Half-elves and hybrids, in general, are very likely to be implemented later on, because they commonly appear in fantasy novels.
And in Threetoe's stories, so guaranteed to be something they'll want to try at some point.
Well, okay. I can't say I agree with it, but I won't mind as long as it's something I can turn off locally.
Hm. I personally was setting the qualifier for true polygamy as the mutual acceptance of the arrangement by all parties (i.e., no cheating). Anything less is just promiscuity, whether it results in offspring or not.
It is not really possible to really be 'faithful' in the polygamous system. Afterall you have to be sort of 'unfaithful' to your present spouse(s) in order to get more of them than you have already.
That depends on the wording of the original wedding vows. If Sally swore to take both Jake and Steve as her lawfully wedded spouses,
forsaking all others, then yes, marrying Brian later on would be a violation. But if there was no clause prohibiting additional spouses, she's legally free to play the field and still be considered faithful.
[REPRODUCTIVE] does the creature actually intend to reproduce in this fashion.
[CULTURAL] does the creature manifest this behaviour only if the culture approves of it.
As mentioned, cultures will not accept as their family model systems that are non-reproductive.
Okay, so let's consider the common human behavior of unmarried sexual promiscuity. As you say, those who participate in it do
not intend to reproduce thereby, and as well, society does
not approve of it--in fact, society will usually exert pressure on those participants (who thus conceived a child) to marry each other. As this kind of promiscuity would be neither [REPRODUCTIVE] nor [CULTURAL], by your definitions, could a creature thus flagged against promiscuity still engage in it? If not, by what tags would you describe the current human model?
. . . lesser men to myself might regard your words as worth something but I have no interest in what the unthinking mob has to say. . . . I don't care if people think what I say is ridiculous, that is because they so much beneath my level they cannot comprehend anything being said. They are also too ignorant to ask me to clarify what they don't understand.
Thank you. I think we all now know what we need to know.
I largely stand by what I said before, as angry as it sounds everything I said then is basically true, even if I would have responded with more respect for you personally had I wrote it now.
Your stubborn unwillingness to admit fault continues to be a defining trait of your character, sadly. But at least you mention the capacity to respond with respect; let's work on that. You may or may not have a single gram of humility about you, GoblinCookie, but you could at least
pretend. You
can do THAT much, I am sure.
Now, you do have a point about mob rule and being shouted down: The truth is
always the truth, no matter
how many people say it ain't so. But that's not what I see when you take one of your stands: I usually see you starting from a rather inexplicable conclusion, and awkwardly reaching for arguments that only tenuously seem to support your claim. Meanwhile, a handful of other posters collectively say, "WTF, dude," and explain why they disagree with you--sometimes with links. You almost infallibly respond to their rebuttals only by trenching in deeper, and sometimes exploding with anger. Which, of course, accomplishes nothing.
You are also continuing to respond weeks later when you specifically said you would not do so in your PM; why?
I only said I wouldn't respond to those points that I consider not to
merit a response: If someone has mustered a reasonable counter to one of your arguments, I will consider your point conclusively disproved. No matter how many times you wish to bring it back up, I shall consider it dead, and usually not respond to it. Now, as why I
do respond; To change you. To metaphorically look over your shoulder, and remind you that (so far) pretty much everyone who's weighed in on the issue being discussed disagrees with you. To, at the very least, make you angry, to make you
angry when you are
wrong, and thus condition you to
hate to be
wrong. With the ultimate goal being, of course, that you end up being wrong
less often. You have the capacity to think, GoblinCookie, which is a valuable trait and not to be underestimated--but don't you
overestimate it either. Being smarter does NOT equal being better, and simply
thinking is NOT enough, particularly if you do your thinking and your speaking in the wrong order.
Since you like to refer to the classical times, remember what happened to Aristotles philosophical 'grandfather' Socrates? The ignorant people don't understand what the wise man says, so they hate the wise man and seek to silence him.
Oh please. Unpopularity does not equal genius. It's a grievous fault to say that it does, and an even worse one to believe it for oneself.
There words are always the same, it's always "that's ridiculous" or "that's dangerous" or some variation thereof. They do this because they don't actually have anything to say in response that holds water.
That's true in some cases: I myself have noticed that if someone is opposed to the idea of women breastfeeding their babies in public, they will invariably say, "It's disgusting!" If you then ask them, "
Why is it disgusting?" they will have no cogent response: They honestly don't know. There is a sharp disconnect between their Reason and Emotion, and they weren't expecting to have to bridge that gap. They have shot their wad, as it were, and have no continuation.
But that's not what I've seen happen here on the forum. Here, people who disagree with you, GoblinCookie, have had logical rebuttals in plenty: Because in fantasy literature, the concept of 'clan' is always associated FAR more closely with family than with government. Because to reduce an entire dwarf fortress to nothing more than a shop is a gross oversimplification. Because to give every dwarf in the fort the
exact same first two names violates the very purpose of a name. Because the great Houses of Lannister, Stark, and Targarygen were NOT named after their goddamn
buildings. And those are just the things that I've
caught you saying. You are no Socrates, not by a
damned sight, and it's high time you accepted that.
Anyway. There are no ornithologists among my circle of friends, but I do have a Riparian Analyst (specialist in rivers & streams and their associated wildlife), and that should be close enough. She mentioned, unsurprisingly, that
one person watching
one duck pond over
one summer is not a significant sample size, and she also said that in general, intentionally limiting the offspring of one's own species (let alone one's
own offspring) is practiced only by apex predators and other large carnivores--such as lions, wolves, hyenas, and some baboons. This usually takes the form of a social structure wherein only the more dominant individuals are allowed to mate--so if you were to claim that this gives authentic biological precedent for current Dwarf Fortress behavior, you would have to justify why those dwarves
lucky enough to marry should be considered intrinsically "dominant". Meanwhile, in real life all prey animals,
including ducks, generally try to increase their population as rapidly as possible.
She pointed me at some links:
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/top-predators-limit-their-own-numbers/The wiki article on
reproductive suppression has some interesting exceptions, and of course there's also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-reproductive_sexual_behavior_in_animals . . . which incidentally points at mallard ducks having a particularly high incidence of male homosexuality, thus probably helping to explain why so few of your females appeared to have a mate.
And that is hopefully
all of this DuckTales charade that I will have to play.