Threads of Fate — Roleplayer Guild

<Snipped quote by Threads of Fate>

I take it you are enjoying yourself.@Legend

That's classified.

@Legend@Threads of Fate

*As soon as the other occupant of the room starts laughing in earnest, I break into peals of churchbell laughter, great sonorous peals that ring through the room. Two rows of pearl white teeth emerge from pale lips as I once again comport myself, wrangling my smile to something marginally less unseemly*

I'm enjoying myself too, though not exactly how I imagined I would be. For someone so irritated by assumptions, you seem to make a lot of them about me. Wrong, of course, and very rude in my culture, but I don't mind awfully: the universe is a big place. I'm glad, though, that you've got a handle on sarcasm. I was worried, when we first met, that that particular concept would be a bridge too far.

For clarity's sake: I'm not assuming anything about your reasoning. I'm not assuming any sort of higher understanding. I'm not assuming any sort of ethical superiority. I'm not trying to gauge moral development. I'm not fishing for an answer regarding "the good of the many outweigh the good of the few". I asked you a question and I wanted to hear your answer, and you gave me one: your little spiel there was exactly the sort of thing I wanted, because I wanted to hear whatever you would say. I'm trying to learn, Data, nothing more or less, at least not for the foreseeable future. I chose the question arbitrarily, it seemed as good as any when dealing with someone so alien to my understanding, or at least so apparently alien.

*I clear my throat, and look to my giggling companion.*

Is he always like this, or have I done something to offend him? I'm beginning to think I owe him money, or snubbed him at a party: something, no?@PentagonWhite

This is his usual self, yes. And nothing that he would be aware of, or particularly your fault.

<Snipped quote by PentagonWhite>

Please, come in.
*Moves to the side and allows you into the resort-like terranian and subterranean structure*

<Snipped quote by Heroic>

It would be a binary situation.

<Snipped quote by Threads of Fate>

...@Legend

...

@Legend

Ah, so like one of your university students?

You're not an organization, but you have a shared history, you're a group of people easily described as 'we'. You have resources, Class 2 technology at least, and very powerful acquaintances. I'll take a different tack, then. Imagine there's a train going down a track which splits in two, its breaks are cut. On both paths, people are tied up: one path has one members of your species and one path has five members of your species. The tracks currently lead to the path with five, but you can pull a lever and change the train will move to the track with one. Anyone hit by the train will die: pull the lever and one dies, abstain and five die. What would you do, in this hypothetical situation?@PentagonWhite

*Begins to chuckle slightly*

<Snipped quote by PentagonWhite>

No; I also develop, apply, and share knowledge. I protect others when applicable. My statement regarding university students, however, was humor, which I have not quite mastered.

There are several avenues of potential action. If I am here, I do nothing because the train and lever are not within my reach. If I am unaware of the train or I am occupied, I will also do nothing. If I am at the location of the train, I do nothing because there is nothing obviously preventing the individuals from moving off of the tracks. If I am with the train and the individuals are bound to the tracks, for they are tied up, but not to any specific degree, I will stop the movement of the train manually. If, hypothetically speaking, I were discussing the very scenario of a train approaching individuals on tracks in order to gauge the "moral development" of another creature I had not interacted with yet, I would consider another scenario with fewer loose ends, greater detail, and more resulting information instead of assuming ethical superiority or higher understanding. Or, also hypothetically speaking, if I only desired to understand whether he valued individuals or groups to a greater extent, a "the good of the many outweigh the good of the few" ideology, I would perhaps ask directly instead of assuming he reasons on such an elementary level that all factors of a situation can be reduced to a binary decision with hazy conclusions, fit more for a thought experiment performed by one first being exposed to the concept of the psychology of intelligent beings. And I would also suggest others he speaks to do the same—that is, hypothetically of course.@Legend

*Begins openly giggling*

Threads of Fate Member

Cupid

Status

Recent Statuses

Bio

Most Recent Posts