explosivecombat | NIETZSCHE; DEAD PHILOSOPHERS' INBOX

I compare you to my psychopath, and you compare me to yours. How nice.

Am I really that brilliant, in your esteem?

No.

In my experience, that sort of brilliance comes at the expense of sanity.

An equivalent exchange, then? That trade's demands would be too steep for me, it's true.

How do you counter alchemy like that? Is there a way to reverse it?

I only know what I've been told; I've never spoken to this person myself, and chemistry has never been my strong suit besides. If I had to guess, however, I'd imagine that sort of process wouldn't be easily reversed; I would be surprised if anyone besides him would know how to do it properly.

From what I understand, he's no longer a threat; he eventually escaped from prison, but he was killed in battle several months later.

I'm of two minds how to feel about that, frankly. Glad to hear such a threat is neutralized, but at the same time, disappointed both for the loss of life and such potential.

But can it really be considered a loss of potential? After all, he'd likely insist that it wasn't - he was using his talent in the way that he saw fit. Just because you don't agree with how he chose to utilize it doesn't mean that his potential was necessarily wasted; it was his power, to use as he saw fit. Is it a waste if the wielder is satisfied?

Furthermore, can we really say that he had genuine potential at all, given that he was too insane to use it in any sort of manner that would be considered productive? Mind you, from what I understand he was always like that - can potential that has no ability to be recognized in the first place even be considered to exist?

Whatever happened to "be thou for the people"? Regardless of whether or not the wielder is satisfied, he wholly ignored the charge that — concededly, as I choose to interpret it — his abilities be used in greater service to mankind. Granted, I'm drawing my conclusions from a foundation made of a lot of assumptions, but I presume your psychopath didn't spend a great deal of time focusing on the academic aspects of alchemy, or of trying to further the scope of human knowledge through it.

And in a grander sense, I think it is valid to say he had genuine potential — assuming someone in history was going to end up with that level of genius and talent, it's unfortunate that it went to someone who made the choices and seized the opportunities that he did.

Ah, but this is where we get into the reasons why I fundamentally disagree with holding anything that can be so broadly-interpreted as a standard that others should be held to. "Be thou for the people" is still entirely in consideration here; after all, this was a State Alchemist that was sent to the front lines during the Ishval Civil War. While we can argue that the practice of turning human beings into explosives in the first place isn't ethical in the least - because objectively speaking, it obviously isn't - and therefore defies that mandate, it's been determined by those in power (those that enforce "Be thou for the people" in the first place) that he's working for the greater good of mankind as long as he's doing it to the people on the opposing side.

So you fundamentally disagree with it, but you still wanted to impose it on me to see what I'd say? Is that because it's all part of the procedure, or because you were curious to see if I'd think to reject it, myself?

And accepting the determination of those in power in a situation like that sounds suspiciously like a sham that claims to be "for the people" when it's frankly closer to "for the select few in power", instead.

It was mostly because it's part of the procedure - after all, I fundamentally disagree with it, but that doesn't mean that I'm not expected to adhere to it anyway. It's along the lines of how some people fundamentally disagree with certain crimes being illegal, but the law keeps them from committing those crimes simply because they don't want to be arrested; while my country is far from a flat-out police state, it is highly militarized. As such, there's a time and a place for defying laws that one rejects or finds abhorrent, and that time and place is generally not "whenever we feel like it" - defying such things requires an uprising.

That said, however, I'll admit that I was curious to see whether you would notice the flaw in using something so dependent on interpretation as some sort of rule or mandate in the first place. Granted, defying "Be thou for the people" isn't something that you'll get arrested for unless you're explicitly breaking some other law - this psychopath that we've been discussing was arrested for murdering his superior officers, not failing to uphold his own honor - but at the same time, it's definitely a societal mandate. State Alchemists tend to be treated rather badly by the general population because they're seen as violating or ignoring it; we get called all sorts of interesting slurs, and we're generally looked upon with either fear or extreme disdain. It's something that we're expected to do, even if it can't be directly enforced.

The government is aware of this and for all intents and purposes expects us to adhere to it as well; if we weren't deemed to be upholding that mandate in some way, we wouldn't be State Alchemists in the first place. However, to use our psychopath as an example again, an argument can be made that acting in the defense of your country is acting on the behalf of the greater good, thus making him fundamentally no different than any other soldier that really enjoys his job - obviously, the torture and the sadism that he was engaging in toward the end was not acceptable, nor was it acceptable for him to murder his superior officers, but such things wouldn't be acceptable from any other soldier, either.

Is it ethically and morally correct for him to take pleasure in killing people? Probably not. Is it a sign that something is likely seriously wrong with the soldier in question? Of course. But he was still fulfilling his duty to his country, even if his methods were unorthodox to say the least. So it becomes a question of whether we should consider killing with alchemy to be more morally repugnant than killing with any other weapon - people are going to die either way. Does it make that much of a difference how they're killed?

And yet you said you wouldn't stop me from creating gold from lead — theoretically — even though there's likewise a law against that. You're the only one in this situation who would've known there was a mandate to include it in the first place, and this isn't "whenever you feel like it" because it's specifically a situation where that law could only be in force if you decided to impose it on yourself. So you fundamentally disagree with it, but you chose to stay in line with the expectations of superiors that aren't even here to impose it on you, and when there's absolutely no consequence for failing to do so.

...

...but it's different for me, isn't it. Because I haven't sworn allegiance to your country or lived under its system of laws, so you can't expect me to adhere to that same self-imposed discipline that you're following.

~~Teacher, I think I just learned something.~~

And is that a rhetorical question, whether it makes a difference, or would you actually like to see me try to answer it?

I'd like to hear your thoughts, should you have any on the matter.

Then I think it does make a difference. It's true that people will die either way, and in that sense one death isn't more morally acceptable or repugnant than any other, but I also think that focuses entirely on the ends, when there's room to take into consideration the means. There's a difference between a fast and clean — I suppose one word you might use is "humane", if death can be called that at all — death than one that's extended, drawn-out, or the result of torture. Yes, it's all still death, but there is on some level a difference as a consequence of the method.

Maybe it's a question of power. If being an alchemist is a state-sanctioned privilege for an elite few, then it stands to follow that there's a certain higher standard that ought to come with that privilege. In my world, it's a given among the nations considered most civilized that the ultimate sovereign authority lies in the people of a nation, and that it's only by their sanction that the government exists to serve them. It's an inherent contract, and it's the charge of the government not to abuse the powers it's been given, lest the people choose to throw off that government and create another more aligned with what they feel is right. To have the alchemists, an elite group of immensely powerful soldiers, answering only a handful of government officials whose word alone decides, effectively, the law...

There's more at play than just the death — that's what I think. Maybe the moral complications aren't in the death itself, but the death also doesn't occur in a vacuum, and that's where my reservations about it lie.

Admittedly, I'm not sure how I should take this notion that you would find the workings of my country - and myself by extension - to be "uncivilized" in comparison to yours; we've never placed the ultimate sovereign authority on the people as a whole, simply because that would be giving sovereign power to a rather large group who have absolutely no idea what to do with it. At risk of being redundant, our ruler has been trained specifically to rule the country; why should a great lot of people with no experience or training in ruling a country be given a say in how that country should be run?

I won't argue that a government should exist to serve its people, but being among those people isn't any sort of right; if anything, it's incredibly entitled to expect a country to change for you, and furthermore to assume that you know better than the person currently ruling it. We aren't forcing anyone to remain within our country's borders; if they dislike it so much here, then it makes infinitely more sense to go somewhere that they can find agreeable rather than demand that the government change entirely to suit their whims. Besides, if your government requires the constant threat of being overthrown in order to not abuse power and to actually make proper decisions for their people, I fail to see how that's more civilized than anything else. I suppose it's along the moral arguments that can be given on behalf of atheism - if a person needs the threat of hell or the promise of heaven to be a good person, then they really can't have been that good of a person to begin with.

I understand what you're saying in regards to the abuse of power, but it's using a scope of reference that simply doesn't exist in my world and seems unnecessarily lofty besides.

Edited (grammar why) 2013-06-19 09:13 (UTC)

I wasn't calling you or your country uncivilized. On the contrary, my assumption that you utilized some form of democracy was founded on the basis that you are civilized, and where I'm from that's generally indicative of a democratic nation. I was clarifying where that assumption came from, that's all.

Remind me someday to explain my system of government to you properly; I'd rather not try to do it piece by piece like this, and risk running into a lot of misconceptions and clarifications along the way when it's simpler to start at the beginning and go straight through from there. Suffice to say, it's complicated — but we're not really talking about the government, outside of the fact that I used it as an example in an attempt to articulate what I think is morally repugnant about exploding someone with alchemy versus killing them a different way. The point is that we agree on the aspect of the abuse of power; the rest is largely tangential arguments.

I said that I could understand what you were saying, not necessarily that I agree with it; what you're providing is a purely intellectual viewpoint on killing and war - and while I won't say that such things have no place in discussion, nor will I say there's no merit behind them, somehow I doubt the individuals actively being slaughtered on a field of battle will pause to consider whether or not they're being victimized by some sort of abuse of power.

That's why I believe it doesn't matter, in the end.

Edited (...punctuation.) 2013-06-20 07:21 (UTC)

And yet a person turned into a slow-acting walking time bomb will have more time to pause and contemplate any number of horrors than one who dies in a different way, won't they? To say nothing of the fact that it might make plenty of difference to the survivors, or to the civilian people whose government is allowing and implicitly condoning those actions in the first place.

But I honestly don't want to debate killing and war with you. I answered because you asked for my thoughts, but my thoughts are my own, and no matter how entitled I am to them, that doesn't mean I'm justified in pontificating on a subject that I really have no right to speak with authority about.

Arguably, war and killing are topics that no one should pontificate on; I've heard many who would presumably be considered justified in doing so that really shouldn't have opened their mouths in the first place, what they had to offer was so unproductive.

However, I'm willing to respect your unwillingness to discuss it, as it were - though justified or not, I do appreciate your answering the question to begin with. As you said, I did ask, after all.

No wonder I like you. You're occasionally considerate.

I would appreciate that knowledge not reaching the general public; I do have a reputation to maintain and all.

I wouldn't worry. As insufferable as you can be at times, you're still my secret.

You really do like toying with that rhetorical audience of ours, don't you?

Not really.

But it's better than being frustrated with you.

Arguably, this relationship of ours wouldn't exist were it not for the occasional bout of frustration, would it?

Admittedly, "frustration" may be too light a term for what it was when it started, but you get the idea.

The occasional bout of frustration is fine — just like the occasional hardship is healthy in helping someone learn and grow.

But they do say too much of something isn't good for you.

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