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On this "Sith are not evil" thing


Gratulor

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What exactly are these advancements as humans, that we've gained from war. Fire, the wheel, language, writing, logic, mathematics, science, medicine, steam, cotten gin, mass productiion, electricity, refrigeration, radio, navigation, flight, space flight, none of which war was responsible for.

Actually, yes. All that was responsible for either conflict or war. Communication developed from the conflict of man vs. nature. In order to hunt, we need to communicate strategies in order to hunt and go to war. Writing is just an extension of that. All the science and medicine and further are all worked out to better survive and kill our neighbors (since many times survival depended on not having other competitors). You need to brush up on your history.

Adversity due to weather, famine, etc may have created the need, but don't confuse adversity with man-made war.

 

Seriously, the only things we've gained during wars was methods to kill faster.

Ok I'll cite some things that war has given us.

  • reconstructive surgery
  • infection control/antibiotics
  • pain management (YAY! Oxycodone and anesthesia)
  • X-Ray Machine
  • Radar
  • Sonar
  • Microwave oven
  • Internet (THANKS ARPANET!)
  • Rockets
  • Spaceflight (Can't get off the ground without a rocket)
  • Dehydrated Foods
  • Computers
  • Synthetic Rubber
  • Blood Transfusions
  • Planes
  • Trains
  • Automobiles
  • Submarines
  • Atomic Energy
  • Air conditioning
  • Freeze drying
  • Epipen
  • Duct Tape
  • GPS
  • Digital Cameras
  • Canned food
  • Ambulance
  • Tampons (Really?! Yea. Really)
  • Nylon
  • Kevlar and other ballistic resistant materials
  • Toys (Slinky, Silly Putty, Frisbee, etc.)

I could go on, but I probably shouldn't. And that is just recently. Read "Technology and War - from 2000 B.C. to the Present" by Martin L. Van Creveld for a full list.

 

It's such bogus history to credit Alexander's Greeks, or Rome's Legions with advancing the human race. Strange we don't think of the Mongrels, or any other Barbarian horde as advancing human kind.

What's the axiom? One world's hero is another's butcher. If it weren't for the "mongrel" hordes, we wouldn't have much of the technology we do today. They are the reason many cultures learned to no only read and write, but advance science. It was the Mongols that ensured that beneficial medicines and other goods would have remained isolated and possibly lost, had the "Horde" not conquered and unified those lands. They brought anything beneficial to all corners of their empire via the Silk Road. The "histories" you were taught in school are just a bunch of propaganda and nonsense.

 

Back to the game... what has Sith conquest actually done for the Empire's citizens, if you can even call people in the Empire citizens. I wouldn't call anyone in the Empire free... not a single one of em can chose anything, beyond possibly which branch of the military they'll join before they're enslaved otherwise.

 

Seriously, such a dumb statement... do you advocate World War Three, in order to advance the human race?

Obviously the Sith would.

 

That is your game. Your base aggression serves nothing. Attacking me rather than discussing is disrespectful. I'd suggesting mastering your emotions before posting.

 

I already said the Sith culture is evil.

 

I was saying that the Sith philosophy is not.

 

Forced advancement is evil, and I would not espouse that.

 

But if it were a matter of survival, most people would. You can't say that "OH! I WOULD NEVER!" Until you back is up against the wall, and you and your family are facing starvation, you will change your tune. History bears that out THOUSANDS of times over.

 

So at that point was is better, mastering your desires and drive or waiting until you are in that situation and have to deal?

 

As for WWIII, we will have some great advancements from it when it does come.

Edited by Thylbanus
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No, the Jews really don't enter into the discussion at all. I wasn't even mostly thinking of them at the time; Jewish history doesn't interest me in the slightest. What Rome did to the Jews was pretty awful, but it was only the most famous atrocity of a very long laundry list. What happened to Yerushalayim was no worse than what happened to Korinthos or Qarthadast or Numantia or even freaking Veii. (Oh, and "the other side did it too" is no defense at all, regardless of whether it is actually true, and that's somewhat doubtful in this case. In fact, that just goes to prove the point that Alex and I were making, namely that all premodern societies can and should be described as "evil" by any reasonable standard of morality.)

 

You have a lot of conceit to think that my mentioning of the Jews had anything at all to do with what the Romans themselves did to Israel.

 

You specifically singled out the cultures in the Mediterranean Basin as being widely acknowledged as some of the most barbaric in the history of the world. I essentially asked you if you were including Israel in your assumption that the cultures of the Mediterranean Basin were among the most barbaric. Seeing as how Israel is one of (if not THE) most famous cultures from the Mediterranean Basin that still exists to this day.

 

If you are ignoring Israel by virtue of the fact that it was the home of the Jews, then you have to ignore some of the bloodiest parts and single most well documented parts of this worlds history. Because the Jews were some of the most bloodthirsty people this world has ever seen.

 

It's amusing that you bring up apologism here while attempting to pretend as though Roman society didn't regularly have people killed for entertainment purposes, didn't allow its military to engage in practices that would have horrified even the participants of the Second Congo War, and didn't have an economy predicated almost entirely upon slave labor. Or, if you don't deny that those things happened, you are claiming that they don't really matter, or that they don't make Rome look evil, either of which is prima facie ridiculous.

 

I make no attempts to pretend that Rome didn't kill people for entertainment or religious purposes. But I also don't try to sugar coat the fact that people are still doing much the same thing even today in some parts of the world. Heck, No Holds Bar Mixed Martial Arts Tournaments can be far more brutal than Gladiatorial Games ever were, and those can happen here in the United States on occasion.

 

John Ma barely touched on Rome at all in his work; it's mostly concerned with the Greek East, which was the important part of Mediterranean society anyway. (Or, at least, by far the most populous.) And Eckstein is if anything a Roman apologist; the point of his book (and a subsequent book on Rome's "eastern turn") was to demonstrate that the thesis that Rome successfully created an empire because it was so brutal compared to other societies was wrong, and that Rome was no more or less violent and vicious than any of its competitor states.

 

Actually, Eckstein would be wrong in saying that Rome was no less brutal than any of it's competitor states. Especially if he had seen the things that happened in Northern Europe which was ruled largely by the Celts. They may not have made people fight for entertainement, but they did ritualize single-combat to the point where it was essentially a religious activity to them. And thats not even counting their use of ritual human sacrifice. Romans very rarely engaged in Ritual Human Sacrifice.

 

What a farce. The Dark Council, as a group, can barely decide what day it is. And it's almost always at some kind of civil war against itself. Say what you like about the Senate's ability to function - and frankly, there's not a whole lot of evidence suggesting that it's any worse than any other democratic assembly in history - but at least the senators aren't using private armies to duke it out with each other on a regular basis.

 

Eh... the thing is... Each Dark Council member essentially has complete autonomy of his or her portion of the Sith Military. They do not answer to any of the other members of the Dark Council except on matters that affect the entire Sith Power Structure as a whole. And they are only answerable to the Voice of the Emperor who himself is only answerable to Vitiate. So yes, they are easily corrupted. But no, they are not impeded by bureaucracy the way that the Republic Senate is.

 

As for my statement about the Senate taking decades to make a decision... that was largely drawn from a statement made by one of the Senators in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

 

There is no way an unbiased observer could even think about claiming that the Empire is more stable or better organized or more capable of making decisions than the Republic.

 

I never said it was better organized, or more stable. I said it was faster at coming to important decisions. That doesn't automatically mean it is going to make the right decisions, or that it is immune to corruption. It just means it is faster to execute plans.

 

Also, thank you to the poster above me, who has pointed out quite expertly that without WAR as an entity, or at the very least conflict in general... there would be no technology as we understand it today. Which means that without War, this very conversation would not be happening.

Edited by XantosCledwin
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I

 

But I don't think they're good either. They're manipulative, they have no problem lying, they have no problem using the force to basically take over another person's mind, they take children from homes as babies and pull them into the order, and many other things.

 

 

The Jedi don't "take" kids. They either take in Force-sensitive orphans or they ASK parents to give their children to the Order. It's really well established in the EU that a child becoming a Jedi was seen as a great honor on many worlds. Also, parents who were very poor or on oppressive worlds were often happy to give their kids to the Jedi because it ensured their child would be well cared for and raised to dedicating their lives to doing good.

 

The Jedi also had VERY strict rules about gaining kids because propaganda calling them "baby stealers" was a favorite tactic of the Order's enemies.

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The Jedi don't "take" kids. They either take in Force-sensitive orphans or they ASK parents to give their children to the Order. It's really well established in the EU that a child becoming a Jedi was seen as a great honor on many worlds. Also, parents who were very poor or on oppressive worlds were often happy to give their kids to the Jedi because it ensured their child would be well cared for and raised to dedicating their lives to doing good.

 

The Jedi also had VERY strict rules about gaining kids because propaganda calling them "baby stealers" was a favorite tactic of the Order's enemies.

 

This may be the clearest cut case for the Sith Order (and not the Empire) actually being evil. Because the Sith Order was not above actual kidnapping, and murder to obtain new force sensitive kids to use in their academy.

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The Jedi don't "take" kids. They either take in Force-sensitive orphans or they ASK parents to give their children to the Order. It's really well established in the EU that a child becoming a Jedi was seen as a great honor on many worlds. Also, parents who were very poor or on oppressive worlds were often happy to give their kids to the Jedi because it ensured their child would be well cared for and raised to dedicating their lives to doing good.

 

The Jedi also had VERY strict rules about gaining kids because propaganda calling them "baby stealers" was a favorite tactic of the Order's enemies.

 

That's a good point and I concede that it was a poor choice of words on my part.

 

But it's still got a pretty high ick-factor, no matter how noble the cause. Based purely on genetics, a child is being assigned to a life of servitude and isn't given a choice in the matter until after he or she has been completely indoctrinated by the order that took him.

 

I can't think of a real-world analogy to this practice that isn't pretty high on the "that's messed up" scale.

 

Don't get me wrong, here. I'm on the "Jedi are not evil" side. I'm just saying some of their policies and activities definitely skirt the line between right and wrong.

Edited by Vecke
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That's a good point and I concede that it was a poor choice of words on my part.

 

But it's still got a pretty high ick-factor, no matter how noble the cause. Based purely on genetics, a child is being assigned to a life of servitude and isn't given a choice in the matter until after he or she has been completely indoctrinated by the order that took him.

 

I can't think of a real-world analogy to this practice that isn't pretty high on the "that's messed up" scale.

 

Don't get me wrong, here. I'm on the "Jedi are not evil" side. I'm just saying some of their policies and activities definitely skirt the line between right and wrong.

 

Actually what the Jedi do is no worse than what the Shaolin Monastery still does in China. In fact many parents in China actually PAY the Shaolin Monastery to take their kids, because in many ways an education from the Shaolin is very similar in China to an education from an Ivy League University in the rest of the world. Not to mention the added side perk that children who are trained in the Shaolin style martial arts have the opportunity to become world famous celebrities on the Martial Arts Demonstration Circuit.

 

In fact the Jedi Order is largely modeled after many Chinese and Japanese Martial Arts Monasteries. And for the record, not one person in the world would argue that the Shaolin Monastery is EVIL or qualifies as "Ick-Factor." At least not anymore.

 

Also can be likened to many European Monasteries who took in orphans and impoverished children in the middle ages so that they would be raised in a setting that actually cared for them, instead of having to live on the streets or in slums.

 

For reference, Shaolin is one of the oldest styles of Self-Defense Martial Arts in the world. The Monastery having been founded in 477 A.D.

Edited by XantosCledwin
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Actually what the Jedi do is no worse than what the Shaolin Monastery still does in China. In fact many parents in China actually PAY the Shaolin Monastery to take their kids, because in many ways an education from the Shaolin is very similar in China to an education from an Ivy League University in the rest of the world. Not to mention the added side perk that children who are trained in the Shaolin style martial arts have the opportunity to become world famous celebrities on the Martial Arts Demonstration Circuit.

 

In fact the Jedi Order is largely modeled after many Chinese and Japanese Martial Arts Monasteries. And for the record, not one person in the world would argue that the Shaolin Monastery is EVIL or qualifies as "Ick-Factor." At least not anymore.

 

Also can be likened to many European Monasteries who took in orphans and impoverished children in the middle ages so that they would be raised in a setting that actually cared for them, instead of having to live on the streets or in slums.

 

For reference, Shaolin is one of the oldest styles of Self-Defense Martial Arts in the world. The Monastery having been founded in 477 A.D.

 

As luck would have it, I'm pretty familiar with Shoalin. My brother was a shoalin instructor for years. That said, I appreciate the effort to make sure I understood the reference (I mean that sincerely, not in a snarky way).

 

And again, I'm not saying the Jedi are evil. I don't think they are.

 

But (IMO), there is definitely an "ick-factor" to taking a child from his home and raising him in complete and total servitude, based entirely on that child's genetic disposition. You may disagree, and that's fine. But I think there's merit to opposing a practice like that.

 

It's a noble cause, yes, but there is a strong argument against those practices. I mean, it's a requirement for the Jedi that if a child is old enough to have any choice in the matter, he's not allowed to join them. Anakin was 10 years old and was "too old." He was only accepted because he was the chosen one.

 

But I cannot stress enough (as I've stated in every post I've made) that I don't think the Jedi are evil. They're not.

 

And I do think the Sith are unquestionably evil.

 

I'm just saying the Jedi have some practices that skirt the line between right and wrong. They control other people's minds. Even good people (Boss Nass wasn't bad). They steal. They raise children to serve their cause. They lie. They kill. They literally cheat (Qui Gon cheated at the dice game to free Anakin).

 

There's an example of each act above in the movies. Sometimes, more than one example.

 

There's very little the Jedi won't do in the name of the preserving their idea of justice.

Edited by Vecke
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Thanks for the reference. As luck would have it, I'm pretty familiar with the Shoalin (my brother was a shoalin instructor for years).

 

And again, I'm not saying the Jedi are evil. I don't think they are.

 

But (IMO), there is definitely an "ick-factor" to taking a child from his home and raising him in complete and total servitude, based entirely on that child's genetic disposition.

 

It's a noble cause, yes, but there is a strong argument against those practices. I mean, it's a requirement for the Jedi that if a child is old enough to have any choice in the matter, he's not allowed to join them. Anakin was 10 years old and was "too old." He was only accepted because he was the chosen one.

 

But I cannot stress enough (as I've stated in every post I've made) that I don't think the Jedi are evil. They're not.

 

And I do think the Sith are unquestionably evil.

 

I'm just saying the Jedi have some practices that skirt the line between right and wrong. They control other people's minds. Even good people (Boss Nass wasn't bad). They steal. They raise children to serve their cause. They lie. They kill. They literally cheat (Qui Gon cheated at the dice game to free Anakin).

 

There's an example of each act above in the movies. Sometimes, more than one example.

 

There's very little the Jedi won't do in the name of the preserving their idea of justice.

 

Yeah, no. If you knew anything about History during Feudal Europe, you would know about the Craftsman Guilds. Or heck the relationship between a Knight, Squire, and Page.

 

In Feudal Europe, people were apprenticed to a craftsman's guild at extremely young ages (13 to 15 years of age). The parents of these children had to pay the guild to take the child as an apprentice. And the child learned the entire trade by memory. They didn't have text books like we have now, they didn't have computers like we have now. You had to memorize EVERYTHING.

 

And that's just for the relatively safe jobs like Masonry, and Blacksmithing. A Knight had to select a student basically from birth. The Page who was hired around the age of 5 to 8 years, was essentially a live in servant. The Squire was a Page who had reached the age of about 12 to 13, and was seen as mature enough to learn how to fight. Older Squires responsibilities often included following their Knights into battle as Shield or Standard Bearers. Meaning they had to be good enough to fight beside their Knight in heavy combat. A Squire would not become a Knight himself until around the age of 30 in some cases.

 

It is in fact the Page (Apprentice) - Squire (Padawan) - Knight (Knight) Relationship that is most clearly modeled by the Jedi Order. But this kind of student-teacher relationship existed in almost every culture between the 1200's to 1600's. Heck, the Freemason's are essentially the modern day embodiment of one of those ancient Craftsmen Guilds that has managed to survive into the modern era.

 

And actually, the Jedi have accepted older students before. Take post mind-wipe Revan as an example (though that may or may not have happened because they already knew he had training). Take Luke Skywalker for an example. Obi Wan could have insisted on training him from the moment he carried him away from the birthing chamber. Instead he opted to let Luke stay ignorant of the fact that he was force sensitive for around 17 years and was older than Anakin when he started his training (BY A LOT).

 

Also, Jedi Mind Tricks aren't Mind Control. They are what people who are fans of Mind Control Fiction (such as myself) like to call "Gentle Telepathic Persuasion." For an example of outright mind control you would be looking at the Imperius Curse from Harry Potter, not the Jedi Mind Trick. And even that is borderline safe when compared to what those in the know call "Mind Rape" which is essentially what Bastila helps the Jedi Council do to Revan.

 

I don't recall where the Jedi have actually stolen anything... unless you are lumping that in together with Qui Gon's Cheating at Dice to get Anakin. But what you forgot to mention about that Dice Game was that Watto was in all likelyhood using weighted dice himself. So the proper question is... is cheating a cheat in order to get a net positive outcome really a bad thing?

 

And really, being raised by the Jedi Order is hardly the worst fate most of these children could have. They have proper medical care, are fed, have warm beds to sleep in at night, are taught how to defend themselves from would be assailants, are taught manners, they are allowed to interact with politicians (something which most people never get the opportunity to do). Simply put these kids have some of the best living conditions in the Galaxy.

 

Arguing that killing is bad... you might as well be arguing that a person with a Black Belt is a bad person simply because they have to own a license because their own fists count as deadly weapons. And said license permits them to use those weapons if they feel that their person is in danger of lethal harm.

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Yeah, no. If you knew anything about History during Feudal Europe, you would know about the Craftsman Guilds. Or heck the relationship between a Knight, Squire, and Page.

 

In Feudal Europe, people were apprenticed to a craftsman's guild at extremely young ages (13 to 15 years of age). The parents of these children had to pay the guild to take the child as an apprentice. And the child learned the entire trade by memory. They didn't have text books like we have now, they didn't have computers like we have now. You had to memorize EVERYTHING.

 

And that's just for the relatively safe jobs like Masonry, and Blacksmithing. A Knight had to select a student basically from birth. The Page who was hired around the age of 5 to 8 years, was essentially a live in servant. The Squire was a Page who had reached the age of about 12 to 13, and was seen as mature enough to learn how to fight. Older Squires responsibilities often included following their Knights into battle as Shield or Standard Bearers. Meaning they had to be good enough to fight beside their Knight in heavy combat. A Squire would not become a Knight himself until around the age of 30 in some cases.

 

It is in fact the Page (Apprentice) - Squire (Padawan) - Knight (Knight) Relationship that is most clearly modeled by the Jedi Order. But this kind of student-teacher relationship existed in almost every culture between the 1200's to 1600's. Heck, the Freemason's are essentially the modern day embodiment of one of those ancient Craftsmen Guilds that has managed to survive into the modern era.

 

And actually, the Jedi have accepted older students before. Take post mind-wipe Revan as an example (though that may or may not have happened because they already knew he had training). Take Luke Skywalker for an example. Obi Wan could have insisted on training him from the moment he carried him away from the birthing chamber. Instead he opted to let Luke stay ignorant of the fact that he was force sensitive for around 17 years and was older than Anakin when he started his training (BY A LOT).

 

Also, Jedi Mind Tricks aren't Mind Control. They are what people who are fans of Mind Control Fiction (such as myself) like to call "Gentle Telepathic Persuasion." For an example of outright mind control you would be looking at the Imperius Curse from Harry Potter, not the Jedi Mind Trick. And even that is borderline safe when compared to what those in the know call "Mind Rape" which is essentially what Bastila helps the Jedi Council do to Revan.

 

I don't recall where the Jedi have actually stolen anything... unless you are lumping that in together with Qui Gon's Cheating at Dice to get Anakin. But what you forgot to mention about that Dice Game was that Watto was in all likelyhood using weighted dice himself. So the proper question is... is cheating a cheat in order to get a net positive outcome really a bad thing?

 

And really, being raised by the Jedi Order is hardly the worst fate most of these children could have. They have proper medical care, are fed, have warm beds to sleep in at night, are taught how to defend themselves from would be assailants, are taught manners, they are allowed to interact with politicians (something which most people never get the opportunity to do). Simply put these kids have some of the best living conditions in the Galaxy.

 

Arguing that killing is bad... you might as well be arguing that a person with a Black Belt is a bad person simply because they have to own a license because their own fists count as deadly weapons. And said license permits them to use those weapons if they feel that their person is in danger of lethal harm.

 

First of all, stating that a practice has historical reference doesn't negate the validity of arguing against the practice. You might think it's fine to take a child and insert them into a life of servitude. That doesn't mean those who disagree are wrong. It means they don't agree. Qui Gon says outright to Anakin, "Becoming a Jedi is not an easy task, and even if you succeed, it's a hard life." He wanted to make sure this was what Anakin wanted. And yet the Jedi choose that life for young children, based purely on their genetics. You really think there's no moral ambiguity to that practice?

 

As far as mind control, Qui Gon used the force to convince Boss Nass to give them a transport to Naboo. You can parse words all day, but it was using the force to influence another sentient creature's mind so he could take something that didn't belong to him. He tried the same thing with Watto. Watto made it absolutely clear that Republic credits had no value on Tatooine, yet Qui Gon tried to get him to take them anyway, so he could get the ship parts. Neither Watto nor Boss Nass were evil, yet Qui Gon used the force to trick them into giving him things that didn't belong to him. Again, I'm genuinely surprised that you don't see any moral ambiguity here.

 

And I'm sure I don't have to go into lying here. Obi Wan looked Luke right in the eyes and lied to him about his father. He can spew "point of view" nonsense all day, but he was lying.

 

And the black belt analogy isn't applicable because a black belt only kills in defense. Their "license" doesn't permit them to kill in the name of Justice. They can't just go and kill a president because they think he's evil. Yet Mace was going to kill Palpatine, not out of self defense, but because he knew Palpatine was evil and dangerous. Luke told Obi Wan outright that Vader was still good, but Obi Wan didn't care. He made it clear to Luke that his only option was to kill Vader. Lucky for the galaxy, Luke didn't follow that advice.

 

Look, I'm actually on your side on this debate. I think the Jedi are the good guys. I really do.

 

I just happen to think it's intellectually dishonest to just blindly disregard any and every criticism of the Jedi. They were flawed. Their system was flawed. That's stated outright in the Episode III novel. Yoda realizes during his fight with Palpatine that the Jedi lost because they had refused to evolve and grow. He realized the dark side was winning because the Jedi had become too entrenched in dogma while the Sith evolved.

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First of all, stating that a practice has historical reference doesn't negate the validity of arguing against the practice. You might think it's fine to take a child and insert them into a life of servitude. That doesn't mean those who disagree are wrong. It means they don't agree. Qui Gon says outright to Anakin, "Becoming a Jedi is not an easy task, and even if you succeed, it's a hard life." He wanted to make sure this was what Anakin wanted. And yet the Jedi choose that life for young children, based purely on their genetics. You really think there's no moral ambiguity to that practice?

 

As far as mind control, Qui Gon used the force to convince Boss Nass to give them a transport to Naboo. You can parse words all day, but it was using the force to influence another sentient creature's mind so he could take something that didn't belong to him. He tried the same thing with Watto. Watto made it absolutely clear that Republic credits had no value on Tatooine, yet Qui Gon tried to get him to take them anyway, so he could get the ship parts. Neither Watto nor Boss Nass were evil, yet Qui Gon used the force to trick them into giving him things that didn't belong to him. Again, I'm genuinely surprised that you don't see any moral ambiguity here.

 

And I'm sure I don't have to go into lying here. Obi Wan looked Luke right in the eyes and lied to him about his father. He can spew "point of view" nonsense all day, but he was lying.

 

And the black belt analogy isn't applicable because a black belt only kills in defense. Their "license" doesn't permit them to kill in the name of Justice. They can't just go and kill a president because they think he's evil. Yet Mace was going to kill Palpatine, not out of self defense, but because he knew Palpatine was evil and dangerous. Luke told Obi Wan outright that Vader was still good, but Obi Wan didn't care. He made it clear to Luke that his only option was to kill Vader. Lucky for the galaxy, Luke didn't follow that advice.

 

Look, I'm actually on your side on this debate. I think the Jedi are the good guys. I really do.

 

I just happen to think it's intellectually dishonest to just blindly disregard any and every criticism of the Jedi. They were flawed. Their system was flawed. That's stated outright in the Episode III novel. Yoda realizes during his fight with Palpatine that the Jedi lost because they had refused to evolve and grow. He realized the dark side was winning because the Jedi had become too entrenched in dogma while the Sith evolved.

 

I think you need to define "A life of servitude" because when I think of a "life of servitude" I am thinking of Slavery as it was practiced in the United States between 18th and 19th Centuries. And I cannot comprehend how you are saying that the Jedi Order is doing anything approaching that. If your argument is that taking children and raising them in a monastic environment is somehow wrong, then I am afraid that history right up until the present day is sorely against you.

 

Many branches of the Christian Church still run Orphanages where in the children are given strict religious upbringings, and many of those same children go into religious occupations when they grow up. And don't you dare go arguing that Priests are pedophiles or some weird crap like that, because the sad fact is that although there are a few deviants in the Churches Hierarchy, there are vastly more genuinely good and caring people in the same hierarchy. And before you claim indoctrination, it is no more indoctrination to raise a child in a religious upbringing than it is indoctrination to raise a child believing the values of a capitalistic society as is done in most public schools in America.

 

Further, what you are arguing, about moral ambiguity, is largely coming from your understanding of morals as they exist in our society here on Earth in our modern day society. What you are trying to do is essentially compare Blue and Orange Morality systems. What is a good idea for us here on Earth in the present day, need not necessarily be a good idea, or even make sense to the people of the Star Wars Universe. That said, you are also trying to argue that a Monastic Lifestyle such as the one that the Jedi practice, is inherently evil. And unfortunately for you, history has shown that those practicing a Monastic lifestyle are some of the most grounded and caring individuals on the planet.

 

Okay... as far as Mind Control vs. Persuasion goes... it breaks down like this: In the case of Mind Control the person actually goes in to the other person's mind, and rearranges the thought patterns or manipulates them continuously for an extended period of time, causing the victim to act very much like a puppet on it's strings.

 

In the case of Mental Persuasion, it is more along the lines of the inductor saying something offhand that explains the desired results while tugging on certain centers of the inductee's mind to enhance receptibility to that suggestion. Essentially what you end up with with Mental Persuasion is an effect very similar (but slightly more powerful than) to real world hypnosis, only far more easy to pull off in a short amount of time, and without as much risk of it being resisted.

 

Now what you may not know about real world hypnosis, is that it is not Mind Control. Real World Hypnosis cannot cause you to do anything which is directly harmful to yourself, or which you really do not want to do. It can be used to put you into a trance where you are more receptive to suggestion, and where you are able to do things you normally would not be physically capable of doing. But it cannot be used to do things which would harm you. Mental Persuasion is much the same, in that it cannot be used to cause you to do something which would inherently harm you. It can however be used with far more liberty than hypnosis when it comes to the power of suggestion. Which is why Boss Nass did something that was completely unlikely for him to have done otherwise. And yes, your right about his use of the Force vs. Watto, I had forgotten about that. But then, it turned out that Watto's species is immune to Mind Tricks anyways so it didn't matter. As for his stealing from Boss Nass, as far as I am concerned, he only borrowed the ship, he had every intention of returning it after the fact, and probably did so at that huge celebration at the end of episode I.

 

As for Obi Wan's "Lie,"

 

Obi Wan: "Oh by the way Luke, before we go on this grand journey to rescue the Princess from the Galactic Republic, I want to inform you that it was your father who was largely responsible for the deaths of the vast majority of the Jedi Order, and who is currently second in command of the Galactic Empire and who likely ordered the raid that killed your Aunt and Uncle."

 

I can just see how telling Luke that up front would send Luke into a spiral of rage towards the Dark Side of the Force right off the bat. Perhaps lying to Luke was for the best?

 

Actually... about the whole Black Belt thing. You really need to study up on your Japanese History. The role the Jedi serve in the Galactic Republic is essentially equivalent to the role that the Samurai fulfilled in Feudal Japan. And yes, it was possible for a Samurai to rebel against his Feudal Overlord and attempt to kill him. Dishonorable as it may be for the Samurai, this caste of people was known as the Ronin. That is essentially what Mace Windu, and later Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda became when they attempted their overthrow of Emperor Palpatine.

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" Any historian will admit that our largest, most valuable, important, and/or impactful advancements as humans come from adversity and conflict."

 

Somehow because something is used during war, even advanced during war, yourself and "any historian" will admit it came from adversity and conflict.

 

No one doubts war leaders use any and all technologies etc to advance and/or increase their war capabilities.

Some were created for war, found peacetime uses. Some were created during peacetime, and found uses in war.

 

Giving credit for the automobile, to adversity and conflict? Seriously?

Even listing the Tampon in this discussion of largest, most valuable, important, and/or impactful advancements as humans is ridiculous.

The Submarine??? Thats for war, pretty much only used for war, outside of a few very small craft used for exploration.

 

I could go down your list, or just create an alternate list.

As the world has never truly existed without wars, it's pointless to attempt to prove we'd be exactly where we are today and having never fought the first war.

 

I do appreciate you pointing out this author... just the kind of books I've enjoyed reading... but just because I have not read this author doesn't prove I wasn't reading books close to 30 years before he wrote it in 1991.

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That said, you are also trying to argue that a Monastic Lifestyle such as the one that the Jedi practice, is inherently evil..

 

I'm not going to continue this particular debate because there's absolutely nothing I can say that will alter your opinion in any way. And that's fine. I just have a rule about forums: When an impasse is obvious, stop debating. And with all due respect, if you don't think the Jedi live a lifetime of servitude, there's really nothing to debate. We'll just have to agree to disagree there.

 

However, please let me state - again - I do not think the Jedi are evil. I do not think the Jedi lifestyle is evil. I have clearly stated - over and over and over - that I think the Jedi are good.

 

There is a giant difference between "morally ambiguous" and "evil."

 

In nearly every single post I've made about this, I've specifically said I do not think they are evil.

 

So I just wanted to clear that up.

Edited by Vecke
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To quote a famous old man: "Remember, with great power. comes great responsibility."

 

I know, it's cliched as hell, and from another universe entirely. But just because the Sith are taught to seek power doesn't mean that they can't use that power responsibly.

 

Except the Sith are not taught to “use that power responsibly” There taught to use their power for personal gain.

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" Any historian will admit that our largest, most valuable, important, and/or impactful advancements as humans come from adversity and conflict."

 

Somehow because something is used during war, even advanced during war, yourself and "any historian" will admit it came from adversity and conflict.

 

No one doubts war leaders use any and all technologies etc to advance and/or increase their war capabilities.

Some were created for war, found peacetime uses. Some were created during peacetime, and found uses in war.

 

Giving credit for the automobile, to adversity and conflict? Seriously?

Even listing the Tampon in this discussion of largest, most valuable, important, and/or impactful advancements as humans is ridiculous.

The Submarine??? Thats for war, pretty much only used for war, outside of a few very small craft used for exploration.

 

I could go down your list, or just create an alternate list.

As the world has never truly existed without wars, it's pointless to attempt to prove we'd be exactly where we are today and having never fought the first war.

 

I do appreciate you pointing out this author... just the kind of books I've enjoyed reading... but just because I have not read this author doesn't prove I wasn't reading books close to 30 years before he wrote it in 1991.

 

Well the Tampon was just for S&Gs. I threw that in to be funny, hence the parenthesis, but it is true.

 

Automobile. Yup. The first self-powered land vehicle was made by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot. The first was a prototype, the next two... for the French Army. The first combustion engine land vehicle was developed by Karl Benz. Yes, the very same Benz in Mercedes-Benz, and we all know that was for the German Army.

 

Submarines (and by extension, submersibles) having been a great boon to marine biology and biochemistry industry. It is the last untamed space on Earth, their importance will only grow. There are currently about 40 deep submersibles, 300+ submersibles, thousands of submersible ROVs, but you are correct, that there are no known submarines in private hands. By contrast there are 20 aircraft carriers, 28 cruisers, 169 destroyers, 49 missile subs, and 398 attack subs, active WORLD WIDE.

 

We can take a glimpse into the world if there wasn't the major wars that drove Europe to be technologically advanced. Take a look at the Americas. Christopher Columbus wrote about the Arawak people,

"They…brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned…. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance…. With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
The Native Americans were not even prepared for the likes of the European. The Americas were truly the land of plenty and there were practically no major wars. I say this as there were no large, nation building conflicts. The largest Empire was that of the Inca at 2 mil sq. km. or 772,000 sq. mi. Compared to the Roman Empire, under Trajan, at 6.5 mil sq. km. The Qing Dynasty, under Qianlong, at 14.7 mil sq. km. The Mongol Empire, under Kublai Khan, with 33 mil sq. km. Heck, the landmass of the U.S. is 9.8 mil sq. km.

 

War, as a concept recognized by Europeans, was not even imagined. The most warlike, the Aztec were brought into conflict with their neighbors because they needed slave labor. They were the closest culture to view war as the Europeans did. Had Cortez not landed when he did, they may have taken over most of North and Central America. Still, their whole warrior culture was based around live capture. The capture, restraint, and imprisonment rivaled that of other cultures, even later in history. I'm certainly not suggesting that the Native Americans were not violent, but the impetus for such conflict is always available resources. Something that the Americas had plenty of.

Edited by Thylbanus
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I think you need to define "A life of servitude" because when I think of a "life of servitude" I am thinking of Slavery as it was practiced in the United States between 18th and 19th Centuries. And I cannot comprehend how you are saying that the Jedi Order is doing anything approaching that.

 

Servitude isn't necessarily slavery outright. There's other systems that for long times were more common in Europe, with different degrees of limitations on freedom. Serfdom of different types where you held a plot of land for a lord and in return for his protection repaid him in goods or service weren't going out of fashion in Central and Eastern Europe until the end of the 19th century. These people were generally bound to their land (they needed the lord's agreement if they wished to leave) and didn't have that many options for getting out. Taking a job as a servant, maybe, or enlisting as a soldier if the lord was expected to provide the local king with such.

 

The system of serfdom is forbidden in the same text where the UN condemns slavery - it's seen as just another form of slavery. Edit: so the question is - can you leave the Jedi Order?

Edited by Spetulhu
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The Jedi don't participate in most Sith participations except for slavery.

 

And Bail Organa protested the creation of a clone army in Episode 2.

 

The Jedi did not. Well, not most of them - a few Jedi refused to participate in the Clone Wars (citing moral objections over commanding what amounted to slaves), but they were kicked out of the Order for refusing to toe the party line of the Council.

 

What's more, the Jedi sanctioned genocide upon a helpless populace that posed no further threat to them or the Republic they served - in the wake of the Great Hyperspace War, as documented by Jedi Master Gnost-Dural.

 

The Jedi consistently support a Republic which they know to be corrupt, both in SW:ToR and the prequel movies - I may remind you that, for instance, the populations of several planets in the Clone Wars genuinely wanted to secede from the Republic which had systematically ignored and denigrated them, but were prevented from doing so by Jedi.

 

The Jedi take infants from their families and forcibly raise them in their tradition - as do the Sith, to be sure.

 

The Jedi assume a level of control over their adherents that amounts to denial of free will - no relationships, no trust of outsiders, no attachments (except to the Council and its decrees), no freedom of thought, word or deed.

 

The Jedi Council attempts to systematically destroy any thinking that challenges their chosen dogmas - to an even greater extent than the Sith do (so long as you don't cross them in deed, the Dark Council cares little for what individual Sith think).

 

The Jedi Order were hypocrites, claiming that nothing good ever comes from the Dark Side of the Force, even as they adapted Rakatan technology (inherently powered by the Dark Side of the Force) to their own uses.

 

***

 

The Jedi are no more purely good than the Sith are purely evil - indeed, the Sith are not, and can never be, purely evil - the Sith are centered upon the concept of freedom, and freedom includes the freedom to choose to be and do good. One of the advantages of the class storylines is that you, should you choose to play a Jedi or Sith, can choose for yourself what kind of Jedi or Sith you are.

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You have a lot of conceit to think that my mentioning of the Jews had anything at all to do with what the Romans themselves did to Israel.

 

You specifically singled out the cultures in the Mediterranean Basin as being widely acknowledged as some of the most barbaric in the history of the world. I essentially asked you if you were including Israel in your assumption that the cultures of the Mediterranean Basin were among the most barbaric. Seeing as how Israel is one of (if not THE) most famous cultures from the Mediterranean Basin that still exists to this day.

 

If you are ignoring Israel by virtue of the fact that it was the home of the Jews, then you have to ignore some of the bloodiest parts and single most well documented parts of this worlds history. Because the Jews were some of the most bloodthirsty people this world has ever seen.

Yes, I suppose I jumped the gun there, spurred by your poor wording and failure to actually mention any of the atrocities to which you were referring. Confining your commentary to Jews and Romans instantly made me think of the zealot and bar-Kochva wars. (Why would you specifically bring up the Jews anyway? How bizarre. They really weren't all that important at the time.)

 

If you're focusing on the various incarnations of the Jewish state, then yes, it was a bloodthirsty and brutal institution. (Insofar as it was an institution at all instead of a mere expression of personal rule yada yada yada you get the idea.) Just like all the other ones. Which is, you know, what I was saying in the first place. So freaking what?

I make no attempts to pretend that Rome didn't kill people for entertainment or religious purposes. But I also don't try to sugar coat the fact that people are still doing much the same thing even today in some parts of the world. Heck, No Holds Bar Mixed Martial Arts Tournaments can be far more brutal than Gladiatorial Games ever were, and those can happen here in the United States on occasion.

Prize-fighting and combat sports are disgusting, but at least nobody is supposed to die, and every reasonable effort is taken to try to prevent debilitating injury or loss of life. By comparison, Roman gladiatorial combat was predicated on death. The two things are inseparable. There are estimates of 8,000 deaths per year throughout the Empire during the height of gladiatorial combat. That's insane. That would be like every single player in the National Football League being killed five times over, every year. UFC wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket.

 

And, you know, the other stuff, like the atrocities committed by its military, and the whole 'slavery' thing. It's completely absurd that you seem to be arguing that the Roman Empire was not meaningfully more brutal than modern OSCE states.

Actually, Eckstein would be wrong in saying that Rome was no less brutal than any of it's competitor states. Especially if he had seen the things that happened in Northern Europe which was ruled largely by the Celts. They may not have made people fight for entertainement, but they did ritualize single-combat to the point where it was essentially a religious activity to them. And thats not even counting their use of ritual human sacrifice. Romans very rarely engaged in Ritual Human Sacrifice.

"Very rarely" - so you know that they did engage in ritual human sacrifice, right? You know, like after a major military defeat (e.g. Cannae, or Arausio), in order to appease the gods? Just checking. Because not only is that evil, that's completely horrifying.

 

I'd recommend actually reading Mediterranean Anarchy and the Rise of Rome before criticizing Eckstein's conclusions. I haven't got the book easily to hand to directly reproduce the statements he's made, but I'm sure you can find it in most university libraries. In lieu of that, you could bring up academic criticism of those elements of Eckstein's work. I think you'll find that such criticism doesn't exist, because frankly, there aren't a whole lot of modern, well-regarded academic historians that would repeat the line that Rome was not a casually brutal, violent, evil state. Eckstein goes significantly farther than a lot of the scholarship of the last thirty years in saying that Rome was only as brutal as its neighbors and competitors; for a long time, it was fashionable to argue that the Greek East, for instance, was defeated by Rome because it wasn't violent enough.

 

Let's not get into how problematic Roman ethnography was on the subject of foreigners, especially the so-called "barbarians", because then we'll get unnecessarily sidetracked even further. (I recommend the second, third, and fourth chapters of Guy Halsall's Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West on it, if you care to do the background reading.) But if you think that ritualizing single combat between more or less willing (if frequently drugged-up) participants is an atrocity worse than massacring the populations of cities (and enslaving the rest), then I'm not sure what to tell you.

 

Frankly, I'm confused as to why you're spending so much time on this sort of defense of Rome. It's making you look a little like a fangirl, honestly. Nobody is disparaging Roman literary achievements, or artistic ones, or the remarkable success of Roman institution-building. Nobody is saying that Rome was worse than, say, Nazi Germany, or the Hutu Interahamwe of Rwanda, or Democratic Kampuchea, or Stalin's USSR. (It certainly wasn't. However nasty Rome could be in other ways, it couldn't even imagine mass murder on a Hitlerite scale.) What we are saying, in the most basic sense possible, is that Rome and pretty much all other premodern states were banally evil. They did many evil things.

 

What's strange about this argument you're putting up is not that you disagree that Rome did evil things; you've admitted to human sacrifice, you've admitted to murder for entertainment, and you're tacitly admitting to an institutionally brutal military and to human bondage. You're disagreeing, apparently, on the scale. Which is irrelevant. You're free to believe that the magnitude of Rome's evil was less than that of some random Celtic tribes on the edge of the world. You'd be wrong, of course, but it's not important for the sake of the point Alex and I were trying to get across, namely, that Rome was still institutionally evil.

Eh... the thing is... Each Dark Council member essentially has complete autonomy of his or her portion of the Sith Military. They do not answer to any of the other members of the Dark Council except on matters that affect the entire Sith Power Structure as a whole. And they are only answerable to the Voice of the Emperor who himself is only answerable to Vitiate. So yes, they are easily corrupted. But no, they are not impeded by bureaucracy the way that the Republic Senate is.

 

As for my statement about the Senate taking decades to make a decision... that was largely drawn from a statement made by one of the Senators in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

 

I never said it was better organized, or more stable. I said it was faster at coming to important decisions. That doesn't automatically mean it is going to make the right decisions, or that it is immune to corruption. It just means it is faster to execute plans.

 

Also, thank you to the poster above me, who has pointed out quite expertly that without WAR as an entity, or at the very least conflict in general... there would be no technology as we understand it today. Which means that without War, this very conversation would not be happening.

So your contention is that a group of semifeudal, internally antagonistic, magocratic megalomaniacal lunatics as a government is better than democratic and bureaucratic institutions because at least it can come to decisions "quickly". Even if that were true - and again, it's never actually been backed up - the colossal drawbacks associated with the Sith style of government should've been a pretty big warning sign.

 

You - and a few other people on this site - keep repeating "bureaucracy" as though it's a magic word devoid of any positive connotations that automatically makes the Republic a worse place. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. It's certainly a Star Wars tradition to whine about "bureaucracy" in representative government; there was a lot of it in The Phantom Menace. It seems to me, though, that this complaint is frequently misunderstood by the people who are making it. When Palpatine claimed that the decision makers of the Senate were "mired" in bureaucracy, he was not complaining about the elected nature of the government. In a republic, bureaucrats are by definition unelected. They're the policymakers who stay on as elected officials come and go, insuring continuity. Palpatine's Episode I rallying cry was not to weaken the power of elected officials, but to return power to them - making the Supreme Chancellor, a position accountable to the Senate, more capable of exerting authority in the face of opposition from entrenched bureaucrats.

 

Criticizing "bureaucracy" is not the same thing as criticizing red tape, or overly tortuous and inefficient decision making. Those latter two things can exist in any system. Democracies can be eminently efficient, sometimes in universally acceptable ways (like the United States during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln) and sometimes in universally horrifying ways (like the French Republic under the Committee of Public Safety). And autocracies can be eminently inefficient, again both in relatively benign ways (like in Metternich's Austria) and in awful ones (like in Nazi Germany, which is, incidentally, by near-universal agreement, the closest real-world analogue to the Sith Empire). If the Galactic Republic in SWTOR is inefficient at making decisions, it is not intrinsic to its republican system of government. It can be changed.

 

And, again, the Republic hasn't actually been shown to be more inefficient than the Sith Empire.

 

---

 

All of my comments should not be taken as criticizing war in general. That's entirely outside the scope of this discussion, is arguably irrelevant, and wouldn't make any sense anyway. I've read van Creveld's work and broadly agree with most of what he has to say. (I actually used one of his works as a key reference in a paper I wrote a few years ago, discussing the logistics of the German military's war plan in 1914. So yeah.) It's pretty much incontrovertible that a lot of technological developments have occurred in the context of searches for solutions to military problems. The whole reason states started sponsoring technological research in the first place was because rulers wanted better weapons. Of course.

 

That's entirely separate from the issue of institutionalized state brutality, violence, and evil. This isn't about war per se. This is about state violence against noncombatants. Or about unjustifiable state violence against citizens and subjects of the same state. Or about state-sponsored or -protected slavery. You get the idea.

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so the question is - can you leave the Jedi Order?

 

That's a tricky question. On the surface, yes. Any Jedi can leave the Order. Dooku left (along with 20 other Jedi, I think). They aren't required by doctrine to stay in the Jedi Order.

 

But the ambiguous part is that they're not given that choice until after they've been completely indoctrinated by Jedi dogma. As babies, they don't have the choice. And they're raised to believe the life of servitude is the only life worth living. So by the time they're old enough to make that decision, it's not really a decision they'd make.

 

Most circus elephants are kept restrained by a single small rope. This rope is not strong enough to actually restrain the elephant, but the elephants rarely break free. They don't even try. Why? Because for the first several years of their lives, they're kept in place with a large chain that is strong enough to hold them. By the time the handlers switch to the cheaper, weaker rope, it doesn't even occur to the elephant that it can break the new rope because the chain taught it breaking free isn't really an option. So it doesn't even try to break free.

 

Jedi are tethered to the Order in a similar fashion.

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Servitude isn't necessarily slavery outright. There's other systems that for long times were more common in Europe, with different degrees of limitations on freedom. Serfdom of different types where you held a plot of land for a lord and in return for his protection repaid him in goods or service weren't going out of fashion in Central and Eastern Europe until the end of the 19th century. These people were generally bound to their land (they needed the lord's agreement if they wished to leave) and didn't have that many options for getting out. Taking a job as a servant, maybe, or enlisting as a soldier if the lord was expected to provide the local king with such.

 

The system of serfdom is forbidden in the same text where the UN condemns slavery - it's seen as just another form of slavery. Edit: so the question is - can you leave the Jedi Order?

 

I am largely familiar with the Feudal System. And Peasants though technically considered Freemen, were essentially indentured workers for all intents and purposes. Meanwhile Serfs were basically the same thing as Slaves, the word is just nicer.

 

As far as "Can you leave the Jedi Order" the answer is a resounding YES. Ahsoka Tano did leave the Jedi Order at the end of the TV Series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. And she did not fall to the Dark Side or become a Dark Jedi. So it has been shown that it is possible to leave the Jedi Order with no ill intent rendered.

 

Prize-fighting and combat sports are disgusting, but at least nobody is supposed to die, and every reasonable effort is taken to try to prevent debilitating injury or loss of life. By comparison, Roman gladiatorial combat was predicated on death. The two things are inseparable. There are estimates of 8,000 deaths per year throughout the Empire during the height of gladiatorial combat. That's insane. That would be like every single player in the National Football League being killed five times over, every year. UFC wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket.

 

And, you know, the other stuff, like the atrocities committed by its military, and the whole 'slavery' thing. It's completely absurd that you seem to be arguing that the Roman Empire was not meaningfully more brutal than modern OSCE states.

 

I would be interested in finding out where you got that figure. Because typical Gladiatorial Events only featured around 100 participants (only the incredibly rare Imperial Shows featured participants ranging in the 5,000's). And even then, Gladiatorial Games were not fights to the death except in very special occasions. It would be very bad policy for a Roman Gladiatorial Games Manager to allow his prized fighter to go into a fight knowing that there was a chance that all the training he gave that fighter would result in said fighter ending up dead.

 

Assuming that Gladiatorial Games were always lethal is something that Hollywood taught us to do. The games were not lethal under most circumstances, and the ones that were were usually between two hardened criminals instead of being between prize fighters.

 

As for the OSCE States, I have no idea what that acronym stands for. So I have no way of comparing them to Ancient Rome. But, I will say that I do not believe Rome was innocent. But I still acknowledge that because of Rome we have a lot of things that we wouldn't have had otherwise. For example, without Rome we wouldn't have many of the works of classical literature that we still have today (including the Bible). Without Rome we wouldn't have Aqueduct based irrigation, which would mean many cities around the world would not have clean water supplies. Nor would we have proper waste disposal. Nor would we have a concept of how to build international road systems. Point is, that a lot of the things we take for granted today, came about because of Rome's ingenuity.

 

"Very rarely" - so you know that they did engage in ritual human sacrifice, right? You know, like after a major military defeat (e.g. Cannae, or Arausio), in order to appease the gods? Just checking. Because not only is that evil, that's completely horrifying.

 

Only if you look at it with completely perfect 20/20 hindsight. If you were a person living back then, and all you knew was what you had been taught by the Roman Culture, then it wouldn't look all that horrifying.

 

Also I would like to point out, that the whole "Us being against human sacrifice" is a by product of our culture today being a Judeo-Christian Centric Culture with Judeo-Christian sensibilities. If it had been the Pre-Christian Roman Culture that had survived into the modern era, instead of the Judeo-Christian one... then it is entirely plausible that our morals would be shifted in such a way as to find human sacrifice perfectly acceptable.

 

I mean, if you were a hindu living in India, your morals would be sufficiently different from the morals of a Christian living in the United States, that the two of you probably wouldn't recognize each others morals. For reference, Hindu's in India still perform animal blood sacrifice. In fact there are some groups in the United States who perform such sacrifices (Santerians for example). Are you going to tell me that people that practice animal sacrifice are automatically evil and disgusting. Because if you are, then you might as well include anyone who eats a hamburger in that list as well.

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I would be interested in finding out where you got that figure. Because typical Gladiatorial Events only featured around 100 participants (only the incredibly rare Imperial Shows featured participants ranging in the 5,000's). And even then, Gladiatorial Games were not fights to the death except in very special occasions. It would be very bad policy for a Roman Gladiatorial Games Manager to allow his prized fighter to go into a fight knowing that there was a chance that all the training he gave that fighter would result in said fighter ending up dead.

 

Assuming that Gladiatorial Games were always lethal is something that Hollywood taught us to do. The games were not lethal under most circumstances, and the ones that were usually between two hardened criminals instead of being between prize fighters.

 

I really do think you need to get your facts straight on the Roman arenas. This is not just a Hollywood attitude as can be seen in this letter written by Seneca (a Roman stoic philosopher);

 

I happened to go to one of these shows at the time of the lunch-hour interlude, expecting there to be some light and witty entertainment then, some respite for the purpose of affording people’s eyes a rest from human blood. Far from it. All the earlier contests were charity in comparison. The nonsense is dispensed with now: what we have now is murder pure and simple. The combatants have nothing to protect them; their whole bodies are exposed to the blows; every thrust they launch gets home. A great many spectators prefer this to the ordinary matches and even to the special, popular demand ones. And quite naturally. There are no helmets and no shields repelling the weapons. What is the point of armour? Or of skill? All that sort of thing just makes the death slower in coming. In the morning men are thrown to the lions and the bears: but it is the spectators they are thrown to in the lunch hour. The spectators insist that each on killing his man shall be thrown against another to be killed in his turn; and the eventual victor is reserved by them for sonic other form of butchery; the only exit for the contestants is death. Fire and steel keep the slaughter going. And all this happens while the arena is virtually empty.

 

Gladiatorial combats were not just between two hardened criminals and were often lethal and held purely for entertainment like watching some Hollywood slasher/gore movie only real.

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I never said gladiatorial games were clean helpless fun. They were often brutal with people losing limbs. But they were only on rare occasions actually fatal. That Roman Poet you cited probably ended up going to one of the really bad ones. And for the record, you need to note that he does make distinct mention of previous gladiatorial games that were in fact safer for the participants than the one he is commenting on.

 

It should be noted that there are records of certain gladiators who have spent decades fighting in the arena with no deaths, some of which who won their eventual freedom.

Edited by XantosCledwin
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I've said this before, but any failings by the Jedi do not make the Sith any less evil.

 

The only real consideration is whether the Sith are Evil, and by their actions they clearly are. The fact they don't pretend to be nice does not dull the fact they are on the whole out and out evil. In fact the few good Sith are in hiding and plotting to overthrow the Dark Council, mind you most of the Evil Sith are planning the same thing.

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I've said this before, but any failings by the Jedi do not make the Sith any less evil.

 

The only real consideration is whether the Sith are Evil, and by their actions they clearly are. The fact they don't pretend to be nice does not dull the fact they are on the whole out and out evil. In fact the few good Sith are in hiding and plotting to overthrow the Dark Council, mind you most of the Evil Sith are planning the same thing.

 

I totally agree. I've yet to see an argument saying the Sith aren't evil that isn't really just an argument saying evil doesn't exist. That's a different debate altogether. In a world where evil exists, the Sith are clearly evil.

 

Now, the argument that the Jedi are good... that position is a little harder to defend. Clearly, the Jedi are not evil and clearly their actions are for a greater good.... but the Jedi often run into the gray area of "do the means justify the ends?"

 

But the Sith... yeah, if evil exists, they are it.

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alrighty then...

The Franco-Prussian war ended in 1871...

Karl Benz built the first car in 1885, patent in 1886...

Germany went to war in 1914...

I'm sure sometimes between 1871 and 1914 there was some war we can create with why Karl Benz built his car.

 

Lets do some jumping to extremes...

 

The Wheel... was first the potters wheel, for making pottery... some wise fella flipped in on it's edge, mounted it to a chariot, and presto we've proven war created the wheel.

 

All this extreme nonsense, is the result of discussing the Sith code... war is progress, peace is stagnation.

 

In order to make this truth, we're gonna ignore the evolution in design, from Karl Benz's first automobile to the modern automobile sitting in my driveway. WIthout war, ie progress, I'd be driving a vehicle with less than 1 horsepower to work... on the way to work, I'd have to stop off at the drugstore, to get some cleaner fluid, to put in the gas tank. That's correct, cleaner fluid, because in a world without war, we'd have never needed more than cleaner fluid, hence no Standard Oil Company was ever built... no Exxon Mobil. :cool:

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alrighty then...

The Franco-Prussian war ended in 1871...

Karl Benz built the first car in 1885, patent in 1886...

Germany went to war in 1914...

I'm sure sometimes between 1871 and 1914 there was some war we can create with why Karl Benz built his car.

 

Lets do some jumping to extremes...

 

The Wheel... was first the potters wheel, for making pottery... some wise fella flipped in on it's edge, mounted it to a chariot, and presto we've proven war created the wheel.

 

All this extreme nonsense, is the result of discussing the Sith code... war is progress, peace is stagnation.

 

In order to make this truth, we're gonna ignore the evolution in design, from Karl Benz's first automobile to the modern automobile sitting in my driveway. WIthout war, ie progress, I'd be driving a vehicle with less than 1 horsepower to work... on the way to work, I'd have to stop off at the drugstore, to get some cleaner fluid, to put in the gas tank. That's correct, cleaner fluid, because in a world without war, we'd have never needed more than cleaner fluid, hence no Standard Oil Company was ever built... no Exxon Mobil. :cool:

 

Just because war isn't looming, doesn't mean that the military isn't working on the next big thing to kill people. The Navy's pursuit of the railgun has NO practical application to the current world situation, and yet they've spent billions on it. When wars end, there is a push by the military to remedy the problems found in battle. So just because a war ends, doesn't mean that the inventing stops, it will generally increase.

 

Without war we also wouldn't have antibiotics, anesthesia, and many wonders of modern medicine, or at least at the level we do today. Sure, there would be no Exxon-Mobil, but then again, you may not have been here either.

 

It's not extreme, it's just practical. Extreme it not admitting how much our modern world is here because our ancestors tried very hard to kill each other. Without conquest there would be no homogenization of cultures. Without which, the great ideas that each generation's geniuses build from would not propagate.

 

BTW, the wheel was just man taking the logs he rolled massive loads on and mounting them on a frame to reduce the amount of timber it took to move things.

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