very much more than the official campaign -- from the get go it was designed to be a tool for people to make their own adventures and play together. The OC was only supposed to be little more than a demo of what might be done. When Bioware lost the Baldur's Gate franchise through the legal battles with Interplay (parent of Black Isle who's remnants are now Obsidian) they had to scramble to try to turn it into something also that served the player looking for more "Baldur's Gate type of play". In short, Bioware lost their showcase RPG story telling product and then needed to shoe horn that feature into the NWN's package. So, simply comparing official campaigns isn't exactly fair in terms of a complete analysis of the two products -- one was an afterthought born of necessity and the other (NWN2's) was designed from the get go to be the main product on offer. Also, I take issue with the only real appeal of NWN1 being multiplayer -- the toolset (building) and custom content were huge aspects of the game with many 10's of thousands of downloads of user created modules designed for single player use only.
Obsidian took a deliberate design decision to focus on the campaign and as a result they made some dubious technical decisions with regard to the entire package. Multiplayer, the toolset and custom content all took a back seat to the OC, so it's not surprising that it surpassed Bioware's OC which was, effectively, an afterthought. The longevity and heart of the original game, however, was down to the entire package (and ongoing support from Bioware) -- and this is where NWN2 fell down. NWN1 corrected it's deficiencies with its OC's in the subsequent expansions, but Obsidian couldn't effectively fix what it had broken in a timely and coherent manner which led to the game fading out and not enduring as the original has done.
It's certainly not entirely Obsidian's fault -- I'm sure dealing with near broke Atari as publisher didn't make things easy on them in the least. I'm sure they were pressured to release before ready, etc. etc. They gave it a valiant effort given what looked to be an extremely limited (possibly nonexistent?) after ship support budget. They also tried to keep the community engaged, appointed a community manager, had a technical blog by one of the programmers for the building community http://oeiprogrammer.blogspot.com/ and generally tried to make all the right noises. In the end, having a good OC was just not enough to have the same kind of enduring legacy that NWN1's enjoys, however -- the whole package is needed for that and they didn't deliver it.
Torgo's executive powder, perhaps?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bender's_Big_Score#Torgo.27s_Executive_Powder
It's amazing that BP can drill for oil with no provable solution to a catastrophic failure. It's like operating on a patient and going 'Trust me, I'm a doctor'.
So, BP is the Dr. Zoidberg of oil exploration?
One frickin' huge shark.
That graphic is actually another code for Canadian -- it's a Canadian Tire.
Sorry, just had to -- I'm a hoser.
Since when is the Maple Leaf the symbol of North America? Does it have something to do with the value of the dollar? The country with the highest valued dollar has its flag tagged as North American symbol? Or is it simply that the title of the story should have been "Volcanic Ash Heading Towards New Foundland, Canada"?
Newfoundland Canada is in North America, so the story title is perfectly accurate -- the cloud is moving towards a Canadian part of North America.
Also, the originating news source is from a Canadian newspaper, so the use of flag seems appropriate as well..
Then there was something wrong with that demo. There's very little odour from a properly functioning e-cig. It also depends upon the flavour of liquid used. Some flavours will have an associated odour, but generally speaking most people find it pleasant as it's a reflection of the flavour -- i.e. you might smell a faint odour of strawberry if someone was using a strawberry flavoured liquid.
Be careful of thinking of "those e-cigs" as some sort of single entity -- there are many different models -- some of which are straight rip offs and barely function. Also, there's a myriad of liquid flavours that can be used, so "those e-cigs" can be widely variant in terms of odour depending on what one uses in them.